Innovation

Leadership Tips: Vol. 1013

October 17, 2013
Look ahead the Larry Page way … Deliver a real statement to your people … Have a career plan as strong as Campbell Soup’s CEO.

Persuade skeptics with ‘Imagine This’

August 13, 2013
In 1985, Steve Jobs launched a computer firm called NeXT. He set ambitious goals at NeXT to serve the higher education market, but that meant he needed to recruit a top-notch technical team to his new company. In his efforts to woo Steve Mayer, a video engineer who had co-founded Atari Corp., Jobs pulled out all the stops.

Quiet question sends loud message

July 31, 2013
Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity, once squandered $1 million of the company’s money on a dud project. He assumed his boss would scold him—or worse—for wasting precious funds. Instead, his boss asked, “Well, Terry, what did you learn?”

Leadership Tips: Vol. 713

July 9, 2013
Learn to take those first steps toward leadership alone … Take Derek Jeter’s advice on being bold … Provide nuance where it’s becoming desperately needed.

Innovate by eliminating ‘Bozone Layer’

June 19, 2013
Fostering a culture of innovation is easy if you run a small business with a handful of employees. But at larger organizations, midlevel managers may not en­­courage their support staff to innovate. The solution: Eliminate the “Bozone layer.”

Bell Labs innovator connected us all

June 5, 2013
Bell Labs was among the most innovative scientific organizations of the 20th century. The man at the helm was Mervin Kelly, a physicist who led the laboratory. Follow his lead for inventing the future.

Leadership Tips: Vol. 413

April 4, 2013
Sweat it like the co-founder of ZipCar … Imagine it like a Nobel Prize winner … Say bye-bye to spam.

Kodak goes picture perfect with service

March 28, 2013

When Jeffrey Hayzlett took over as Kodak’s chief marketing officer, he didn’t know much about the founding father of the company, George Eastman. What he learned gradually, by raiding the archives and reading everything that Eastman had written, was that Eastman had been a change agent.

How P&G opened its doors to innovation

February 27, 2013
For generations, Procter & Gamble innovated from within. The giant consumer products company that makes Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste conducted research-and-development veiled in secrecy. Under A.J. Lafley, P&G’s now-retired CEO, the company’s closed innovation process began to open up.

The story behind Apple’s iconic ad

January 22, 2013

Consigliere Bill Campbell, guru to Silicon Valley, played a key role in getting Apple’s iconic “1984” ad on the air to introduce the Mac during Super Bowl XVIII. Advertising Age calls that ad the best commercial ever made.