Innovation

Fight off ‘feature creep’ to win fans

February 18, 2014
Innovation usually starts with the seed of a simple idea. The challenge is to nurture that seed and let it grow into a product or service—without over­­complicating its initial simplicity.

‘Idea man’ Nikola Tesla

February 17, 2014
Known as “the Wizard” for his showmanship, inventor Nikola Tesla, one of America’s first celebrity scientists at the turn of the 20th century, relied on rigorous thinking as well as imagination to perfect his inventions.

Facebook embraces ‘The Hacker Way’

February 12, 2014
During Facebook’s meteoric rise from startup to global giant, founder Mark Zuckerberg sought to preserve the company’s innovative culture. He achieved this by embracing what he calls “The Hacker Way.”

Billion-dollar baby

February 7, 2014

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and boss of his other startup, Square, lets anybody accept credit card payments through a little square swiper that attaches to a smartphone. It now processes $15 billion in transactions a year, up from $5 billion in April 2012.

No bosses? This CEO makes it work

January 3, 2014
Chris Rufer has brought innovation to an industry not accustomed to outside-the-box thinking: tomato processing. Rufer views the traditional relationship be­­tween supervisor and employee as “forced” and “artificial.”

Panera bets on ‘pay-what-you-can’

December 17, 2013
They may look just like any other of the 1,600 Panera locations, but five Panera Cares cafés don’t use price lists or cash registers. After three years, this pioneering effort—the first time a major U.S. corporation has put resources behind making pay-what-you-can work—is surviving.

Where no one has gone before

November 8, 2013
High school junior Jack Andraka was not satisfied at winning $100,000 in last year’s Intel science fair for developing a paper strip that might become the world’s best test for pancreatic cancer. With friends he’d made at the fair, the 16-year-old has set off on a new quest: the $10 million Tricorder X-Prize.

Where’s innovation coming from?

November 1, 2013
Businesses in the developing world traditionally have been obsessed with seniority, and ambitious young people have been equally obsessed with finding paths to corporate seniority. Not anymore.

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.