I have seen several research studies over the past couple of months about the decline of new-to-world and new-to-market products with a corresponding increase in incremental product improvements, product line extensions, and packaging changes. That begs the question – what should we consider as... Read More

The chemical industry is changing very quickly due to new methods of getting oil and gas from fracturing layers of rock. These new discoveries are changing the dynamics of the field, because they bring the cost of natural gas down substantially. As a result, traditional players in the petrochemical... Read More

I had the opportunity to listen in on the testimony of Dr. Brian R. Wamhoff (HemoShear, LLC), Dr. Elizabeth Hart-Wells (Purdue University), and Dr. Erik Lium (University of California) for the Subcommittee on Research and Technology last week. The subcommittee is currently evaluating draft... Read More

Recently, I attended a great event, Becoming a Customer Company and was fortunate to hear from Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Peter Coffee (Salesforce.com) and many others. The audience consisted of hundreds of marketing, sales and other leaders, including many from Fortune 500 companies. As... Read More

Recently, a couple of articles caught my eye. The first article describes how valuations are making acquisitions a less attractive form of growth – which means greater focus on innovation – and goes on to introduce methods for CFOs to get a better handle on how innovation investments can be... Read More

The Seelbach Hotel, located at the heart of Louisville, Kentucky, is not only known for its elegance, but as an American architectural treasure visited by gangsters (Al Capone), writers (F. Scott Fitzgerald, who used the hotel for inspiration in “The Great Gatsby”) and presidents, with a history of... Read More

Its not often you go to Mars. But I spent the last week there and, while its very very hot from a temperature standpoint, the technology and infrastructure are the more impressive aspects. Read More

One might not think that Open Innovation and food have a whole lot in common, but I learned that’s not the case at all. The Institute of Food Technologists’ annual showpiece, the IFT Food EXPO, was recently held at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center and I had a chance to stop by. With... Read More

All business processes can show improved productivity. Simplistically, productivity can be expressed as a fraction, outputs divided by inputs. Read More

Editor's note: This is the first post in a two-part series. Read More