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This is a repost of Steve Faktor’s original Forbes article
My business is helping companies speed up innovation – often by partnering with tech startups. A wilder ride compared to my days leading innovation at Fortune 100 companies. But lately, I’ve experienced enough déjà vu to get a platinum medical marijuana card. Maybe you’ve heard of “multiple discovery”. The theory says that similar inventions happen simultaneously because of converging technologies and common problems. Among mobile payments and loyalty startups, easy money is fueling what I call “marginal discovery” – slight variations on similar ideas. For every truly outstanding startup, five or six have a faulty premise, fail to solve a problem, or choose “cool” over simple. To protect the innocent, I’ve turned my list of frustrations into a set of “rules” to help budding entrepreneurs and experienced executives steer clear of the weed dispensary…
This is a re-post of Steve Faktor’s original article on Linkedin Today (via LinkedIn’s INfluencer program)
Before the holiday, Matt Damon was quoted saying “the system is rigged.” Immediately, I felt horrible. If the world is against this handsome, famous millionaire, what hope does a business hobbit like me have?
It’s not the first time I’ve heard this feel-bad, defeatist mantra. It was a cornerstone of the 99% protests and famously reiterated by Elizabeth Warren, now Senator Warren. (And brilliantly rebutted by Adam Carolla). On the right, an anarchist flavor of the same pessimism is brewing. Conspiracy ringleaders like Alex Jones are quietly mobilizing an angry, disenfranchised army. In uncertain times, it’s easy to succumb to paranoid defeatism. Why? Because it excuses failure. It de-stigmatizes the shame of not trying. It justifies hating the other guy’s success or telling those with nothing to fend for themselves.
Let’s say the system is rigged and everything is a conspiracy. Now what? Do you keep stocking your bunker with guns, canned goods, and homemade jerky? Or, sleep until noon on mom’s couch, then rail online against your oppressors – in your underwear? Instead you can focus on the incredible list of things you can control. In fact, the only time better and more empowering than today is tomorrow. The real revolution already started, but an entire generation of young and able-bodied Americans is about to miss it. Here is their recipe for The Great Unrigging – and to never accepting excuses again.
Why am I writing about Twitter at midnight? Even Ashton Kutcher is icing his iThumb at this hour. I’m chasing a brainstorm for my keynote at New Media Expo/Blogworld on Sunday. My talk is about the future of social currencies and the new economics of work. Since launching several successful loyalty services at MasterCard and American Express, I’ve been obsessed with deconstructing what motivates us. That’s why social media and gamification are so amusing to me. They’re a shiny new set of controls that can change – or exploit human behavior. But before drunkenly commandeering The USS Twitter, it’s best to first meet its passengers. Like my 15 Faces of Facebook article last year, here is a deconstruction of Twitter – what it is, who uses it, and what motivates them. In future articles, I’ll go deeper into tools to change both customer and employee behavior.
Registered users will get the detailed infographic here (to be posted on 1/11)
This is a repost of Steve Faktor’s original Forbes article
I’ll be first to admit that I’m a reforming “innovation” trollop. I’ve thrown the word around too lightly, at any old sailor. I need a hot shower and a Brillo pad… What’s so bad about “innovation”? It doesn’t mean much…and maybe never did. Today, we use it to describe an iPhone newsreader app and the reinvention of space travel by SpaceX. That’s more range than Meryl Streep. My business is about creating great products and services, so I look for great tech partners. Some are startups led by brilliant entrepreneurs, bursting with optimism and 5-Hour Energy. As they describe their app, game, or web service, their words scream Johnny Depp, but the reality is a bit more Judah Friedlander. No shame in that, but I sometimes wonder how we could get these brilliant minds to work on meatier problems. My concern isn’t for them, but for us. The US needs jobs and as I wrote in Econovation, the big numbers still come from physical, capital-intensive businesses. Here are three ways we can help make brilliant minds deliver bigger results.
This is a repost of Steve Faktor’s original article on Forbes.
In a way, innovation is like sex: those talking about it most are probably doing it the least. Before founding IdeaFaktory, I’ve had the privilege (and collateral hair loss) of innovating at top Fortune 100 firms, where ‘talk’ was unavoidable. So I decided to codify my lessons as The 4C’s of Innovation(TM). These are: context, creativity, capabilities, and most importantly, culture. Any innovation worth doing demands cultural change. But who will lead that change? And who will reject it? Why does the same ra-ra event move some employees to tears, but lands like the Hindenburg with others? No need to hire an army of psychologists to electroshock your workforce for answers. Unlike fluffier lists of people to hire, I’ve profiled the nine kinds of people in your company now who will make or break any innovation or change initiative. (For more on culture change, also check out my new podcast with this week’s guest Stan Slap.)
This is a repost of Steve Faktor’s original article on Forbes
To many men, shopping for clothes is like doing your own brain surgery – you’re in no condition to know when you’ve screwed up. Sure, single men must dress up to attract mates. Those poor, unsuspecting women have no clue what fashion nightmares await them. Marriage does to men’s fashion what irritable bowels do to romance. Things get even worse at work. The more casual the office, the more likely we are to see mangled toes and bloated bellies. Even billionaires wear outfits that scream “I sleep in a box.” Of course, it’s the rest of us who need to keep trying. Unfortunately, men’s clothing stores have failed miserably. The shopping experience is hardly painless, especially at department stores. They have the most resources, space, and selection, but they’re packed with men wandering aimlessly like an exiled Judaic tribe.
When I was at MasterCard, I led a project called Total Shopping Solution. Eventually, we commercialized it as two very successful services, Commerce Intelligence and Commerce Coalition. Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about intra-store shopping experiences, especially during all those wasted hours looking for clothes to fit my beefy frame. With today’s technology and some low-tech ingenuity, department stores can reinvent the men’s shopping experience. (After reading this article, I hope they’ll also reimburse me for the the years I’ve lost trying on ill-fitting pants.)
This is a reprint of the original interview I did with the popular innovation blog from consultancy PSFK.
We talk to innovator, futurist, and author of the book ‘Econovation’ about how impermanence, gamification and sensory stimulation are crucial in today’s developing office culture.
As part of our Future of Work Series, PSFK reached out to experts to get their take on the changes we’ve identified that are currently going on in the workplace. We recently chatted with Steve Faktor (@ideafaktory), author of Econovation (Wiley), founder of the IdeaFaktory incubator, and former Vice President and head of the American Express Chairman’s Innovation Fund. Following Steve’s popular series of articles on work and happiness in Harvard Business Review, we asked his thoughts on how social, generation gaps, and what jobs we do will change the workplace.
This is a repost of Steve Faktor’s original article on Forbes
Writing “HP is in trouble” is like a newscast starting with “Trouble in the Middle East today…” A sad cliché. Lucky for HP, no one dies… But no one truly lives, either. The company just laid off 29,000 people, its stock dropped 50% in a year, and yet another turnaround is brewing. I do admire Meg Whitman for taking this on. She could easily have kicked back in Florida with a Honey Boo Boo marathon. Instead, her strategy announcement got the kind of reception typically reserved for Syrian dictators. That got me wondering – can a stagnating behemoth ever live again? Could HP lead the 3D Printing revolution?
This is a re-post of my original article on Harvard Business Review
I’ve often fantasized about hurling my laptop over Niagara Falls, then grilling a fresh salmon to celebrate my sensory liberation. I’d become a Maker. I’d build a sailboat to circle the globe. I’d live off the sea, fending off killer whales and Somali pirates. I’m not alone in yearning to resuscitate my flabby Tweeting muscles. As I’ve written before, there’s plenty of evidence that people who make a tangible product, use their senses, and help others are happier than mere office dwellers. But let’s face it, Microsoft won’t pay you to conquer the Amazon or extract salmon roe. Offices are where the work is. Which explains why I’m here — with you — writing about making things instead of weatherproofing my pirate-repelling catapult. But there is a glimmer of hope for us Clickers, Copy/Pasters, Conference-Callers, and Collators. In this digital office world, happiness can — and must — be simulated.
In one episode of Seinfeld, Elaine finds out the birth control sponge was discontinued. So she buys up all available inventory and obsesses over how “Spongeworthy” her many suitors are. Like Elaine, we luxuriate in the abundance of the information age, but it also hides some uncomfortable scarcities. In watching the recent TEDGlobal event in Scotland, it occurred to me that TED is much more than a collection of great talks. TED is that selective lover that doesn’t fish out fresh sponges for just anyone. In that way, TED offers us a glimpse into our future – an unnatural selection of sorts. It foreshadows what success – and even survival will look like in the next century. Of course like any great story, it’s full of lessons for you-me-us.
This is a re-post of my original article on Harvard Business Review
Over the last decade, I’ve watched hundreds of cooking shows. It’s a matter of time before Martha Stewart demands UN sanctions for my stockpile of useless culinary knowledge. In reality, my own cooking is a malignant medley of boiled ravioli, lopsided omelets, and fresh veggies dying of embarrassment. So why do I torture myself with shows about food I can’t touch, taste, or feel guilty about? The answer will surprise you … and possibly change your life.
The proliferation of cooking shows, blogs, celebrity chefs, and their inevitable diabetes drug endorsements proves that everything is better wrapped in bacon. But cooking also taps into something more primal: it’s one of the last jobs that still does what most of us don’t — make things. In this sterile, white-collar world, where meat comes from ShopRite and homes are built by “guest workers,” cooking is the last physical job we can relate to.
This is an abridged version of the original article I wrote for Business Insider.
In a forgotten corner of the White House sits a huge, Parthenon-shaped cake. Nearby, Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner are dancing like Zorba and dripping with hummus. Why all the glee? It’s because Europe just gave the U.S. an amazing gift – the gift of greater incompetence. I call this glitch in time ‘America’s Last Stimulus’. It may be our last chance to stimulate growth, kick-start our export engine, and make sure every European gets a big, wet kiss at the airport.
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