Innovation and Change

How to Fly a Horse was written by Kevin Ashton. He is credited with coining the phrase “internet of things” and was instrumental in the development of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. The book is about creativity, invention and discovery. The book has many takeaways for the small business owner. Takeaways for Business Owners First,…

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto was written by Blair Enns.  His intended audience is creative firms like ad agencies, graphic design firms and marketing firms.  All businesses should have some degree of creativity, but these types of businesses rely on it more than most.  The book made many good points in the areas of expertise,…

We recently utilized the System of PiTM (Profitable ideas) to assist Industrial Solutions in reaching their strategic initiatives.  Industrial Solutions is an Oklahoma based lean thinking and management consulting firm. On our first step, we met with the business owner to get a general feel of current business conditions.  We reviewed the firm’s website and…

Growth by adding new services can benefit small businesses.  Consider this example. We recently worked with the good people at C&C Machine.  They are a precision machine shop specializing in heat sinks, bus bars and other machined components.  C&C has been in business for over 35 years, yet sales had become stagnate. We utilized concepts…

I enjoy having a look at larger companies to see what we smaller businesses can learn from them.  For this blog post, I am going to review Apple and Coca Cola.  Research revealed information in the following table in regards to each company’s 2016 revenue and advertising expenditures.     What can we learn? Marketing…

A business viewpoint article, authored by Greg Conder, was recently published in the Tulsa World. For the full article, please click here   The article discusses four organization types and how they resist or embrace change and innovation.   Large businesses – their comfort with their current market position along with very bureaucratic processes can…

You never know where innovations will come from… Have you ever played with silly putty?  I have.  As a kid, I played with it and made small copies of newspaper print.  Then, I would wad up the silly putty, flatten it out and make another copy. Other people used the stuff for more practical uses…

What can small business owners learn from old technology and its innovators? We will investigate Velcro and Q-Tips. The idea for Velcro originated with Georges de Mestral. In 1941, he wondered if burrs that clung to him and his dog could have a useful purpose. Eight years later, that thought was developed into Velcro, a…

Innovate – to introduce something new; to make changes in anything established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas and products. Businesses and organizations need to innovate in order to grow, remain competitive, survive and thrive. Often, innovation is only associated with wonderful technological advances with large companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook and GE to…