Eureka! Ranch Blog
Breakthroughs in Business Models
For decades we’ve helped companies create new innovations for products, services and systems. In most cases those new inventions required more than just a new widget, device or marketing slogan to make them possible.
3 Ways to LEAD Your Leader
Every now and again I get the privilege to sit with some great leaders. Some I simply observe – to see what they do and what their followers do in return. But on rare occasion I’ve been lucky enough to get them to slow down – to reveal the running commentary in their own head of why they do, what they do, when they do. This is one such account from early in my career.
The Smallest Thing You Can do to Get a Big Change
Change is hard. Change is scary. Change is uncertain. Change is chaos.
And when something is hard, scary, uncertain and chaotic any human does a cry out – a reach out for help to survive it. It’s often a knee jerk reaction, but a real and fragile reaction all the same.
Take a Minute to Think About 2,000 Tomorrow’s from Now
For years I’ve run projects for large companies, small companies and all in between. And for many of those years our company used a “gimme the ball” approach to creating ideas. And with each session we focused first and foremost on the objective for the session, to make sure we got the company what they needed. The objective setting conversation went something like this…
Get the “Close to the Work” ReEnergizer
Most everyone want to be the leader. Over the course of your career you’re groomed and goaded to “get to the top.” Because when you get there, you get to do the real stuff. You get to direct, not do. To make all the best decisions that the yutzes before you missed.
Innovation is Often About Things You DON’T Do
Leading Innovation is about choices. The big choice to do innovation could almost be considered the easy one. Innovation is shown to make a meaningful impact to a bottom line, to a company’s return, to employee pocket books and morale. Doing the new thing isn’t necessarily hard, it’s NOT doing other things that forces you to make choices that’s hard.
Innovation Pain, Suffering, and Sometimes Joy!
Innovation is NOT OFTEN LOVED
Innovation requires CHANGE
Innovation activates organizational RESISTANCE
3 Finger Lakes’ Wineries Tell an Innovation Story
3 Finger Lakes’ wineries tell the story of innovation from a crazy innovator to a brand that over the years has lost its soul.
For REALLY BIG IDEAS – Separate Inspiration from Perspiration
Recently I took a journey through 50+ years of innovations that I’ve worked on. From this I’ve come to the conclusion that to invent REALLY BIG IDEAS – you MUST separate idea generation from reality.
Need a Big Idea? Think Like an Old Person
Epstein’s research got me thinking about how I’m approaching the creation of Brain Brew Custom WHISKeY and Franchising at age 62 versus when I founded Eureka! Ranch & AcuPOLL at ages 25 and 30.
Yes! You Can Run an Innovation Session While Working Remotely.
A big question we hear a lot is, "Is it possible to hold an innovation session when we are all working remotely and we can not be together in person?" And the answer is YES and it is possible for it to be very successful. Check out this amazing story from our friend...
2020 VS. 1986
2020 has me thinking on how things have changed in the 34 years since I founded the Eureka! Ranch.
In 1986 Consumer Products were the thought leaders of innovation and the focus was on creating line extensions, category segmentations and gurus.
In 2020 the thought leaders are more varied with industrial, medical, CBD/THC, services, internet, artificial intelligence, and banking all focused on innovation.
“911 Emergency” Innovation Speed
Real life event last Thursday. It started with an early morning call with a client in Europe. She had an emergency need for ideas and Market Research Data Today.
A Millenial in Athens Greece Opened my eyes this week
The past few days I’ve had the honor of speaking at the Singularity University event in Greece. Greece’s role in the creation of democracy is well known. It gave power to the people.
Growing a Sustainable Culture of Innovation
Imagine a world where across your 10K person organization you had 1K people innovating in their sphere of influence. They were consciously thinking smarter, faster and more innovatively about their daily tasks.
Research is finding that if you ignite just 10% of your people – you set off unstoppable momentum towards culture change.
The Importance of 11 Seconds
Research finds that to be successful with marketing you need to communicate your MEANINGFUL UNIQUENESS in 11 seconds!
That means you need to be really sharp and precise with the message you use in your headline or the opening to your video.
TODAY YOU NEED TO REVERSE YOUR MESSAGE.
Creating A Difference That Makes a Difference
Creating a difference that makes a difference…is the purpose of life.
In simple terms a difference that makes a difference is…
3 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER
Research finds that customers are 3 TIMES more likely to purchases when they LIKE the environment.
At the University of British Columbia students were shown the advertisements for products. In one case there was music playing that the students enjoyed. In the other case they were playing music that annoyed the students.
How Focus Can Change Your Business
Significant overall sales growth can be realized if:
A) You cut your product line by as much at 50%.B) You expand your product line to service all customers.
The correct answer is
Numbers are Your Friend when Innovating
Years ago at Procter & Gamble my team and I were trying to sort out what to do after having just gotten some horrible product testing results. Tim Feely, who I believe was a Product Development Director at the time, stopped into the meeting and told us, “Numbers are your friend when innovating.”
Confront Reality & Build a Plan to De-Risk your Innovation Project!
Using innovation to grow sales and profits is an accepted business concept.
Actually taking action on innovations – especially big idea innovations – is scary for many.
How Leadership can Learn to TRUST their Teams
After 48 years of innovating and 33 years of consulting – I believe that the ROOT CAUSE of a lack of innovation at most companies is the lack of TRUST that leaders have in the ability of their teams to innovate successfully.
Innovation Mixologists & Bartenders
A wise man taught me recently the difference between a Bartender and a Mixologist.
A Mixologist is a guru who creates cocktails. The mixologist is a celebrated celebrity.
A Bartender is a friend who creates connections. The bartender is a teacher, listener and friend.
Walking the Talk – I Need Your Help with Failing!
The following is my first draft of a commencement speech to a Graduate school that I’m giving in May. I’d love your ideas and advice.
Family and friends this is a very special group of people. To be awarded an advanced degree requires that the candidate formally or informally make an original contribution to the world’s knowledge.
You Change the World When You Change Your Mind
The last song of the Broadway musical Kinky Boots is a lesson to everyone “You change the world when you change your mind.”
A mindset of curiosity discovers new ideas.
A mindset of experimentation sparks fresh ideas.
A mindset of learning sees failure as a critical step in the journey of innovation success.
A mindset of discovery enables serendipity.
The Joy of Failing
This past week I’ve been pushing myself to new levels of failure. I’m not talking polite “excuse me” failures I’m talking about down right UGH that didn’t work.
In some cases they were public failures – messing up the cooking of a meal – making mistakes on some math – not saying the right things at the right time. In other cases they were private mistakes that I came to realize privately.
5 Reasons Organizations Don’t Pursue Big Ideas
Following the financial crises of 2008, organizations pulled back from
“thinking big” and embraced small, incremental ideas. The problem with this is these ideas still require investment of time, energy and money but with very little financial and emotional return. The result is a lot of “talk but no action” on the ideas.
What Will You Innovate & Build?
In 1947, Ole Kirk Christiansen purchased a plastic injection-molding machine. Some questioned why he did so, because for the previous 17 years he had been a carpenter and made primarily wooden toys, including traditional stackable wooden blocks.
By 1951, more than half of the outputs from Christiansen’s toy company were plastic. This despite his native country’s trade magazine, Toy-Times, believing that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys.
Is It Time To Try Something Weird?
One hobby I enjoy in my free time is brewing my own beer. The obvious benefit is a fridge consistently full of beer, but what really makes it fun is experimentation. When I first started home brewing I would get kits from the local brewery supply store and follow the recipe. The results were good beer, but nothing truly unique.
How Good Is Your Guru?
Who among us has not smiled at the “Netflix Event” story? The little upstart bringing a behemoth to its knees by defying the odds, reinventing the business model and disrupting an entire industry. As well as we know the story, these events are hard to see while in progress. These are easiest observed after the fact.
Disruption has been happening for a long time, consider…
Is Innovation a Skill to Be Learned?
If your best friend called you today and asked you to go scale El Capitan tomorrow morning, would you be able to do it?
For most of us, the answer would be an absolute no, as it would truly end in a cliff hanger.
Most of us are not experts at scaling mountains, and if you have interest in scaling mountains, you likely would start by taking some classes and starting on practice rock-climbing walls before slowly graduating to longer and steeper cliffs.
Cintas Shares 3 Lessons Learned on Innovating in a commodity Market
Whether you know the Cintas name or not, odds are you’ve used their products nearly every day in one capacity or another. Thanks to their uniforms and apparel products and facility services everything from mom and pop restaurants to massive factories have the things they need to run smoothly.
Innovation & Employee Engagement: Lessons from a Chief Innovator
I was recently interviewed by my friend, Justin Zawaly, COO of TalMetrix about innovation & employee engagement…as Justin states, “One of the outcomes of an engaged culture is innovation. Innovation doesn’t just happen, or at least it cannot be sustained, unless both the employer and employee are thriving. Innovation becomes part of organizations culture and must be measured and monitored like anything else to ensure the creative vision is being nurtured.”
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