I love it when companies are able to find solutions to problems in non-traditional places. I was recently at a conference where someone said that Apple was having difficulty making the clear, colored plastic that adorns the iMac. None of the plastic manufacturers could find a solution that could make the product hard and durable [...]

Yes, you read that correctly.  PAWN Stars. This reality television show on The History Channel chronicles a pawn shop outside of Las Vegas.  I enjoy the show because of the history associated with the pieces that are brought in for sale.  In addition to rifles from the revolutionary war and antique political documents, people bring [...]

Quite a few books and studies recently have touted the power of incremental change. Small actions can have a huge impact on long-term business growth. The appropriate degree of change needed for innovating within organizations is, in general, a 45-degree change, consistent but not too radical. That tends to be more effective than a 5-degree change (purely [...]

The other day, I asked my business manager to follow up with a client about an unpaid invoice.  She contacted the company’s accounts payable department and was told that the invoice was paid on June 1st, 2012. (italics added for emphasis) OK, I have some pretty talented clients, but I don’t think any have mastered [...]

My book, Goal-Free Living, was featured on the cover of the November 2005 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Two full pages were dedicated to my goal-free concepts. (If you check out the cover left, you’ll see the headline “What the happiest people know for sure.” That is my article.)   Although this was one [...]

For many years, I was a loyal BlackBerry fan.  More accurately I was a CrackBerry addict. A year ago a got a MacBook Pro and six month layer I acquired an iPad.  It felt like I should switch to the iPhone.  But I was not ready for two reasons: I wanted a Verizon phone that could [...]

I was recently interviewed for an article on Inc.com.  Due to length restrictions, only part of my interview was included in the article.  Therefore I am giving you the other half here.  But be sure to read the their article first as it sets the stage. I was asked by Inc.com why brainstorming, as usually practiced, is ineffective. [...]

There’s an old tale that goes… Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. Inside of organizations, there’s a corollary… Ideas, ideas every where, Nor any one can think. Um, ok, I should stick to my day job.  But the point is, organizations are drowning in a sea of ideas, yet they never take the [...]

Last month (November), Best Practices Are Stupid, was featured in Southwest Airline’s Spirit Magazine.  Now that it is no longer on planes and can’t be found on the internet, I figured it was time to share the article with the readers of this blog.  They did such a nice job, I feel as though their [...]

One of my favorite topics is to discuss how breakthroughs are generated by looking for someone who has solved a similar problem in a different space. Some examples I talk about in my “Best Practices Are Stupid” books are: A company developed a new type of whitening toothpaste by studying the way non-bleach laundry detergent [...]