Search Results

Don’t worry about the words, worry about the work.

Doing anything for the first time is difficult.  It goes with the territory.  Instead of seeing the associated anxiety as unwanted and unpleasant, maybe you can use it as an indicator of importance.  In that way, if you don’t feel anxious you know you’re doing what you’ve done before. Innovation, as a word, has been […]

The Lonely Chief Innovation Officer

Chief Innovation Officer is a glorious title, and seems like the best job imaginable.  Just imagine – every-day-all-day it’s: think good thoughts, imagine the future, and bring new things to life.  Sounds wonderful, but more than anything, it’s a lonely slog. In theory it’s a great idea – help the company realize (and acknowledge) what […]

Starting starts with starting.

If you haven’t done it before and you want to start, you have only one option – to start. Much as there’s a huge difference between lightning and lightning bug, there’s a world of difference between starting and talking about starting. Where talking about starting flutters aimlessly flower to flower, starting jolts trees from the […]

Summoning The Courage To Ask

I’ve had some great teachers in my life, and I’m grateful for them.  They taught me their hard-earned secrets, their simple secrets.  Though each had their own special gifts, they all gave them in the same way – they asked the simplest questions. Today’s world is complex – everything interacts with everything else; and today’s […]

Bridging The Chasm Between Technologists and Marketers

What’s a new market worth without a new technology to capture it? The same as a new technology without a new market – not much. Technology and market are a matched set, but not like peanut butter and jelly, (With enough milk, a peanut butter sandwich isn’t bad.) rather, more like H2 and O: whether […]

Less Before More – Innovation’s Little Secret

The natural mindset of innovation is more-centric. More throughput; more performance; more features and functions; more services; more sales regions and markets; more applications; more of what worked last time. With innovation, we naturally gravitate toward more. There are two flavors of more, one better than the other. The better brother is more that does […]

The Invisible Rut of Success

It’s easier to spot when it’s a rut of failure – product costs too high, product function is too low, and the feeding frenzy where your competitors eat your profits for lunch. Easy, yes, but still possible to miss, especially when everyone’s super busy cranking out heaps of the same old stuff in the same […]

Own The Behavior

The system is big and complex and its output is outside your control. Trying to control these outputs is a depressing proposition, yet we’re routinely judged (and judge ourselves) on outputs.  I think it’s better to focus on system inputs, specifically your inputs to the system. When the system responds with outputs different than desired, […]

How To Accelerate Engineers Into Social Media

Engineers fear social media, but shouldn’t. Our fear comes from lack of knowledge around information flow. Because we don’t understand how information flow works, we stay away. But our fear is misplaced – with social media information flow is controllable. For engineers, one-way communication is the best way to start. Engineers should turn on the […]

Fix The Economy – Connect The Engineer To The Factory

Rumor has it, manufacturing is back. Yes, manufacturing jobs are coming back, but they’re coming back in dribbles. (They left in a geyser, so we still have much to do.) What we need is a fire hose of new manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are trickling back from low cost countries because companies now realize the […]

Be Your Stiffest Competitor

Your business is going away. Not if, when. Someone’s going to make it go away and it might as well be you. Why not take control and make it go away on your own terms? Why not make it go away and replace it with something bigger and better? Success is good, but fleeting. Like […]

Mike Shipulski Mike Shipulski

Stay Updated — Receive Our Latest Articles by Email

Archives