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Innovation Copilots

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How to see markets beyond the curve, from a pure innovation perspective to leverage change and disruptions

🤘 We now have a podcast (kind of)

🤘 We now have a podcast (kind of)

I've been teasing that for a few days, but let's say we are officially experimenting with a podcast version of our articles. To be clear, Stéphanie and I have been struggling with this idea for months as we don't have the material time to record things. We also have a

📦 Pricing technology

📦 Pricing technology

When dealing with innovation, a constant issue is being able to get out of the product mindset. As most decision-makers come from a marketing, financial, or engineering background, the default mode is thinking of price, product, promotion, etc. Something doesn't sell? Lower the price! Still not working? Promote more aggressively!

🧐 B2C Is always harder...

🧐 B2C Is always harder...

When you're working in startup mode, one of your core missions (if not a unique mission) is to understand the problem you want to solve for your market. And I've been repeating for eternity that it's somehow easy in B2B, while B2C is always fantastically more complicated. The reason essentially

📺 A fire chat discussion about tech, the U.S., Europe, design, and a few other things

📺 A fire chat discussion about tech, the U.S., Europe, design, and a few other things

In 2019, I was having a 'fire chat" discussion as I was the host of the tech conference Blend Web Mix in Lyon (France) to debrief many of the topics that were addressed on stage for two days. And I know it's kind of old news. But I wanted to

🦐 To continue, you must change...

🦐 To continue, you must change...

René Redzepi is one of the most famous chefs in Europe and admittedly on the planet. His restaurant, Noma, in Copenhagen, has been on top of all charts, reviews, guides, and food websites since 2012, when he reinvented the notion of local cuisine. A 2016 movie is even paying homage

🥸 Apple glasses... again?

🥸 Apple glasses... again?

I already discussed a few times where Apple would be standing regarding augmented or virtual reality glasses. Whether you care about Apple or this market is not so much the point of using this as an interesting discussion about what innovation is and how such a powerful company deals with

🤖 The future always starts in crappy mode

🤖 The future always starts in crappy mode

When I started to travel and regularly work in Shanghai back then, many things were surprising in how technology was developed and incorporated into everyday life. Many things that would later make China a tech super-power were junky at best. But they were there, burgeoning from duct tape, exposed wires,

🐥 The charm of Elon

🐥 The charm of Elon

As much as I've tried to disconnect from Twitter lately, I'm catching myself going to it far more than I would like. A few days before Christmas, I ended up listening in a Twitter space to a few Silicon Valley engineers talking about scale and complexity in tech ventures and

🤖 What if the future was about learning to talk to machines?

🤖 What if the future was about learning to talk to machines?

As we are approaching the end of the year and our 1,000th blog article (🤯), I wanted to focus more on how we perceive and use the future as innovators.

🟢 The future is a mystery, rarely a puzzle

/ Inspiration Featured

🟢 The future is a mystery, rarely a puzzle

As we are approaching the end of the year and our 1,000th blog article (🤯), I wanted to focus more on how we perceive and use the future as innovators.

🤖 Beware of the apostles of the future

🤖 Beware of the apostles of the future

As we are approaching the end of the year and our 1,000th blog article (🤯), I wanted to focus more on how we perceive and use the future as innovators.

🤖 The future is never hindered by a lack of technology

🤖 The future is never hindered by a lack of technology

As we are approaching the end of the year and our 1,000th blog article (🤯), I wanted to focus more on how we perceive and use the future as innovators.

🤖 Dipping your strategic toes in the future

🤖 Dipping your strategic toes in the future

As we are approaching the end of the year and our 1,000th blog article (🤯), I wanted to focus more on how we perceive and use the future as innovators.

🧐 Gauging a market innovation dynamism

🧐 Gauging a market innovation dynamism

A recent article from Horace Dediu (analyst extraordinaire) caught my eye recently. It crunched the numbers on what is the enterprise value of automotive companies worldwide in terms of 25 new entrants (<20 years old) and 31 incumbents, as reported by the OICA (International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers). The enterprise value is an interesting indicator as it is the company's market capitalization minus cash plus debt. As a sector that relies heavily on debt financing, it's a bet

⚡️ What is leapfrog innovation and why you should care

⚡️ What is leapfrog innovation and why you should care

Leapfrog innovation is at the center of our practice; I thought it'd be nice to explain why. To my knowledge, the term leapfrogging was first coined in 1983 in an article in the European Economic Review called Preemption, Leapfrogging, and Competition in Patent Races and later reused by economist extraordinaire

💶 Pareto on pricing

💶 Pareto on pricing

Vilfredo Federico Damaso PARETO (1848 - 1923) was probably one of the last humanists. With a life bridging the XIXth and the XXth century, he contributed to a vast array of fields ranging from engineering to philosophy, sociology, and, of course, economics. If he's well-known for discussing power law distributions

🐭 Disney is now thinking as a tech platform

🐭 Disney is now thinking as a tech platform

Launched 2 years ago, Disney+ 152 million subscribers are now creeping up on Netflix's 223 subscribers. And while it would an endless debate to compare both streaming services' features, catalog content, brand value, or pricing, let's say that from now on, the future of Netflix is anything but guaranteed. Not

💣 What will a new technology undo?

💣 What will a new technology undo?

In March 1998, Neil Postman shared five key ideas about technological change with Denver University students. One of the key messages was that technology is always a trade-off, bringing something new and taking something else away simultaneously. You can read his wonderfully prescient talk and dive into the perspective he

🕹️ BMW is trying to find a business model for their new in-car massive screens

🕹️ BMW is trying to find a business model for their new in-car massive screens

After installing massive screens in cars to look more like Tesla (and partnering with Nvidia along the way), automotive companies such as BMW, now try to find a reason to use the technology. New BMW Partnership Brings Video Games To Its Cars From 2023Just don’t expect to play a

😱 Nicolas Cage and your swimming pool

😱 Nicolas Cage and your swimming pool

In our age of data supposedly reigning supreme, our data culture is still very coarse. The two most simple issues we're still struggling with in my experience? How much of a sample size do you need to get to statistical relevance and correlation is not causation. Both of these issues

🥤 The day I realized you couldn't be an innovation theorist

🥤 The day I realized you couldn't be an innovation theorist

In 2016, Clayton Christensen (father of the Innovator's Dilemma and professor extraordinaire at Harvard Business School) discovered that products didn't have intrinsic value and formatted the "job to be done" principle. In his own words: For me, this is a neat idea. When we buy a product, we essentially ‘hire’

🧭 What is a platform? Map edition

🧭 What is a platform? Map edition

Last June, I was pointing out how being able to seamlessly use the iPhone as a Mac webcam was speaking volumes about how Apple is not a product company, but a fully integrated hardware and software platform. I didn't mean to make a recurring theme of this "You're seeing a

🧐 What is the age of the captain?

🧐 What is the age of the captain?

In 2018, a 5th grader mathematics problem given in a school in China took some part of the internet by storm. The problem was as follows: If a ship had 26 sheep and 10 goats onboard, how old is the ship's captain? You might want to pause on it for