/ Newsletter

Every Thursday, a deep-dive analysis on a technology or market trend, key concept, or innovation framework. No ads, no fee, no promo, no premium tier. We just aim to connect and grow our like-minded innovator community 😎

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/ Business models and Strategy Featured

🔴 What's to learn from how (most) DTC startups failed

Direct-to-Consumer startups (DTC, or sometimes DTM for direct-to-market) were all the craze mid-2010s. Heralded by businesses like Casper, Away, or Warby Parker the core strategy was very seducing. Take an old and proven retail idea (selling mattresses) and make it as simple as possible in every way possible to disrupt

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🔴 The 12 types of intrapreneurship programs you should know about

I still feel that intrapreneurship is discussed as a very narrow and generic practice within corporate innovation circles, when it's a wide and proteiform continuum. Here I'll try to map a few iconic types of programs I have had to implement (or been involved with) since 2012.

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/ Hot Takes Featured

🔴 Five points about Twitter's business model to help you navigate Elon's Musk acquisition

Given the hectic flow of news regarding Elon Musk acquiring Twitter, then not doing it, then finally doing it... I though it'd be interesting to give some pointers about Twitters as a business and what could be the next steps.

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/ Inspiration Featured

🔴 Just how far can the market's light penetrate your organization?

I'm going back today on the innovation portfolio discussion from a different perspective. The one that is concerned about customer-centricity, why size is an unavoidable problem, and what to do about it.

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🔴 The Magic Spot framework

The Magic Spot is the oldest framework I built when I started to consult with startups and then, tried to explain to MBA students there was some logic in the madness.

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🔴 The state of the metaverse (Q4, 2022)

A few discussions these last weeks led me to try to pinpoint where the metaverse is at as of late 2022. Well, all information looks like noise until you break the code. ― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992) First, what do I mean by metaverse? I mean the hard promise of

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🔴 Preparing your innovation department for an economic nuclear winter

Many budget cuts may be underway for innovation departments in the following months. Blame poor visibility of your actions, the abrupt end of a golden age, or the poor example that major tech companies have been lately. The question is, what could you do about it?

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🔴 What is a canary in the coal mine?

One innovation tool we often use is the "canary in the coal mine." I've been illustrating and writing about quite a few in different contexts these last few years but never really explained the tool and how to use it. So, here goes...

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/ Business models and Strategy Featured

🔴 How to kill a Facebook (or any network effect-based business for that matter)

We talked many times over about network effects and their indisputable power. The question today is: Is there a self-defense manual against them? Or "How to kill a Facebook"?

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🔴 🟧 [ Dutch week ] Technology and the 'doe normaal' mindset

The 'doe noormal' Dutch mindset has had a lot of impact on the way this culture deals with technology and innovation. In many cases, this can be an interesting point of view for you too...

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/ Culture and Leadership Featured

🟢 Innovation, the feminine way

Some further comments (and reminders) on a recent webinar on feminine culture at work. And why integrating feminine culture elements is key for corporations facing innovation challenges.

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🟢 Timing technology push and market pull for incubation programs

One of the most requested frameworks I often have from corporate customers is how Gartner's hype and innovation diffusion work together. To my knowledge, this is weirdly never discussed. So despite this summer's heat waves here goes...

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🟢 Does innovation deliver progress? (It's complicated)

We collectively still conflate progress and innovation. Not that progress doesn't exist, but it's anything but an immutable law of physics, like gravity or the speed of light. Here are my two cents on science, technology, innovation, and progress.

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/ Business models and Strategy Featured

🟢 The Romanesco effect: Reimagining, Diversification, and Reduction.

We make a lot of fuss about innovation frameworks and strategies, whereas innovation is a simple mechanism. It's about Reimagining, Diversification, and from time to time a rare but groundbreaking Reduction.

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🟢 Is Amazon Healthcare inevitable in Europe? (Yes)

With the acquisition of One Medical, Amazon might become one of the most powerful American healthcare providers. While it might finally fix some of the U.S. life expectancy steady decline, Europe should realize that Amazon barging into our medical system is also inevitable (it already started).

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🟢 Growth engine vs. Network effect vs. Flywheel

Not quite the summer's read for the beach (I know, I know) but an important article for startups and corporate innovators nonetheless. Why innovate if you don't bring change in the market at scale after all? And how do you plan for scale?

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🟢 9 Strategies for service innovation

This week, let's share one of the tools of the trade of business model innovation. It's a quick and super-efficient template to help industrials create value out of services, not engineering products. Which is always quite culturally challenging for many of them.

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/ Business models and Strategy Featured

🟢 Is Citroën's AMI leapfrogging Tesla's master plan?

On the surface, the success of the Citroën AMI as a light electric car is endearing. But despite its promises it might be a cautionary tale for the rest of us in the industry.

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🟢 Apple discretely unveils Apple cars; not the Apple Car

After yesterday Apple's WWDC 2022 annual keynote, it's difficult to zoom out from the myriad of software tweaks and products announcement (only a new Mac, really). Let's deep dive into what might have been discretely unveiled. Apple cars.

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/ Hot Takes Featured

🟢 Does business research matter?

In a world shaken by so many struggles, we're starting today a short series questioning the logic and practices of business schools, academia, and executive education.

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/ Hot Takes Featured

🟢 What the video-game market tells us about innovation trends

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/ Tools and Frameworks Featured

🟢 The pace layers of innovation

Why the different forms of innovation can only move at a different speed. Not so much because some are slower or faster, but because they impact different layers of the market infrastructure.

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🟢 Building a proper innovation portfolio - Part 3

The last entry in our innovation portfolio series deals with the most important of it all: your organizational culture.

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🟢 Can Google get AR off the ground?

Google announced a new AR glasses prototype. What to make of it? Whether you deal with VR (virtual reality) or AR (augmented reality) you need to solve three big problems at the same time: * Find a real market problem to solve at scale. * Build a hardware layer that is powerful

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🟢 The fundamentals of opposable marketing

I took the time to rewrite and hopefully clarify an essential article from 2017 on the link between marketing and pricing and why it should be as simple as possible.