Based on current trends we’ll be chasing an exponential curve – an opportunity for commercial innovation and cultural innovation?
The Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House in Westminster was an emotive place yesterday. It was the venue for the UK parliament’s, Public Accounts Committee, to interview on the record, leaders from Starbucks, Amazon, and Google on the taxation of multinational corporations. Whilst this is obviously an emotive subject, the element of the discussion that I was surprised…
You would have to have been isolated in a bunker for the last few years to have missed the number of natural disasters that have happened. It can be debated whether they are becoming more frequent or more violent, however, what is indisputable is that the impact of these natural shocks is of greater significance and impact on global…
One of the keys to successful innovation is to find an unsatisfied or poorly satisfied need. Whilst we often think of innovation as being about step change, it can equally, and more often, be a small improvement that has disproportionate impact. A great example of a company that consistently achieves this is Dyson. Dyson amongst other products…
As Apple fans the world over waited for the release of the iPhone 5 last month the focus was really on the hardware as most of the new features of the next release of the iOS6 operating system had been publicized already. In general there have been no real issues with the new hardware this time round,…
When we think of subscriptions we usually think of magazines and health clubs. From a business model perspective they both operate a similar model where we agree to commit to pay a periodic fee for a period of time in return for access to an often perishable service or product. When we dig beneath the…
I recently read a great article titled “Why good design is finally a bottom line investment” on the FastCompany website. The article focused mainly on the tech world and a product-centric view of design which is what most people think of when you mention the word ‘design’. To most people design makes them think…
Sitting on a long-haul flight can be a great opportunity to break from the connected world. It forces you to reconnect with things like books, newspapers, and magazines in a way that you don’t when time is at a premium as it so often is. In reality it means for me that I actually read an article…
With all of the publicity around insurance or legal referral fees earlier in the year it won’t surprise many people that the insurance industry is one of the largest spenders on legal services in the UK, about £5Bn pa, 20% of the market. Unless you’re in the legal services industry though it’s likely that the…
When I read Mat Honan’s article earlier this week it certainly hit home the potential risks associated with life in the cloud. For those of you who didn’t see the article, Mat, a journalist at Wired magazine, found that his Twitter and Gmail accounts had been hacked, and he found out when his computer and phone were…