Author Archives: Yann Cramer
‘My Way’ has been translated, adapted, sung by millions. Everything has been said about it, and yet, here is my take on it: a story of three characters and five innovation lessons. Continue reading
If we accept that the innovation race will be won by a team rather than a lone individual, the next question is: how does that team need to operate? Continue reading
At the Beijing Olympics, the 4 x 100m relay was won by the Russian team in 42 seconds – apologies for not being much interested in the tenths and hundredths – while the 400m was won by Christine Ohuruogu in a time of 49 seconds. At the risk of stating the obvious, the same distance is covered a lot faster by a relay team than by a single individual, however talented. Continue reading
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” G. K. Chesterton The traveler strikes the right balance between the wanderer’s open-minded absence of direction, and the tourist single-minded destination focus. Like the tourist, the traveler knows the value of setting a direction and charting a course. Like the wanderer, the traveler knows the value of observing the way of life, the attitudes, the passing light in the landscape, the unexpected, the transient, which will never find their place on the shelf of the airport bookshop. Like the traveler, the innovator knows the challenge and sets a course to address it, then keeps the flexibility to discover along the way the people, ingredients and tools that will eventually enable her to meet the challenge. Don’t miss an article (3,200+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group! Yann Cramer is … Continue reading
Taking Away Degrees of Freedom to Rekindle the Innovative Spirit “Necessity is the mother of invention.” – Plato My son came back from a trip during which he broke a guitar string that he could not replace. He was actually delighted with the experience, having had to invent a different way of playing the instrument, and discovering new harmonies. With one string missing, he had to work out the other to a whole new level. This is an innovation classic. Other examples include legislation on car emissions that have led to innovation in the combustion engine and the rise of hybrid and electric vehicles, or Apple making the explicit decision to ban the use of stylus, which led to the famous touch-screen products that we all know. Innovation can be enhanced not always by adding new degrees of freedom, but sometimes by cutting some. Don’t miss an article (3,200+) – … Continue reading
It doesn’t really matter whether it is bottom-up or top-down, vision and willpower drive innovation. For all the talk about creating an innovation culture and the elusive search for the fertile ground where innovation will magically pop up, the juxtaposition of two articles in the Sunday economic press reminded me that innovation can happen in all fields and in all kind of ways. The first article was about the launch of the first baguette dispenser in Paris. Baker-innovator Jean-Louis Hecht both leverages and challenges the mythical French baguette cultural cliché to create a 24/7 vending machine that can hold pre-cooked baguettes in a refrigerated compartment and do the rest of the cooking on demand, delivering a crisp and steaming finish for just one euro. Operating margins are reported to be 30% higher than that of a bakery shop. Growth avenues include: Competing with traditional bakeries on cost Building on the … Continue reading
