I recently learned something fascinating from business and technology executives in the financial services industry. Despite the increased regulation and turbulent economy that financial services firms have been facing over the past couple of years, they are focused on innovation. We shared this finding...
Every time there is an innovation in risk absorption the economy flourishes. The invention of the shared stock company by the Dutch and the English allowed merchants to take advantage of risks and ventures that the crown would never have had the stomach or...
The other day I was on the phone with my insurance company because they had rejected, for a second time, a procedure for my son which was performed by a physician who they claimed was “out of network” — let’s call him Dr. Brown. ...
Co-authored with Chris Curran We’ve hit the point in the summer when football training camps are almost upon us–one of our favorite times of the year. Football, in our opinion, more than other American sports, exemplifies the three dynamics we at Diamond use in...
Today’s New York Times article joins new stories about Zynga (formally Zynga Game Network), the maker of FarmVille, MafiaWars and other popular games on Facebook. Mark Pincus, the 44 year old founder is estimated to be Silicon Valley’s newest paper billionaire. Not only is his...
In the great debate and political firestorm surrounding healthcare it is easy to forget that the majority of the medical problems people have are due to poor choices. According to a 2008 Management Science paper by Duke Professor Ralph L. Keeney over 55% of...
I love the story of Chris Halberg the founder of Smug Coffee. He was in class at Marquette University and invented the idea of adding an RFID chip to a coffee cup. This way the cup could be a stored value system, and even...
A friend of mine recently asked me: What do you think are the biggest barriers to innovation? If you look at the literature on innovation many folks cite insufficient support from the CEO, inadequate funding, the pressure of quarterly earning, a culture of following,...
Google’s recently reported $100-200 million investment in the company Zynga, the very popular online game company, is their latest attempt to finally get their social media strategy off the ground and take on Facebook. Google is vitally interested in social media for at least...
When something gets modular, the opportunity to create many more innovations skyrockets. Hundreds, or thousands or millions of inventors can give something a try and then the market can sort out what works and what does not. Years ago in an interview in the...