Tag Archives: competitive advantage

Must read innovation stories of the week: Why pursuing innovation usually fails

Today’s business leaders and organizations are argues Adam Hartung, they’re trained to be effective and efficient and that’s why there’s a high failure rate of innovation initiatives.

We all know we need to innovate. But we just can’t help ourselves. Everything we’ve been trained to do as business leaders is about staying on course–even when headed straight for disaster. Rather than do something different, we batten down the hatches and sail into calamity like Captain Ahab. Management is more comfortable putting everything at risk by doing what it has done before than sailing in a new, more hopeful direction.


Must read innovation stories of the week: How to innovate everyday

How do you innovate everyday? There are , but there are enough ways to try and come up with your own.

Innovation is more than brainstorming or idea generation. To be truly innovative, you have to DO something different. But ‘doing’ innovation is a different story, it doesn’t come naturally to most people. Yesterday I introduced you to , a book that shows you how to ‘DO’ innovation and I encourage you to buy it but for now here are a few links that can help you get started ‘doing’ innovation. 


Your competitive advantage: make people happy

competitive advantage comes from making people happy

A key to implementing a kick-ass business strategy is , this is shifts the rules to your advantage.

One of the most important pillars of any great business is making your customer happy. Yet, it seems to me that businesses are only focused on what they want, but not what their customers want. Profit over brand is a ruling mindset! If you find yourself in a market where this is the case, make it your mission to compete by making your customers happy, and make your competition irrelevant.

Your competitors will be trying to figure your strategy out and since they can’t think of making customers happy as a strategy (it’s not logical?), they won’t be able to compete! They’ll think you’re out of your mind.

Must read innovation stories of the week: creating sustainable competitive advantage

How do you win in the marketplace? Seth Godin argues that creating a sustainable competitive advantage can take many forms: own something that’s hard to copy, creating a brand, creating a network where most of the power rests on you, creating switching costs and building a culture that’s innovative.

Weekend innovation tip: competitive advantage is temporary

the future is blurry



These players are rare!