Achieving faster, better, cheaper, and more creative innovation outcomes with the 5x5 framework: 5 people, 5 days, 5 experiments, $5,000, and 5 weeksWhat is the best way for a company to innovate? Advice recommending “innovation vacations” and the luxury of failure may be wonderful for organizations with time to spend and money to waste. The Innovator’s Hypothesis addresses the innovation priorities of companies that live in the real world of limits. Micha...

How companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify know what "you might also like": the history, technology, business, and societal impact of online recommendation engines.Increasingly, our technologies are giving us better, faster, smarter, and more personal advice than our own families and best friends. Amazon already knows what kind of books and household goods you like and is more than eager to recommend more; YouTube and TikTok always have another video lined up ...

Who do you want your customers to become?According to MIT innovation expert and thought leader Michael Schrage, if you aren’t asking this question, your strategic marketing and innovation efforts will fail.In this latest HBR Single, Schrage provides a powerful new lens for getting more value out of innovation investment. He argues that asking customers to do something different doesn’t go far enough—serious marketers and innovators must ask them to become s...

Who do you want your customers to become?According to MIT innovation expert and thought leader Michael Schrage, if you aren’t asking this question, your strategic marketing and innovation efforts will fail.In this latest HBR Single, Schrage provides a powerful new lens for getting more value out of innovation investment. He argues that asking customers to do something different doesn’t go far enough—serious marketers and innovators must ask them to become something differen...

What is the best way for a company to innovate? That's exactly the wrong question. The better question: How can organizations get the maximum possible value from their innovation investments? Advice recommending "innovation vacations" and the luxury of failure may be wonderful for organizations with time to spend and money to waste. But this book addresses the innovation priorities of companies that live in the real world of limits. They want fast, frugal, and high impact innovations. They...

"Jobs To Be Done is key to building successful products, and this book masterfully gives a step–by–step guide on how to put it into practice."—Melissa Perri, author of Escaping the Build TrapThese days, consumers have real power: they can research companies, compare ratings, and find alternatives with a simple tap. Focusing on customer needs isn't a nice–to–have, it's a strategic imperative.The Jobs To ...

"Jobs To Be Done is key to building successful products, and this book masterfully gives a step–by–step guide on how to put it into practice." —Melissa Perri, author of Escaping the Build TrapThese days, consumers have real power: they can research companies, compare ratings, and find alternatives with a simple tap. Focusing on customer needs isn't a nice–to–have, it's a strategic imperative.The Jobs To Be Done Playbook (JTBD) hel...

With the global economy recovering from a steep recession, and with that recovery challenging our long-held ideas about what careers and the market can be, learning the basics of economics has never been more essential. Principles such as gains from trade, the role of profit and loss, and the secondary effects of government spending, taxes, and borrowing risk continue to be critically important to the way America's economy functions, and critically important to understand for those hoping ...

We're in the midst of a revolution. Quantum leaps in technology are enabling organizations to observe and measure people's behavior in real time, communicate internally at extraordinary speed, and innovate continuously. These new, software-driven technologies are transforming the way companies interact with their customers, employees, and other stakeholders.This is no mere tech issue. The transformation requires a complete rethinking of the way we organize and manage work. And, as ...

These stories from Quanta Magazine map the routes of mathematical exploration, showing readers how cutting-edge research is done, while illuminating the productive tension between conjecture and proof, theory and intuition. Listeners of The Prime Number Conspiracy, says Quanta editor-in-chief Thomas Lin, are headed on "breathtaking intellectual journeys to the bleeding edge of discovery strapped to the narrative rocket of humanity's never-ending pursuit of knowle...

Most people would agree that thoughtful behavior and common decency arein short supply, or simply forgotten in hurried lives of emails,cellphones, and multi-tasking. In Choosing Civility, P. M. Forniidentifies the twenty-five rules that are most essential in connectingeffectively and happily with others. In clear, witty, and,well...civilized language, Forni covers topics that include:Think Twice Before Asking FavorsGive Co...

There's a precise moment that falls between working enough hours to be productive and working too many hours, yielding a diminishing marginal return. The difference between the person able to master this and most Americans that fail miserably at it is quality of life! If one continues to work past this moment, a negative return will ensue, and that negative return produces guilt. It lowers the amount of time for recreational activities and spending time with family.An alarming 39% ...