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Feature of the Week August 17, 2017



 

Innovation Navigation host David Robertson wrote an article on Gatorade for the Harvard Business Review blog. The article explains how recent guest Sarah Robb O’Hagan turned around slumping sales at the iconic brand by reconnecting with Gatorade’s core athletic customer and applying the “Third Way” to innovate:

“What Robb O’Hagan did was to apply what we call the Third Way to innovate. Neither incremental improvement of current products, nor radical rethinking of the business, the Third Way focuses on innovating around the current product to make it more valuable.  Robb O’Hagan turned around the product not by changing the product but by complementing it with sports bars, energy chews, and protein shakes. What her team did wasn’t an expansion or revision of the current product; in fact the team reduced the range and number of variants. It also wasn’t a radical rethinking of the product. The Third Way is a different approach to innovation.”

Read more of “How Gatorade Invented New Products by Revisiting Old Ones”  at the Harvard Business Review.

Feature of the Week August 1, 2017

APOPO is a nonprofit organization focused on training rats to smell and identify landmines and tuberculosis. The organization was founded by recent guest Bart Weetjens. 

Learn more about APOPO’s mission:




This video explores how to train a “hero rat”:




 

Feature of the Week July 17, 2017




Host David Robertson’s book The Power of Little Ideas  was reviewed by The Globe and Mail this week:

“We have been trained to see innovation in two ways. The first is incremental improvement, when small tweaks are made to a product in the hopes of expanding its appeal. The other, drawing most of the attention, is disruptive innovation, revolutionary improvements that change markets and industries, as when Nucor introduced the mini-mill to make steel significantly cheaper, Amazon pioneered an online bookstore or Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.

David Robertson, a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, says there’s a third, important approach that executives need to consider. It has been successfully applied at various companies but has drawn little attention.”

Read more of the review on The Globe and Mail.

Learn more about The Power of Little Ideas.

Feature of the Week July 12, 2017

Liftware’s stabilizing and leveling utensils are designed to help people with hand tremor or limited hand and arm mobility. Recent guest Anupam Pathak is the Founder and CEO of Liftware.

Feature of the Week June 7, 2017



This week, a book by Innovation Navigation host David Robertson was featured in The Guardian. The piece focuses on Lego’s reinvention.

Lego’s revival has been called the greatest turnaround in corporate history. A book devoted to the subject, David Robertson’s Brick by Brick: How Lego Rewrote the Rules of Innovation, has become a set business text. Sony, Adidas and Boeing are said to refer to it. Google now uses Lego bricks to help its employees innovate.”

Read more from The Guardian. 

Order a copy of  Brick by Brick on Amazon.

Feature of the Week May 24, 2017



Learn more about the production system at Desktop Metal, founded by recent guest Ric Fulop. 

Desktop Metal was started to address a problem—how to make metal 3D printing accessible for engineering teams. In 2013, CEO Ric Fulop began collaborating with world-leading experts in materials science, engineering, and 3D printing. Their work together over the course of two years drew multiple independent inventions together to form the basis for Desktop Metal’s technology.

Feature of the Week March 7, 2017

3D printing a house

Apis Cor company has successfully finished a residential house printing project. This video was mentioned on-air by recent guest Larry Haines, founder of Sunconomy.com and partner of Apis Cor.

Feature of the Week January 29, 2017

The Power of Little Ideas Trailer

by Innovation Navigation host David Robertson

Conventional wisdom today says that to survive, companies must move beyond incremental, sustaining innovation and invest in some form of radical innovation. “Disrupt yourself or be disrupted!” is the relentless message company leaders hear. The Power of Little Ideas argues there’s a “third way” that is neither sustaining nor disruptive. This low-risk, high-reward strategy is an approach to innovation that all company leaders should understand so that they recognize it when their competitors practice it, and apply it when it will give them a competitive advantage.

Pre-order a copy on Amazon.

Feature of the Week December 6, 2016

NY Times Magazine: Makeover Mania

Makeover Mania: Inside the 21st Century Craze for Redesigning Everything.

Check out this piece in The New York Times Magazine by recent guest Rob Walker.

Feature of the Week September 20, 2016

Zipline Drone Delivery

Learn about Zipline’s efforts in Rwanda using drones to deliver medical supplies. Zipline is a healthcare delivery system founded by recent guest Keller Rinaudo.