The Innovation Booster #10

The Innovation Booster is a monthly periodical bringing you five great reads on innovation, strategy, and growth that will inspire you to act, kick off your creativity, and challenge you to think differently.

In this issue of The Innovation Booster I feature great reads on happy accidents, the defence opportunity, speeding up denial, value of understanding the current condition, and the principles for coaching innovation teams:

1. The Accidental Invention that Built the Modern World by Paul Sloane. Solving problems is a great way to innovate, especially since we might accidentally stumble upon a much bigger opportunity. That's why I advise asking—who else has this problem?
2. Europe’s defense industry may be facing a Kodak moment by Dan Toma. The unfortunate reality is that recent conflict evolved warfare. Defence companies must adapt, or be disrupted by challengers who understand the needs of modern battle field, including its economics, logistics, and public narratives.
3. The Year AI Came For Us: Teaching Entrepreneurship Will Never Be The Same by Steve Blank. Over the past few years I have observed a fascinating phenomenon: innovators are creating prototypes at an amazing speed, using various AI tools. But instead of testing them with customers, they "test" them with the same tool that made them. Even though they created them in matter of days, they are attached to them as if they had spent months building them, and find it difficult to accept that their creation simply does not meet the customer's needs. Steve observed something similar in his Lean Launchpad classes.
4. Map The Territory Before Improving It by Mike Shipulski. Understanding the current condition—the problem, the business model, the customer need—is the best way for creating future value. Simple as that. Move slower to move faster.
5. On Principles for Coaching Innovation Teams by Bruno Pešec [subscriber exclusive]. Working directly with innovators is the best way to develop them. In this issue I share three dangerous assumptions and three operating principles for effectively coaching innovation teams

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