12 Ways to Innovate

March 29, 2021

Good morning! Happy Holi! Our quasi-domesticated backyard Mallard Duck friends have returned for another spring; we welcome all birds and don’t discriminate — except maybe for the starlings. I’m ten cars back, the light is green and just now it turns yellow — or orange — or amber, you choose the hue. Car #1 sails through the dangerous intersection, right behind it car #2, then car #3, and #4, and also #5, swiftly, no brake lights in sight. And now the light turns red; it’s illegal to enter. Cars #6 and #7 are halfway through, they increase speed, no regrets. Car #8 is determined and won’t be deterred — in its mind, the light though bright red is still green. Car #9 feels entitled… after all…The light is red, I’m car #10….It’s St. Cloud, Minnesota (U.S.) … always be on high alert.

• Go figure this.  The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, identical to the men’s, is forbidden to use the apparently copyrighted term, March Madnesses.
• “Perfection is not attainable.  But if we chase perfection we can sometimes catch excellence.”  (Lombardi)
• On average, women in the United States are paid 18% less than men for comparable work.  (Forbes/ National Women’s Law Center)
  • For African American women it’s 37% less.
  • For Native American women it’s 40% less.
  • For Latina women it’s 45% less.
• The long awaited Ken Burns/ Lynn Novick documentary on Ernest Hemingway is scheduled to air April 5th.
  • Tedious and years in the making, the only question is why schedule it directly opposite the Madnesses?!
• Tom Edison famously and publicly demonstrated the phonograph in 1878 by playing Mary Had a Little Lamb.
  • He had actually engineered a prototype long before he finally decided to feature it during one of his famous show ‘n tell news conferences.
  • Why do you suppose that was?
• “Scrambling costs money.”  (Crystal Lahr – ATS)  [Ya got that right!]

12 Ways to Innovate

• The Sloan School at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests 12 ways to innovate.
  • Innovation is anchored by the offerings a company creates, the customers it serves, the processes it employs, and the logistics it uses to take its offerings to market.
    • The other eight are:
      • Platform
      • Solutions
      • Customer Experience
      • Value Capture
      • Organization
      • Supply Chain
      • Networking
      • Brand  (Sawheny et al.)
• “We need to stop just pulling people out of the river.  We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”  (Tutu)
• “If you can’t do anything about it then let it go.  Don’t be a prisoner to things you can’t change.”  (Gaskins)

My Best Friend Ted

By Michael A. Mullin

Rhubarb isn’t reticent;

its courage in late winter is greater than nearly everything

except maybe a crocus.

Rhubarb isn’t pretentious;

it’ll hang with almost anything and doesn’t have to be in charge.

Rhubarb is patient;

great grandpa expectantly planted it,

but now it mostly sits and waits.

Elephant ear leaves stalwart sentinels in the springtime sun.

When I was a boy my best friend was Ted.

He lived down the road in the ditch, protected

by a little grove of bushes in the shade of which he

lived a solitary canine existence, little loved, or so it seemed.

I was the only one to visit him.

Ted was a lot like rhubarb:  Stalwart, unpretentious,

patient, unassuming, trusting, forgotten, available, ready,

never needing to be in charge.

One day Ted died.

I don’t remember which day; I was just a boy.

Rhubarb is my new best friend.

It won’t die.

Unless someone dares to end great grandpa’s vision.

©2017 Michael A. Mullin