• Richard Florida: 'Unleashing the Creative Economic Revolution'

    Richard Florida has been advising cities on how to appeal to the most innovative companies and employees for several years now. And his books, especially The Rise of the Creative Class , have sparked some interesting public debates on just what urban centers need to do to become innovation centers. Nearly a year ago we highlighted Florida's extensive article in The Atlantic in which he pushed the notion that the global economic crisis would "reshape" cities. He is still pushing this idea, and in a recent interview with Big Think , he discussed how a "new class of thinkers," is set to emerge: Watch the full interview here .

  • The Waiting Game=A Losing Game for Small Business

    Lisa Barone of Small Business Trends lays out some straightforward advice for entrepreneurs and small business owners: if you are waiting for the "right time" to launch a great idea, you'll probably miss your chance. Barone: We all suffer from this type of paralyzing perfection. The voice in our head that says it’s not ready yet, that it’s not good enough to go live. But at that rate, you’ll never take that next step. You’ll sit on the product until it’s not “new” anymore, you’ll suck the excitement of everything that you do. One of the great things about being a small business is the freedom you have to experiment. Things don’t have to be perfect right out of the gate. You can try things. You can launch unfinished. You can fail and you won’t be crucified for it. You may even be applauded for your efforts. As a small business owner, you need to take chances. Your whole business is a chance. Be true to that. Get rid of the negative thinking and just do it. If you wait for “perfection”, your business will never grow. There will always be enough distractions and more important work before you can launch. Iteration is an important part of a design process, and it only makes sense to put ideas forward as they are developing rather than waiting for them to be perfect. Read How To Kill Your Small Business here .

  • Innosight's Anthony Says Innovate or Die

    Back in December, when then-General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was apologizing to Congress for his company's failures, New York Times reporter Micheline Maynard wrote about GM's innovation problem : G.M.’s biggest failing, reflected in a clear pattern over recent decades, has been its inability to strike a balance between those inside the company who pushed for innovation ahead of the curve, and the finance executives who worried more about returns on investment. The two views were rarely in sync — in effect, fighting over the steering wheel that controlled G.M.’s direction — and the internal battles distracted G.M. from spotting shifts in the marketplace. Time and again over the last 30 years, G.M. has spent billions of dollars on innovative ideas like its Saturn small-car company in the 1980s and the EV1 electric vehicle in the 1990s, only to then deprive those projects of further financing because money was needed elsewhere or because they were not delivering enough profit. As president of the business consulting firm Innosight , Scott Anthony has become a bit of a pied piper for innovation. He says there is no choice but to innovate. In this interview with Harvard Business Review, Anthony discusses his new book, The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times , and stresses, "If you choose not to innovate, you are sowing the seeds of your own destruction": You can read an excerpt of Anthony's book here .