Machiavellian Resistance _________________________________________________________________ Niccolo’ Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an Italian with a Renaissance mind. He was a diplomat, writer, and contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, and he wrote about innovation in his book The Prince (1513): There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, than to take a…

The two presidents coincide again — Many amazing coincidences have been already noted between Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy. Both men had a vice president named Johnson. Both men were significantly involved with civil rights and both were assassinated on a Friday in front of their wives. Lincoln was in Ford’s Theater and Kennedy in…

The author of “The Time Machine” was a very smart guy — H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a futurist who could accurately peer into the future, foreseeing concepts such as invisibility and space travel. He also envisioned a future utopian world he describes in his book, A Modern Utopia (1905). In “Chapter The Tenth {subtitled} Race in Utopia” we are delivered a…

Everything is inherently related to the Jam — Nobody knows where the Log Jam Theory originated. It is probably as old as the existence of log jams on rivers. The basic idea of the theory is that an entire system, unit, single idea, organization, or a business, is one inherent expression. …

Innovation called the “foundation of the future.” Efficiency expert W. Edwards Deming says in his book Out of the Crisis that it was statistical control that opened the way to engineering innovation, and without it the process was in “unstable chaos.” By measuring, engineers were able to discern a direction…

The four ways you can use an idea — Since the 19th Century the American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson has been credited with the classic statement about innovation: “If a man makes a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” Since…

Just follow the yellow brick road Write, talk and take action related to innovation. Write an innovation policy statement. Use all employees as a resource for ideas and use a confidentiality agreement. Start using teams for everything and focus on process. Start collaborating and use “champions Listen to customers/ talk…

“A picture is worth ten thousand words.” — Albert Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge” because knowledge is inherently limited, and imagination is potentially unlimited. It’s this unlimited nature of imagination that allows the discovery of new ideas. In order to better understand the physical world, Einstein used thought experiments where he freely imagined the universe…

The emerging reality. — The Wright brothers wrote to the Smithsonian Institute on May 30, 1899, requesting information about the subject of flight. They were sent four pamphlets on the subject and given the suggestion to read Progress in Flying Machines by Octave Chanute and Experiments in Aerodynamics by Samuel Langley. The brothers also…