MRT PLUS

Our oddball take on the world of innovative product development

All Blog Posts (52)

Gregg Tong A Quantum Leap of Faith

Is Quantum Physics a religion?  There are many similarities.  Quantum physics tries to explain the nature of the universe, the ultimate answer to the question of where do we come from and how does it all work?  Both are filled with deep mystery and require tremendous faith to reconcile its concepts with our everyday…

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Added by Gregg Tong on July 8, 2011 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong Is there a shortcut on the road to nowhere?

In the 1980s the business drumbeat sung to the tune of "better, faster, cheaper."  In the 1990s, the Internet augmented this cadence to "free, perfect and now."  Who knows, what tomorrow will bring, maybe it'll be "superior value, available everywhere, just when you need it.".  

What I do know is that in order to get there, we'll all be looking for the same thing, a shortcut.  Take a…

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Added by Gregg Tong on June 2, 2011 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong Typically Typical Am I

Out of 7 billion human entities on the planet earth, National Geographic recently crunched the numbers and defined the demographic profile of the world's most typical person.  Surprise, it's me!  Well, I may be about 14 years older than the real Mr. Typical, but I have just about all the other qualities (except…

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Added by Gregg Tong on March 29, 2011 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong A cubists view of business improvement...

“Innovation” is a nebulous term that business pundits bandy about with reckless abandon.  Perhaps at one time it held a narrower and truer meaning, but years of human handling have converted it to almost a non-word through years of misapplication, like a child’s use of the word “fairness.”  Many people treat innovation as if there was an objective innovation detector that lights up and audibly…

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Added by Gregg Tong on February 10, 2011 at 12:10pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong My Android Phone is taking me Back to the Future

Marty McFly and Doc Brown just recently celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the hit movie, Back to the Future. To mark this occasion, I recently focused my column in… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on November 10, 2010 at 5:40pm — 1 Comment

Gregg Tong Measuring Up

Good metrics are the ultimate business tease, offering tremendous promise, making it sound easy, and then falling apart at the last moment. I think that humans become seduced by the logic and stability of math's reputation, forgetting the fact that numbers, like humans, can also be irrational, chaotic, misleading and untrustworthy. If left to our own mental devices, human managers kvetch over most decisions, especially those with critical financial impact, like when to accelerate… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on August 31, 2010 at 4:42pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong How is Open Innovation like throwing spaghetti on the wall?

Some people say "Open Innovation" isn't all that innovative. Of course they're right, trends in business are rarely new, they are far more likely to be retreads, even if it's just a new sum of old parts. Someone was practicing pieces of Lean Manufacturing before Taichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo, just… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on July 6, 2010 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Jackie Cooper Innovation is blind...and Unilever's CEO sees quite clearly

Interesting piece in today's Boston Globe about Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever (formerly with P&G in Europe, I believe). He brought his executive team of 40 VPs and division chiefs from around the world to Perkins School for the Blind for a field trip of sorts. Not only did the team engage in blind taste tests to gain new product insights, they engaged with the students and faculty to gain new "human" insights.…

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Added by Jackie Cooper on June 24, 2010 at 6:43am — No Comments

Gregg Tong My favorite products are wiped from the face of the earth...

Many times in my life, I encounter a product that I find to be exceptional. Often I resist the temptation to hoard, to purchase huge amounts of something I clearly find great value in. But I get burned by resisting that urge, because frequently the products I love go out of stock and off the… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on June 16, 2010 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong Bending the mind around space-time and NPD

Human beings don't only take life for granted, we take for granted the entire existence of the universe. Think for a moment about the concept of infinity. No race, creed or religion denies it's existence, yet we all completely ignore it. What came before the universe and what comes after? We don't know nor do we seem to care, yet this fundamental truth is the biggest freaking elephant in the room. While true that there is very little we can practically do with infinity… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on May 5, 2010 at 3:36pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong Can you hear me now?

One of my favorite all time movie quotes is when the southern prison boss in Paul Newman's classic "Cool Hand Luke" admonishes the inmates as he punishes them by saying, "What we have here....is a failure to communicate."



Communication is a powerful thing that people take for granted. But it's what makes everything work. Information defects in product development processes can create million dollar errors through bad version control, outdated requirements or just plain wrong… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on February 26, 2010 at 4:10pm — No Comments

Jackie Cooper More on Tech Scouting..Google Lists Job with a Star Trek-Like Mission

Speaking of Tech Scouting, yesterday's Computerworld published this story: Google Lists Job with a Star Trek-Like Mission. Google Inc. (GOOG) is advertising for a " renewable energy technology scout" whose mission will be to "seek-out, analyze, present, and promote new technologies" that are designed to cut energy costs.



The story quotes expert… Continue

Added by Jackie Cooper on January 13, 2010 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Jackie Cooper Scouting for Innovation, a blog within a blog

I know there's a name for it when you blog about someone else's blog, but I can't remember what it is...

However, well-known innovation blogger Stefan Lindegaard picked up on a study that I also found noteworthy. The study is called Scouting for Innovation in 2009, and it's by NERAC, a global research firm.



Stefan blogged about it better than I could have, and since tech scouting is… Continue

Added by Jackie Cooper on January 12, 2010 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong Taking Inventory

I can't say why, but often I find deeper meaning in the most mundane of subjects. It reminds me of a short lived sitcom starring Howard Hessman (and also a young newcomer named Robin Givens) who played a teacher that would start each class with a story of something completely unrelated to the lesson, but bring it around by the end in some pithy, unexpected way. Like a story about baseball that teaches you about the cuban missile crisis, a part of history that could have been seriously… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on January 11, 2010 at 3:59pm — No Comments

Jackie Cooper More 'guru' advice on thinking big

The last two gurus in our 2009 Innovation Leadership Guru Series were Gene Slowinski (well-known alliance guru and author of Reinventing Corporate Growth) and Rob Shelton (co-author of Making Innovation Work). Both continued the 'think big' theme (see my previous blog entry).



Gene's main advice: Go for alliances that shake up an industry, otherwise it's very easy to underestimate resources.… Continue

Added by Jackie Cooper on December 20, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Jackie Cooper Guru takeaways so far – think big, start small

After listening to four top experts (Scott Anthony, Jay Paap, Marc Meyer, and Rita Gunther McGrath) speak at our Innovation Leadership Guru Series, I learned that the best way to deal with today’s economic uncertainty – as well as other uncertainties – is to start small. Prototype and test concepts in the marketplace, pay attention to what you learn, and invest in stages -- if (and only if) demand is there. Look at projects… Continue

Added by Jackie Cooper on November 6, 2009 at 5:19pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong "Friend" is not a verb

Yes, I have a facebook page, but I don't use it much. I accept almost every friend request, because I have nothing to hide there since I don't use it. Social media is a strange phenomena, one which I have not embraced nor like very much, despite their immense (and I think/hope temporary) popularity.

My latest Time Compression column discusses my feelings on the matter, my confessions of a pseudo luddite, and how social media relates to quantum mechanics (an analogy I try to apply… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on November 4, 2009 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong The Spanish Prisoner

Steve Martin's career is an enigma to me. Does anyone else believe that today's Steve Martin is the same wild and crazy guy whose first movie was "The Jerk". Would The Jerk find an audience today? Why do I bother pondering such useless things? I am by nature, very curious. In that mode, I also sometimes wonder if there is a master list of today's revered actors who started out as comedic buffoons. Steve Martin joins the likes of Robin Williams, Jamie Foxx, Tom Hanks and many others… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on September 2, 2009 at 1:16pm — No Comments

Gregg Tong Combining interests....

I like video games, I grew up during their nascent (is that a real word? Like "descent" - maybe not). I also like complaining about poor product design. Well, here's an article that blends the best of both worlds.



From the Technologizer website:

Fifteen Classic Game Console Design Mistakes… Continue

Added by Gregg Tong on August 11, 2009 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Jackie Cooper Sleepless over innovation?

What keeps you up at night? Personally I’m troubled by what I read in the news these days – and not just about Iran, North Korea, or even Madoff. I’m worried about product development and innovation.



First, about a week before A.G. Lafley resigned as CEO, market analysts were criticizing Procter & Gamble for not being innovative enough. P&G not innovative enough?! That’s like Hollywood producers saying Lindsay Lohan isn’t thin enough. Good grief.



Then there’s… Continue

Added by Jackie Cooper on July 2, 2009 at 7:00am — No Comments

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