ChrisBanescu.com

by Michelle Greenwald – How exactly do we define innovation? While it’s probably the most overused term in business today, innovation is not a fad. It’s not even new. What differentiates a smart innovation—and makes it worth writing about—is that it has the capability of moving a business forward in ways that can result in [...]

by Alyson Shontell – There’s a tiny 12-person startup churning out of Des Moines, Iowa. Dwolla was founded by 28-year-old Ben Milne; it’s an innovative online payment system that sidesteps credit cards completely. Milne has no finance background yet his little operation is moving between $30 and $50 million per month; it’s on track to [...]

by Thomas Lockwood – Have you noticed how similar some products are becoming? A Tesla and a Lotus, that’s an easy one. But I’m talking about the similarities between seemingly disparate objects, like an Audi car and Oakley sunglasses, a 3M stapler and an Alessi teapot, or a Starbucks café and your bank lobby. Consumers [...]

PovertyCure is an international network of organizations and individuals seeking to ground our common battle against global poverty in a proper understanding of the human person and society, and to encourage solutions that foster opportunity and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that already fills the developing world.

by Chris Banescu – As the world mourns the passing away of Steven P. Jobs, the visionary entrepreneur and creative genius behind Apple, it’s important to remember some timeless insights and essential lessons for life that he talked about. I was reminded of the maturity and wisdom of his message while watching a video of [...]

by Eric Markowitz – One of the world’s oldest publishing companies brought in a ringer to revolutionize the way the company does business. The result? The first fully-interactive textbook. Nature Publishing Group, which publishes several highly regarded scientific journals and textbooks, was founded in England in 1869, eight years before electric lights illuminated the streets [...]

In the global phone handset market Motorola went from the market leader to market laggard in just six years. Its earnings fell from US$4bn to $0.6bn and its share price from $180 to $46 over this time. Theirs is a cautionary tale of what can happen when you fail to recognize the changes occurring in [...]

by Josh Linkner – Hyper-growth companies often credit a culture of innovation as their primary driver of success. They deploy creative thinking to attack problems big and small. Here’s how you can too. We live in a business world accelerating at a dizzying speed and teeming with ruthless competition. As most of the tangible advantages [...]

by Bruce Brown and Scott D. Anthony – Back in 2000 the prospects for Procter & Gamble’s Tide, the biggest brand in the company’s fabric and household care division, seemed limited. The laundry detergent had been around for more than 50 years and still dominated its core markets, but it was no longer growing fast [...]

By Jim Collins – The author of Good to Great on how to spot the subtle signs that your successful company is actually on course to sputter—and how to reverse the slide before it’s too late. I pondered and puzzled and finally settled upon the question: Is America renewing its greatness, or is America dangerously [...]

by Heidi Grant Halvorson – Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The [...]

by Rich Karlgaard – Last week I interviewed the Texas energy baron T. Boone Pickens four consecutive nights in front of a live audience. Pickens would talk for 40 minutes and then I would interview him for 50 minutes. (Full disclosure: I was paid a fee to do this, not from Pickens but from the [...]

by Rich Karlgaard – (Note: Last week I sat down with Intel’s Paul Otellini to talk about technology in the 2-to-5-year future. Can Moore’s Law continue? What will smartphones, tablets and PCs look like in two years? I will publish our conversation in the March 14 issue of Forbes magazine. Meanwhile, enjoy Otellini’s riff on [...]

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.

Creativity fosters innovation, but how can you ignite creative sparks within your organization? Inc.com compiled lessons on developing a vibrant research and development strategy. To come up with their best new ideas, most companies turn to an inexpensive and efficient source of innovation: their own employees. How can you unleash the creative spirit lurking in [...]

12/1/2010 – Rick Newman – They’re cool. That’s for sure. The Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt could turn out to be the most innovative mass-produced cars in a century. By taking some or all of their power from a household electrical outlet, they offer the first real glimpse of transportation that doesn’t rely on petroleum—and [...]

10/19/2010 – IBD Editorial – Government Motors’ all-electric car isn’t all-electric and doesn’t get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like “shovel-ready” jobs, maybe there’s no such thing as “plug-ready” cars either. The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its [...]

10/11/2010 – Steven Goldfien, MD – Peter Orszag, formerly the Director of the White Office of Management and Budget, appears to have found a new career as a pundit for the NYT. The fact that he’s chosen to admonish doctors in a recent sermon at least means that the new preacher and his chosen pulpit [...]

9/18/2010 – David Segal – Imagine you are a venture capitalist. One day a man comes to you and says, “I want to build the game layer on top of the world.” You don’t know what “the game layer” is, let alone whether it should be built atop the world. But he has a passionate [...]

7/12/2010 – Clayton M. Christensen & Michael B. Horn – Classrooms are giving way to online learning–forever. School is out, and for most students enjoying their midsummer pleasures, class time is a distant memory. Changes are underway that make it likely to stay that way. The schools students return to in the fall will look [...]

Inc.com | by Bo Burlingham | 2/1/2010 When Nick Sarillo launched his pizza business, he had one goal in mind: to create a corporate culture unlike any he had seen. It’s Takeout Tuesday at Nick’s Pizza & Pub, and the air is thick with the smells of hot pizza crust, peppers, onions, and cheese. Eighteen [...]

Forbes | by Sramana Mitra | Dec. 11, 2009 America is in dire need of some breakthrough innovation that can crack open significant new horizons. Yet, every year, numerous corporate and academic labs spend millions working on projects that have no commercial future, no application, no real justification for their existence. At best, they represent [...]

Web Worker Daily | by Amber Riviere | Nov. 17, 2009 Our impulse is usually to try to do everything. Opportunities present themselves, and we think, “If I turn this away, I may not get another shot. What if there’s nothing else coming down the pike?” Early on in our careers, especially, it’s tempting to [...]

The Wall Street Journal | by Scott Morrison | May 19, 2009 Concerned a brain drain could hurt its long-term ability to compete, Google Inc. is tackling the problem with its typical tool: an algorithm. The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula [...]

Fast Company | by Jeff Chu | September 2008 No one is attacking Washington, D.C.’s stagnant culture more boldly than Michelle Rhee, head of the city’s failing schools. Is there a lesson here for our nation’s leaders? Paul Laurence Dunbar Senior High School in Washington, D.C., is one of the worst schools in one of [...]