Innovation is done by individuals working in small focused groups. Big groups commercialize, manufacture and distribute. Small groups innovate breakthrough technology applications -"BTAs."There are so many examples of these facts that I am always puzzled by the latest academic research on innovation that proves facts "already known." However, the quantity of academic research on the subject is not half as mysterious as the question of why companies do not organize to take advantage of these facts. Despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, large companies still believe they can innovate, or refuse to acknowledge the innovations of others that threaten their own business.
If big companies with smart people, and huge budgets, with numerous PhD degrees and numerous MBA degrees from Ivy colleges were the answer, IBM and General Motors would control the world. They don't.
Apple in contrast has found the model. Let your executives innovate with a small teams of select people.
What is the point? Tweet---message to large company CEOs. Identify 100 of your best vision-thinkers and developers. Divide them into 5 groups of 20. Do not specify who is in charge. No hierarchy. Send them to a far away place for six months. Greece. Cyprus. India. China. Colorado. Leave them alone. No monthly reporting. Ask them to develop a detailed plan with BTAs to obsolete your current product line? Have them report only to you the CEO. In other words, create your own suite of small companies. It is more economical than acquiring them, or worse yet getting beat up by them.
What did I learn from Steve Jobs and others? Obsolete your own products before someone else does?
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