I just read an article in Strategy + Business magazine online about innovating in complements. The author starts off talking about how the Michellin brothers started producing travel guides and giving them away for free, and how that in turn helped them move from simple rubber processing to specializing in tires.
There are plenty more examples in the article and a summary of "five good questions" to ask that might lead to complementary innovation:
Five Good Questions So how do you uncover and evaluate innovation opportunities in complements? Here are five questions that can guide your thinking and help you set priorities.
1. What complements are currently constraining demand in our markets?
2. What new product might boost demand for our core offerings?
3. Would our customers buy more if they had better information?
4. Would we learn valuable lessons by innovating in complements?
5. Do we have competitors whose fortunes are tightly tied to the price of complements?
March 6, 2007 at 12:32 pm
· Filed under queer stuff
Panel on trasitioning to work from college as an LGBT person
Out for Work held a panel last night at Penn State Univeristy. I represented IBM on behalf of our LGBT group. The other panelists included folks from Johnson and Johnson, Sodexho, Mellon and Earnst and Young.
Prior to the conference there was a networking session where about 20 students showed up to chat. There was representation from freshmen to graduate classes and a variety of majors.
The panel session was a success with questions about including LGBT community participation on your resume, gender transition in the workplace, coming out experiences, and the general climate for LGBT folks at our companies.
I’m consistanly impressed by the degree of sophistication that current students seem to have. Their questions were thoughtful and sincere - I think that it was a successful event for all. Thanks so much to Eric for all of his leadership in organizing the oSTEM at PSU.
If you haven’t tried Qumana yet, you need to. It is by far the best blog editor that I have found. Many thanks to Luis (aka Captain KM) for his suggestion.
One of my favorite features is the droppad. I keep mine in the lower right hand corner of the screen. It’s great for cliping little quotes or images that I want to blog about, but more importantly it serves as a little reminder to keep my blog fresh.
And while I’m at it, I’d also give a nod to FastStone Image Capture as one of the best screen capture / editing programs I’ve use.
One of my favorite features is the droppad. I keep mine in the lower right hand corner of the screen. It’s great for cliping little quotes or images that I want to blog about, but more importantly it serves as a little reminder to keep my blog fresh.