John W Lewis

John W Lewis

Thinking, Understanding, and System modelling

  • Clive Francis, RIP

    On personal note, it was with great sadness that I received this news:

  • Historical posts follow…

    Earlier posts are from some considerable time ago. I’ve retained them because many remain relevant to innovation today.

  • Collaborative teams – USA versus Europe

    Today is the last day of the Ryder Cup 2014, and the score is 10-6 (see update below for the final score). We have been here before. In the past, this score has been overturned on the last day twice (in fact, every time, see footnote). Super-events Each sport has its super-events which evoke significantly…

  • The discontinuous nature of innovation

    Making sense of the field of innovation is not simple. This is partly because of the range of aspects of innovation that are frequently discussed. In this interview with Brightidea, the leading provider of innovation management systems, Keith McConnell, of Sara Lee, makes a distinction between innovation and “continuous improvement” in the first 25 seconds, when he…

  • Some things work now

    Some things work now

    It’s 2014! Some things still work (and some things don’t work any longer) Some things work now (and some things don’t work yet) You choose.

  • Gordon Edge, remembering a great innovator and leader

    It was with great sadness that I learned of the recent death of Gordon Edge. These are some of my memories of a great technology innovator and business leader. For a period of almost three years, during the 1980s, I was privileged to work at PA Technology, near Cambridge. This was a great place to…

  • Tesla in Texas: two innovations interacting?

    Selling innovative products If you are selling something, then you want people to buy it, but how? The challenge is greater if your product is more innovative. But maybe other innovations can come to the rescue. Resistance from existing distributors For Tesla, the electric car manufacturer which is shaking up the motor industry, Texas is…

  • How much fun will your three year old child have learning to ride a bike?

    Training wheels don’t work If you have a young child who will learn to ride a bike sometime soon, you probably have recollections of the bike that you learnt on, and the awkwardness of bikes with stabilisers (also known as: training wheels). Recently, I came across this article about training wheels and balance bikes and it…

  • Mobile network vs landlines for internet access

    Reply to Twitter messages This is a reply to messages from @TobyParkins between 0813 and 0815UTC on 14 March 2013. (This is also a communications experiment which I can perhaps try to explain elsewhere. Suffice to say, for now, that this is like a slightly longer Twitter message.) The conversation so far is below.

  • Unified communication, this is not!

    In this world of increasingly diverse communication, our conversations are becoming scattered across channels. A few channels in a few minutes Yesterday, my ex-partner sent me a text (SMS) message which approximated to: “Will you please reply to my email about …?”. A few minutes later, she sent me another: “Actually, it might have been a…