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Author: richardmiller

Great Innovation Stories Teach Us How To Do Better

Great Innovation Stories Teach Us How To Do Better

I love reading innovation stories. Where the idea came from, how they overcame problems, and what they make possible. Stories are how we excite people about innovation and why it matters. We need to tell more stories and better stories.

richardmiller 18/02/201918/02/2019 Blog No Comments Read more

Helping City Managers See the Results of Their Decisions

Helping City Managers See the Results of Their Decisions

I have long thought the only way we can create cities that are economically successful, great places to live, sustainable and resilient, is to treat them as an integrated system of systems. The problem is that cities are so complicated

richardmiller 04/02/201904/02/2019 Blog No Comments Read more

Stop Wasting Vital Materials to Avoid Economic Collapse

Stop Wasting Vital Materials to Avoid Economic Collapse

150 years ago, Dimitri Mendeleev developed the Periodic Table of the Elements. A way of organising all the information about the behaviour of the 63 elements known at the time. It has become an iconic image of science, and in

richardmiller 21/01/201926/01/2019 Blog No Comments Read more

How to Pick the Right Business Experiment

How to Pick the Right Business Experiment

To innovate, we need to try things out; to experiment. But how do we select the right experiment? How do we choose? Whenever we conduct an experiment, we want the maximum information at the minimum cost. Experiments should be as

richardmiller 07/01/201907/01/2019 Blog No Comments Read more

Clean Technology Innovation in Good Health

Clean Technology Innovation in Good Health

Last Friday I attended the annual Business Green Technology Awards. I always enjoy these events as they provide a great snapshot of innovation activity in the cleantech sector in the UK. This year I was a member of the judging

richardmiller 10/12/201810/12/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Experiment To Improve The Chance Of Innovation Success

Experiment To Improve The Chance Of Innovation Success

We know that business needs to innovate. Whether a startup, established SME or major industry player, new customer offers are critical for survival. We also know that most innovations fail in the market; despite our enthusiasm, creativity and persistence. We

richardmiller 27/11/201805/01/2019 Blog No Comments Read more

The “Abominable No-Man” and Innovation

The “Abominable No-Man” and Innovation

In 1955 C. Northcote Parkinson wrote an article in The Economist that introduced the world to Parkinson’s Law – “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. An observation so universal in application that it is instantly recognisable

richardmiller 13/11/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Getting the Best Out of the Glasgow Demonstrator

Getting the Best Out of the Glasgow Demonstrator

One of the fascinating things about innovation projects is the way that they evolve and change as the project progresses, and how they leave echoes long after the project has finished. In 2012 I was involved in setting up the

richardmiller 29/10/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

2 Reasons Why Deep Retrofit is Vital for Zero Carbon Homes

2 Reasons Why Deep Retrofit is Vital for Zero Carbon Homes

Since the IET published our report “Scaling Up Retrofit 2050” several people have asked me why the emphasis on ‘deep retrofit’? Taking today’s properties and upgrading them to 2050 energy efficiency standards in one step. Wouldn’t it be better to

richardmiller 22/10/201822/10/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

How to Make 26 Million Homes Zero-Carbon by 2050

How to Make 26 Million Homes Zero-Carbon by 2050

The challenge of retrofitting 26 million homes In the UK we face a stiff challenge. The Climate Change Act of 2008 sets a legal target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Every part of the UK economy

richardmiller 15/10/201815/10/2018 Blog 2 Comments Read more

What are the latest developments in low carbon vehicles?

What are the latest developments in low carbon vehicles?

  Every year I try to get to the Cenex Low Carbon Vehicles show at Millbrook. Now ten years old, this exhibition gives me a chance to see where we are up to on our journey to zero-carbon transportation. You

richardmiller 03/10/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Careful Pricing Is Vital For Successful Innovation

Careful Pricing Is Vital For Successful Innovation

Correctly pricing a new product or service is vital. Too high and you get no customers, too low and you leave money on the table. Either way you burn through cash so your innovation, and possibly your company, fails. Pricing

richardmiller 17/09/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

2018 Heatwave Threatens the Future of Towns and Cities

2018 Heatwave Threatens the Future of Towns and Cities

A large part of the world’s population has experienced a dramatic heatwave in the summer of 2018. We have felt the impact of high temperatures and low rainfall, and we have seen dry rivers, empty reservoirs, and wildfires from all over

richardmiller 13/08/201817/08/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Understanding Your Project Portfolio with the Consumer/Technology Matrix

Understanding Your Project Portfolio with the Consumer/Technology Matrix

When you are only working on one innovation project at a time, you can give it all the care and attention it needs. There are no competing resource demands; at least for creating new products and services. Life gets more

richardmiller 31/07/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

How to Spot and Make Use of Disruptive Innovation

How to Spot and Make Use of Disruptive Innovation

For many years I have been fascinated by the idea of disruptive innovation and technologies. Whilst disruption certainly happens, there are plenty of historical examples of that, I don’t think you can identify which innovations will be disruptive and how

richardmiller 16/07/201820/07/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

A Green Future: What Can We Do about Plastic Packaging?

A Green Future: What Can We Do about Plastic Packaging?

[This article was co-authored by Darren Ragheb of CPI and Richard Miller] At the end of 2017 the natural history programme, Blue Planet II, dramatically pushed the impact of waste plastics on the oceans into public eye. Since then, the topic

richardmiller 02/07/201802/07/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

A Snapshot of Energy Innovation from the Rushlight Summer Showcase

A Snapshot of Energy Innovation from the Rushlight Summer Showcase

Last week I visited the Rushlight Summer Showcase in London. This brings together clean technology companies looking for investment and potential investors. The companies give a series of five-minute pitches to an investor panel, and there is also an exhibition

richardmiller 18/06/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Knowledge Management is Not About Choosing the Right Software, But the Right Strategy

Knowledge Management is Not About Choosing the Right Software, But the Right Strategy

Business is all about knowledge and understanding; of the market, your customers, competitors, technologies and systems. Thomas Stewart used to say that “the history of business is the history of managing knowledge”. That has been true for thousands of years

richardmiller 29/05/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Why Do Startups Fail?

Why Do Startups Fail?

A while ago I wrote about why innovations fail, and I wondered about start-ups. Do they have the same problems, or are they completely different? How often start-ups fail is a matter of debate. A commonly quoted figure is that

richardmiller 14/05/2018 Blog 2 Comments Read more

Making Progress Means Changing the Team

Making Progress Means Changing the Team

Getting the right people doing the right jobs is one of the major challenges in a small, growing business. We each have our particular strengths and our favoured working styles. Teams need to evolve as the business develops, and getting

richardmiller 02/05/201802/05/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

All Innovation is Important, Not Just Some Types

All Innovation is Important, Not Just Some Types

Sometimes in conversation you suddenly run straight into a conceptual brick wall. You seem to be discussing the same topic, but somehow you are approaching it from such different positions that there seems to be ‘your topic’ and ‘their topic’

richardmiller 16/04/201816/04/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Dealing With the ‘Unwritten Rules’

Dealing With the ‘Unwritten Rules’

We all recognise that it is hard to make change happen. This is nothing new. In the early 16th C Machiavelli commented in The Prince “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain

richardmiller 03/04/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Trying to Sell Energy Efficiency Won’t Work

Trying to Sell Energy Efficiency Won’t Work

There is a real challenge right at the heart of climate change policy in the UK. The Climate Change Act requires us to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, compared to a 1990 baseline. All parts of our economy

richardmiller 19/03/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Listening to Faint Whispers from the Future

Listening to Faint Whispers from the Future

“Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.”; a quote so useful that it has been linked to everyone from Yogi Berra to Niels Bohr. Yes, prediction is difficult, but when we innovate it is essential. We should be thinking not only about the

richardmiller 26/02/201817/08/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

The Eco-Innovation Compass

The Eco-Innovation Compass

To make progress towards a circular economy we need innovation. New products and services, new methods and new approaches. The challenge is, first of all, to find inspiration for innovative ideas, and secondly, to be able to compare different options

richardmiller 12/02/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Reducing Plastic Waste is Important but Difficult!

Reducing Plastic Waste is Important but Difficult!

The topic of plastic waste and its environmental impact has rocketed up the political agenda in the last few weeks. Blue Planet II alerted the public to the impact of our waste plastics on the oceans and the life in

richardmiller 15/01/201815/01/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

The Importance of the Zoom Function in Strategy

The Importance of the Zoom Function in Strategy

  We live in a big and complex world faced with big and complex problems; climate change, population growth, environmental degradation and inequality. In these mega-challenges, as well as the apparently simpler task of running a city or creating a

richardmiller 02/01/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

A Scaleable Approach to Improving Energy Efficiency in Buildings

A Scaleable Approach to Improving Energy Efficiency in Buildings

The UK has a problem; rather a large one. The Climate Change Act 2008 commits the UK to reduce carbon emissions by 80% from a 1990 baseline by 2050. In 2016 the biggest single consumer of energy was transport at

richardmiller 11/12/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Does 3D Printing Help Sustainability?

Does 3D Printing Help Sustainability?

Over the last few years, there has been a significant growth in interest in 3D printing. It has moved from clever demonstrations of technical capability, producing objects impossible by conventional methods, to commercial usefulness. Initially used for the creation of

richardmiller 04/12/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Successful Innovation Needs Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Successful Innovation Needs Divergent and Convergent Thinking

I was recently at an event on innovation when the speaker put up the following quote from the design guru John Maeda: “…economies are built upon convergent thinkers, people that execute things, get them done. But artists and designers are

richardmiller 27/11/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Projects and Learning

Projects and Learning

We never learn Do you ever get a sinking feeling as you start a new project or activity? A conviction that somewhere, at some time, a very similar project started, and yet we can’t seem to lay our hands on

richardmiller 06/11/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Project Learning – Before, During and After

Project Learning – Before, During and After

“Learning Before During and After – Notes”  We know that we should be constantly learning, as individuals and as organisations, from every activity we undertake. Continuously building our skills and knowledge to improve our performance. We know that we should

richardmiller 06/11/201706/11/2017 Tools No Comments Read more

5,000 Years of Knowledge Management

5,000 Years of Knowledge Management

Thomas Stewart said, “the history of business is the history of ways of managing knowledge.” Competitive advantage has always been about being better at using knowledge than the other person. And when you look back into the past, that has

richardmiller 16/10/201704/12/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Where Do You Put Renewable Energy Until You Need It?

Where Do You Put Renewable Energy Until You Need It?

The cost of renewable energy continues to fall, and more and more of our electricity comes from renewables and low-carbon sources. On one day in June the renewable electricity supply peaked at over half the UK’s demand, and National Grid

richardmiller 09/10/201717/08/2018 Blog 2 Comments Read more

Sustainability is About the Future of Your Business.

Sustainability is About the Future of Your Business.

There is a tendency among many people to see sustainability as a moral crusade; the right way to run your business and lead your life. Others put it together with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as about being a good neighbor,

richardmiller 02/10/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Renewable Low-Carbon Heat

Renewable Low-Carbon Heat

Decarbonising heat A key challenge facing the UK is decarbonising the energy system. The UK is legally committed to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and eventually to net-zero under the Paris Agreement.  Most of the focus in

richardmiller 26/09/201726/09/2017 Blog 1 Comment Read more

Another Brick in the Wall

Another Brick in the Wall

A few years ago, I was working with the product development group of a technology company. I asked one of the managers how information flowed between the various groups involved in bringing a new product to market. “It’s simple”, he

richardmiller 20/09/201717/08/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Visiting the Future of Low Carbon Vehicles

Visiting the Future of Low Carbon Vehicles

On 7th September I visited the CENEX Low Carbon Vehicles event at Millbrook to find out what was going on in the world of low carbon transport. This was the 10th year, and in that time the topic has moved

richardmiller 11/09/201714/05/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Seeing and Being Seen

Seeing and Being Seen

It’s the time of year to start looking forward to the best innovation conference and showcase in the UK – Innovate 2017. This year it is taking place on 8th and 9th November at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Birmingham.

richardmiller 04/09/201714/05/2018 Blog No Comments Read more

Innovation is a Conversation, Not a Linear Process

Innovation is a Conversation, Not a Linear Process

Why do people describe innovation as linear? I have always been fascinated by the process of innovation. How people identify opportunities, organise to create a solution, and then deliver it to the market. I have read hundreds of books, papers,

richardmiller 24/07/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

A Roadmap to Reverse Global Warming

A Roadmap to Reverse Global Warming

I did not know that! Looking out into Liverpool Bay from my home in North Wales, I can see several arrays of offshore wind turbines. I did not know that the latest turbines in the Burbo Bank Extension are so

richardmiller 04/07/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Let’s Go to San Francisco

Let’s Go to San Francisco

A week ago, I returned from the 2017 Clean and Cool Mission to San Francisco and the Bay Area. Twenty of the best young UK clean technology companies, selected by open competition, spending an intensive week studying, debating and learning,

richardmiller 26/06/201712/09/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

A Technologist Learns to Win Friends and Influence People

A Technologist Learns to Win Friends and Influence People

Innovators need to be persuasive In my career in industrial R&D and innovation I spent a lot of time trying to persuade people to give me the resources I needed to execute my ideas, or to persuade them to try

richardmiller 22/05/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Notes on Social Styles

Notes on Social Styles

“Social Styles – an Influencing Tool”  We all want to influence or persuade other people. We want to recruit their support, to gain investment or access to resources, to form a partnership, or to get them to try something new.

richardmiller 21/05/2017 Tools No Comments Read more

The Challenge of Business Model Innovation

Worried Businesswoman

You Need More than Product Innovation Innovation is about much more than just creating a new product or service. Innovation should apply to all parts of a business; from supply chain and logistics to the relationship with customers and how

richardmiller 08/05/201709/05/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Beware of Cargo Cult Management

Bamboo and thatch plane used by Cargo Cult

Cargo Cults During World War II, Melanesian islanders were astonished when the Japanese and American militaries arrived with vast quantities of supplies of all sorts, delivered by plane and parachute drop. These supplies found their way into the local economy

richardmiller 24/04/201725/04/2017 Blog No Comments Read more

Bridging the Gap in Future Cities

Bridging the Gap in Future Cities

There is a lot of frustration in our inability to make our cities work more effectively for citizens. We can see the problems, and we have a large number of solutions being offered by everyone from big multinational engineering consultancies

richardmiller 11/04/2017 Blog 1 Comment Read more

Why Do Innovations Fail?

Why Do Innovations Fail?

Most new products and services launched onto the market fail to deliver the expected results. There is a big debate about how many fail. The numbers range from estimates of 80% – 90% all the way down to around 30%.

richardmiller 03/04/2017 Blog 2 Comments Read more

Would You Know a Disruptive Innovation if You Saw One?

Yellow taxis

Since it was introduced to the wider business world by Clayton Christensen 20 years ago in “The Innovator’s Dilemma” the idea of ‘disruptive innovation’and ‘disruptive technologies’ has spread around the world. The insight that Christensen and his colleagues had was

richardmiller 27/03/201726/07/2018 Blog 1 Comment Read more

The Business Opportunity of Future Cities

Tianjin eco-city

There is a rapidly growing global market out there that you may not yet be thinking about. It is expected to be worth more than $2 trillion p.a. by 2030. It has an insatiable appetite for innovation of all types,

richardmiller 19/03/201712/09/2017 Blog No Comments Read more
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Recent Posts

  • Great Innovation Stories Teach Us How To Do Better 18/02/2019
  • Helping City Managers See the Results of Their Decisions 04/02/2019
  • Stop Wasting Vital Materials to Avoid Economic Collapse 21/01/2019
  • How to Pick the Right Business Experiment 07/01/2019
  • Clean Technology Innovation in Good Health 10/12/2018

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