Digital Twins Are Useful, But Can You Trust Them?

Digital Twins Are Useful, But Can You Trust Them?

You may have seen the TV advert for Experian in which Marcus Brigstocke meets his ‘data self’. A collection of live information that governs how financial institutions treat him as a customer. This is a variant of the ‘digital twin’ ...

Why Industry Clusters Are Important For You

Why Industry Clusters Are Important For You

What do Mumbai, Copenhagen, the Spanish town of Castellón de la Plana, and the small US town of Dalton, Georgia, have in common? Each is at the centre of a concentrated industry cluster. Mumbai is famous for being the home of Bollywood, ...

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. My ...

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 we ...

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 ...

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 simple and ...

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 panel ...

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 need to ...

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 in ...

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 Future ...