Fail Fast and Fail Forward

I just finished reading an interesting book by Peter Sims entitled Little Bets.  The book provides some fascinating insights about the true origins of innovation.  The author extensively studied the techniques of popular artists such as Chris Rock, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Jeff Bezos to better understand how they approach development of new ideas.  Sims demonstrates in the book that many great innovators do not achieve success by placing all their hopes in one big bet nor do they try develop elaborate plans to hit narrow targets on unknown horizons.  Instead these innvotors place a series of little bets, or “concrete actions taken to discover, test and develop ideas that are achievable and affordable.”  Sims maintains that while only a few people in the world are true prodigies, it is possible for anyone to use “little bets” to unlock creative ideas.

Israel – A Model for Innovation in High Tech

Innovation is without question the buzzword of the year in 2010. Every tradeshow I go to and every brochure I read is talking about how to improve innovation. When most Americans think about innovation they probably imagine companies such as Google, Cisco, Apple, Nintendo and other high tech leaders in Silicon Valley or Taiwan. But few people would probably list the high tech clusters in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv on their short list of innovation centers of the world. I was recently exposed to the fascinating world of innovation and entrepreneurialism that exists in Israel through a book called Startup Nation.