LOI Staff

Biomimicry: Why Every Chief Innovation Officer Needs to Understand it

Editors Pick, Biomimicry

Let’s be honest about corporate innovation: we preach radical thinking but practice incremental adjustments. Our innovation frameworks and ideation sessions mostly generate variations on familiar themes. Meanwhile, biomimicry offers access to 3.8 billion years of nature’s R&D breakthroughs, yet we walk right past this laboratory toward another whiteboard session. Nature isn’t just a source of […]

Biomimicry: Why Every Chief Innovation Officer Needs to Understand it Read More »

Wait, How Do We Estimate That Innovation? A Guide to Expected Commercial Value (ECV) Inputs

Expected Commercial Value

Innovation teams love to talk about disruption, moonshots, and changing the world. But when the CFO walks into the room asking which projects deserve actual money, the conversation gets awkward fast. Everyone suddenly remembers they have another meeting. This is where Expected Commercial Value swoops in like a financial superhero, promising to turn fuzzy innovation

Wait, How Do We Estimate That Innovation? A Guide to Expected Commercial Value (ECV) Inputs Read More »

The Invisible Infrastructure of Innovation Genius- An Introduction to TRIZ

The Invisible Infrastructure of Innovation Genius: An Introduction to TRIZ

TRIZ, Editors Pick, Innovation Methods

Every inventor secretly believes they’ve conjured their breakthrough from thin air. The mythology of innovation feeds this delusion. We celebrate the lone genius struck by lightning, the eureka moment in the bathtub, the flash of divine inspiration that changes everything. But what if invention isn’t magic at all? What if genius has a blueprint? In

The Invisible Infrastructure of Innovation Genius: An Introduction to TRIZ Read More »

Cognitive Load: The Hidden Metric That Rules Process Innovation

Process Innovation, Editors Pick, Innovation Domain

We measure everything in business. Customer satisfaction scores. Time to market. Cost per acquisition. Return on investment. We’ve become masters at quantifying the visible. Yet the most powerful force shaping whether your brilliant process innovation succeeds or fails remains largely invisible: the amount of mental effort it demands from the people who have to use

Cognitive Load: The Hidden Metric That Rules Process Innovation Read More »

Why Business Model Innovation Trumps Product Innovation Every Single Time

Why Business Model Innovation Trumps Product Innovation Every Single Time

Innovation Domain, Business Model Innovation, Editors Pick

Meet business model innovation, where the best mousetrap in the world won’t save your business if you’re giving it away for free. This sounds obvious, yet companies spend billions perfecting their products while treating their business model as an afterthought. They obsess over features, design, and user experience. They hire the best engineers and designers.

Why Business Model Innovation Trumps Product Innovation Every Single Time Read More »

The Ethics of Product Innovation- Can Your Product Be Too Addictive?

The Ethics of Product Innovation: Can Your Product Be Too Addictive?

Product Innovation, Editors Pick, Innovation Domain

Slot machines don’t have pull levers anymore. They have buttons. The change wasn’t aesthetic. Engineers discovered that buttons let people play faster, lose money quicker, and stay glued to their seats longer. The lever required a physical pull, a moment of reset between spins. The button eliminated that pause. Now there’s nothing between you and

The Ethics of Product Innovation: Can Your Product Be Too Addictive? Read More »

Why Your Innovation Funnel is Clogged with Safe Mediocrity

Why Your Innovation Funnel is Clogged with “Safe” Mediocrity

Stage-Gate Process, Innovation Methods

Every quarter, innovation teams gather in conference rooms with whiteboards and sticky notes. They brainstorm. They vote. They rank ideas on matrices measuring feasibility against impact. Then something curious happens. The boldest ideas die quiet deaths while cautious increments march forward. By the time proposals reach senior leadership, the innovation pipeline looks less like a

Why Your Innovation Funnel is Clogged with “Safe” Mediocrity Read More »

The Innovation Paradox: Why the Best Ideas Usually Come from Your Worst Customers

Market Pull Innovation

Your best customers love you. They sing your praises at dinner parties, renew their subscriptions without hesitation, and never complain about your product. They’re also probably preventing you from innovating. Meanwhile, somewhere in your inbox sits an angry email from someone who hates what you’ve built. They found seventeen things wrong with your product in

The Innovation Paradox: Why the Best Ideas Usually Come from Your Worst Customers Read More »