Business and Economics
Short Takes: Mark Cuban
Cuban is an active investor in leading and cutting-edge technologies and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Prior to his purchase of the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, the leading provider of multimedia and streaming on the Internet. Today, in addition to his ownership of the Mavericks, Cuban is also Chairman of the high-definition television station HDNet which he launched in 2001. HDNet is the world's first national television network broadcasting all of its programming in 1080i high-definition television (HDTV).
Short Takes: Lois Kelly
Lois Kelly, author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, believes the root cause of many business and marketing problems is communications. She's dedicated her career to helping companies talk about their companies and issues in ways that get people to buy, believe and change, no matter how complex the topic or how competitive the market. Clients have included SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sapient, FedEx, The Business Innovation Factory, Hyperion, eRoom, Copernicus, Orange, and SAS Institute.
Steven Johnson at BIF (Excerpt)
It was a great pleasure to welcome Steve Johnson to BIF on March 16, 2009 for a conversation about his new book, "The Invention of Air." In a forum with a few dozen members of the BIF community, Johnson discussed the story of Enlightenment-era innovator Joseph Priestly and the emerging social networks that enabled his ideas to flourish. Here's a quick video of Steven talking about the book.
The Silver Lining: Scott Anthony Video Podcast
Business Innovation Factory's Chris Flanagan talks with the President of Innosight, Scott Anthony about his latest book The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times. (Hint: "The scarcity resulting from the current economic crisis is actually a good thing for innovation.)
Innosight is a consulting firm founded on the backbone of BIF research advisor Clayton Christensen's disruptive innovation theories and Scott co-wrote two of Clay's landmark books on the subject. In this interview, he shares some interesting insight into today's economic turmoil which he aptly dubs "the great disruption." How should you prune your innovation and business portfolio prudently? How important are strategic experiments in mitigating innovation risks? Will this tumultuous time period change or is it here to stay? Scott has decidedly upbeat things to say and the conversation wraps up with a discussion about business model innovation and what it takes to create systems-level transformation.
John Abele at BIF-4
As a leader of the Grunion expedition, Abele recently rediscovered the WWII submarine his father disappeared on in 1942.
Randy Antik at BIF-2
What do you do when you’re told your child will never graduate from high school? Randy Antik talks about finding the one doctor who could help and helping that doctor scale his approach to reach millions of kids a year.
Dave Balter at BIF-3
Balter is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent, Inc., one of the advertising industry's most recognized word-of-mouth marketing and media firms. Balter currently serves as Chair of the The Word of Mouth Marketing Association International Committee.
Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt at BIF-4
This duo shares their experience creating Best Buy’s successful Blue Shirt Nation employee engagement program.
Chris Benedict at BIF-3
Benedict doesn't just do "green" architecture. She recently completed a 38-unit new construction project that uses 85% less energy than standard designs...and she did it without subsidy or special grants.
David Berry at BIF-4
Principal at Flagship Ventures and dishes about the status of VC funding in earliest days of financial market crash.