A comic enthusiast’s thoughts on ideas and innovation

Arpit MathurComcast Innovation Labs

Lead Software Engineer at Comcast Innovation LabsFormer comic books illustrator

Innovation Comics

Characterized by the creation of new ideas or things; Forward looking; ahead of current

thinking

What is Innovation?

1: Constraints aren’t always a bad thing

Twitter and the 140 character limit

JugaadThere is an entirely new type of innovation thinking called "constraint-based innovation" - innovation that relies more on ingenuity in product, process and people to solve a customer's problem by creative improvisation rather than scientific and technological breakthroughs. In India, colloquially, we call this "jugaad" and it's now got a new name "frugal engineering."

2: Nothing is sacred

IBM’s evolution from hardware to software services company

Odeo to Twitter

Flickr MMORPG to Photo Sharing

• 9 Seasons• 154 episodes• 70, 760 Subscribers• 4,167,989 views for episode 1

3: Errors and Serendipity

Penicillin Transistors

Potato Chips

GravitySmart Dust

Coca Cola

Vulcanized Rubber

Plastic

The Slow Hunch

Personal networks and filter bubbles

The goal of a leader should be to maximize resistance-in the sense of encouraging disagreement and dissent. When an organization is in crisis…(lack of dissent) can mean that the change you are trying to create isn’t radical enough.

Dov FrohmanFounder of Intel Israel

Charlan Nemeth and the value of Dissidents

…rogues and rebels… liberate us from conformity and, more importantly, they stimulate us to think more divergently and creatively. We consider more facts and more possibilities; we find and devise solutions.

– Rogues and Heroes: The value of dissent

Kill ideas liberally

“[Innovation] comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”

-Steve Jobs

Links

• Filter Bubbles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s