How large does a conference have to be to be worth being mentioned in the media? One thousand people? Ten thousand people? How about 345,000+ people? That's the number of tickets sold to the world's largest video game conference in Cologne, Germany. You have to see it to understand the magnitude. Staggered entrance times, thousands of people waiting for hours in line to get a chance to play the newest video game blockbusters for 10 minutes. And the vast majority under the age of 25. So much about attention deficit and passionless new generations.
While I got an invitation to speak an experience this conference, the public and media response was dismal. Either total neglect or when, then riding the same old stereotypes of violent and addicted gamers of a generation of losers. But just the opposite is true. This generation comes to the workplace with a passion and an experience of 10,000+ hours of video game play. And we have no new answers to that just the same old tired lines.
Read my report on that conference and what needs to be done.
Innovation and how to foster it puzzles many corporations. A common approach seems to be throwing money at it. But is this effective? Are companies that spend a lot of money on R&D also the most innovative one? That's a question that PricewaterhouseCoopers asked executives and crunched data. The outcome is not really a surprise. No, big spending does not mean you are more innovative. Read a more detailed analysis here.
But what exactly prevents innovation from happening? Behavioral economist Richard Thaler, who just recently published his book Misbehaving talks about the dumb principal, the narrow framing concept, and the hindsight bias that creep into organizations. Read in my blog what that exactly means and how you can avoid this.
Startups get so much attention these days that some columnists seem unable to take it anymore. Like Lukas Mikelionis from British The Telegraph. But he seems to be missing the point. Startups for him look just like get-rich-quick-schemes, at the same time he is blaming them for failing to high degrees. So what now? A sure way to get rich quick or to failure?
Everyone who's been involved knows that nowadays there is some glamour reflecting on startups, it's still a very lonely, risky, and very exhausting adventure. Innovation management consultant Eugene Ivanov responds to the Telegraph opinion piece with analyzing Lukas' arguments. A worthwhile read I think: Start-ups as an enemy of entrepreneurship?
Silicon Valley has its share of robots and autonomous vehicles already roaming in the wild. And I actually wanted to avoid the topic for a couple of newsletters, but there is just too much of interesting stuff coming in.
First, Business insider breaks down all they know so far about Apple's secret car initiative, codenamed 'Project Titan' - because you know, this is Apple. You just can't name such a project Butterfly or Summer Breeze.
Second, while some of us relate robots with Terminator-style fighting machines, turns out that robots must rather fear us. Not only did the hitchhiking robot find its untimely demise in Philadelphia (thanks to a human with anger-management issues), also those little humans - aka children - pose some real danger for our mechano-electrical friends. Scientists started now teaching robots to avoid children and run for protection to adults. Run for your life, little robots! Read more here.
Today's NSFW - internet lingo for Not Safe For Work - is a project by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht commissioned by Audi. To promote its new A4 sedan, the German manufacturer commissioned the Dutch fashion-tech provocateur to create clothing that highlighted the car’s innovations.
I have met Anouk in San Francisco a few weeks ago, where she presented one of her projects that included an animatronic dress with spider-like limbs that lash out at intruders.
The outcome with the Audi-project is quite impressive. Here are several videos that leave you in awe!
