Open-Source on Hyperspeed: Next generation innovation lessons from Shenzhen
In Shenzhen, 山寨 (shanzhai) has a different meaning than mountain stronghold—yet the term so eloquently expresses a continuity, a history, and a genesis. Shanzhai is a Cantonese term, originally used as a derogatory word for knock-offs — because people from rural mountain villages couldn’t afford real Louis Vuitton or officially produced DVDs of Friends. As a result, […]
Shopping for Innovation: What you need to know before hiring a design firm
This guide was written for Core77 in late 2006, co-authored with Steve Portigal. I was looking for it today, as I wanted to share the distinction between a Vendor of innovation and design services and a Partner who goes beyond the requested task to discern and perceive the real challenge to be solved. I couldn’t […]
Implications of Mobile Money Interoperability in Kenya?
Mobile money pioneer Kenya, has finally gone live this month with account to account interoperability between mobile money services. Neighbouring Tanzania pioneered interoperability between the mobile money services offered by local telcos with a soft launch back in 2014. Fears of cannibalization and zero sum scenarios were unfounded, as documented in an early evaluation report […]
How do we make a business case for an innovative concept given the data scarcity for the African mass market?
Anzetse Were writes some thoughtful points on the challenges facing private sector innovation in Kenya, and Africa. Two of her points caught my attention, in particular: With regards to the private sector, an interesting point raised is that innovation targeting it must have a business case for adoption otherwise the innovation won’t be absorbed. Innovation […]
How the African movable assets bill can unleash innovation opportunities for the rural economy
As Kenya joins Zambia and Zimbabwe in ratifying a Movable Property Security Rights Act, there’s a sense that the floodgates to innovation in access to finance might be taking place in rural Africa, south of the Sahara and north of South Africa. Kenya’s law also goes beyond the cows and goats and allows a borrower […]
Innovation, Ingenuity and Opportunity under Conditions of Scarcity (Download PDF)
In July 2009, I was inspired by working in the Research wing of the Aalto University’s Design Factory in Espoo, Finland, to launch a group blog called REculture: Exploring the post-consumption economy of repair, reuse, repurpose and recycle by informal businesses at the Base of the Pyramid*. Within a year, this research interest evolved into […]
5 examples of the breadth of African led human-centered design and thinking and planning
The other day I was searching for news on design from the African continent and noted on Twitter that it seemed as though only the South Africans were consistently talking about their various creative outputs. Having long been part of the crowd that believed in the indigenous creativity and innovation in the less visible parts […]
@Prepaid Africa Connecting Dots – October 2015
October was a busy month for us – The African Development Bank hosted their first Innovation Weekend in Abidjan from the 9th to the 11th of October. Our contribution was thinking about the problems we face as the starting point for new venture design. Savvy young people from across Francophone West Africa gathered to conceptualize […]
Tsunami of change – design, brands, marketing and the mobile phone
In the 10 short months since I wrote on the market forces influencing the global mobile phone market, and the implications of the democratization of innovation whose early, weak signals I could already foresee, matters have come to a head. I had written: The locus of innovation in handset design, product planning and market strategy […]
10 years later: Will buying Lunar Design make McKinsey more nimble?
Around 10 years ago, I’d made this rough sketch of the innovation consulting landscape as I saw it at the time. The overlap of business and design was the topic du jour, and IDEO had just begun seeding the media with stories of the Empathy Economy and the magic of “design thinking”. Today*, peterme’s blogpost […]
