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You have interviewed two serial hackers products. These companies have a hard time
for your books “The Watchman” and “The
Fugitive Man”. Does innovation also mean
challenging the system?
In my youth, I wrote two bestsellers about
famous computer hackers (Kevin Poulsen
and Kevin David Mitnick), but in reality,
neither of them really hacked for profit. In the
beginning, there was a whole computer
generation that did what the Portuguese did,
they 'explored' the world, the world of
technology and computer networks even
before the mobile phone and
telecommunications networks.
This mindset is the same that has birthed
great companies like Apple – Steve Jobs was
actually a slightly criminal hacker and was
doing things that were against the law, but
later on, he did very beautiful things and
created an incredible company. So many of
these early hackers tested and challenged
systems, a mindset that many entrepreneurs
have today to test and improve a product and
come up with something completely new.
Many countries, including Israel, have
hackers working for the state.
The US is not as smart in this area, but
people are beginning to realize that you can
give people good opportunities and that they
can innovate by going to the good side of
what we call the 'white hat hacker' instead of
the 'black hat hacker'.
Given your work with global organizations,
what is your perception of how companies
promote internal talent and innovation from
within?
Unfortunately, many are not very good at
that, because they get stuck in the idea that
they are already good companies with
established customers and established
products. Because they need to keep making
money, they need to keep selling the same
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doing two things at once: maintaining their
current business and having the courage and
the vision to innovate and think wildly about
what may be next.
Another thing I see a lot is that there are
methods to rate people by sales or things
they already know, but there are no good
ways to measure or understand talent in
companies. And they absolutely need to
promote this.
Is there a book we should all read in school
to awaken innovation from an early age, long
before entering the labor market?
“Alice in Wonderland” is a fantastic work
because it awakens the imagination,
broadens the view of things, has wonderful
characters, and presents a narrative that
breaks the tradition.
Speaking of books, in your book “The Ten
Faces of Innovation”, you present ten profiles
with specific roles and contributions to
innovation (the Anthropologist, the
Experimenter, the Cross-Pollinator, the
Hurdler, the Collaborator, the Director, the
Experience Architect, the Set Designer, the
Storyteller, and the Caregiver). Do companies
have them all... or do we see a gap?
We have many Anthropologists, and many
companies with solutions in the market that
really observe, understand, and interact with
customers, anticipating their needs. We also
have many Experimenters and prototypers,
which I call makers.
Many companies fail in a profile that I
love and is part of my skill set – the
Cross-Pollinator, who crosses ideas from
other areas, markets, and parts of the
world to get a creative mix at the root of
innovation.