Jan Bosch
Every few weeks, it seems, we are treated to another major breakthrough innovation in artificial intelligence. Whether it is Deep Mind’s system beating the world champion Go player, GPT-3 dazzling us with Turing test breaking abilities or DALLE-2 generating images that are simply stunning, it seems like we are on the cusp of general artificial … Read more
Although it is uncertain who said this, a famous quote is “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” This notion is at the heart of digitalization: much of what we think we know is no longer true when the industry goes … Read more
Many companies are good at generating sustaining innovations in their mature, revenue generating products. We know what KPIs customers care about and we focus our efforts on continues improvement of these KPIs. For example, because of regulation as well as customer preference, the fuel efficiency of vehicles as well as their reliability has steadily improved … Read more
One of the things that never ceases to surprise me is the amount of misconception around the notion of innovation. Reams of paper have been filled with reflections on successful innovation and the people behind successful innovation typically receive enormous amounts of attention in their industry. Of course, what remains unsaid in these conversations is … Read more
One of the most common questions I get when discussing digitalization of an industry and a company operating in that industry concerns resources. The typical line of argument goes along the lines of agreeing that it is relevant and important to explore digital solutions for the company, but that unfortunately no resources are available to … Read more
Innovation is one of those overloaded terms that in popular discussion can mean anything that you want it to. In some ways, it’s similar to the parable of the four blind men and the elephant: depending on where you work on innovation, it will look and feel different. As a consequence, I still need to … Read more
There are few topics with as much hyperbole around them as leadership. Everyone is supposed to be a leader, either informally or formally. At least you need to lead yourself based on whatever you want to get out of life, both professionally and personally. My experience is that many so-called leaders are managers who are … Read more
As an engineer, I’ve often had difficulty with the somewhat touchy-feely language used in leadership literature and HR departments. Rationally, I know that humans are irrational beings that excel at post-rationalizing their decisions and actions. And to reason about our irrational or pre-rational side, we need to use language that seeks to model that part … Read more
When I was 14, I started to work in a local supermarket. That was actually not legal, but family connections and some creative managing of practicalities caused me to stomp around there anyway. The guy who got me introduced to the secrets of filling shelves, pricing goods and unloading trucks had the habit of not … Read more
There are few topics in companies as sensitive as the notion of organization and organizational setup. Many still view their career as climbing the corporate ladder and, having reached a few rungs up the ladder, worry about sliding down again. So, every discussion that might rock the boat is received with great skepticism and people … Read more
