GoldenBlogging is a handy new blog – acting as a simple to use guide to social media, blogging and micro-blogging. It provides neat tips on how to exploit social media with a focus right now on Twitter and WordPress. Surprise, surprise. For those still grappling with the above – check it.

Eric Schmidt and Larry Page discuss innovation at their Zeitgeist conference. Virgin Group’s Richard Branson joins them to discuss his innovation priorities including disease control and global warming. Worth a look at.

Innovatrs.com is sponsoring blur’d Meetups for entrepreneurs – initially in London. It is a private member monthly meetup on the West side of London for cool entrepreneurs. We hope it will unearth the next big idea and we plan to launch Innovatrs Start-up TV Network there in the coming months! Join us if you dare.

Following the digital big bang small businesses and start-ups will be able to compete with larger businesses as never before. And anyone will be able to afford to start a small business. Capital will no longer be the scarce resource – ideas, marketing and attitude will. Just look at Twitter. For anyone will be able [...]

Innovatrs is excited to offer full, open access to the Innovate Wiki for anyone to use, learn from and add to. When we developed Innovate, with its 7 stages and 49 phases for taking an idea all the way through to a successful business, we always dreamed of it becoming an open source methodology that [...]

As we look out a few years one tremor looks inevitable: the digital big bang. The point at which the tipping trend to connected networks and devices explodes us into a new dawn. Today there are 3.5 billion mobile phone users each connected to one network or another – in cities across the globe many using [...]

TechCrunch recently put out a list of the top 100 ‘networked’ venture capitalists – following some interesting research. They defined ‘networked’ by the number of co-investors that they had in deals and rated firms by the number of exits they had achieved. The top 10 lists most of the usual suspects. Which got me thinking [...]

I was spoilt. Two companies ago I was introduced to Bill Draper III – a legend in Silicon Valley and reputedly the West Coasts king of early stage venture capital. He invested in the company I ran at the time and sat on its board. He was a legend for a good reason – he [...]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/rfwJWwOiGVE" width="440" height="270" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /] Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel talking about the founding of The Elders and the importance of listening to global conversations given the power of new mass communications – do they mean Twitter? And what comes after Twitter?

A former editor of Windows magazine, Mike Elgan, illustrated the difference between ordinary brands and charismatic brands in two succinct sentences: “Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is famous for a crazy video in which he yells, “I—love—this—company!” In the case of Apple, it’s the customers who shout that.” Charismatic brands use Art-in-Product (TM) and bridge customer experience to vision. Design [...]

Tim Brown of IDEO wrote an interesting article on Participation in Design. The premise is that innovation will and should increasingly come from groups, not individuals, crowds not buddies – the social Web. I could not agree more. The question is how do we design the next set of systems to drive crowd innovation and what [...]

According to BusinessWeek There is growing evidence that the US’ innovation shortfall of the past decade is not only real but may also have contributed to today’s financial crisis. It seems that the major innovations promised just a decade ago, such as truly fast broadband for all, 3G everywhere, cures for cancer, electric cars and [...]

I have spent the last four and a half years studying, researching and developing the link between creativity and innovation. After all, I spent my early years surrounded by artists and art on the one hand (my mother is a well know art historian and curator) and the Letts media business on the other. In [...]

blur’d is hosting the first in a series of entrepreneur meetups in London tomorrow night, June 30th. blur’d Meetups are designed for interesting entrepreneurs launching or running somewhat disruptive and innovative ventures. blur’d also lets in select digital directors and innovation officers from large companies. They plan to do monthly, invitation only get togethers in [...]

On Saturday I went to a party hosted by a friend, Paul Birch. Given that Paul not only co-founded Bebo but is also an active angel investor I expected to meet a few interesting Web 2.0 entrepreneurs. And I did. The one that stood out was Ryan Notz of MyBuilder.com; artist turned stonemason turned Web entrepreneur. [...]

Having read an interesting blog from a failed entrepreneur who clearly believes that he should have known better it got me thinking about what he was really missing. And I think it was context. He talks about lacking domain expertise and making certain key decisions that later proved flawed. What I believe he needed was a [...]

Readwritestart produced a neat article recently on what VC’s look for in a first time, Web entrepreneur. I guess the best summary is cool geekness with the determination of a bull and ballerina like flexibility. OK. So, you see, at the end of the day its about charismatic, determined geeks. You know, Zuckerberg look-alikes. Me, I’d go [...]

Design is rapidly moving from posters and toasters to include processes, systems, and organizations. Design is the accelerator for the company car, the power train for sustainable profits. Design drives innovation, innovation powers brand, brand builds loyalty, and loyalty sustains profits. If you want long-term profits, don’t start with technology—start with design. For businesses to [...]

IDEO video on what organizations will look like in 18 months. Not bad.

It’s day 1 at Innovatrs.com so it seems fitting that I should bang on about why I developed Innovate and as a result Innovatrs.com. 40 odd years ago I was born into the Letts publishing empire. The business was rocking. It had invented the diary way back in the late 1700′s and controlled the industry [...]