Category: Great Innovators

The Benefits of Being Unpredictable

Unpredictability, when used deliberately rather than recklessly, is one of the most underrated sources of power in human behaviour, strategy, and creativity. The core advantage is straightforward: if others cannot reliably anticipate your next move, they cannot easily counter it. This creates space for innovation and competitive advantage. Across business, sports, art, and even geopolitics, the... Read More--

Wilson Greatbatch – Accidental Inventor

A mistake that ultimately saved millions Wilson Greatbatch’s life reads like a case study in how curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to embrace mistakes can reshape the world. Born in 1919 in Buffalo, New York, he grew up fascinated by radios and electronics, often taking devices apart just to understand how they worked. That early tinkering spirit never left him, and it ultimately... Read More--

Pioneer and Innovator Steve Shirley

Born Vera Buchthal in 1933 to a Jewish family in Dortmund, Germany, Dame Stephanie “Steve” Shirley’s life began amidst rising persecution. She was the daughter of a Jewish judge who lost his position under the Nazi regime. In 1939, aged five, she and her nine year old sister, Renate, were sent to Britain on a Kindertransport train, escaping the Holocaust as unaccompanied child... Read More--

Inspiring Innovation: How People Stories Can Spark Lateral Thinking

Muhammad Yunus Do you want to cultivate a more innovative and entrepreneurial culture in your team, one that embraces calculated risk taking and radical thinking? A powerful way to achieve this is by sharing stories about people who exemplified lateral thinking and whose ideas and actions transformed the world. People relate deeply to other people’s stories. Which examples should you use to... Read More--

Ask an Absurd Question

Why would you ask a question that everyone knows the answer to? The great thinker and astronomer Carl Sagan asked this question, ‘Is there life on Earth?’ But he asked it from a different perspective; from the viewpoint of an unknowing observer far outside the Earth. In December 1990, NASA’s exploratory space probe, Galileo, was due to fly past Earth. Sagan persuaded NASA to point... Read More--

Innovative Start-Ups Founded by Women

Nadine Hachach-Haram We need more women entrepreneurs. A report by the Kaufmann Foundation found that only 3% of technology start-ups are led by women.  Most of the high-profile role models for start-ups are men – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs are household names.  How many women role models in business can you name? Here are some inspiring women entrepreneurs and the companies... Read More--

Trust the Customers, Not the Experts

Rob Law and Trunki Rob Law studied Product Design at Northumbria University.  One of his course assignments in 1997 was to come up with a new design for luggage.  He did some research by going to a local department store.  He wandered around the suitcase section and found no inspiration but when he went into the toy department, he had a brainwave.  Why not make a piece of luggage which was also... Read More--

Find a New Way to Show the Facts

Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804) was an English polymath, philosopher, educator and scientist who is most famous for his discovery of Oxygen. In 1765 he published a “Chart of Biography” to accompany a series of history lectures. It showed the lives of famous people as lines on a chart. He said it would allow students to “trace out distinctly the dependence of events to distribute them into... Read More--

Tony Hsieh – The Remarkable Cultural Innovator at Zappos

  Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) was born in 1973 in Illinois.  His parents were immigrants from Taiwan who met at graduate school. Hsieh studied computer science at Harvard University where he was a member of a prize-winning programming contest team.  While there, as a student job he managed a pizza grill.  One of his customers was Alfred Lin, who became his friend and later became CFO and COO at... Read More--

Fly, Crash, Adapt

Paul MacCready Paul MacCready (1925 – 2007) was an aeronautical engineer and inventor of the first human-powered aircraft. MacCready was born in Connecticut to family of doctors. He was fascinated by engineering and airplanes from a young age.  At 15 he won a national model building contest. He said, “I was always the smallest kid in the class and certainly not the athlete type. And so, when... Read More--