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I’ve always wanted to be a baker, in another life. That smell of baking bread stops me in my tracks. It’s a bit like Mr. Toad in that famous book, The Wind in the Willows. Toad is happily touring the countryside in his canary yellow caravan when a motor car roars past and tips the caravan into a ditch. Ratty is furious, Mole seizes the horse, and Toad just sits in the middle of the dusty road, gazing after the car in a trance, murmuring, “Poop-poop!” The wreckage doesn’t matter-he’s seen the new thing, and he’s hooked. That’s me, still, when a loaf comes out of the oven. If I’m honest, it’s me with most new things. Unfortunately, transfixed isn’t the same as talented. For years, I’ve struggled with the craft of baking. I’ve produced enough inedible bricks to build a small city. I’ve had the local birds turn up their beaks at the prospect of eating them-and Devon seagulls down here are notoriously voracious and unfussy eaters. But I kept at it. And I’ve finally reached the point where my family will actually eat one of my loaves-and importantly, even cut a second slice. Which brings me to the other, non-baking side of my life: innovation. Back in 2019, in the middle of COVID, I wrote a short piece about sliced bread and why that took off. I want to come back to it now, because there’s an idea in it that I think is really the Cinderella of innovation theory. It explains so much, and yet we keep ignoring it. It’s the idea of adoption: why people take on new things, how new things actually spread. And right now, that matters more than ever. Look at AI. In 2025, a study from MIT found that 95% of company AI pilots were producing no measurable return-not because the technology didn’t work, but because of what researchers called a “learning gap.” This autumn 2026, PwC found over 90% of senior executives use AI at work, but fewer than 4 in 10 of their non-managerial staff do. Now, for all the “wow,” the gee-whiz nature of the technology, adoption is still a slow and a social process. And one of the best places I know to see that in action is a loaf of bread. Otto Rohwedder wasn’t a baker. He was a jeweller with three shops in St. Joseph, Missouri, and a degree in optics. Around 1912, though, he got an idea he couldn’t shake: a machine that would slice a whole loaf of bread all at once. He thought long and hard about what advantages pre-sliced bread might offer. After all, slicing a loaf with a knife took time and effort, and if the loaf was stale and the knife was blunt, it could even be dangerous. So, in principle, people might value a more convenient alternative. But it wasn’t an obvious winner. Bakers told him sliced bread would go stale faster, it would fall apart, the machine was too complex for everyday production, it was bulky, took up too much precious space, and nobody wanted it anyway. But Rohwedder kept going. He couldn’t let go of his idea. He sold his shops to fund the work and found a factory in Monmouth, Illinois, willing to build his machines. Then, late in 1917, that factory caught fire, and his prototype machine and all the blueprints went with it. It took him years to recover and rebuild. By 1928, though, he had a working machine-but still nobody wanted it. Except one man: Frank Bench, who ran the Chillicothe Baking Company in a small Missouri town. Bench had worked with Rohwedder before, so he agreed to give it a go. And on the 7th of July, 1928, the first loaf of commercially sliced bread was produced at his bakery and sold under the brand name “Kleen Maid.” While bakers had been skeptical of the benefits, local families in the Midwest were much more enthusiastic. In fact, as a review in the local newspaper, The Constitution-Tribune, as a review put it: “So neat and precise are the slices, and so definitely better than anyone could possibly slice by hand with a bread knife, one realizes instantly that here is a refinement that will receive a hearty and permanent welcome.” And it did. Within two weeks, bread sales from the bakery had increased by 2,000%. That first machine, it broke down after about six months-which, if you’ve ever worked on an innovation project, might sound depressingly familiar. At first, sliced bread had a practical problem: sliced loaves fell apart before they could be wrapped. So, bakers tried rubber bands, metal pins, all sorts of solutions, but it wasn’t until a St. Louis baker called Gustav Papendick, who had bought Rohwedder’s second machine, came up with a simple fix: a cardboard tray that held the slices together while they were wrapped. Now, notice what’s happening here. The inventor has the original idea, makes the machine, but it’s a user solving a problem that helps make it work at scale. And great ideas don’t always sell themselves, which is where marketing comes in. In 1930, Wonder Bread began selling sliced bread on a national basis. By 1933, thanks to their marketing muscle, most American bakeries had a slicing machine and soon were selling more sliced bread than unsliced. Within five years of that first loaf in Chillicothe, the new thing had become the normal thing. Unfortunately, 10 years later, in January 1943, the US government banned it. It was wartime. The Secretary of Agriculture, Claude Wickard, argued that sliced bread needed heavier wrapping and wasted paper. So, to support the war effort, it was banned, and the ban took effect on the 18th of January. The public was furious. One of the most quoted complaints came from a New York housewife who wrote to The New York Times about the chaos of slicing bread for a family breakfast: “I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread, I must do the slicing for toast-two pieces for each one, that’s 10. For the lunches, I must cut by hand at least 20 slices for two sandwiches apiece. And afterward, I make my own toast. 22 slices of bread to be cut in a hurry.” The government backed down. On the 8th of March, 1943, seven weeks later, the ban was lifted. Sliced bread and its fascinating history may be very inetresting but what does it have to do with innovation? Well, plenty, as any aspiring entrepreneur will recognize. Think of this situation: You’ve finally made it. After months of struggle, wrestling with a thousand and one technical problems, balancing the resources you need, juggling the plates-finally, you get to launch. You could be forgiven for thinking, “Phew! You’ve earned the right to relax, step back, perhaps hold back on opening the champagne, but at least enjoy the sense of achievement. You’ve created something, moved it from a gleam in the eye to a reality.” Except that the journey isn’t over. You’re only halfway there. The next big challenge is moving to scale, persuading others to adopt your great new thing. And that can be where the trouble starts. Diffusion to scale is one of the thorniest problems in innovation, whether we’re talking about a startup looking to grow or an established business trying to launch a new product or service. And it’s as true of process innovations as it is of products and services. New methods and techniques are often very slow to spread. So, why did sliced bread spread so fast when so many good ideas don’t? Well, for an answer to that question, let’s stay in Iowa, where Otto Rohwedder came from, and meet a farmer’s son. Everett Rogers was born in 1931 on a farm near Carroll, Iowa. His father loved mechanical gadgets-new tractors, new machines-but he was deeply suspicious of anything biological or chemical. And in particular, he refused to plant the new hybrid seed corn, even though it yielded around a quarter more and stood up much better to drought. And then came the drought of 1936. On the neighbour’s farm, the hybrid corn stood tall; on the Rogers farm, the crop wilted. That was what finally changed his father’s mind, and young Everett never forgot it. He went to Iowa State Univ… Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

My dad spent his life in lights. His name wasn’t in them, but he spent his career working with them. A lighting engineer, he knew all about illumination – and he was pretty good at using light to do more than just show you the way around a dark room. He was one of the early pioneers of son et lumière, using sound and light to retell stories, and he worked across theatre lighting’s great transition, from an analogue tradition with its roots in the old limelight to the digital technology behind today’s programmable extravaganzas. But my brother and I share a simpler memory – him telling us, as wide-eyed kids, about his exploits on Lowestoft pier and sea front, setting up the summertime illuminations. Warning: don’t try this at home! His job, as a 14-year-old apprentice, was to test whether the light sockets were live. By licking his fingers – and sticking them in! Obviously a formative experience, since I’ve also spent my life in illumination – only my interest is in the ideas which light up the world. Innovation. And you don’t have to look far to see its symbol. It’s everywhere, still, in our language – the lightbulb moment, the flash of inspiration. The bulb has become the universal shorthand for a bright idea, one which persists even though the incandescent bulb itself has been consigned to history, replaced by the ubiquitous LED. And who gave us that lightbulb, as a practical device as well as a wonderful metaphor? His god-fatherly face beams out at us from thousands of photos. If we want to get really authentic we can watch him in early film clips or hear him in scratchy early recordings – all made possible by his seemingly unending stream of inventive ideas. Thomas Alva Edison. ‘The Wizard of Menlo Park’, holder of 1,093 US patents, whose electric companies were the foundation for General Electric, and midwife to so much of the technology of power, sound and light which we take for granted today. Born to the breed? He was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, and his formal schooling lasted barely a few months. The story goes that a teacher called him ‘addled’; his furious mother took him out and taught him at home. He read voraciously but was also an active experimenter, building a small telegraph line with a neighbour’s boy and turning the family cellar into a chemistry lab. At 12 he started work on the Grand Trunk Railway between Port Huron and Detroit as a ‘news butcher’, selling newspapers and snacks to passengers. Not content with the main job, he set up some side hustles, employing other boys to run stands in Port Huron selling vegetables and candy. At his peak he claimed profits of around $50 a week (close to $2,000 today), most of which went on equipment for electrical and chemical experiments. By 15 he was publishing his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, printed in the baggage car – which also housed his travelling laboratory, until a stick of phosphorus set the car alight and an angry conductor threw him, and his chemicals, off the train. His way into telegraphy came through an act of courage. In 1862 he snatched three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from the path of a runaway freight car at Mount Clemens station. The boy’s grateful father, the station agent, repaid him by teaching him telegraphy. Edison became an itinerant operator, drifting from town to town – and already inventing. Working nights at Stratford Junction in Ontario, he had to signal every hour to prove he was awake, so he rigged a clockwork device to send the signal automatically while he dozed. It worked perfectly – until a puzzled dispatcher tried to reply. His first patent, in 1869, was for an electric vote recorder for legislatures. It worked beautifully; unfortunately nobody wanted it. Politicians liked the slow roll call, which gave them time to horse-trade. It was a lesson he never forgot, and we’ll come back to it. That same year he arrived in New York almost penniless and talked his way into sleeping at the Laws Gold Indicator Company. When the system relaying gold prices to brokers broke down amid chaos on the trading floor, Edison was the one who fixed it – and was hired on the spot. Within months he had set up as an electrical engineer with a fellow telegrapher, Franklin Pope, who let Edison live in his New Jersey home. Right field, right time: growing interest in the practical applications of electricity meant investors were keen. His big break came in 1870, when the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company wanted to buy his improved stock ticker. He’d hoped for $5,000 but didn’t dare name a price. When they offered $40,000 – around a million dollars today – he later admitted he nearly fainted. With the money he opened workshops in Newark, where he was joined by Charles Batchelor, an English machinist who would become his right-hand man for decades. Together they perfected the quadruplex telegraph in 1874, sending four messages at once over a single wire – a huge saving for the telegraph companies and a handsome payday for Edison. That enabled the next step: the ‘invention factory’. The invention factory The name says it all – it was his attempt to industrialise innovation, making it something repeatable and manageable. With Batchelor he drew up a list of target inventions ranging far beyond telegraphy, and in 1876 they moved to a greenfield (literally) site at Menlo Park, New Jersey. The two-storey laboratory had heavy machinery downstairs and, upstairs, what Edison called ‘every kind of apparatus for scientific research’. From this base came a steady stream of inventions, largely delivering on his famous promise of ‘a minor invention every ten days and a big thing every six months or so’. It began small – Edison, Batchelor, the Swiss clockmaker John Kruesi, James Adams and a handful of machinists – funded largely by Western Union in return for early access to anything relevant to its business. That deal paid off handsomely. Edison’s carbon-button transmitter made Bell’s new telephone clear enough to be practical. Then, in 1877, came the phonograph. Edison sketched it, Kruesi built it for $18, and a sceptical colleague bet a box of cigars it wouldn’t work. Edison bellowed ‘Mary had a little lamb’ into the mouthpiece, turned the handle – and the machine spoke back. ‘I was never so taken aback in my life,’ he said. Within months the press had crowned him the Wizard of Menlo Park. Just as in Silicon Valley today, adventurous investors piled in; J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts backed the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. That fuel let Menlo Park grow to around 60 staff exploring the wider problems of scaling his technologies. He didn’t invent the lightbulb – people had been working on it for decades – but he brought his R&D resources to bear on creating an entire system to deliver electric light reliably and at scale. In the process he changed how we think about innovation systems. His early career was hands-on, inventions sparked from insight, energy and the ability to work with others. But as things grew he had to find a way of replicating that. Increasingly he took a leadership role – setting direction, sharing a vision and creating an enabling environment. One which recognised and rewarded people, gave them considerable autonomy and fostered a creative climate that was playful and fun, while drawing long days and late nights of effort from his teams. Work often ran through the night, broken by a midnight ‘lunch’ of pie and coffee, with someone playing the pipe organ that stood at the end of the lab and the team singing along. So a genius – yes. But his lessons have less to do with particular intellectual or technical skills and a whole lot more to do with how innovation happens. He understood it, lived it – and left us a legacy for how we organise and manage the process so that we can repeat the trick. As we mark the 95th anniversary of his death on 18 October 1931, it’s worth reminding ourselves of some key lessons that are just as relevant today. 1. Innovation is not about the lon… Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

Creativity, Constraints, and the Art of Enabled ExplorationHow can a legendary jazz trumpet player change the way we think about modern innovation? In this video, we explore the genius of Miles Davis on what would have been his 100th birthday year. From the improvised magic behind the soundtrack to L'ascenseur pour l'échafaud to the groundbreaking recording sessions of Kind of Blue, Miles proved that true creativity isn't an accident—it's a deliberate process. Discover the five core innovation lessons hidden within his iconic music and approach:The Power of Improvisation: Creating out of the unknown and relying on active listening. Creativity Loves Constraints: How pressure, flaws, and limits force extraordinary creative breakthroughs. Diversity & Friction: Assembling diverse talent to generate fresh, unexpected ideas. Reinvention: The discipline of "creative destruction" and constantly challenging your own success. The Space Between: Finding the crucial balance between structure and freedom. Whether you're an artist, entrepreneur, or thinker, these timeless lessons offer a fresh lens on how to make something truly new. Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

How did we get from quiet acoustic strings in village squares to massive walls of Marshall stacks blasting at outdoor festivals? 🎸⚡In this episode, we explore the surprising, accidental, and brilliantly creative history behind guitar amplification. The journey to getting heard wasn't just about making bigger instruments; it required breakthroughs from completely unrelated industries—including Thomas Edison’s lightbulb experiments, telephone technology, and the invention of vacuum tubes. Join us as we chart the evolution of sound, tracing the path from the lute to lap steels, the birth of solid-body icons like the Stratocaster and Telecaster, and the birth of classic rock distortion. Plus, we break down the core lessons this history teaches us about how innovation actually works in the real world. In this episode, you’ll learn:Why acoustic guitars struggled to cut through early 20th-century bands. How Thomas Edison’s "sooty lightbulb" problem led to valve amplifiers. How user-innovators like Les Paul, Merle Travis, and Leo Fender reshaped the instrument. Why guitarists embraced speaker distortion—starting with a razor blade and a speaker! Key innovation frameworks: Dominant designs, user-led innovation, and ecosystem shifts. #ElectricGuitar #GuitarHistory #MusicTechnology #GuitarAmps #innovation #Fender #MarshallAmps #LesPaul #EdisonEffect #VacuumTubes #GuitarTech #AudioHistory #entrepreneurship Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

How did an odd wooden "walking machine" from 1817 evolve into a global industry with over 2 billion bicycles today? In this episode, we dive deep into the fascinating history of the bicycle—from Baron von Drais’s pedal-less Laufmaschine (born out of a volcanic disaster!) to the High-Wheelers, the "penny-farthing," and John Kemp Starley's game-changing Safety Bicycle.More than just a story about two wheels, this episode explores some of the fundamental rules of innovation: - Why "first movers" don't always win (and how intellectual property loops alter history)- How climate events and economic crises drive breakthrough ideas- The phenomenon of "multiple independent innovation" - Why scaling an idea requires building an entire system, not just a productIf you're interested in history, engineering, or how brilliant ideas transform into mass-market adoption, tune in! You can find a transcript here---------------------------------------------------⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction: The 2 Billion Bike Industry00:45 - What Happened After the Wheel Was Invented?01:30 - 1817: Baron von Drais & The "Year Without a Summer"03:00 - The Laufmaschine (Draisienne) & The Early Business Problem04:15 - How London Dandies & Copycats Stole the Market05:30 - The Evolution: Treadles, Pedals, and Scottish Blacksmiths07:15 - Pierre Michaux & The Paris Bicycle Boom08:30 - The Penny-Farthing Era & High-Wheeler Hazards09:45 - John Kemp Starley & The Invention of the Safety Bicycle11:30 - Lessons in Innovation: Scaling Systems, Not Just Products---------------------------------------------------🔔 Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and leave a comment sharing your thoughts on the episode!#BicycleHistory #Innovation #Podcast #HistoryOfTechnology #Entrepreneurship #Invention Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

The Real-Life "Valyrian Steel" That Built a Global EmpireBefore Silicon Valley, there was 16th-century Toledo, Spain. In this episode of Unlocking Innovation, we explore how an unlikely culture of co-existence allowed Christian, Muslim, and Jewish craftsmen to solve the ultimate blacksmith's dilemma and invent Toledo Steel.Think "open innovation" and "ecosystems" are modern tech buzzwords? Think again. In this episode we travel back to the 16th century to the fortress city of Toledo, Spain—the Silicon Valley of the renaissance. For centuries, sword smiths faced a fatal dilemma: how do you make a blade sharp enough to hold an edge, but flexible enough not to snap in the heat of battle? The answer didn't come from a lone genius or elven magic. It came from La Convivencia—a unique period of history where Christian, Muslim, and Jewish craftsmen combined their distinct traditions of chemistry, metallurgy, and battlefield design into a literal open innovation ecosystem.Discover how diversity became the ultimate competitive edge, how the Spanish Empire scaled its weapon procurement, and what modern business leaders can learn from the ancient masters of Toledo steel. Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

The appliance sitting in your kitchen is the result of 150 years of obsession, failure, and brilliance. And most people have never heard the real story. It starts in 1850 with a leaky wooden contraption patented by Joel Houghton, winds through dozens of competing inventors, and arrives at one remarkable woman — Josephine Cochrane, a debt-ridden widow in Illinois who declared: "If nobody else invents the dishwasher, I'll do it myself." She did. And she changed domestic life forever. In this episode, we trace the full innovation journey: why so many inventors swarmed around the same idea at the same time, how Josephine's 1886 patent became the "dominant design" that still defines modern machines, and what the dishwasher teaches us about how innovation really works — not as a lone-genius moment, but as a slow river of ideas gradually flowing together. Along the way: weapons engineers, soap chemists, a Great Depression, and the accidental chemistry discovery that finally unlocked the mass market. What you'll hear: The surprisingly long race from hand-cranked wooden box to kitchen stapleHow a socialite's broken china sparked a revolutionWhy electricity, hot water pipes, and synthetic detergent all had to arrive firstThe key innovation lesson hiding inside every dishwasher cycle You can find a transcript here Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

You can find a transcript here Are you missing out on your organization’s greatest untapped resource? Many companies look outward for the next big idea, but the "smartest guys" might already be on your payroll. In this podcast, we dive deep into High Involvement Innovation (HII)—the strategy of engaging every single employee to drive continuous improvement. From Toyota’s 50 million suggestions to the concept of "LIFE" (Little Improvements From Everyone), we break down how to move beyond basic suggestion boxes and build a culture where innovation is "the way we do things around here." In this podcast, you’ll learn: The "Free Brain" Concept: Why every pair of hands comes with a creative mind ready to solve problems. The 9 Core Capabilities: From strategic direction to idea management systems, what you need to make HII stick. Technology as an Accelerator: How modern platforms are replacing clunky manual systems to enable collaboration and rapid feedback. The "Gold in the Mine": Joseph Juran’s classic philosophy on extracting value from internal creativity. Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

The Power of the "Innovation Mash-Up" Ever had a memory so vivid you’d swear it was true, only to find out you made it up? In this episode, we dive into the world of confabulation—the brain’s habit of "hallucinating" details to make sense of a complex world—and discover how this quirky human trait is actually a secret weapon for innovation. From the neon-soaked streets of Bangkok to the high-stakes world of organic chemistry, we explore how "remixing" existing ideas leads to world-changing breakthroughs. Whether it’s Henry Ford borrowing techniques from meatpacking plants or eye surgeons in India adapting the McDonald’s business model, we’ll show you why the best answers aren’t always "new to the world"—they’re just adapted from a different context. In this podcast, you’ll learn about: The Mandela Effect & Mondegreens: Why our brains are natural storytellers that love to fill in the blanks. Recombinant Innovation: How the "collision point" between two different worlds sparks creativity. The Science of Incubation: Why your best ideas often come when you’re dreaming or "switched off." Practical Creativity: How to use tools like "random juxtaposition" to force-fit new connections and solve hard problems. Stop waiting for a lightning bolt of original genius. Learn how to become an "Idea DJ" and start remixing your way to your next big insight. You can find a transcript here Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

In a world that has moved beyond "VUCA" (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) to become BANI—Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, and Incomprehensible—the old ways of tackling global crises are broken. While world leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss traditional defence, a few blocks away, the World Food Programme (WFP) was hosting its annual Innovation Forum to tackle a different security threat: the silent conflict of global hunger. In this episode, we dive into how the WFP is moving beyond "big hearts and good intentions" to build a high-performance innovation engine. We explore how they use a systematic approach—mapped to the ISO 56002 international standard—to transform "glimmers of ideas" from internal and external entrepreneurs into life-saving reality. We take a closer look at: Innovation as a System: How the WFP Innovation Accelerator uses venture capital models, incubators, and boot camps to reach over 104 million people annually. High-Tech vs. Frugal Tech: From Building Blocks (a blockchain-based aid system saving millions in fees) to Clean Cooking (heat-retention bags that cut energy needs by 70%). The Scale Challenge: Why most "promising pilots" fail and how the WFP’s Scale Enablement Programme helps them grow. Based in Munich, the Accelerator has supported over 500 ventures across 90+ countries and was recognized by Fast Company as one of the world’s "Most Innovative Companies". Amongst its success stories we look at: ShareTheMeal: The fundraising app that has shared over 220 million meals. H2Grow: Low-tech hydroponics allowing refugees to grow food in deserts using 90% less water. SMP PLUS: An AI tool that generates nutritious, cost-optimized school menus in minutes rather than weeks. SCOUT: A forecasting engine that has already saved $6 million in logistics costs. Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

Have you ever used a safety pin, a fountain pen, or a sewing machine? You might know the famous brands behind them, but you likely don’t know the man who actually invented them. Meet Walter Hunt, the "Yankee mechanical genius" who could solve almost any problem but struggled to profit from a single one. Perhaps the person who best deserves the title of 'the greatest inventor you've never heard of' In this episode, we dive into the incredible life of a man who changed the world with a piece of wire and a few hours of "hand-wringing". Learn about: The $15 Debt that Changed Everything: How the modern safety pin was invented in just three hours to pay back a draughtsman. The Sewing Machine Wars: Why Walter Hunt actually invented the lockstitch machine 12 years before Elias Howe—and why he refused to patent it until it was too late. A Legacy of Innovation: From the repeater rifle (the precursor to the Winchester) to disposable paper collars and even "antipodean apparatus" for walking on ceilings, Hunt’s imagination knew no bounds. Principles Over Profit: Why this "benevolent Quaker" often prioritized social concerns and the joy of problem-solving over building a Gilded Age fortune. Walter Hunt was a man who found joy in the quest rather than the goal. Join us as we uncover the story of the prolific inventor who holds hundreds of patents for items we still use today, yet remains a hidden figure in history. Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

A seasonal story to inspire some New year's innovation (re) thinking... On a cold Christmas Eve, Jimmy Weston sits in a crowded wine bar with a crushing email in his pocket: his family business’s biggest customer has just walked away. Facing the "rocks" of potential bankruptcy and the weight of three generations of legacy, Jimmy is visited by three "ghosts" who offer more than just nostalgia—they provide a blueprint for radical reinvention. In this podcast, loosely based on Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' , we explore some of the challenges around innovation through a different lens. Whether you’re a business leader facing a "winter" of your own, an entrepreneur looking for a spark of New Year inspiration, or just looking for a good read this story is a reminder that the "pony" is always hidden in the pile—you just have to dig! Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

Why does innovation often feel like awkward "dad-dancing" at a party? Because repeating success requires more than just luck—it demands disciplined innovation routines. This podcast uses the metaphor of dance to explain how organizations create value from ideas through practiced, shared behavior patterns , from searching for opportunities to developing prototypes. But the "music"—the external market environment—is constantly changing. When new technology or new rules emerge, static routines will fail. That's why organizations need 'Dynamic capability'—the meta-skill to step back and deliberately review, refresh, or completely replace their existing routines. We look at companies like 3M and P&G, who have maintained success by constantly upgrading their deep-seated routines. P&G famously shifted its routines to source 50% of its innovation externally, adapting to a changing landscape. We also examine two humanitarian heroes: Field Ready, which augmented its high-tech 3D printing routine with local, low-tech skills for co-creation , and Translators without Borders (TWB), which switched from a manual, in-person model to a high-speed crowdsourcing platform. The lesson is universal: build strong routines, but build the dynamic capability to change them when the market demands a new move. Watch to learn how to choreograph your long-term success! (You can find a transcript here) Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

We're in something of an 'invention crisis'. On one side, you have the latest futuristic gadgets—like a stringless AI guitar or a robot cat that cools your coffee. On the other, you have millions who still lack basic human needs like healthcare, clean water, and shelter. This podcast challenges the direction of modern ingenuity and showcases why hopeful innovation dedicated to social good matters most. It showcases powerful examples of necessity-driven solutions, including "frugal innovation" success stories, like the model that made cataract surgery affordable for all (Aravind) and the Mark 2 handpump that changed the game for clean water access (UNICEF). We explore systemic innovations like CMAM (using PlumpyNut) that fight acute malnutrition and the simple 'plant in a box' that decentralizes oxygen supply for pneumonia. And we look at how modern technology is applied for good—from Zipline delivery drones to Community Health Workers (CHWs) using mHealth platforms to close critical care gaps globally. Innovation is a precious resource. Watch/listen now to explore the difference between novelty and necessity, and be inspired by the people and organizations actively creating a better, more equitable world. You can find a transcript here Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe

(You can find a transcript here) Isaac Merritt Singer, the "father of the sewing machine" , was a larger-than-life character whose life was as dramatic as the stages he loved to tread. Born in 1811, Singer's early passion was acting, but he was also a shrewd entrepreneur and inventor. After running away to join an acting troupe at age twelve , he later used his machinist skills to invent a rock-drilling machine and then a wood-carving machine. His greatest success came in 1851 with his improved sewing machine. Despite early legal battles and the "Sewing Machine War" over patents , Singer became the world's largest manufacturer by 1860. He pioneered mass production, international manufacturing, and marketing techniques like instalment plans and attractive showrooms. This is the story of the entrepreneur, actor, and innovator who transformed a simple piece of equipment into a global industrial and social phenomenon Get full access to Managing innovation at johnbessant.substack.com/subscribe