Here’s What Happened When Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks visited Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation

It was an honor to host US Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks at Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.  (Think of the Deputy Secretary of Defense as the Chief Operating Officer of a company – but in this case the company has 3 million employees (~1.4 million active duty, 750,000 civilians, […]

What I Learned from 500 Educators – Build Back Better Summit – Results

With the theme “Build Back Better” Jerry Engel, Pete Newell, Steve Weinstein and I co-hosted nearly 500 Lean Educators from 63 countries and 235 universities online for a three-hour session to share what we’ve learned about educators on how we can help our communities rebound, adjust, and recover. We got insights from each other about […]

Is a Venture Studio Right for You?

This post previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. Venture Studios are an “idea factory” with their own employees searching for product/market fit and […]

Teaching Lean Innovation in the Pandemic

Remote education in the pandemic has been hard for everyone. Hard for students having to deal with a variety of remote instructional methods. Hard for parents with K through 12 students at home trying to keep up with remote learning, and hard for instructors trying to master new barely functional tools and technology while trying […]

Educators Summit: Lessons from Teaching in the Pandemic

SAVE THE DATE for the Lean Innovation Educators Summit: Lessons from Teaching in the Pandemic July 24, 10-noon Pacific, 1-3pm Eastern, 6-8pm London As educators the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us all. We’ve faced the challenges of teaching remotely, while virtually managing students scattered across the world, keeping students enthusiastic and engaged via video, helping them […]

We Needed a Bigger Room – The Lean Educators Summit

It’s a bit bittersweet. We used to be able to fit all the Lean Educators in my living room and have space left over. No longer. Turns out we needed a bigger room for the Dec 4th-5th Lean Educators Summit. The good news is that if we’ve turned you away or you were on the […]

Hacking 4 Recovery – Time to Take A Shot

Rise Up “Let’s do something to help with the pandemic.” In April, with the economy crashing, and the East Coast in lockdown, I heard this from Stanford instructors Tom Bedecarre and Todd Basche, both on the same day. And my response to them was the same, “I can’t sew masks and I don’t know how […]

Seven Steps to Small Business Recovery

What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. Friedrich Nietzsche The world is a different place than it was 90 days ago. Countries traded saving lives by shutting down most of their economy. Tens of millions who had jobs are now unemployed worrying about their future. Business owners large and small are struggling to find their […]

The Class That Changed the Way Entrepreneurship is Taught

This article first appeared in Poets and Quants   Revolutions start by overturning the status quo. By the end of the 20th century, case studies and business plans had reached an evolutionary dead-end for entrepreneurs. Here’s why and what we did about it. The Rise of Business Schools – Management as an Occupation The business […]

Hacking for Defense @ Stanford 2020 Lesson Learned Presentations

We just finished our 5th annual Hacking for Defense class at Stanford. What a year. At the end of the quarter each of the eight teams give a final “Lessons Learned” presentation. Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “here’s how smart I am, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the […]

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