Exploring CES to Stimulus Mine for Disruptive Ideas
Doug is traveling this week to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to stimulus mine for disruptive “idea starters”. What he will not be looking for is WHAT companies are offering. Rather, he will be focused on the WHY & HOW of exhibitor...
True Front End & Back End – Drives Innovation Success
Yesterday I did a webinar for the P&G Alumni Association. It featured three P&G Alumni doing amazing things to help with COVID-19. John Milander - Respirator Invention - Andi Grudgeon - Face Shield Production - and myself for our work with...
2020 VS. 1986
2020 has me thinking on how things have changed in the 34 years since I founded the Eureka! Ranch. In 1986 Consumer Products were the thought leaders of innovation and the focus was on creating line extensions, category segmentations and gurus. In 2020 the...
“911 Emergency” Innovation Speed
Real life event last Thursday. It started with an early morning call with a client in Europe. She had an emergency need for ideas and Market Research Data Today. Completed inventing session with another client at 1:00 pm. During the...
Giving Thanks for tastes & Smells
This morning as I exercised my mind wandered to a dear friend Scott Macaulay - who passed away from cancer way to soon. In his last year of life he spent time really noticing smells, tastes, sights and sounds. I remember him commenting on the aroma and...
A Millenial in Athens Greece Opened my eyes this week
The past few days I’ve had the honor of speaking at the Singularity University event in Greece. Greece’s role in the creation of democracy is well known. It gave power to the people. After one of my talks a young lady came up to me...
nothing beats being on the front lines
Nothing beats - seeing, feeling and experiencing on the front lines. If you are working on an innovation my advice is to make some, sell some and learn a ton! This past Saturday we opened our Brain Brew Distillery at the Eureka! Ranch just outside of...
It’s Important That Everyone Have Something Important to do
“It’s important that everyone have something important to do.” Paul Schurke said this as we embarked on an adventure to recreate Admiral Peary’s Last Dash to the North Pole. As the expedition leader Paul explained that he didn’t want people on the trip...
Growing a Sustainable Culture of Innovation
Imagine a world where across your 10K person organization you had 1K people innovating in their sphere of influence. They were consciously thinking smarter, faster and more innovatively about their daily tasks. Research is finding that if you ignite just 10% of your...
I’m Tired of Practical, Prudent and Puckered
I’m tried of incremental steps. I’m tired of being practical and prudent. I’m tired of self important pucker faces telling me to be reasonable. It’s time to think big again! It’s time to dream great ideas! It’s time to make a...
Doug’s Newest Book
PROACTIVE Problem Solving
Published January 2025 - We are living in a time of unprecedented change. The consequence is a never-ending stream of problems in our professional and personal lives. Today, we are facing dramatic drops in organizational engagement. Eureka! Ranch research finds that 44% of managers feel employee engagement is worse since Covid.
The study also found that the average manager wastes 3.5 hours a day reacting to flawed company work systems and employee mistakes. Interestingly 78% of this waste is from flawed company work systems. These include poor work instructions, flawed digital systems, ineffective communications and needless bureaucracy. Only 22% of wasted time is from employee mistakes.
In PROACTIVE Problem Solving Doug Hall details principles and processes for how you can create active engagement with those you are working with to solve and dissolve the problems you face. It’s a system that has been validated in both academic research and real world practice as being over 500% more effective than brainstorming. When you and your team are fully engaged a chain reduction of positives occur - from higher profitability, sales, customer loyalty to lower absenteeism, accidents, quality defects and turn over.