The Best Articles in Innovation
The most useful articles and videos in Innovation from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Innovation Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Innovation by Refind users in 2023 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
How to come up with good business ideas
This was recorded on Monday, February 7th for Cohort #3 of The Minimalist Entrepreneur Course.You can learn more about the book this content is based on here...
How to foster innovation and big thinking
Brought to you by Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life: https://miro.com/lenny | Notion—One workspace. Every team: https:/...
Are your fears giving you terrible advice?
From episode: (https://youtu.be/bCel0X2Ta7U) How to fire people with grace, work through fear, and nurture innovation | Matt Mochary (CEO coach)—Matt Mochary...
Rasmus Ankersen: How to outthink your competition
Does success come from luck or skill, and how do you tell the difference? One way to find an answer: think like a pro gambler does, says football executive Rasmus Ankersen. Using sports analytics to…
What is ...?
New to Innovation? These articles make an excellent introduction.
The Blockchain Economy: A beginner’s guide to institutional cryptoeconomics
Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson and Jason Potts are from the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub, the world’s first social science research centre…
What Is Disruptive Innovation?
Twenty years after the introduction of the theory, we revisit what it does—and doesn’t—explain.
How to ...?
How to build the city of the future, according to Ikea’s innovation lab
‘The Ideal City’ collects the most successful urban ideas from around the world, to serve as a sort of cookbook of best practices for city leaders.
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Innovation on Refind.
Netflix
Netflix should not be thought of as a streaming business. Streaming is not the business model, it’s the source of data.
2023 Innovator of the Year: As AI models are released into the wild, Sharon Li wants to…
Li’s research could prevent AI models from failing catastrophically when they encounter unfamiliar scenarios.
The tyranny of collaborative ideation
Collaborative ideation were never meant to be, and science tells us to go solo instead. Let’s take a closer look.
Intelligent Failures vs. Costly Mistakes: Navigating the Innovation…
I think of the people who best model intelligent-failure principles as “elite failure practitioners” (EFPs) – my deliberately provocative term to emphasize the centrality of failure in the journey to…
You Have Good Ideas -- Don't Let Them Disappear
A good daily habit to develop is to capture your thoughts. Who knows? It might just lead to a big breakthrough.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Innovation—all under 10 minutes.
How Thomas Edison Tricked the Press Into Believing He'd Invented the Light Bulb
A year before he developed a working bulb, the "Wizard of Menlo Park" created the illusion that his prototype burned for more than a few minutes at a time
«Edison understood that success in the Gilded Age was a matter of hard work and carefully managing public expectations.»
You Can't Hack Product Positioning
Why positioning determines victors in SaaS and AI.
To Implement Change, You Don’t Need to Convince Everyone at Once
Managers launching a new initiative often try to start big. They work to gain approval for a substantial budget, recruit high-profile executives, arrange a big “kick-off” meeting, then look to move…
«The truth is that feeling the urge to persuade is a warning sign. It means you’re either starting with the wrong people or you have the wrong idea.»
How to Get New Ideas
January 2023(Someone fed my essays into GPT to make something that could answer questions based on them, then asked it where good ideas come from. The answer was ok, but not what I would have said.…
On the Quest for Originality, Recombine the Familiar
Most of the time, success comes from a well-placed tweak, a novel combination of two or more existing elements, or the better version of an idea or product not yet perfected.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Innovation.
How the world’s best companies build unbeatable focus
Shared by 361, including Rand Fishkin
«One business we worked with took 30 minutes to implement A/B testing software; another took six months. That’s 8,760 times slower.»
Innovation Doesn’t Have to Be Disruptive
For the past 20 years “disruption” has been a battle cry in business. Not surprisingly, many have come to see it as a near-synonym for innovation. But the obsession with disruption obscures an…
Why Do Most Ideas Fail to Scale?
In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized how his profession does research — is trying to start a scaling revolution. In this installment of the…
Research vs Vision: the origin story of Sony Walkman, Mini Cooper, and the iPhone
It’s always interesting to watch how companies approach the building of their new products. During the market research phase, companies…
110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years
It's never easy to predict the future. But as PM's 110th anniversary celebration draws to a close, we've decided to try. Here are 110 ambitious ideas for the decades ahead.
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Innovation, including:

Mariana Mazzucato
UCL Professor, Director of @IIPP_UCL. Author of: The Big Con; Entrepreneurial State; Value of Everything; Mission Economy. 4 kids keep me smiling
Benedict Evans
Trying to work out what's going on, and what happens next. Mostly tech.

Alf Rehn
Professor of innovation, design, and management. In addition a writer, speechifier, and popular culture geek.
Brian Solis
Head of Global Innovation, ServiceNow | 8x Best-Selling Author | Keynote Speaker | Digital Anthropologist | Futurist | Other Socials @BrianSolis |
steve blank
Customer Development & Secret History, Teaching at Stanford and Columbia
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We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Innovation?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Innovation, including Mariana Mazzucato, Benedict Evans, Alf Rehn, Brian Solis, steve blank.
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