I build the people and teams who innovate.
I've done it for forty years: co-founding a company and taking it public, serving as HP's CTO, leading CableLabs.
Now I'm building the next generation of innovators. Studio Notes is the writing: essays on the decisions behind the innovations. Studio Sessions is the podcast and YouTube channel, running since 2005: over a thousand episodes teaching the skills of innovation, free.
For leaders who want me in the room, Techtrend is my advisory practice: advising a small roster of organizations on the hard calls of innovation and technology, since 1996.
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How To Improve Your Analytical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking judges a claim. Analytical thinking works the problem: break it apart, find what is really driving it, and test your read before acting.
Never Forget: 25 Years Remembering Charles Falkenberg and His Family
First written September 11, 2008. Updated for the 25th anniversary, September 11, 2026.
How to Recognize Failure Patterns: How HP Quit and Apple Won
A partner named exactly how HP would lose, four years early. HP quit. Apple didn't. Here are the four failure patterns behind both calls.
HP Needs to Stop Before It Can Grow
A response to Mark Vena's "HP Needs More Than a New CEO," and my second letter to HP's board.
How to Improve Your Abductive Reasoning Skills: The Sherlock Holmes Method
School taught you deductive and inductive reasoning. The third kind, abductive reasoning, is where new ideas come from, and it is the one AI can't do.
The Customers Who Walked Away
Forty-two killer questions that survived years of testing, and the three places to aim them.
How One Word Steers Your Answer
The anatomy of a bad question, and what makes one great.
What Half of 13 Reveals About Your Thinking
The power of questions comes down to how your brain works: it answers a question the moment you hear it, whether or not you want it to.