Daily Links

Microsoft Will Shut Down Book Search Program - NYTimes.com

Microsoft is bailing in a small niche of the search market, leaving the ground to Google. Will we look back on this as the high water mark in its search efforts, and from now on, it will just be retrenching?

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: microsoft, search, google, book search, internet archives

Saturday Interview - Changing the Game With Innovations - Interview - NYTimes.com

A.G. Lafley, the chief executive of Procter & Gamble, on the company’s innovation goals:

Q. And yet only half of your product innovations succeed. Why isn’t the rate higher?

A. I don’t really want it to be. Human nature is such that, if we push our people to drive the batting average up, they’ll try to hit more safely, take a shorter swing, go for the singles instead of home runs.

But we try to set milestones that innovations must meet at every step along the development process. As soon as they miss one, we allocate the resources to another product moving through the funnel. That’s another difference from the old days, when P.& G. let bad ideas go too far.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: a.g. lafley, proctor & gamble, innovation, failure rate

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