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#1 — The Enshittification of Corporate Creativity, 2025 edition

#1 — The Enshittification of Corporate Creativity, 2025 edition

TL;DR: Enshittification is a term for how everything — from social media to your latte art — is spiraling into bland, corporate sludge…
Go to the profile of Alf Rehn
Alf Rehn
The Muddle of Mediocrity in Management

The Muddle of Mediocrity in Management

Writing and thinking about management have tended to be highly polarized along an axis of success and failure. On the one hand, we tend to…
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Alf Rehn
The Innovation Time Bomb — A Warning

The Innovation Time Bomb — A Warning

(If you are dead tired of preambles that remind you that there’s been a crisis and all that, and want to get to the point quicker, skip…
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Alf Rehn
On the Prescriptions, Paradoxes, and Props of Entrepreneurial Passion

On the Prescriptions, Paradoxes, and Props of Entrepreneurial Passion

This text was originally written for a somewhat slapdash edited volume on entrepreneurial passion, and as is at times my way I…
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Alf Rehn
Requiem for an Innovation: What We Can Learn from the Sad Story of Laundroid, the Laundry-Folding…

Requiem for an Innovation: What We Can Learn from the Sad Story of ...

Our society tends to narrate innovation in triumphalist and only triumphalist ways. As we, particularly in the West but increasingly as a…
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Alf Rehn
Innovation as a Balancing Act: On Undersolving and Oversolving Problems (Early Draft)

Innovation as a Balancing Act: On Undersolving and Oversolving Prob...

(This is merely the start of a longer piece on solutions and innovation I am planning, but thought it would be good to outline it here. It…
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Alf Rehn
A Different Kind of Final Lecture

A Different Kind of Final Lecture

Notes On the Thanatonomy, From One About To Enter It
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Alf Rehn
The Innovation Blame Game — Three Critical Errors in Organizational Innovation

The Innovation Blame Game — Three Critical Errors in Organizational Innovation

There is an old adage, sometimes called “Hanlon’s razor”, which states the following: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately…
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Alf Rehn
On Innovation Ambition

On Innovation Ambition

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Alf Rehn
The One Thing I’ve Tried To Teach My Children Is Something I’m Awful At Myself

The One Thing I’ve Tried To Teach My Children Is Something I’m Awful At Myself

Do you need to know something in order to be able to teach it? It sounds like a silly question, and one that should be answered with a…
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Alf Rehn
In Praise of Assholes

In Praise of Assholes

In 2007 Robert Sutton, professor at Stanford University, wrote a book called The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and…
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Alf Rehn
On Being Productive vs Being Creative

On Being Productive vs Being Creative

Lifehacking, particularly in the field of productivity, has become our new obsession. Not a day goes by without some new input on how to…
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Alf Rehn
On the Paradoxes of Finland’s Creativity

On the Paradoxes of Finland’s Creativity

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Alf Rehn
On Leadership and Recruiting For Misfits

On Leadership and Recruiting For Misfits

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Alf Rehn
A Prayer for the Devil’s Advocate — On the Importance of Skeptics in the Innovation Process

A Prayer for the Devil’s Advocate — On the Importance of Skeptics in the Innovation Process

It may be one of the most misunderstood job titles of all times, and often referred to as not even fully real. You’ll hear people say…
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Alf Rehn
Innovation’s Machismo Problem

Innovation’s Machismo Problem

There are many reasons to hate the innovation discourse.
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Alf Rehn
Are you open to all your futures, or just the comfortable ones?

Are you open to all your futures, or just the comfortable ones?

Originally written for a book to be published in South Korea, edited by Douglas Huh.
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Alf Rehn
The Real Lessons of Disruption

The Real Lessons of Disruption

What might still be learnt from one of the most misunderstood concepts in management thinking
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Alf Rehn
The Joy of Analog (Customers)

The Joy of Analog (Customers)

Originally published at qualityintelligence.net. Also available at The Thinkers 50 Blog.
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Alf Rehn
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