The Spark
News, insights and commentary from NS
Step Away From Your Desk: Innovation Requires Focused Relaxation
Bill Nottingham Managing Partner & VP, Growth Social media is full of posts extolling the virtues of constant work. Searc...
Keeping Innovation Alive: The Road Ahead [Recap]
Business leaders talk to NS about the future of innovation in the third installment of our popular webinar series. Nottingham...
Innovation in the New Normal Webinar Recap
Business leaders talk to NS about how they’re navigating unprecedented disruption Nottingham Spirk For the second installment...
Innovation is an “Infinite Game”
Bill Nottingham | Smart Business Cleveland Swimmers Michael Phelps and Chad le Clos appeared in one of the most memorable ima...
What innovators and musicians have in common
Bill Nottingham | Smart Business Cleveland The first time they jammed together, in 1980, the members of R.E.M. wrote six song...
Boundary Crossing with The Marvel Method
Nottingham Spirk John Nottingham has a saying: “Innovation is not something we do on Thursday.” His point is that creating is...
Your Not-To-Do List: More Phrases That Stifle Innovation
Nottingham Spirk A recent post at FastCompany.com, titled “These Three Phrases Are Killing Innovation at Your Workplace,” gen...
Musings: Where Do Ideas Come From? Part 2
Nottingham Spirk We’re asked all the time, “How do you come up with new ideas?” The truth is, there’s no one answer. We’ve as...
Lessons from Google’s “Moonshot Factory”
Nottingham Spirk We highly recommend the recent Atlantic article “Google X and the Science of Radical Creativity,” which prov...
Leadership By Design: Views from the Montgomery Summit
To foster innovation, executives need to be responsive as well as decisive. Nottingham Spirk Spencer Rascoff at the Montgomer...
New Year: Resolve to Innovate More in 2017
Want to disrupt markets? Start by disrupting yourself. Nottingham Spirk The “Eureka!” moment is a real thing, but it’s widely...
Disrupt Yourself Before Someone Else Does
Nottingham Spirk Industries change so fast now that it’s not enough to stay ahead of current competitors. Businesses have to ...
SXSW Interactive: The Front End of Innovation
Nottingham Spirk If the annual Consumer Electronics Show represents “The Back End of Innovation,” then the Consumer Technolog...
Innovation is Not a Thing We Do on Thursday
Nottingham Spirk co-founder John Nottingham and Vice President Bill Nottingham spoke about innovation recently at Cleveland’s...
2016 Edison Awards: Three Client Collaborations Nominated
Three products designed by Nottingham Spirk are in the running for 2016 Edison Awards, which recognizes innovation. Two of th...
Innovation factory — An inside look at how John Spirk and John Nottingham take ideas from mind to market
Staff | Smart Business Network You may have heard of writer’s block — when the words just won’t come to mind. There’s also in...
Innovation and Education: We Need More “STEAM”
An op-ed about the value of high school shop classes got us thinking and reading more about education’s role in innovation. T...
Engineer Opportunities: Elsie’s New Car
Innovation changes the world — and changing the world of just one person still counts. We were reminded of this by the above ...
2015 CES: Emerging Innovation
As usual, the gravitational pull of the tech giants at the recent Consumer Electronics Show was nearly inescapable, but we we...
Taming the Unruly Reciprocating Saw
For versatility and portability, no power saw can compare to the reciprocating saw. Held like a shotgun, the reciprocating sa...
Vertical Innovation®
For over 50 years, we’ve honed a unique process we call Vertical Innovation® – the alignment of resources and culture. Resour...
Zurn Aquasense: Sometimes the Best Technology is Hidden
Zurn tasked Nottingham Spirk to create a visually modern sensor faucet that would elevate Zurn's product portfolio above othe...
Create a Culture of Innovation
Nottingham Spirk At the core of Nottingham Spirk's business is a culture rooted in innovation. After 42 years in business, co...
A New Year’s Greeting from Nottingham Spirk
John Nottingham & John Spirk Co-CEOs & Co-Founders Capitalizing on Core Strengths As we approach the New Year, we are...
Creating Ways to Make an Impact: 70-20-10 Rule
First, you can't focus 100% of your research and development efforts only on your core product lines. Crains Cleveland Busine...
Keep Big Ideas From Eating Your Core Business
Chuck Soder, from Crain’s Cleveland Business and host of Tech Talk Podcasts met with John and Bill Nottingham of Nottingham S...
Key to Success: Innovation
Key to Success: Two of Nottingham Spirk’s latest innovative products have been featured in Crain’s Cleveland Business. Nottin...
25 Most Innovative: Urgent Rx
Forbes’ 25 Most Innovative Consumer and Retail Brands Urgent Rx is known for their fast acting, over the counter, single-use,...
Innovation Awards for Scotts Snap System
Nottingham Spirk Spring was a rewarding season for Scotts Snap System, as its innovation and design elements were recognized ...
Lawn Care Innovation with Scotts
Nottingham Spirk What makes a lawn care innovation desirable? There are plenty of lawn care opinions, but we think our client...