INNOBLOG

As many of you know, Innosight, the company behind the Innoblog, has deep ties to the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Business School Press, beginning with Innosight founder, HBS professor, and frequent HBSP contributor Clayton Christensen. Our latest collaboration is a blog Ive been keeping over on their site called Innovation Insights. The content is similar to what we post on the Innoblog, so Ill cross-post the first few paragraphs of my entries here, beginning with yesterdays:

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As the U.S. presidential primary season approaches critical contests in Ohio and Texas next week, pollsters are again taking a prominent place in the daily news. The unreliability of these polls provides an important lesson about innovation.

An unusually tight primary campaign has placed greater importance on frequently updated polling numbers. Different polls report different numbers, and polls change significantly from one day to the next. While this ensures pollsters get airtime on CNN, it makes it difficult for politicians and their advisors to make decisions based on poll results. Even polls administered 24 hours before an election can miss the mark.

Think about that for a second. How could scientifically derived estimates by professional pollsters modeling behavior that will take place 24 hours in advance be wrong?

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Head on over to HBSP for the rest!