Author Archives: Eugene Ivanov

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About Eugene Ivanov

Eugene Ivanov is a business and technical writer interested in innovation and technology. He focuses on factors defining human creativity and socioeconomic conditions affecting corporate innovation.

Don’t Bring Me Chickens or Eggs — Build Me a Farm

Innovation managers love to hate the line “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” They’ll lecture you about root cause analysis. They’ll quote Einstein: “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining … Continue reading

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What If Failing Fast Is Just Failing Wrong?

As Lewis Carroll once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” I think of this wisdom every time I hear the gospelers of the “fail-fast-fail-often” creed. I suspect that their easy acceptance … Continue reading

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Don’t Blame the Black Box: Why We Avoid AI Explanations

There’s a Russian proverb that cuts straight to the heart of human nature: Having an ugly face, don’t blame the mirror (На зеркало неча пенять, коли рожа крива). We like to blame LLM models for their lack of transparency. Calls … Continue reading

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The AI Paradox: Why SMEs Might Be Losing Ground Just When They Thought They’d Caught Up

Three months ago, I declared AI the great equalizer for small and medium enterprises. Today, I’m not so sure. In fact, I’m worried we might be celebrating prematurely — and that the very technology promising to level the playing field … Continue reading

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Putting the Cart Before the Horse: What We’re Getting Wrong About AI

The debate about artificial intelligence has become exhaustingly predictable. On one side, we have doomsayers who celebrate every misstep—a misdrawn map of Europe, a miscounted number of r’s in “blueberry”—as proof that AI is fundamentally flawed. The word “hallucination” has … Continue reading

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Unlocking SME Innovation: Why AI-Based Problem-Solving is the Great Equalizer

In mid-October 2009, I was visiting with a client, a large, Midwest-based paint and coating manufacturing company. As part of their product development process, the company’s engineers built a powerful outdoor pump to paint industrial buildings. The pump worked beautifully … Continue reading

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The Brainstorming Renaissance: How GenAI Tools Are Rewriting the Rules of Creativity

What if the best idea in your next big innovation meeting didn’t come from your star designer, but from a chatbot? This isn’t a futuristic thought experiment; it’s happening now. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are … Continue reading

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The End of the Crowd? (Why AI Won’t Fully Replace Human Crowdsourcing — Yet)

AI has already claimed its seat at the innovation table — and it didn’t even knock. It barged in, armed with large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4, reshaping how companies ideate, prototype, and solve problems.  With astonishing speed and minimal … Continue reading

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Knowing Where You’re Going and Who’s Driving: How AI Is (and Isn’t) Reshaping Human Work

Integrating AI into business practice has gone from a fringe conversation to a boardroom imperative. From productivity gains to fears of de-skilling, the debate is divisive—some see AI as a game-changer for human potential; others worry it’s a slippery slope … Continue reading

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In Silico Creativity. Part 3. AI and Creative Art

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this three-part series, I reviewed what is known about AI’s ability to generate poetry and music. This article is about what AI can do for creative art.  As AI systems like DALL-E, Midjourney, … Continue reading

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