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May 19, 2006
What is Google's innovation fulcrum?
In a post called Please Google, No More Products, Paul Kedrosky of Infectious Greed suggests that Google may have bitten off more than it can chew when it comes to new product launches:
"Apparently Google is announcing a number of new products next week, including Google Health. I wish it wasn't. Not, however, because I have anything against health-related services -- a friendlier and faster Medline would be a dandy thing -- but because I want ever-scattered Google to sit in place for a minute and finish crucial features in existing products.
Examples are myriad: Where is Edgar search in Google Finance? Not done yet. Where is Exchange sync in Google Calendar? Not done yet. Why is three-year-old Gmail still in beta? Why is Google Talk still tottering around with a fraction of features?
Enough already. Google needs to get on some 12-step no-new-service program and finally get something past the 80% complete mark, or at least the 50%."
This line of thought has been picked up by others in the blogosphere, including Michael Arrington of TechCrunch:
"I also wonder about Google’s dedication to its own projects. For example, what will be the fate of Google Bookmarks now that Google Notepad has launched? Google Labs is littered with half baked and half finished products. I see little or no product vision coming out of Google, sitting fat and arrogant on it its Adsense revenues."
In a nutshell, Google may have reached its innovation fulcrum - the point at which an additional offering by a company destroys more value than it creates. The concept of the "innovation fulcrum" was first popularized by two Bain consultants in an article for the Harvard Business Review last year:
"What's the number of product or service offerings that would optimize both your revenues and your profits? For most firms, it's considerably lower than the number they offer today. The fact is, companies have strong incentives to be overly innovative in new product development. But continual launches of new products and line extensions add complexity throughout a company's operations, and as the costs of managing that complexity multiply, margins shrink. To maximize profit potential, a company needs to identify its innovation fulcrum--the point at which an additional offering destroys more value than it creates."
Tags: Google innovation complexity fulcrum
[image: ZDNet Australia]
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Citigroup CFO Sallie Krawcheck on strategy and innovation
FORTUNE magazine recently launched a video feature called C-Suite Strategies, which consists of a series of interviews conducted with C-level executives (i.e. CEOs, CFOs, CIOs) at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan. In the latest installment, senior editor-at-large Geoff Colvin interviews Citigroup CFO Sallie Krawcheck for insights into the company's strategy and future growth plans. In a brief video clip called "Innovation Leads the Way," Sallie explains the risks and opportunities presented by the fast-growing Chinese market and responds to a viewer question about the potential for Internet banking operations at Citibank. According to Sallie, innovation is important - but only within the context of allocating capital strategically over the long haul. Innovation must feed into the "future iterations of growth" at the company, and not be a one-time shot.
With China looming in the background as a long-term market opportunity, Sallie outlines her plans to boost the company's stock price over the short-term:
"The problem in a nutshell is that last year we did not deliver earnings growth. I believe very strongly that we've been doing the right things at Citigroup. I believe we've been allocating our capital more efficiently, more stringently, more aggressively. We sold off businesses that were not better as part of Citigroup: the asset management business and the life insurance and annuity business. We've tackled the ethics issues absolutely head on. We have embarked on an investment program that will take advantage of the globality of Citigroup to aggressively grow overseas."
Tags: Citigroup strategy innovation
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A touchscreen computer that floats in mid-air
This is one of the featured videos at YouTube.com: a touchscreen computer that appears to "float" in mid-air. Developed by IO2Technology, the Heliodisplay M2 mid-air projecter is capable of projecting images from any video source onto a thin layer of smoke or mist. For more on this product innovation, check out the FAQ page from IO2 Technology.
UPDATE: The video on YouTube has already been viewed more than 135,000 times! I guess that's the definition of "going viral."
Tags: heliodisplay innovation computer
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Innovation from the inside out
Thumbprint Communications, a communications and executive development training company, has launched a new blog that explores how companies can differentiate themselves from one another. Recently, the Thumbprint Communications blog highlighted the importance of learning to innovate from the inside out. Instead of "hiring high priced consultants, sitting in beanbag chairs or shuffling people into a room to mastermind a new process or product," companies should be focused on "genuine innovation" - the kind of innovation that comes from within. Innovation doesn't require a "paint-by-numbers" approach - it requires curiosity and the ability to accept new ideas. With that as an overview, the Thumbprint team suggests five key factors need to spark this type of internal innovation:
(1) Curiosity ("Curiosity starts with questions and then observation, long before there are results");
(2) Exploration;
(3) Spark ("Without spark or energy, there’s no drive to move forward");
(4) Perspective Shifts;
(5) Connections ("Conversation and great collaboration are the result of people connecting");
Anyway, it looks like the Thumbprint blog just launched in May, so be sure to stop by and offer Jeni, Whitney and Gwen your encouragement as they set out to offer their views on innovation. Also, be sure to check out the Wabi-Sabi Leadership Manifesto.
Tags: differentiation innovation creativity
[image: Thumbprint]
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Want to become more innovative? Grow a moustache!
Joanne Kaufman of the Wall Street Journal recently profiled the World Beard and Moustache Championships that took place in New York City on May 16. Apparently, there's a full-length documentary film in the works, so there must be a lot of grassroots support for this kind of thing. There's even a Beard Team USA blog. At these beard and moustache championships, people dress up in historical costumes and do bizarre dances, all while sporting facial hair reminiscent of Wyatt Earp, Salvador Dali and Kaiser Wilhelm I, among others. At the New York City event, 400 screaming fans attended, cheering on their favorites. (As an aside: it's very easy to see how trendy hipsters in Williamsburg might latch on to this event for its amazingly high kitsch factor.)
Anyway, the story is interesting for several reasons. One of the contestants interviewed for the Wall Street Journal piece, for example, pointed out that having a beard or moustache "changes your personality. You start acting and doing things in ways you would never do without a moustache. I started wearing cowboy boots... and I live in New Jersey." Is it possible to become, say, more innovative or creative by growing a moustache or beard?
Which raises the question: Why don't more CEOs have beards or moustaches? Off the top of my head, I can think of only a few - like former Goldman Sachs head Jon Corzine and DaimlerChrysler's Dieter Zetsche. As you move away from traditional manufacturing jobs and financial services, though, the number of top execs with facial hair starts to increase. Take, for example, Apple's Steve Jobs and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Is it too much of a stretch to say that moustaches and beards are more common in creative industries like entertainment and technology, and less common in traditional industries?
UPDATE: UglyChart is conducting a reader poll to find its first annual beard and moustache champion.
[images: Gallery of Contestants and Champions]
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May 18, 2006
May 18 innovation linkage, the DaVinci Code edition
Night With a Futurist [The DaVinci Institute]
Good intentions don't guarantee good ideas [HB3]
Introducing the Chicago Innovation Awards [Chicago Sun-Times]
2010: The Year of the Techie [ZDNet News]
The Best Buy Innovation Challenge [Medill School of Journalism]
Innovation is the future of Lenovo [CCTV International]
Evaluating innovation policy [Jerry Sheehan]
New thinking about Australian innovation [Central Ranges]
In Vancouver, more talk of an innovation commons [Boris Mann]
This is what you will look like at age 65 [TechWeb]
[image: The Da Vinci Code]
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How to use MySpace to attract new customers
In the Wall Street Journal, Andrew LaVallee takes a closer look at how churches are taking advantage of new technologies such as social networking sites to attract young new members. While Andrew focuses specifically on churches that are using sites like MySpace and Facebook, it's easy to see how the same practices are transferrable to the business world as well. Looking to add a few new customers, especially those in the desirable 18-to-34 demographic? It might just be as easy as setting up a page on MySpace:
"Rev. Patrick Gray, a 35-year-old Episcopal priest at Boston's Church of the Advent, was sold on MySpace by a congregant whose rock band had used the site to attract listeners. While most MySpace users create pages to promote themselves or a band, he posted a profile for his parish. It includes reminders for Sunday services, audio files of its choir and announcements for "Theology on Tap" gatherings at a local bar. "It's a way for us to say, 'Hey, come and see,'" said Father Gray, who created the MySpace profile in January. "It gets our name out there. It puts us on the mental map, the emotional map."
Technology, quite simply, has become a way for the church to project a different sort of image. Back in the day, going to the church meant wearing a lot of uncomfortable clothes and listening to a lot of sermons. Today, though, churches are using blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites to change all that. If it's Napoleon Dynamite and rock'n'roll that they want, then that's exactly what they'll get:
"In a bid to attract new members and shed their persistently Luddite image, churches across the country are embracing technology and Web sites like MySpace. Blogs and podcasts have become part of religious leaders' communications with congregants, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr are increasingly used to depict a fun-loving, casually-dressed community of churchgoers. Churches with an evangelical bent often lead the way when it comes to harnessing technology, though some traditional congregations are also experimenting -- even the Vatican has podcasts."
Tags: MySpace innovation marketing
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"Innovate or Die Trying"
The current issue of Training Magazine features an article called Innovate or Die Trying, which looks at how companies such as Scottsdale Insurance and Thomson are experimenting with innovation training programs as a way to inspire worker creativity. Thomson, for example, launched an innovation initiative known as Thomson University to nurture and develop homegrown creativity.
In a related segment (Think Outside the Office), Margery Weinstein of Training Magazine takes a look at how space and environment can impact creativity and innovation. The basic idea, of course, is that workers will do their best thinking in non-traditional surroundings. After all, how many people do their best thinking in a cubicle? Building on this idea, Chicago's Thinkubator makes use of everything from disco lighting to giant chair sculptures to stimulate worker creativity:
"If you want to physically take workers away from the environment that’s been causing their stagnation, consider the Chicago based Thinkubator. Here there’s an atmosphere founder and President Gerald Haman says is conducive to novel thinking. Owned and operated by innovation training and development firm SolutionPeople in Chicago... the facility includes giant chair sculptures, disco lighting, a sound system, a professional karaoke system and a rooftop sun deck with panoramic skyline views of the city. “Many people focus innovation and creativity training on what happens inside of people’s minds,” Haman says. “I’ve found that it’s also important to pay attention to what goes on outside of people’s heads, thereby looking at the physical environment.”
As Margery explains, the disco balls and rooftop sun deck are part of an overall strategy at the Thinkubator to make sure participants feel comfortable, inspired, and stimulated:
"To do this, the venue was created with what Haman calls the “four Ps of innovative environments:” the personal space, partnership space, public space, and personal computer (PC) space. Each of these areas, he says, serves a key purpose in the creativity process. The wide-ranging view of Chicago that can be seen from the “public space’s” rooftop sundeck for example, helps employees accomplish what Haman refers to as “blue sky thinking,” or thinking that emphasizes new possibilities rather than limitations. The partnership space enables participants to break up into small work groups or “innovation dream teams.” The personal spaces allow workers to relax and concentrate on challenges individually..."
Tags: Thinkubator innovation creativity
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Innovation at Google: Marissa Mayer podcast
The World 2 Come blog points to a podcast on innovation featuring Google's Marissa Mayer:
"Google’s VP of Search Products & UE Product Management Marissa Mayer talks about Google’s unique approach to innovation. This podcast will clue you in to how innovation can start in the lunch line. You’ll also learn about Google’s 70/20/10 strategy, and how some of the hottest innovations come out of company-sanctioned tinkering time."
Tags: Google innovation MarissaMayer
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The history of videogame innovation
BBC News profiles the Game Innovation Database (GIDb), an open wiki created by a team at Carnegie-Mellon that tracks and catalogues the history of every videogame innovation:
"The online encyclopedia is similar to Wikipedia and allows users to browse and edit the site's content. The developers hope that games fanatics can start to build a complete picture of the last 35 years of games history. When complete, the team behind the site believe it will be the first complete online record of a rapidly changing industry and a useful resource for those who don't know their Pong from their Pac-man.
"We have created the Game Innovation Database in order to create a historical record of which innovations appeared when, and why they are important," said Professor Jesse Schell of Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, and one of the team behind the site. "So many videogame innovations have occurred so fast that there is a danger that many fascinating and important innovations will be forgotten."
On the game innovation wiki, it's possible to browse a "taxonomy of innovation" to find out about more than 180 videogame innovations: the first use of a camera as a weapon, the first use of speed in an action game, the first use of interactive music, etc.
Tags: videogame innovation CarnegieMellon
[image: The Augusta Chronicle]
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May 17, 2006
May 17 Innovation linkage
The first 25,000 users are irrelevant [Feld Thoughts]
The Principles of Talentism [Jeff Hunter's Talentism blog]
Partnering with Microsoft [Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing]
Visualizing the design process from start to finish [Noise Between Stations]
Is price leadership an obsolete strategy? [Niti Bhan's Perspectives blog]
Web-based alternatives to PowerPoint [InfoWorld]
Breathing new life into Xerox [CNET]
What cake decorating can teach about innovation [Grassroots Innovation]
Enhanced senses and superhuman bodies [New Scientist]
Visualizing the entire book collection at Amazon.com [Information Aesthetics]
[Image: The New Googleplex Down Under via ZDNet]
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Updates from the Innovation Strategies Summit in Chicago
Chuck Frey of the Innovation Weblog has posted a few highlights from the Innovation Strategies Summit that took place in Chicago last week. The event, sponsored by the Strategy Institute, was based around one central theme: How can companies generate new product ideas and service offerings through innovation? Speakers at the event included Dean Schroeder (co-author of Ideas are Free); Pamela Rogers (Whirlpool); Gerald “Solutionman” Haman (the founder of SolutionPeople & The Chicago Thinkubator); Clive Roux (Philips Design); Becky Walter (Kimberly-Clark); and Corinne Miller (Motorola).
In one panel discussion on corporate ethnography, innovation experts from Kimberly-Clark and Whirlpool explained how they are experimenting with ethnography during the product innovation process:
Simply put, ethnography - as it applies to innovation - is the process of doing observational research, going into the field to watch how customers utilize your products. Often used in consumer new product research, ethnography is an excellent way to uncover new opportunities for product improvement.
For example, speaker Pam Rogers, who is corporate director of global customer excellence and innovation at Whirlpool, explained how the inspiration for a pedestal/storage unit for its Duet front-loading washers and dryers came from observing a woman who had placed her Whirlpool dryer upon cinderblocks, to make it easier to load and unload it without having to bend over.
Another speaker, Becky Walter director of innovation design and testing for paper products giant Kimberly-Clark Corporation, explained how their products (toilet paper, feminine napkins, incontinence products) tend to be discreet - that is, it's difficult to do first-person observation of customers using some of its products. To solve this problem, K-C has developed a device that looks like a pair of eyeglasses, with a small video camera and microphone embedded in it. This ingenious device enables K-C product developers to see what the consumer sees as he or she is opening up a package and using the product. Becky showed a brief video clip of a consumer trying to figure out how to open a package of feminine napkins, for example. It was as close as you could get to "real" product use.
Tags: innovation strategy
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Advertising moves underground
Get ready for the next big innovation in advertising. According to the New York Daily News, the MTA is mulling over a high-tech plan for placing commercials throughout the New York subway system:
"The MTA is considering using its warren of underground tubes as advertising space, eying electronic panels that are capable of broadcasting commercials to straphangers - a captive audience, to be sure. The ads would feature a series of changing images, similar to early silent movies or kiddie flipbooks. They would be displayed at rates determined by train speeds - ensuring the ads are not mere blurs to peering riders.
"The technology is amazing," Roco Krsulic, who heads the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's real estate and advertising department, told the Daily News. The tunnel technology, which has been tried on PATH lines, in Chicago and elsewhere, will be tested in the city's tubes before officials decide whether to go with a full-blown campaign, Krsulic said. The first tests in the nation's biggest subway system could begin this summer."
Anyway, if this idea of "subway flipbooks" doesn't work as intended, there are several back-up plans to snare advertising dollars, including one plan to project silent ads onto walls behind subway tracks that bored riders can watch while waiting on subway platforms. Is it just me, or is the New York subway already turning into one giant advertisement? Those Times Square theme park shuttles (like this Middle Earth shuttle) are already a bit much.
Tags: innovation advertising
[image: The Times Square shuttle wrapped in "Deadwood"]
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10 reasons why Vladimir Lenin would love today's Internet
There's no doubt that if Communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin were alive today, he'd be one of the first people hopping aboard the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Heck, he might even launch a blog with a retro-Soviet name as a way to incite the masses to revolutionary activity (unfortunately, Samizdata and Vodka Pundit are already taken). Why? Well, (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) consider the similarities between the Communist revolutionary movement of 1917 and the current Web 2.0 revolutionary movement:
(1) The presence of an ideological master text. The Bolsheviks had the Communist Manifesto, while Web 2.0 has the Cluetrain Manifesto;
(2) The importance of ideological purity. Take, for example, the never-ending war of words between Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton over what a blogging company should be or the constant monitoring of Google for signs that it is turning into the next Microsoft;
(3) The cult of personality. A-list bloggers: need I say more?
(4) The importance of slogans and questions to stimulate revolutionary action. The Soviets had "What is to be Done?" and various slogans supporting the "class struggle" while the Internet has "Information Wants to be Free" and a host of other slogans;
(5) A bottoms-up approach to revolution that emphasizes "all power to the people";
(6) The emergence, from time-to-time, of radicals who claim that the revolution is not happening fast enough (e.g. Pinko Marketing);
(7) The "collective" as the building block of Internet society;
(8) A disdain for "big business" and anything "corporate." Fortunately, there has not yet been any talk of a redistribution of wealth to the Internet peasant class (although there has been talk of a redistribution of advertising dollars to the Internet blogging class);
(9) Worldwide solidarity and brotherhood. Much as the Soviets supported their Communist brethren in places like Nicaragua, Africa, Cuba and North Korea, the supporters of Web 2.0 keep a close watch on their blogging brethren in far-flung locales such as Iraq and China;
(10) A belief in historical dialectics. Look at the pattern of history - this revolution will happen!
Tags: pinko Communism Internet Lenin
[image: Communist Party via Speerfish photostream on Flickr]
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Design-driven innovation
Trendwatching website Springwise ("New Business Ideas for Entrepreneurial Minds") points to the latest example of "design-driven innovation"- a new haute design cineplex in Paris called MK2:
"Located in the south-east '13ème' district of Paris, MK2 Bibliothèque is a grand boutique cineplex. A USD 30 million branch of an 11 theatre chain, the MK2 Bibliothèque (so named for its proximity to the François Mitterrand National Library) features 14 screens, as well as cafes, restaurants, DVD shop, classical music boutique, bookstore, modern art gallery and even a DJ bar. It's a miniature cultural city encased in a long, sleek, glass and steel structure, linking movie-going to other experiences.
Besides state of the art projection and sound, the theatres' trademark feature is MK2 Bibliothèque's "fauteuils pour deux": loveseats for two. As for what's up on the screen, there's a strong focus on independent and arthouse movies, as well as blockbusters. As we like to point out, everything can be upgraded. Design driven innovation like that of MK2 Bibliothèque, or the Austrian supermarkets we recently featured, creates a superior experience for consumers, while offering companies a way to differentiate themselves from their competition."
Also seen on Springwise: nightclub hand stamps for advertising, curated online markets, a Japanese version of JetBlue, and consumer-made commercial videos.
Tags: trend design innovation
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How to make a cable TV commercial in 30 seconds or less
Clayton Christensen's Innoblog recently profiled Spot Runner as a disruptive innovation capable of opening up the TV advertising market in much the same way that Google opened up the Internet advertising market with its now ubiquitous text ads. In fact, a recent Fast Company article noted that Google was likely to start a rival TV ad service along the lines of the Spot Runner service. According to the Spot Runner site, it's possible to run a 30-second spot on Bravo during prime time for $18 or a 30-second spot on ESPN for $44. Imagine what would happen if small businesses were able to market their services with a 30-second TV ad the same way that Fortune 500 companies do?
But wait, you're asking, "How are these companies supposed to make a cable TV 30-second spot?" Isn't that, like, hard? That's where Spot Runner enters the picture - a team of video pros has already put together a library of professional, high quality commercials for a number of different verticals. Just change the name and the contact info, and presto! you're advertising your biz on late night cable TV. As Clayton Christensen's Innoblog points out, the video quality is "good enough" for any small business like a flower shop or an auto repair shop.
Out of curiosity, I took a look at the various promotional ads available. One of the featured samples is called "Retirement Planning" and is available as either a Windows Media or Quicktime 30-second clip. What results is the kind of ad you might see for just about financial services company on the planet. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the typical commercial for any of the big institutions like Merrill Lynch or American Express: lots of smiling, happy people with no obvious deformities; lots of father-son bonding over traditional American pastimes like baseball and fishing; and the implicit assumption that anyone would be crazy not to start saving for that beautiful home or that college education right now.
While the imagery and text ("You teach them to reach for their dreams... You celebrate every milestone with them... You remind them their potential is limitless... We realize their future begins now") is a bit vanilla there's no denying that Spot Runner really does offer professional-quality video and a professional-quality voiceover.
Tags: SpotRunner cableTV disruptive innovation
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May 16, 2006
In New York, do-it-yourself innovation takes off
Tom Watson, one of the original leaders of the Web 1.0 movement in New York City back in the 1990s, reports on the excitement surrounding Web 2.0 in New York: "Investment follows innovation and acceptance (and sometimes, profits)... It’s happening again – what happened in New York in 1994 and 1995 and 1996 . Innovation (and I hope, not an overvaluation bubble)." Anyway, Tom provides extensive notes and commentary from a DIY Media Technology presentation hosted by the NYSIA, highlighting the types of companies and individuals who are giving birth to the "prosumer" movement in New York. According to Tom, "prosumerism" goes "way beyond blogs and RSS," to include technologies such as GPS and voice recognition. Along the way, the line between media and technology continues to blur, giving rise to new opportunities for innovative companies:
In New York, especially over the past decade since the advent of the commercial Internet, we talk a lot about media technology without ever really defining it. The problem is, I think, one of separation. We approach the question with the notion that media and technology are separate things—separate disciplines, separate industries. But in fact, media — movies, television, video games, books, magazines, recorded music — can't exist without technology. Media is nothing more than the commercial exploitation of the creative arts. And the process of turning a creative work into a commercial media product is entirely dependent on technology... A Grateful Dead concert isn't necessarily media. But a CD recording of that concert IS.
Tags: innovation media technology NewYork
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Is Google's 20% rule broken?
At Google, employees are allowed to allocate 20% of their time to thinking about innovative new projects. That fact has often been cited as the "secret ingredient" in Google's amazing ability to innovate faster and more effectively than just about any other company. Google News, for example, was one of the byproducts of this 20% rule that encourages innovative thinking. According to ValleyWag, though, things are getting a bit chaotic at Google HQ these days, with too many people pursuing too many projects. In fact, it looks like the 20% rule might be coming up for review at Google, if this insider tip is accurate:
Here's some fuel for your fire: a couple weeks ago, at a regular engineering all-hands, Larry Page went on a half-hour rant that left the entire engineering team wondering if he's gone nuts. He spent a long time lecturing everyone about how we're not smart enough to pick the right projects to work on, and he singled out a couple of projects (in front of hundreds of engineers) to complain about because they weren't using shared infrastructure components.
Then he announced that he doesn't want people to use 20% time to work on new ideas -- yep, Larry has suddenly decided that the only good way to use 20% time is to work on someone else's project. So don't expect to see any products like Google News coming out any time soon.
Anyway, it's all hearsay from ValleyWag, so don't go out and start selling your shares of Google anytime soon. However, the story about Google being disorganized has been picked up by VNU Net. Apparently, Google's top brass is concerned that engineers are only spending 60% of their time improving Google search results at a time when competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo are quickly closing the gap in search quality.
Tags: Google innovation
[image: The Economist]
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How outside innovation is revolutionizing traditional R&D
The Putting People First blog points to a recent article in the Boston Globe illustrating the radical changes taking place in R&D as the result of new "outside innovation" practices that have been adopted by companies such as P&G, Staples and Yahoo. After citing the contributions of a number of important thinkers in the open innovation space - including Eric Von Hippel of MIT and Navi Radjou of Forrester Research - Robert Weisman of the Boston Globe highlights Patricia Seybold's forthcoming book on Outside Innovation:
Customer-led innovation is inevitable, said Seybold, chief executive and senior consultant with the Patricia Seybold Group, citing the rush of hobbyist-hackers to improve everything from Legos to computers to Segway scooters. ''Customers are going to do it whether you want them to or not," she said, ''and you can't anticipate the ways they are going to change your business. But you can try to harness it."
Seybold's book in-progress, titled ''Outside Innovation," cites many companies that have done just that. Lego Group incorporated design ideas not only from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University but also from consumers who had reverse-engineered and invented new parts for Mindstorms, a line of robotic toys that became a top-selling product.
Seybold, drawing on studies by Eric von Hippel, professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, said forward-thinking businesses are setting up online forums to identify ''lead customers," those who are early adopters and passionate users of their products, and work with them to drive innovation. ''Lead customers are good prognosticators of what your customer base is going to need six months out," she said.
As outside innovation supersedes traditional thinking about product development, which Seybold describes as ''our experts are smarter than our customers," companies are grappling with a vacuum in their own organizations, which in the past designed products for the perceived needs of customers and then deployed their marketing arms to publicize the products and convince customers they needed them.
Tags: outsideinnovation innovation
[image: Collaboration]
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Hectic video, Dan
The Da Vinci Code invades theaters on Friday, and the film's marketers have been bombarding us for months with those "So Dark the Con of Man" trailers. It's impossible to walk into a bookstore or pharmacy or grocery store without seeing one of those ubiquitous Da Vinci code paperbacks for sale (presumably, there's at least a handful of Americans who haven't yet read the book). Interestingly, the film's official web site is not DaVinciCode.com (Random House's Doubleday unit grabbed that a long time ago) or DaVinciCodeMovie.com (acquired by some enterprising soul using GoDaddy), but SoDarkTheConofMan.com.
That fact inspired a group of anagram geniuses to re-read the Da Vinci Code book for potential clues about Dan Brown's true intentions. By now, everyone knows that "So Dark the Con of Man" is really an anagram of "Madonna of the Rocks," but what about "The DaVinci Code"? Is that really an anagram for something far more insidious and controversial? You be the judge:
(1) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Do divine cachet"
(2) "The Da Vinci Code" = "The candid voice"
(3) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Vet. Coincided. Ah!"
(4) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Convicted. Die! Ha!"
(5) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Hectic video, Dan."
(6) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Addictive con, eh?"
(7) "The Da Vinci Code" = "I'd have cited con."
(8) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Naive? Odd... Hectic!"
(9) "The Da Vinci Code" = "Avid! Hectic! Done!"
(10) "The Da Vinci Code" = "An odd vice ethic."
Last but not least:
"The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown" -> "Odd cheat; now binned by vicar."
Tags: DanBrown DaVinciCode anagram SoDarktheConofMan
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Of trolls and goats
Over at TCS Daily, intellectual property lawyer Michael Rosen interjects some fresh thinking into the debate over patent trolls. Along the way, Rosen revisits the BlackBerry patent troll case and alludes to the famous children's tale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. After explaining some of the finer points of the patent troll controversy, Rosen points out that the two major initiatives proposed by the "goats" to rectify the current situation have serious drawbacks:
"The goats' first proposal is quite simply to insert a greater amount of discretion into the judge's determination of whether an injunction is appropriate. Such judicial freedom would presumably diminish the number of injunctions entered.
While on the surface, this seems appealing, in reality it would yield far more uncertainty than currently exists; analyzing the appropriateness of an injunction on a case-by-case basis with only vague guidance will undermine the predictability that undergirds the patent system. And if anything, if ever there were a time to presumptively grant injunctive relief, it's precisely when a jury has already found a patent to be valid and infringed.
Instead, the categories of exceptions that generally short-circuit an injunction -- to protect public health, to promote national security, and in cases of "laches" (i.e. where the patentee waited too long before bringing suit) -- offer a superior (although not perfect) balance between discretion and certainty.
The second major caprine suggestion is to make injunctive relief unavailable to any entity not practicing its patent. This reform, say the goats, would rectify the currently inequitable, imbalanced situation in which the troll can mug a large, commercially successful company.
But it raises more concerns than it answers. What does it mean to "practice a patent"? Does a company have to actually manufacture the product itself? What if it licenses the patent to a manufacturer? And if that's alright, what if the factory is located overseas? If the goats mean to exclude corporations that develop technology but farm out production to others through licensing schemes, this could spell trouble for major companies like Qualcomm (which asserts that "the value of property should not depend on legal rules that are different for different owners.").
And what about large companies that do make products but that hold -- and assert -- patents in areas in which they do not (yet) produce anything? Even major corporations have been known to threaten others with patents unrelated to their core competencies.
Moreover, what about inventors or entities that try unsuccessfully to market or license their patents? Should their failures be held against them? And if not, what constitutes a sufficient attempt to practice a patent? A single unanswered phone call to a big company's customer service department? Unfortunately, the goats leave these questions unanswered."
Tags: patenttroll IP innovation
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May 15, 2006
May 15 Innovation Linkage, A.M. edition
The Top 10 lies of corporate partners [Guy Kawasaki]
Is Google the new Microsoft? [The Economist]
The BBC mistakes a cabbie for an expert on Internet music downloads [Times Online]
The Management Myth [The Atlantic Online]
Strategic Acts of Generosity [Geoffrey Moore]
How to evaluate your business unit portfolio [Strategy + Business]
The role of the wiki in the evolution of corporate collaboration [CNET Video]
Ezio Manzini on cosmopolitan localism [P2P Foundation]
Social networking sites are the reality television of the Internet [TechWeb]
[image: University of Brighton innovation awards]
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