thinkfuture
talking innovation
Is Innovation Bogged Down At Your Company?
Jul 29th
Many companies i come across are really stuck when it comes to innovating: they’ve got huge potential, hundreds or thousands of employees with great ideas, but no way to collect, surface and socialize those ideas. And even if those ideas are collected, surfaced, voted on AND socialized, they still have trouble getting traction within an organization. So what can you do?
Innovation REQUIRES the ability to allow yourself to think about the complete destruction of anything you are doing now. I know, most companies say – its unthinkable! How can I think about the end of what I am doing now -especially when its profitable. but its when you are the most profitable that innovative, younger firms come along and eat your lunch.
Right now, today, this very minute, there are a few guys in a startup, in a garage or a coffee shop, planning the demise of your company. Do you:
1. Wait for them to surface, then buy them?
2. Wait for them to surface, and let them eat your lunch?
3. Invent the future of your business before they can, by letting your people innovate.
Innovation is simple, but it requires time and talent. You probably have plenty of the latter, all throughout your organization. All you need to do is to provide the former. but how do you do it right?
Google does it by giving all of their employees a chunk of time (20%) where they can pursue projects not directly related to their work. Maps and Wave came out of that kind of time, but most of the rest of the time, people work on projects that just don’t go anywhere, so there is a lot of wasted effort.
So how do you increase the time your employees have to innovate, while at the same time directing them towards the most useful tasks?
What if it took very little time to surface an idea to those who could do something with it?
What if you could easily identify all of the innovators within your company?
What if you could direct their efforts towards some set of goals, and empower them at the same time?
Oh man. Lots of questions. I do have the answers, but then, why should i just give them away? 
Do Non-Serial Inventors Really Exist?
Jul 16th
First in a series of posts on media: books, movies, novels etc that feature innovation, innovators and inventors.
I watched Flash Of Genius last night : its the story of inventor Robert Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent wiper, whose invention was basically stolen from him by Ford Motor Corp and integrated into their cars with no consideration. The story starts as Robert, as serial inventor whose supposed first invention was a plastic bag which let you color your margarine yellow, sees the need for a wiper which only wipes “like an eye blinking” in a rain storm, coming home one day from church with his large family. He builds and patents his invention, then goes to the Ford in order to swing a deal. They lead him on long enough to get their hands on a working model of the invention, then break off the deal.
A few months later, Kearns crashes a party where the new Mustangs are revealed to have a brand new “intermittent wiper” feature, which is almost totally based on his design. The movie then details his long struggle against Ford and recognition that he was the inventor.
While a good film, and fairly inspirational – its hard to see the inventor of today in Kearns. He is incredibly set on defending and getting credit for the idea: repeatedly turning down deal after deal after deal, starting in the hundreds of thousands well into the tens of millions. While for this inventor, the story ended fairly well, I can’t see how any inventor today could resist that kind of deal. I wouldn’t. And you probably shouldn’t either. Question is: can someone really only have one good idea in their lives?
In the end, I think Kearns believed that while he was a serial inventor, he did not believe that any of his other inventions had value, since it was a specific, personal event which occurred to him and him alone, which lead him to invent this wiper. This showed a basic insecurity, which was never fully explored in the film. Yes, he was driven, ambitious and tenacious, but if he were a true inventor, in my eyes, he would have taken one of the deals and moved on to invent other things.
This leads me to the question: is there such a thing as a non-serial inventor? Is it really possible to just come up with one good idea, and thats it? If you ask me, every inventor is a serial inventor. All ideas are good – in one way or another – just not marketable at this point in time.
So whats the moral of the story: for the movie it was: keep on your path and work tirelessly to achieve your goal and even though it may take years, in the end you will win. Thing is, that’s bull. The verdict in the end could have easily gone either way. And in the end, Kearns could have lost a whole lot more than he did.
My moral: invent like crazy, and take reasonable deals. If you think you sold something off for too little: keep inventing. The next thing you create could have much more value. I don’t believe that there is only one good idea in ANYONE.
Consumer Reports Won’t Recommend iPhone 4 – WSJ.com
Jul 12th
Like I mentioned in a previous post. Make sure that you think things through before you make the leap.
This is the iPhone’s FOURTH generation, and it has basic issues even as a phone.
One of my friends, a real Apple fan – not quite a fanboi – is actually thinking about taking it back and swapping it for the 3GS he traded in. i say do it: break free.
Check out the new Futurama series on Comedy Central, they did an amazing rip on Apple and the eye-phone.
Consumer Reports magazine said Monday it can’t recommend the iPhone 4 to shoppers, because of persistent reception issues caused by touching the Apple Inc. phone.
What Are You Waiting For?
Jul 8th
There are no more excuses, if you ask me.
I remember the days when it took literally a full time systems administrator, engineering personnel, and hundreds or thousands to millions of dollars in order to build and deploy a static web site, let alone the incredibly complex applications that we are seeing today. I personally remember the days of buying hardware, finding a place for the actual servers to sit, T1 lines, locked cages, hosting services, the differences between shared and dedicated hosting etc etc etc.
It took forever, a specialized set of skills, and a ton of money in order to setup and run an internet business.
Not any more.
Today, almost anyone with a basic set of skills can fire up an internet application in no time. Leveraging cloud services for the hosting, which provide you with a complete, scalable infrastructure (Heroku, Engine Yard), application frameworks which allow you to rapidly build applications (Ruby on Rails), cloud based services which support those applications (ZenDesk, Get Satisfaction), and APIs which allow you to build applications on top of applications which already provide a lot of the base functionality that any application requires (such as user logins via Twitter or Facebook), it takes very little effort to light up an idea.
All of the above services are free, or have free packages and trials that you can offer. And if you light up your app and there is traction, they can all scale up.
So what are you waiting for? Now is the time to take that idea and turn it into reality and see if it flies. It has never been easier to build and launch products as it is today.
Living example: we lit up http://tweeb.us in less than 6 weeks.
What ideas do you have in your head right now that you can spin up?
all things aria:initial impressions
Jul 1st
Here are the initial impressions I had of the HTC Aria when I picked it up
1. Light
2. Small
3. Fast
via all things aria.
all things aria: my new blog
Jul 1st
Yes, folks. I’ve entered the wonderful world of Android .
At approximately 9pm last night, I pressed the button on ordering not one but two HTC Aria phones from Wirefly.
As in the Godfather, they simply presented me with an offer I couldn’t refuse: two free Arias with an upgrade.
So i thought, why not chronicle my adventures with Aria and Android. Check out my new blog:
We ARE NOT appeasing customers
Jun 30th
Follow up to my earilier post as to why I’m not an Apple customer: here is the text of the leaked memo to the AppleCare people regrading the iPhone 4 problems: AppleCare reps are being told to not give bumper cases to disgruntled users.
—
1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy — your tone when delivering this information is important.
a. The iPhone 4s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4s overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.
b. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.
c. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.
d. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.
e. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.
2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.
3. Dont forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table not being held it is not the metal band.
4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.
5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers — DONT promise a free bumper to customers.
Why I Don’t Have An iPhone
Jun 29th
Sigh. Once again people I thought knew me say, “I thought you were an iPhone guy”. No, I’m not an iPhone guy, and i have many legitimate reasons for not being an iPhone guy. Here are some of those reasons
1. I don’t like having to pay for a phone.
Lets get real people. Everyone understands that the real cost in wireless phones is the contract period. Carriers and manufacturers recoup their costs almost immediately (especially in my family with 5 cell phones). AT&T should really be giving these things away. But they don’t because of the Cult Of Jobs.
2. The Cult Of Jobs
No matter what anyone says, there are things I really don’t like about the cult of Steve Jobs and the legions of fanbois that he has built. Just reminds me too much of the mindless masses who just think that there is a REAL difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. If you know me, you know I have a big problem with people who put their ability to think and reason on the shelf and mindlessly go out and buy the next thing his guy puts out simply because he does it. They SAY that they have fully researched everything, but they still go out and buy these phones and hardware which have such debilitating issues they would be completely laughed out of the marketplace, were it not for the cult of Jobs
3. Obviously, huge, stupid design flaws
A phone that you have to hold a certain way otherwise your reception goes to zero. A tablet which always forgets the wireless network password its on. Weird non-standard connectors. Special voltage level requirements. Low battery life. Inability to copy and paste! No ability to multi-task! This is 2010 people. Our phones should and can do a hell of a lot more than what even the iPhone 4 can do.
4. I am jaded and cynical about technology.
And so should YOU be. These things are not magical items which will bring you wealth and make you more popular, or get you dates or laid more often. They are tools, devices, prosthetics. They are our bionic sides. but are not magical transformative devices. I mean, sheesh, get real people.
The iPhone, in its latest iteration, by all the specs and reviews, looks like a great device, its ALMOST there, and I may get a iPhone 5 if when it comes out next year. But until then, I am most certainly not an iPhone guy. I may have high standards when it comes to these kinds of things, but so should we all. Maybe then we won’t get treated so often to crappy tech in beautiful packages.
Applied vs Theoretical Innovation
Jun 29th
Recently, I got to thinking that there are really are two kinds of innovation, and these two types of innovation were very apparent in the kind of programs I would run for companies. Borrowing a term from physics, I like to call these two types of innovation “theoretical” and “applied” just like theoretical and applied physics.
Theoretical innovation is something you simply just cannot do today. There are factors which keep you from actually implementing the envisioned product or service right now. These can be something as simple as the right kind of technology, say size of storage space or wireless bandwidth or as complex as the right geo-political infrastructures. A good example of this is streaming HD virtual reality to wireless phones. Sure, it can be done: but the network is simply not up to the task of allowing it to happen.
Tech factors, strangely enough, are not usually the ones holding back the innovation: it’s more likely the human factor, factions within companies taking credit or laying blame, cultural and political reasons etc. However, the biggest indicator of something being “theoretical innovation” in my view is ability to monetize. If there is no way to make any money off it, even if all barriers were lowered, then it remains in that realm since most no one, save some independently wealthy, or governments, will step up to take it on. It’s this type of innovation which is ideally suited to go into a patent application process.
Applied Innovation, on the other hand, is leading edge work that not only pushes the envelope, it also has a clear path to monetization. If you ask me, this is pretty easy to come up with: is it a product or service that I would use and pay for? Applied innovation takes what is out there today, and rebuilds or mashes it up to create something new, useful and valuable. Applied innovation is the kind of thing that can be taken from idea to launch in days or weeks with a few guys in a garage. And its applied innovation which is probably what most people think about, at least in the business world, as innovation.
Thats not to say that theoretical innovation doesn’t have its place, and many ideas began in the theoretical innovation space, but as these ideas have much longer paths, or in some cases no path to monetization at all, now may not be the best time to pursue theoretical innovation. In boom times, with the wind at our backs, of course, but today, in this climate, a focus on applied innovation is essential.
Hacked again!
Jun 29th
Turkish hackers this time. No problem, gave me an excuse to create a whole new site design, with WordPress all of the posts were in the database so nothing was lost, and I’m loving this new design. BTW, check out this cool example of tweebus on the news stream page.