innovation playground Idris Mootee

Visionary Leaders With Purposes Are Not Easy To Replace. How Many Can You Name Out There?

Many think that visionaries are not the kind of leaders who can take advantage of any short-term opportunities and solely focus on the big vision. That ma not be the case, for those smart visionaries, they can create short terms opportunities from long term vision. They can leverage their long-term visions to enlist people in the work of making the visions into realities and magnify the influence of visions. It is the visions that guide visionaries by providing them with the basic harmonic sequence for improving their short-term competitive strategies. Visions with purposes are particularly powerful as they induce clarity, consensus and commitment around their core purposes. They raise both individual and organizational aspirations and encourage people to devote extraordinary amounts of energy and commitment to ensure that their organizations are ultra-competitive.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak formed a vision in the 70s based on a simple but very powerful premise. Their focus on putting the most powerful tool in the hand of human empowering them to be the best they can be. Jobs was bringing a higher purpose. According to Jobs, “What if you cam up with something that was easy to sue as a Macintosh and had the power of a work station? What if you unleashed the machine in higher education?” Over the years, there were times despite his influence and businesses were shrinking, but his vision was growing. The biggest challenge for many growing companies is “how do you have the visionary founders around and allow them to grow their vision while the companies are being institutionalized?” The need to have professional managers need to balance the need to continue to grow the vision, but 80% of the time company failed to maintain that balance.

A funny note, last week Bloomberg accidentally release a lengthy file contains a preliminary obituary for Steve Jobs (and was quickly retracted obviously) but also a list of suggested contacts for a more extensive story-- Steve Wozniak, Larry Ellison and Guy Kawasaki, among others. The summary of Jobs' accomplishments, per the obituary, is that he "helped make personal computers as easy to use as telephones, changed the way animated films are made, persuaded consumers to tune into digital music, and refashioned the mobile phone."

It's not uncommon at all that Bloomberg (and many others news agencies) would have this written; all major news outlets have notable persons' obituaries prepared on file so that they can use them when it is needed. That way the news can be reported almost immediately with some minor update. But a Jobs obituary is a scary thought for Apple lovers. He successfully battled a rare pancreatic cancer 8 years ago and recovered. The big question is can Jobs be replaced? The simple answer is “no”. Then what happens to Apple?

One reason he remains a force in the industry is because he continues to try to innovate with the customer in mind. He has no fear of industries’ big guys. CEO succession planning is not that common and this important process is often given short shrift, even among the most conscientious of boards, in part because there is no widely accepted and systematic approach for doing it. Succession planning isn't regarded as a core organizational process, as important as M&As. Instead, boards often lean way too heavily on the advice of executive search firms. Who will succeed Jobs at Apple?

 
Many people think Apple COO Timothy Cook is the man. Cook has deep knowledge inside Apple’s operations and he has the respect of the board of directors and the investment community. The other choice is Jonathan Ive, the popular Apple designer and crowd favorite for the role. If they need to go outside, my suggestion would be Tony Stark (head of Stark Industries), he helped usher in a new era of super-human registration and is now the Director of the most elite government organization S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony would be a perfect replacement for Jobs because, like Jobs, he never gives up

James Wolfensohn's (President of the World Bank) "Comprehensive Development Framework"  provides an inspirational idea pulled together concepts from many disciplines and try to apply it to effective alleviation of global poverty - no small task. He was calling for a holistic approach that put social concerns on equal footing with economic issues and, most importantly, put each country in charge of its own success. While many heralded these new ideas, they initially received criticism from all corners: denounced as a turn away from the necessary, hard line economic approach.Today this framework is slowly embraced on a global scale and is often the reference for the creation of new policies addressing global poverty.  

We need visionary leaders to solve our health care problems; bring innovation to the pharma industry solving the problems with conflict of interest, high costs out of step with production expenses, and inaccessibility of drugs for the poor; bring innovation to the tobacco companies to come up with reduced-risks alternatives and in turn reduce our healthcare costs; bring innovation to the fast food industry to come up with healthier choices and in turn also reduce our healthcare cost. We need a massive change not only in the industry but also the way it is regulated. We can use plenty of Jobs and Obama to make the change we need.

Visionary leaders not only have a clear idea of what is possible, they are involved in bringing it about. Mahatma Ghandi did more than recognize the value of religious tolerance and sovereignty for the people of India, he used his life to make it possible. Ghandi drew on everything to instigate the changes he was seeking: his diet, his clothing, his community, his speech. When a reporter asked him to state his message for the world, Ghandi replied, "My life is my message."

The Latest Innovation In Washing Machine Is No Water Needed.

Here's another innovation from GE, the Consumer and Industrial business unit is launching a marketing campaign to sell its new line of frontload washers and dryers that can hold and wash up to 17 pairs of jeans and up to six months of detergent and fabric softener. The technology SmartDispense enables the washer to dispense the right amount based on soil level, load size and fabric type. The CleanSpeak technology will allow the washer electronically tell the dryer which items to expect so it is integrated. May be next is it will play your iTunes too. That’s a pretty cool innovation.
 
The new product is more water efficient; it uses about 15 to 16 gallons of water per load that you have to heat, compared with a traditional top-load washer at between 39 and 40 gallons. If you think 15 gallons is still too much, researchers at the University of Leeds have invented a technology that uses plastic chips to clean clothes, eliminating the need water for water. This is the world’s first “virtually waterless” washing machine, the contraption utilizes plastic granules or chips to remove stains and leaves the clothes nearly dry. The machine can use as little as a cup of water. It will hit the market next year.

If don’t like that, you can get this  (photo above) two-in-one WashUP washing machine/toilet combo. Basically after a load of clothes are washed the machine saves the water to later flush the toilet. We do need more innovation that allow us to wash clothes with little or no water needed, think about a car wash that doesn't need water or dish dryer that doesn't use that much electricity. We should spend more effort innovation that can help us to use less resources and more sustainable. This should be the mission of all appliances maker.

Whirlpool is working on a green kitchen design concept. Taking everything that you need from a kitchen and integrating it into a smart, efficient system, the concept promises to cut way back on waste -- energy, water, and heat all included -- to the tune of increased energy efficiency of up to 70%. It "diverts" 60% of the water and heat generated from appliances to fuel other functions and appliances, rather than just tossing it aside. For example: the heat produced in the compressor coils from running the fridge -- the one appliance that cycles on and off, 24 hours a day -- is used to heat water for the dishwasher, rather than just wafting out into the kitchen. And speaking of the fridge, it uses a drawer fridge that saves energy by preventing cold air from slipping out every time you open the door. It is still at concept stage, but we need to get that sooner.

If You Think Creativity And Brainstorming Is About Throwing Ideas Around, Think Again.

 

Two full days of innovation sessions were both fun and exhaustive, but definitely very productive. Lots of customer insight-inspired thinking. I am always surprised to find that many exponents of creativity still believe that 'messing around and brainstorming' is enough. It is believed that deliberate creativity in the modern sense started with 'brainstorming', which was developed for the ad world. This is a world in which messing around has more value than in any other. The reason is that advertising is to do with marketing communications and by doing that one can uncover a new way to position and message a product. In our world of innovation, “brainstorming “ without a method often means not getting the results we want.

Many still believe that brainstorming and creativity are actually synonymous, that’s not true. Brainstorming is something many of us do everyday. It is also something people do as a special event with a goal to look for specific solutions. Brainstorming can be frustrating when it is not organized properly and when the loudest voice takes over. Sometimes people think that simply by putting a group of people together in a room for 2 or 3 days, magic will happen and there will be innovative new ideas. It takes more if we want to productively use our collective knowledge and insights and turns them into great ideas. The question is “Is that a best method for brainstorming?” or “Non-method is the best method?” 

 

Some methods can be restrictive - they can disrupt the flow of any discussion, because it doesn't quite follow 'the method' one is supposed to use. Methods can also be coercive in terms of making people feel insecure about giving their ideas. It is important let discussions flow freely but at the same time staying relevant.

One thing is for sure is that brainstorms are seldom or never productive in your normal office environments with the same team of people you work with all the time. All business constrains are projected on every corner of the office making it hard to think outside-the-box (unless you work at Herman Miller). Offices remind us of system and structures, which remind us of our positions and internal hierarchies and also sometimes about politics. Creativity goes hand in hand with the ability to feel comfortable playing and listening to your inner voice and other’s point of view.

Some of the most important things that are core to any successful brainstorming:
1/ An inspiring opening presentation that set the right context
2/ A comprehensive toolkit to pick from
3/ Go offsite or find new space (prefer lots of white walls)
4/ Prepare the right ingredients (trends, insights and cross industries knowledge)
5/ Diversity in disciplines of participants

Brainstorming is really about purposeful use of creativity and imagination. To engage our imagination it is important to sometimes part with reality and hindrances that are in our way and simply boldly dare to imagine, express thoughts and ideas - however crazy. Often great ideas don't simply appear in a puff of smoke, but are in fact inspired by trends, weak signals of change and voices from the customer. Before you start cooking for big ideas, you must have a variety of ingredients available. Think of the ingredients before cooking the dish, whether it is traditional or fusion. It is these ingredients that allow us to re-purpose, re-configure, re-mix these ideas. If you have a good tool-kit to do this, this can be very helpful. Idea Couture's toolbox has a variety of tools to do just that. Any serious user of creativity should make a serious effort to become trained these tools. Creativity has gone beyond the stage where messing around was enough – it is definitely not enough.

Is The Food Business Ready For Transformation?

The food business is ready for a transformation. According to WHO, 1.6 billion adults are overweight with 400 million clinically obese. It is estimated thatn more than 155 million school age children are overweight. This is a global problem and the industry is not doing enough to deal with this.

According to Patrick Cescau, CEO of Unilever,” it is puzzling – with the benefit of hindsight – why a large part of the food industry took its eye off the’ nutritional’ ball during the 1990’s. Unfortunately, while we were focused on issues of taste, convenience and value, consumers were getting fat, unfit and progressively unhealthier…It is important to acknowledge that the issues we face as a European food industry are partly an outcome of our own success.”

In current economic climate, food makers are quietly changing their recipes on snacks, candy, dairy products and other best-selling lines, adding fillers and substituting cheaper ingredients to cut costs amid the commodities boom. They are putting their energy in squeezing cost out of these already low priced products. This is going the opposite direction the industry should be going. Hershey Co. is substituting vegetable oil for a portion of the cocoa butter traditionally used in some of its chocolates. Spice maker McCormick & Co. is now supplying food companies with cheaper spices and new flavor blends, such as Mexican oregano instead of pricier Mediterranean oregano, and garlic concentrate instead of heavier (and costlier to ship) garlic cloves. General Mills is also trying to reduce the number of spice and ingredient pouches in boxes of Hamburger Helper -- and by halving the number of pasta shapes used in the product line -- the company has trimmed manufacturing costs up to 10%. Don’t expect these savings will be passed on to consumers.

Expect prices of these products to go up. Even McDonald's is testing less expensive ways to make its $1 double cheeseburger; already, some restaurants are selling the burger with one slice of cheese instead of two. Ketchup giant H.J. Heinz Co. has been breeding sweeter tomatoes in an effort to reduce the amount of high-cost corn syrup in its ketchup. The sweeter tomatoes aren't yet being used in its product lines. What does this all mean?

Are we getting healthier food or better tasking food? Or we need to adjust our expectation to take what they offer us. Food companies has a moral obligation in additional to maximizing shareholder return. They need to have integrated concern about obesity and other health issues into their core business strategy. Everyone one of these food giants need a radical transformation by revisiting its whole portfolio and market only products that are in line with FDA/EU nutrition standards. There is a third bottom line for these companies. Fast food is part of many everyday’s life. The typical American now consumes approximately three hamburgers and four orders of French fries every week and many of those Americans consuming fast food are children. This much consumption of such unhealthy food causes health problems. Fast food is not proper nutrition in any sense.

According to an article in the American Journal of Public Health, which examined marketing and advertising studies conducted between 1992 and 2006 and looked at foods and beverages marketed to blacks vs. whites. Sonya Grier, lead researcher on the project and associate professor of marketing at American University's Kogod School of Business, said her group uncovered 20 studies done during the 14-year period. Each study, she said, found disparities in marketing to the two groups. This chasm, she concludes, creates an environment that contributes to obesity. I hope to see a radical transformation of the fast food industry.

Guess What's The Latest Innovation In The Debt Collection Business?

It is so good to be able to see my nephew, niece and sisters for a drink while I am in London. Back to back meetings the last three days, I am ready to head home. Too many friends and not enough time.

Here's an interesting one to share with you. There’s no shortage of innovation particularly in service design. Think about the business of debt collection. I have heard many bad practices and the intimidation tactics that are being used. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was a law in the US passed in 1978 to eliminate abusive practices in the collection of consumer debts. The Act creates guidelines under which debt collectors may conduct business, The Act prohibits certain types of "abusive and deceptive" conduct when attempting to collect debts, including contact hours, excessive calls to annoy or harass. And abusive or profane language used in the course of communication related to the debt etc.

A Spanish company Cobrador del Frac (The Debt Collector in Top Hat and Tails.) has figured out an innovative way to perform this service. They hire men (men only as they think women are not imposing enough) in dark suits to collect debts. The idea is that it will attract more attention including your neighbors and colleagues. Whether this is a fair practice aside, I think it is both innovative and effective. They have since been copied in Spain by smaller set-ups which send staff dressed as clowns, monks or as a masked Zorro (without the sword I hope). This has not been copied outside of Spain yet but I think if this is being replicated in the US or Canada, the Hat and Tail may not work. Best alternatives would be The Incredible Hulk, The Joker or Dick Cheney?  Suggestions welcome.

What about other parts of the workd? I've hard a story about how a bank in India has decided to publicly shame defaulters in order to recover outstanding loans. Employees of the Urban Co-operative Bank in the eastern state of Orissa have begun staging noisy demonstrations outside the home of defaulters. The bank staff are required to participate in the protest outside the homes of the defaulters.
The bank says this is the final resort for the bank which is facing problems over mounting bad loans. That's another service innovation!

McDonald's Innovation is Paying Off With It's New Customer Experience Design In Europe. And When Is a McDonald's Not A McDonald's Anymore?

Fast food is boring and honestly I am not a fast food fan. It is not exactly an enjoyable experience but you go for the convenience. I must say I am very impressed with that theya re doing in Europe. When the last time you enjoy sitting in a McDonald's or Burger King or Wendys? Now this may change. A McDonald's in Wolfratshausen, Germany, offers espresso drinks on it's McCafe menu. A McCafe in Hong Kong (picture bottom) offers a selection of good quality deserts. A McDonald’s in London looks like the lounge in a trendy boutique hotel (picture above). Is that the future of McDonald?

I think this is the largest overhaul in more than 20 years and, with its franchisees, it plans to spend more than 600 million euros (about $830 mm), remodeling more than 1200 European restaurants in the next 16 months. The challenge is what happens to Ronald McDonald? Will these new cool McDonalds becoming not McDonalds? Do we need to give Uncle McDonald a new costume and hairstyle? There is no simple question to this answer. How easy is it to dismiss this by saying this is off brand? Or is this is best way to make McDonald’s young and relevant again?

McDonald’s is also introducing healthier foods and items that cater to regional tastes, like caffè lattes and they are also adding amenities like Internet access and rental iPods. The food factory in Munich is working on new menus for the different tastes in the 41 European countries, including Russia. In Britain, McDonald’s restaurants started to serve porridge for breakfast. In Portugal, they offer soup and in France, cheese saga — burgers with French cheeses. What’s next? McDonald’s sushi in Japan? This investment is paying off as sales in Europe grew 15%. This is no question the biggest innovation for the company ever.

All these innovative ideas came from Denis Hennequin, president of McDonald’s Europe, the first non-American in that role. As head of McDonald’s restaurants in his native France in the late 1990s, Mr. Hennequin had searched for ways to make fast food more appealing to a nation that prefers slow-simmered cassoulets and likes to savor a meal. In fact, the whole fast food industry is ripe for a complete makeover, not a botox job. It needs to redefine its customer experiences and take a hard look at what “fast food” means. Fast food doesn’t need to be “junk food”. I think everyone in the industry better start looking at what is needed to transform this industry. 

If Product Development Is All About Performance, Aston Martin Would Not Have Become The Coolest Brand in the UK. It Comes Down To The "Experience Design".

Everyone talking about how to creative customer advocates and we all understand how powerful this is. I think there are a lot of to be learned from the luxury goods industry. Although it is easies to have a customer talking about his new car than his mortgage with the bank.

I am in London this week for meetings and so visit my relatives. After dinner he gave me a ride back to the hotel and during the 20 min ride, our conversation was almost entirely on his Aston Martin. I can see the excitement on his face when he talked about the driving experiences. Just imagine we can make all products with 10% of that excitement. It is not the amount of advertising spend to talk about how good this one, it is about making it great.

So is Aston Martin a great car? Aston Martin was named as Britain's coolest brand this year. It was chosen based its coolness, the judges include DJ and MTV presenter Trevor Nelson, designer Ben de Lisi and Dazed and Confused Editor, Nikki Bidder. All of a sudden, Aston Martin becomes the "It" brand of the automotive world. To be sure, the Aston Martin of the 70's and early 80's had a certain cachet, but it was a boring cigar-smoke-and-over-stuffed-leather-chairs-British-men's-club kind of cachet. Who wants that today? Now Aston Martin is younger than a Mercedes, sexier than Ferrari, sportier than Porsche, manlier than Lamborghini. It is being seen as a true modern sports car.

This is a true brand renaissance, not because massive marketing dollars (BMW failed to steal that James Bond association in consumer minds despite good efforts), but via a great product development team that understand how to go back to the golden days of Roy Salvadori and James Bond, distilled the essence of Aston Martin into something tangible, and then went to work. This is not the fastest car in its category. It is not more luxury. The satellite navigation is from Volvo (pretty bad usability) and its engine from Jaguar. So what makes this car so cool? They understand only too well that making a car fast is not all that difficult, just bigger engines. Just as Nintendo understands making a faster console is not too difficult either. They started asking "What could be uniquely Aston Martin about this experience?"

Here's what Aston Martin designer Sarah Maynard says about the start button on the new DB9: It seemed wrong to us that most car starter buttons - the first point of contact between driver and engine - is a plastic button. We wanted something better so decided on crystal-like glass. The Aston Martin logo is sand etched into it. It's lit red when the ignition is on, and afterwards changes to light blue. I think it's a really cool piece of design.

What are they buying? Or does everyone aspire to be James Bond? Aston Martin buyers are buying a statement about who they are. The experience design makes that believable. There is nothing more than that. Isn’t that simple? Emotive factors are often many times more important than tactile attributes, from a customer’s perspective. Although reasons for purchase are almost always a combination of many factors, in most cases customers attribute emotive reasons to be more important as fundamental tactile attributes such as performance and functionality.

"All Of The Innovative People Don't Work For Your Company" - Rich Friedrich, HP

Innovation is often seen as abstract and people think innovation as just invention. And all of the best innovation people so happened work for another company? Hmmmm. Innovative people are hard to find? Majority of managers think innovation as new products. For the tech guys, innovation means bringing the next version to the market. For consumer goods companies, it means plenty of brand extensions to flood the shelves.

Whose jobs is that? Unless you have an innovation group that has the expertise. A lot of organizations think they can do it themselves. Put some people together and get an outside facilitator and let's brain storms. This is the most common approach to innovation. Usually when a company accepts that innovation is needed (because the stock price has dropped 30% or disruptive competitors are eating its lunch) there is generally a sense of collective embarrassment, and a groupthink quickly sets in that says "we got ourselves into this, we have lots of smart minds here, we have so much experience in our industries and we can get ourselves out of it". Often by the time they realize they need help, the situation was much harder to recover.

Executives from top tech companies including HP, eBay, Microsoft and others attended the first Corporate Innovation and Research Fair last week in SF to talk about their own innovation stories and techniques for staying innovative. The common theme is it's not easy to innovate, considering that large corporate cultures can be the biggest barrier to innovation. Let’s face it, if corporation are good at innovation, all VCs will be out of business. That’s the beauty of our capital systems, VCs are the most important player in the innovation eco-systems. It is not just money, it is the ability to see beyond today and bet on bold businesses. Unfortunately the concept has not extended far beyond tech (IT, biotech, nano, clean energy, material etc.) although we are seeing some focusing on social innovation.

 

The HP guy Rich Friedrich made a good point (although nothing new) about demands from Wall Street can stifle innovation. Similarly, He said that one of his company's strategies is to partner with outsiders on projects. Here’s the most interesting truth, "All of the innovative people don't work for your company," he said.  But once a technology is ready, transferring it to a product group or bringing it to market can be highly difficult, he said. That's why so-called technology transfers are "a contact sport," he said. Researchers must travel a lot to get new ideas and prototypes in front of the right people, according to Levin.

So what are the preconditions for innovation in large corporation settings? The biggest challenge is bandwidth. No one has spare bandwidth today. Managers today work harder than anytime the past 20 years and communications and meetings alone are taking up a large chunk of managerial time and. energy. We also know the Google’s approach of 20% playtime for their engineers. A lot of discussions I have with my clients are around how an organization should allocate extra bandwidth.

My experience is that only top management can create this luxury (or necessity) when they have a particularly project to pursue. We are currently helping a large global entity to integrate our innovation process into theirs. This way, it becomes legitimate and people’s time spent on innovation will be seen as official. There's a lot of myth about innovation consulting. There's often a perception that how consultants would be arrogant enough to presume they could find a way to reinvent or radically transform organizations? It might seems frightening to open your kimono to admit your challenges in the first place. That's a barrier for many organizations to accept that there's a need in the first place.

Our clients are very comfortable with the idea of outside help and like our entrepreneurial, fast moving, agile work cultures where our inter-disciplinary thinkers enjoy  close-knit relationships with like-minded clients. That's a fun process. 

Off to London tomorrow.

What's Strategic Foresights? The Ability To See Beyond Strategic Vision To Flexible Options.

Strategic focus is a key part of business strategy, start-ups or established firm alike. Sometimes it is about corporate renewal and sometime it is about doing the same thing but differently. Especially in technology firms, how often you see their original strategies failed and they quickly repackaged themselves. So common in technology. In the spirit of breathing new life into old gadgets, as well as creating the nerdiest breakfast tool ever, designer Chris Dimino managed to make a typewriter into a waffle maker. The Corona-Matic Waffle maker (which is only a prototype) not only produces an extremely large, rectangular, and potentially delicious waffle. Since it's made from an old Corona typewriter, it imprints a keyboard shape into your breakfast food. What a great idea!

The challenge for many CEOs is balancing commitment and flexibility. Placing bets is never easy. Sometime people won by placing the wrong bet too. Sometime it is won by placing big bets. Sometimes it takes many small bets. Commitment is a two-sided sword. Sometime you ended in the chasm. This is where the art of strategy can help. As we look at today’s competitive landscape and try to make the best decision based on alternatives. And this is all driving toward action today and planning for action as things in the landscape are changing. That comes strategic foresights. It is an approach to support strategic decisions making. Organizations need to be fast and flexible to compete successfully against smaller, more agile competitors and disruptive start-ups.

Strategic Foresight (or Strategic Futuring as we call it) encompasses a set of methods, processes, tools and frameworks that enable large companies to identify, assess, and act upon opportunities and threats, that have been identified as weak signals in the periphery. The objective is to enhance their innovation reactivity, manage disruptions, and enhance strategic decision-making. It is based on four components 1/ trends analysis, 2/weak signals scanning, 3/ anthropology immersion, and 4/ scenario development in order to drive innovation, manage disruptions and support strategic decision making. It is about preparing for the future. These inputs can help develop a rich set of stories about the future to allow organizations creatively enlarged their lists of options and to preserve flexibility. 

The best CEOs always have an uncanny ability to predict the future. They may have unusual insights into their particular customer segments or markets, and luck may play a part as well. More so, they are prepared to create their own luck by cultivating an ability to see opportunities for their company and to make the deals that convert those opportunities into realities. For them, the future is co-created. Some things that may seem like amazing foresight are actually the result of the hard work and discipline it takes to scan for weak signals and develop longer term scenarios. 

Travel 2.0 Still Has Plenty Of Opportunities For Innovation. There's Still Money There If You Move Fast.

The Travel 2.0 space has not quite taken off yet although a few early start-up are seeing profits. I picked three here to write about and each has occupied a nice niche. NYC-based Travel Ad Network is the largest Vertical Ad Network in travel. They pioneering graphical advertising and makes things more attractive for both publishers and advertisers. THey sells ads on behalf of a large number of publishers including Lonely Planet and Kayak. They reach 14.4 mm unique monthly users in the U.S. and a total of 22.5 mm worldwide. They closed a $15 mm Series A financing round led by Rho Ventures, Village Ventures and individual investors in April, they are getting an estimated $50 to $75 mm valuation. I believe they are running at breakeven but expecting profits soon.

 
A travel vertical search engine company, Mobissimo has been successful focusing on the niche of global travel which has largely been neglected. They index a large number of low-cost airlines, and online travel agencies and consolidators, including Lessno, Lastminute.com and Travlguru. Its search tool called OneBox Search lets users enter all their itinerary information in one search field as opposed to filling out several online forms. A user types in the departure city, destination and travel dates, such as "London to Boston August 20-27" directly in the search field. This is a very smart feature. Usability in general is not bad, there could be a few small improvements. Although there’s question on their business model but they claimed to be profitable. The online travel market, which is expected to reach $128 billion in revenues by 2011, has numerous niches that are waiting to be filled.We have a few very cool idea and may decide later to take them futher.

 
Yahoo's formerly experimental geolocation platform, is officially opening up to all users, a couple of companies are announcing products that work with it. Yahoo’s Fire Eagle is a storehouse for personal location information. If you tell Fire Eagle where you are, or have applications or devices that can do so on your behalf, then other applications can grab that info (with your permission) and provide you geo-related services or social network features. One of the most interesting parts of Fire Eagle is its variable privacy feature. Even if Fire Eagle knows precisely at what address you are, you can set it to only release more general information, like the city, to certain apps or certain groups, or you can restrict location reporting by time. There's also a "hide me" button you can press if you want to shut down location reporting for a period of time. I definitely think there’s so many applications to use this, Movable Type, the blog platform will get automatic location reporting for its authors and in its Action Stream service. I think the most promising application is in the travel 2.0 space.

There is another start-up called Planeteye working on geotagging photos (using Microsoft' technology), they have been making good technology progress but I’m concerned, from what I see on the outside having not talked to the company, about their strategic focus. They do state that they are a travel planning service but if you click on a city, you get something like a local guide page. And then you can click on photos which gives you a map. Nevertheless, it is a very exciting space and they have advanced the technology, let's see if they will figure things out along the way. This company is worth watching.

It is always sensitive when there had been contacts with firm that I commented here. For disclosure, we have been contacted by Planeteye 8 months ago for design/UI help, we responded by presenting a proposal but reached no agreement to move further.

Experience Design Is The Active Pursuit Of Customer-Inspired Products/Services, Not Just Company-Defined Products/Services.

I must say I am quite impressed with Agnes b Cafe in Hong Kong. I am not sure how many of them are out  there but I've seen quite a few, it makes Starbucks look down-market. This is an excellent example of how a fashion brand applies that creativity in "Experience Design" . For those who are not familiar with Agnes,b, she graduated from École des Beaux-Arts in Versailles and a career soon followed when her personal style caught the eyes of ELLE magazine staffers at a Paris flea market. I remember she came to fame with her t-shirts 10 years back. She has since designed products outside fashion. Agnes b. has opened her first cafe, le pain grille, in Hong Kong since 2006. I think it is the first in the world. They also offer tablewear and their own wine and coffee online. All carefully chosen and well presented. You better dress well or you will look a little out of place. Think Paris when you are there. What is more French than Agnes b. Suggest your try the absinthe cockles/mussels, they will make you feel pretty feel as they are quite strong in absinthe. The onion soup is truly French style. Both their coffee and tea are good.

Tout Est Si Francais! Yes, that's how you feel like when you are there even you are in the middle of a crazy city like Hong Kong. That's bring us to the topic of "Experience Design".

 

The word “Experience Design” is often used by advertising and CRM people as design of touch points. They see the "Experience Design" focus is around moments of engagement between people and brands, and the memories these moments create. They seem to use the word “brand” loosely covering products, people, services and other intangibles. Experience design should not be solely brand focused; instead it should not be too branded focused. It is about designing delivery of customer needs, so naturally it should start with the customers. It should form the core of a go-to-market strategy of any products/services. It is the experience first, then the messages.

In fact, an experience model is where what we want to communicate and what we (brand) truly believe in. The brand will always be about the personality we want to be perceived and its associated values, and are by nature an ‘inside-out’ proposition — a company figures out its brand and what it means, and does what it can to communicate or otherwise impart that message to people. Brand always starts with the company. Experience design needs to be about the user. What do they want to get done? What are their concerns? What are their motivations? For any experience design to succeed, it must begin with the user, so “Experience Design” is in fact an outside-in undertaking. It is part of a business strategy that involves multi-disciplinary thinking and cross-department collaboration. It is not a designer’s job. It is not an ad agency’s job. It is not simply part of a brand communications strategy.

 

“Experience Design” is not a pure top down exercise, the best design often involve users to co-design or improvise some of the experience. The process begins when you design and build or buy a product or service that you think you want. When you begin to use that product or service, you quickly learn that it is not quite right, and learn more about what you do really want. Even the users may not know what they want until they see it is not what they want. User needs and the user environment are very complex, and full of sticky, costly-to-transfer information. Details and subtle interactions cannot be fully captured in requirements. These information simply do not exist.

Companies must rethink how the way their experience (products and services) design and development tasks need to be divided up. Often this rethinking can involve fundamental changes to the underlying architecture of a product service and that’s why it simply cannot be the mission of marketing communication professionals. "Experience Design" requires “active unlearning”. The ability to unlearn is proportional to the capability for imaginative pursuits.  The  goal is to make customer-inspired products/services, not customer-defined products/services. And to do this we must exploit both the customer mind and the marketer mind and unlearn deep-seated beliefs. We do not want our focus on the customer to suffocate our own creativity. But we also don't want our creativity to go crazy. By embedding a sincere understanding of the customer mind into the marketer mind, we are more likely to design great customer experiences which will excite and entice customers. 

Have a great weekend!

In Economic Climate Like This, It's Time For Smart Companies To Invest In Innovation.

I like this view, I took this picture from the window of Exchange Square, Hong Kong. This is a city where entrepreneurism thrived. SadlyI think opportunities are slowing diminishing. The only big money to be made is real estate or finance. People here truly embraced risks and never too worried about any downturn. In though economic times like this, it is the best time to invest in innovation. Innovation sounds like a great thing to invest in when business is booming. But when times get to get tougher, as they seem to be at present, the case for investment suddenly becomes much more difficult to make and even the most well-intentioned businesses can see their innovation efforts reaping less reward. I can see how the finance people asking questions such as “is this investment absolute necessary?” This is the time for a true test of any companies that claim that they are about innovation. Companies often pay lip service to the critical role innovation plays in their businesses' success, historical data shows that as economic times get tough, senior management's reaction may inadvertently lead to the creation of an innovation-stifling culture. It is human nature that in times of uncertainty there is increased risk aversion, tendency to over focus on the short-term, and insistence on air-tight ROI as having potentially devastating effects on a company's competitive and alternative futures.

 
Truly innovative companies understand this is the time to look to the future, Cisco Systems is one of those who is now looking to the future with plans for big investments across its portfolio in "adjacent markets." It is easy to retract to cost cutting and they are necessary to some extent. Companies like Cisco need to prepare themselves when spending starts again. For them, it means that they will invest in new markets that are adjacent to existing product lines in all its major customer segments from the home network to the data center, from small and medium businesses to the enterprise, and from its commercial businesses to the service provider market. For example, Cisco's unified communications business and its IP telephony businesses were areas where Cisco invested during previous downturns. And today these businesses are paying off generating a significant amount of revenue. CEO John Chambers says he already sees the next technological wave. "Web 2.0 and collaboration will be the biggest drivers for our business over the next five to 10 years" according to Chambers.

Here’s advise from Steve Jobs in managing in a downturn. "We've had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren't going to lay off people, that we'd taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place -- the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that's exactly what we did. And it worked. And that's exactly what we'll do this time."

If You Have Not Bought The New IPhone, You Will Have Another Choice Soon. Introducing the New Nano iPhone.

Industry sources are  now talking about an iPhone Nano to be on sale this Christmas. It is rumored to be available for the pay-as-you-go market. It is expected that this will be much lighter than the current iPhone and could have a touch wheel interface on one side and a screen on the other, meaning that calls would be dialed from behind. It may not have full Internet browsing functionality as in most smart phone. The new nano iPhone will adopt a form factor that shifts away from the almost square dimensions of the third-generation nano back towards the general shape of the first- and second-generation models.

I actually like the earlier taller nano from a form and function perspective. I think they will expand the screen size a bit and I’d gladly accept a wider/longer screen if it meant not having a wide-bodied player. There are some serious usability challenge to incorporate phone features into a Nano. The patent filing suggests that the design pertains to a user interface for controlling an electronic device, particularly a multifunctional electronic device that is capable of operating in multiple modes as for example a phone mode for communications and a media player mode for playing audio files, video files, and the likealso suggests the use of a scroll wheel, similar to the iPod. It is believed that the Taiwanese metal casings supplier for the iPod Nano, Catcher, is positioned to become its major supplier for casings for the iPhone Nano.

 
I will probably get one. Hope it comes in different color too. For pricing, I can imagine it will cost anything from $250-$280 and will use mass retail channel and not through any carrier. I think a thin iPhone is more desirable for many who won’t need all the features. I currently have a Prada touchscreen phone and it is much lighter than an IPhone. I am sticking with it until the new nano iPhone is available.

If you wait a few more months you may have  another choice “Maple Phone”, designed by Hyun Jin Yoon and Eun Hak Lee. Is a compact wooden phone made of African Blackwood. The phone appears to be a simple block of wood until touched, at which point its touch-sensitive buttons light up when you touch them. It also has a display that is placed at the back, that slides open. Not yet in production.

Want To Expand Your Innovation Bandwidth? Let's Start With More Playtime.

If you ask any executives what are the top three barriers for large organization for innovation, the most likely answer you will get is 1/time 2/organization and culture 3/lack of executive support. Everyone is so busy making everything work harder and making incremental operational improvements. Innovation rarely happens by accident. It occurs as a result of a concentrated focus on problems and challenges, and a fresh look at creating solutions that appear to be beyond the scope of existing customer wants and needs.

Time is on top of the list for many. There are little room today for playing with new ideas and exploring new possibilities. Executives are often distracted by endless meetings and pressure on quarterly results, so there is no time for practicing innovation in a systematic manner. How can organizations create or steal bandwidth for innovation while not losing focus on execution? This is the wrong question in the first place. It is not about stealing time, it is about developing a critical mass of innovators within the organization with the help from outside innovation experts. People need to work less and play more.

Senior executives must carve out time to participate (play) in these innovation initiatives, not only as a sponsor but as full participants. Every senior executive should spend at least 10% of their time on innovation play projects. Play is not simply just play, it requires tools and infrastruture. To create compelling customer experience innovation, we must use a new model—one that put “fun and play” at the core of the creation. They are not brain storming or power point shooting sessions (I hate those), they are structured spiritual activities based on imagination, empathy and creativity. It is a mind play. This new ecology of creativity, imagination and empathy are the core of any innovation activities. This is an indispensible condition of every human individual to choreograph interactions between user, information, objects and space.

With some outside help, a systematic approach to bring “play” into the innovation and strategy development process can produce some good outcomes. If these play ideas become real and receive funding, these executives could find themselves assigned to the project on a full time basis. It is in play that we have historically made our greatest discoveries and economic value creation

Is This The End Of Press Release? SEC Provides Latest Guidence For Corporate Disclosure Through Social Media

I am not a fan of press release. 99% of press releases issued everyday are junk and there are just too muchnoises out there. But companies need to use this to distribute important news about their companies. For a long time Jonathan Schwartz (CEO of Sun Microsystem) has been lobbing the SEC to allow disclosure of financial information through corporate blogs. In a landmark announcement, a historical decision was made to allow the distribution of corporate information through corporate blogs to satisfy disclosure requirements.

The IR Web Report explains, “UNDER certain circumstances, companies can rely on their websites and blogs to meet the public disclosure requirements under Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), according to new guidance unanimously approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission today.” This is officially the end of press release.

The SEC outlines boundaries for sharing information as well as holding companies and their employees liable for the information that they post on blogs and discussion forums. Social Media is now officially recognized even for distribution of critical disclosure. A more important most significant change stemming from the new SEC guidance is that Web-based disclosure does not have to appear in a format comparable to paper-based information, unless the Commission’s rules explicitly require it. There are still debates to whether a Social Media Release should cross the wire and if so, what format and design it should resemble. I thin this will all be worked out and we expect to most of companies’ releases to be through their blogs.

I think with a little creativity, we can think of a bunch of features that together constitutes a comprehensive Social Media IR Solution. This is a great opportunity for companies to reach their audiences directly. I think we can make these social media releases to be search engine optimized and reaching all market-powered hubs, portals and dashboards. There can be features such as a “moderated” IR system that can become the infrastructure for investor by giving them a voice.