Another picture of the IC team at the CES in uniform. We're taking a break after a hard day of work roaming the exhibition halls and meetings with clients. Continue with my CES report, my colleagues and I visited and talked to more than 30 companies and played with 100+ gadgets and devices. The beauty of attending this show is to confirm on three things 1/How group think is affecting how industries see the world in similar ways 2/ How so many of these large players are struggliing in coming up with useful and meaningful innovation and 3/ How the lack of customer voice is affect innovation and new ideas are driven too much by technology only?
A few of them had me scratching my heads.
The first one is the Android Powered home appliances idea. The Android Microwave designed by TouchRevolution incorporates Google's android operating system, so instead of you manually punching in times, you can open up an application that gives you presets for all of your cooking needs and preferences. So naturally the next extension would be Android dish washer, fridge and washer/dryer?
People are just trying to wedge Android onto anything and really the only benefit is the remote control function. I don’t think I want to read my emails from my Microwave. I don’t want to see if someone using their phone accidentally started the microwave when they are not at the home.
Then there is the family safety platform Protector by Taser (Yes the Taser who makes Taser gun). It is a software solution that allows parents with young children the ability to supervise their children's mobile phone usage and driving behaviors. Parents can manage the contact lists and content of their child's mobile phone - including calls, texts, emails, photos and video, and can automatically limit phone functionality to prevent dangerous distractions while driving. It also has integrated GPS, allowing parents to track their child's location, and monitor driving habits.
The core concept is not bad but many things have not been thought through. I don’t think any kids would want to allow their parents to monitor their calls and let alone intercept them, unless they are 5 years old. Then they shouldn’t have a phone in the first place. I was jokingly saying that it should have a remote Taser function to send through the phone to anyone that they don’t want their kids to talk to.
And here comes the Ford’s Mobile Application Connectivity standard. The Bluetooth API will work with every all smartphones including iPhone, Android and soon Blackberry. I’ve seen the demo and not impressed. Other than those standard hands off package. So you can get your texts read to you, and just push the "Dial" button to call them back. No text responding through the car. I think we’re trying too hard to put too much into it. Plus it is another screen in the middle of the dashboard, not a safe place. The interface is complicated and adding too much to the driver. We’re talking a car here, not a fighter jet. I think we need some serious rethinking here.
There are not many real and useful innovation out there. First of all there are not bright ideas, and even if they were in the ideation stage, somewhere along the way it fails at the execution stage—but it doesn't have to be that way. Spend 60 minutes looking at what these big companies are doing, you will be convinced how innovation is hard. That's when clients start appreciating our rigor process when they work with us. Innovation is more than research and development, there needs to be a balance of customer voice, technology voice and the market voice. There are a lot of myth and people lump research and development together into innovation. In reality that are four fundamental functions required and not linear: 1/ Customer Deep Dive and Future Scan 2/ Technology Development 3/ Technology Management 4/ Product Development and Commercialization.
