innovation playground Idris Mootee

7 Important Business Lessons You Can Learn From a Bank Robbery

During a bank robbery in China, the bank robbers dressed in fake Hugo Boss fashion, carrying AK47s shouted to everyone as they rushed into a bank: "Everyone don't move. This is a robbery. The money belongs to the People. Your life belongs to you. Your designer handbag we will not take. We don’t take your IDs and we are not identity thefts, that’s not ethical at all. We will take only the money from the bank."

This is called “Staying Focus!”

The older robbers shouted “Don’t do any tricks. I know them because I used to work in a bank too. Just do as you are told.” One guys asked. “Which bank did you work for?”. He replied “The Sperm Bank. But we never had a robbery while I worked there.”

This is called “Domain Knowledge!”

Everyone in the bank got down on the floor. One woman was looking at her smartphone and noticed one of the robbers showed up on her Tinder app and shouted hey you look good and is that a real picture! The younger robber said, “We are only here to do work, not looking for a date. Perhaps after. Now I am busy?" The big brother yelled at him ”You should have turned that off!” And then everyone in the bank started looking at their smartphones.

This is called "Avoiding Distraction!”

Then one of the bank’s staff started asking the robbers. “What are you going to do with that much money? You guys should know investment is risky if you don’t know anything about it. You don’t want to risks your hard earned cash. We have different investment vehicles and the money can be placed in Switzerland and safe even if you got caught.”

This is called “Risks Management!”

When the bank robbers returned home, the younger robber told the older robber: "Big brother, let's count how much money we got" The older robber said: "Don’t bother, the news will tell us. Too much work and let them do the job. I'd rather spend the time look at stocks we want to buy with the money. The market is a good buy now.” The young robber said “Ah yes! Let them do the job!”

This is called “Opportunity Cost!”

Right after the robbers were gone, the bank manager held a meeting. But the supervisor said to him: "Shall we add the $10m that we have lend to our friends and families so we can write them off! Perfect timing.”

This is called “Opportunity Mapping!”

The next day, the TV news reported that $100 million was taken from the bank. The robbers counted and counted and counted, but they could only count $10 million. The robbers were upset: "We risked our lives and only took $10 million. The bank manager took $90 million without doing anything. That’s not fair. I guess that’s what happened when people understand business”

This was adapted from a joke I was told when traveling in China and dramatized.

The Competitive Advantage Of Switzerland. Is It Sustainable? Is It Replicable? It Is Where Design Thinking Is In Action.

We are trying to fix the world, the companies and many of our wicked problems that were mostly 100% man-made. Economists, policy makers, academics are spending too much studying our dysfunctional organizations and societies and trying to figure out why the high level of poverty, joblessness and hopelessness and how we are struggling with competing against low-cost producers and how low-cost producers are struggling with ultra-low-cost producers. The reasons are quite obvious and the problem is at a systemic and structural level. Capitalism has been suffering from major setbacks for the last 10 years and the future in its curent form is uncertain.

Switzerland has a very high living standard. Even compared to the London, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong and San Francisco. It has few natural resources, yet it has managed to have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. It has a decent private health care system and a sound currency and a very efficient public transport system. It has one of the lowest marginal tax rate on average income workers in the world at 20%. And no capital gain tax. Average folks in Geneva, Basel or Zurich would need to work for 7-8 hours to make enough to buy an iPad mini, pretty much the same as in London and New York. Geneva and Zurich cost around 45-50% more for food which I still don’t understand why and the food is not great, perhaps I am paying a prenium for super-organic-fair-trade-politically-neutral food. This very small country can maintain leadership in multiple industries from pharma to chocolates, watches and banking and insurance is a miracle. How do they do it?

They did it without the benefit of a large domestic market. And they did it without extensive integration in supply chain which is a key competitive advantage in electronics industry as an example. Switzerland is no question the most innovative country in Europe, ahead of second-placed Sweden followed by UK, according to an annual study by the European Union. Switzerland is no perfect model, but it has a lot for others to learn. Singapore is trying hard to do that. And Canada and Australia should do the same. The Swiss are super practical people and that is being reflected in how companies are being managed.

Switzerland is both united and divided. That's the beauty of it. This is where Design Thinking is in full action. It perfectly fits my definition of Design Thinking which defines Design Thinking as the search for a magical balance between business and art, intuition and logic, concept and execution and control and empowerment. Switzerland is a country that should not do well as it defies most of the norms for strategy. No common language, lack of scale, high labor costs, overly divisified in different industries, lack of deep political beliefs. It is a country made from linguistic, political, historic and religious divisions and yet maintaing that balance. And it is not political, comparing these crazy politics happening around the world that literally stopping our world from moving forward.

Switzerland's strict neutrality is an important driver and many countries should consider adapting the same. We need to de-politicize the world. It is creating more problems that it can solve. "They swore an oath to remain different from one another", wrote Denis de Rougemont, Neuchâtel-born philosopher. "The reason for their solidarity was not to attain collective power but rather to maintain the autonomy of each individual."

Switzerland's wealth is driven by the multinational companies in highly innovative and competitive sector. I am not sure exactly how that happened and curious to do some investigation and study. Studies and studies will tell you this is the result of a well-developed higher education and public-private co-publications. I suspect there is more that that. Honestly if you ask them, most cannot tell you why they did well.

Here are a few Swiss innovations that you may not have known other than the first form of cheese:

• Electric telegraph 1774
• Cut pattern for clothes 1844
• Chococlate bar 1849
• Army pocket knive 1891
• Meat beef cube 1908
• Toblerone 1908
• Potato chips 1950
• Electronic wristwatch 1959
• Electric toothbrush 1960
• Helvetica 1957

Despite all, Switzerland is still behind in terms of commercializing its innovation and IP. Perhaps a little more design thinking will help them to stay in the top.

Apple Should Forget The Movie Studios. Go After The Banks Instead. I Want My iMoney.

This sign is up for our San Francisco office. The archtiects and the girls are working day and night to get this right and a lot of furniture are still in the Atlantic Ocean. Shipping furniture from Europe to US is always slow. Hey we need to get the righ stuff we need to wait.

Congrats to Nick Hughes (managing director of Signal Point Partners and LBS alum) for picking up the Social and Economic award at the Economist Innovation Awards a few weeks ago held at the Science Museum in London. Nick was recognized for his part in creating the M-Pesa venture in Kenya, a mobile money-transfer initiative – something that is long overdue in the world of banking unmet needs.

M-Pesa was first launched in 2005, allow people to transfer money, pay bills and save using a mobile phone, without NO bank account. Handset to handset money transfer, you would wonder why we don’t have it here. Now it is widely adoption in different parts of Africa with over 12 million users in Kenya alone. I see this is more than a technology innovation; it is a social innovation to facilitate economic development in the developing world.

Today, it still takes weeks to clear a check, transferring money is still a pain and fees are hefty. It is time for disruptive change. PayPay was great; never really get beyond the web. It should have been Twitter Wallet or Facebook Money that we are using now. Twitpay is one of those; the service has only 15,000 users to date. They are not the only one trying to attack the payment ecosystem, seeking out ways small and large to tear down the fortress the banks and credit card companies have built to defend their businesses.

PayPal is trying to harness the creative powers of the open Innovation to rethink payments. ClickandBuy's Facebook application allows Facebook users will be able to easily execute money transfers among each other and purchase Facebook apps quickly and conveniently. Another one called Square, a new company founded by Twitter cocreator Jack Dorsey, lets anyone accept physical credit card payments through a smartphone or computer by plugging in a free sugar-cube-sized device — no expensive card reader required. I don’t know why Google is not attacking this seriously, big markets and big money. I guess that’s the problem with bottom-up innovation and efforts are not aligned with opportunities.

And I'd rather using Apple i-Money and use i-Tunes to manage my banking. Steve, forget the movie studios..go for the banks!!!! I am looking forward to getting rid of my wallet…so I have more rooms for gadgets.

Off to San Francisco for IC Innovation Masterclass and BTW our street sign is up. Competitors alerted and we are in game. Magazine gone to the printer. New staff starting this week. Partnerships discussions with a few firms. Busy week and now looking forward to catch up with my couple of dozens of frineds in the Bay area.

What Is The Future Of Mobile Phones? Will There Be A Physical Phone? The Future Is Interesting.

Where is mobile going? It is the hottest space right now to be in and will remain so for another 10 years as it evolves and converges. Not sure what mobile means when most devices will have the wireless networking capability be it 4G or 5G. VOIP will remain a disruption for years to come as it takes over older telco infrastructures now threatening mobile operators that have yet to embrace VoIP and will suffer the consequences. Frost & Sullivan sees a bright future where mobile VoIP will generate $29.57 billion by 2015. iPhone and iPad and the apps that are now allowed to make VoIP calls is a series threat to carriers’ revenue and they will try every way top create barriers including surcharges on VoIP usage over the data networks.

And for the banks, the adoption rate of mobile financial services is surpassing that of other financial service innovations such as online banking and ATMS. So it will soon take over as the main channel with ATM being the second. Come the year 2015, the United States will have a penetration of some 149 million WiFi enabled mobile phones according to a recent study performed by Coda Research, it means the US will account for 66% of all WiFi enabled mobile phone shipments in the year 2015 with a growth rate of 25 percent CAGR between now and 2015. 
 Obviously a big part of that growth will be in the smartphone sector with two thirds of WiFi hotspot connections coming through smartphones in 2015.

So what is next for mobile? What would the next generation of mobile phones look like? We have been doing a lot of research and prototyping imagining new c=behaviors that drive new design and features. Some of the ideas are so exciting but unfortunately I can’t share that here for obvious reasons.

We have been studying the changing global cultural trends and socio-economic factors, how our lives and communities are changing and how the mobile phone evolves to fit that or drive change to that. 

 Bigger screens or better screen, foldable screens or no screens? Will the ultimate device would be entirely virtual and it follows me, from my sunglasses to my windshield and desktops or bedside alarm clocks? Or something like interactive holographs that pop out like a ghost? Yes augmented reality phones and seeing a video voice mail from someone who has passed away for years?

What about keyboards? Will they disappear with the screen? Or we still want to type? Voice input will make physical keyboards almost entirely redundant but we still want to type if I have to make a prediction. For those of you who like to express themselves with gestures, gesture recognition is another big one. Imagine sending a middle finger virtually? What about eye-focus tracking that will provide virtual full-size keyboards so no more fingers will be needed. So how do we exercise our fingers?

We definitely need to move away from silicon to biological processors, open your phone’s battery compartment you will find a few ants working to produce energy? The computer you inject is more likely to resemble a specialized virus than a tiny silicon chip. This gives you a taste of what Idea Couture’s future mobile experience prototyping playbook looks like. I wish I could share more.

What's The Latest Innovation From Credit Card Companies? It Is Time For Them To Do More. We Need To Have Spend Control Mechanism Embedded In Credit Cards.

Credit card fraud continues to be an issue, for banks as well for customers. I remember 15 years ago they tried putting photos on credit cards, I am not sure why they stopped doing that, that seems to be a simple solution to reduce fraud.

Now they are turning to technology to do the job, but often it solves one problem but creates another one. Think about the RFIP credit card, the idea makes sense since all you need to wave your card at the cashier and the chip supplies the card's number and expiry date through radio waves and print our a receipt. There is no opportunity for criminals to copy it since the card remains in your pocket during the purchase.

Many people have concern over the encryption which causes security concern. You can easily set up a gate antenna to scan people’s car when they walk past. The idea is great for small purchase such as cup of coffee or vending machine etc. Take a look at the chip-and-Pin card which has been standard in Asia for years, it is now coming to the US and Canada. Can the PIN solves the problem? I am not sure.

There are more serious problems than frauds in terms of credit card. It should do more than just a spending mechanism. Should we put warning signs on credit cards the same way we do for tobacco? Why not? Let’s talk about the fraud prevention side, a company in the UK has come up with a solution that allowed us to turn off and on a credit card. Yes, a credit card with switch.

The London based CardSwitch Technology has started offering its credit unions under the name of CardLock. There are still some patent issues with Visa who applied for the patent a year later. Basically the product enables cardholders to define their own user limits and prohibitions and turn them on and off.

And then there are cards that have magnetic strips that can be written upon. The two-accounts-in-one card allows user to press a button to switch the card from one account to another. Second, he showed a security-enabled card that kept both the magnetic stripe and the human-readable number on the front of the card obscured until a security code was entered in.

Here is a cool idea, I think we should explore how a credit card needs to be enabled by a cell phone, instead of a PIN, use the cell phone as a PIN. So if someone steal the data on your card but without the cell phone activation, it will not work. This is an easy solution. The cell phone will also allow real time checking on spending and provide summary of spend and warns you about over spending. With a card (and a cell phone), I can view real-time data on my spending (or the spouse of children). Any warning will be posted on my Facebook page and informing both the account holders and the supplementary card users. That's how to make spending social. I like this idea.

The credit card needs to do more than just making itself secured, it should have mechanism to help people who has less self-control. A lot of innovation is needed here and we don’t see enough.

Every Business Needs A New Operating System. Even The World Needs A New Operating System. It Is What Strategic Innovation Is All About. The Future Is Not Only Close, It Is Already Here.

In a few short months, Idea Couture will be celebrating another anniversary and some people have been here for two years and some three. It was Jackie’s second year’s anniversary last week (thank you Jackie) and it will three for Adam, Morgan and Nick pretty soon, and as we add new people every month and some are spreading across different geographies, it will be harder and harder for everyone to know everyone well. That’s just the life. And I am lucky (also by design) that we have been able to attract the brightest and the smartest. I am grateful to everyone of them who made the decision to take that journey with us.

Idea Couture were nominated as one of the most innovative companies in 2010 by our bankers and to our surprised, we only learned about the news Saturday evening – Idea Couture is now officially the most innovative company of the year, nice surprise. The funny part is, most people don’t actually know what exactly we do. What is an innovation company? That’s a damn good question.

Tom Peters’ started some 15 years ago telling executives the importance of innovation (beyond traditional technological definition) and how companies should “Strive for strangeness”: Creating a portfolio of the weird and encouraging "freaks" to flourish inside the company will help ensure the steady stream of innovative ideas necessary to survive in an hyper-competitive international business environment. I won’t go that far to use the word “freaks’, but we do have a lot of unique on-of-a kinds.

Peters was also an early advocate of the "culture of prototyping." In a world of ceaseless change, business concepts can be easily prototyped and tested, organizations have many resources at their disposal – capital, technology, channel, brand – but none are as valuable as their ability to use their own imagination and link them to customer needs, both unmet and unarticulated needs. To do that, organizations need to teach its people how to stand in different places; wear different hats and see things with a different lens. Not only during crisis, but also as part of their everyday job.

Innovation has never been part of any typical MBA (some exceptions) school curriculum; it is the opposite of many things that are taught in B-schools. Funny enough, I found a nicely-bound and very dusty copy of my thesis in my basement,it was my research during my last three month at the London Business School. My thesis supervisor was Prof Costas Markides and the title was Strategic Innovation. It never came to mind that decades later I am taking a page from my own thesis and it becomes the core of what IC does. I guess I am getting the ROI.

The problem with modern management is, in the language of systems thinking, the function of management is to eliminate “variation,” which is, broadly, the tendency of things to go off uncontrolled in all directions. Excessive variation is absolutely the enemy of predictability; indeed, the entire function of strategic planning; quality control and six sigma are focused on eliminating unwanted surprise. And innovation is the maximizing lucky surprises.

And the path to innovation is never a logical one. The fuzziness goes beyond the front end and extends into the late stage. Innovation is more than just business strategy. If you think about it today, we are in such as mess… healthcare, financial, technology, media, geopolitics, sustainability etc…. and think if innovation will be expanded to include figuring out what those problems mean to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. What it means? Basically, civilization needs a brand new operating system(s), those quick updates won’t work any more. There are tremendous opportunities for company to rethink and reimagine their future and create new shareholder value. Innovation is connected to everything, it is not just business, but the future of mankind. And we’re running out of time.

Don't Believe The 98% Innovaiton Failure Rate. It Is Just A Myth. Here Are My Top Five Innovation Tips.

Here's a picture of us having a welcome lunch outdoor with our new co-head of multidisciplinary design Jesse D (a Texan and Arts Center grad who has been living in Asia for many years). I first met with him in Shanghai 6 months ago and finally he landed here after 30 hours of flight time. He is still living in a suitcase for now but I am looking forward to have him participating in some of our very exciting innovation projects. Innovation needs more design mind.

Innovation is hard in many ways. What is hard about innovation? Finding new ideas is not hard. Building an innovative culture is hard. Turning ideas into product/services that people love is hard. It all begins with a piece of paper and a pencil. Innovation is hard because there are so many myths about innovation and consultants are selling snake oil. Innovation is not something that is taught in MBAs and not part of any MFA curriculum.

You can look at it from a process view, a strategy view, an organizational view and a toolkit view. Everyone’s journey is a little different and what works for one organization may not work for another. There is no one size fits all solution. Creating an innovation culture is easier said than done. There is no magic bullet for creating innovations, but there are many ways to develop a culture that encourages innovation. Developing an innovation culture takes a lot time and many companies have the will but not the time, you need to look for help externally. What will bring the organization together overnight to translate product and service initiatives into sustained results? The process one is a tricky one and here are some quick tips:

1/ Challenging Orthodoxies And Overcoming Dogmas. This is an important starting point and no good ideas will be seriously looked at without overcoming thee orthodoxies. There are orthodoxies in service such banking, healthcare and hospitality as much as in products such as CPGs, consumer electronics and personal care products. You can start with challenging your own orthodoxies or look at industry level dogmas. Think media, music, computing, beverages, travel etc. Forget the value chain for a second and start playing Lego. Challenge everything!

2/Participative Design and Co-Creation. The customer is King, Queen and Jack. Any innovation efforts will fail eventually if the end user is not driven to use your new product or service. Most consumers are intelligent and can contribute so much to the process. It is true that people can not always voice their needs and desires in a way that makes sense, but our job is find creative ways to understand their attitudes, values and behaviors and figure out how to include them in your innovation process.

3/ Innovation Sponsor And SWOT Team.  The majority of innovation teams start when a mandate from the CEO and followed by the appointment of an executive sponsor.  Without top level support, you may never get the resources needed to get things done.

Even a CEO have challenges finding the resources to invest in innovation, if there are multiple established businesses, the P&L owners of each of those businesses are going to fight for resources. The CEO often must take dollars away from yesterday’s businesses and give them to future's businesses and untested ones. That takes guts. Innovation is not for everyone. Majority of people are not ready or motivated to make innovation happen.

When putting together your innovation team, pick people from across different functions and business units, find people who have nothing to lose in their careers and willing and ready for some risks. People who have imagination and who have always been acting as the voice of the customers. Start with a small team and gradually expand to add more people. At some point, you will be ready to make this an organizational-wide undertaking and ready to harness the collective creative energy of people from all parts of the organization.

4/ Demonstrate Progress Often And Show Them The Prizes. Any innovation efforts cannot be done in a black box, these activities should be tracked and measured. The quality and quantity of foresights and insights, the number of unique idea contributors, the total number of ideas generated and total number of ideas that have been prototyped etc. And when you do get a big or small win, make sure you communicate them across the company. Innovation needs publicity.

5/ Defy The 98% Failure Rate Myth. A client of mine once told me that their success rate of innovation was 90%. I immediately felt off the chair and responded that it was probably because there weren’t any real innovation at all. People in the room laughed as I explained that they were most likely talking about some incremental improvements and called them innovation. On the other side, when people say their failure rate is 98%, I would think that they're simply not doing it right and probably lack a systemic approach of scanning, visualizing, imagining and early commercialization of ideas. If you do it right, your failure should fall below 70%. Yes, failure is part of any innovation process, but improving the chances of success is also part of an innovation strategy.

Are Large Businesses Becoming Too Complex To Be Managed And Their Business Models Are Hard To Understand? Or This Is Where The Real Competitive Advantage Lies?

My friend Mark Ury sent me a link to a piece on "The Collapse of Complex Business Models". I couldn't help but put my thoughts on the next post. There are so many myths about business strategy and business models. People used these words casually.

What is a strategy? Difficult question indeed and often a business strategy is very complex. Sometimes they are very simple, the business strategy for Walmart is buy cheap and sell cheap and create market power based on scale and probably the most advanced supply chain information systems (and the lowest possible operational cost structure). The business strategies for Google, Sony or GE or Apple (with the exception of Jobs himself) are complex indeed and even senior executive inside the company may not be able to articulate them in 15 minutes.

Strategy is so closely linked to strategic foresight. The question of how much visibility one can have into the future and how different futures can have impact on business models. It is a matter of foresight horizon, that is how far ahead, and how much disruptions are showing up under the radar. And how much complexity an organization's system can handle. When the very structure of the firm's world is undergoing rapid change, and interpretations about company business strategies and firm boundaries are characterized by ever increasing ambiguity, in that case the foresight horizon can be very complex.

I believe that strategy in the face of accelerated change and complexity should mean organization learning the on-going new practices of strategic foresighting, it is the scanning, interpreting, sensing and constructing the relationships that comprise the universe in which the firm acts or reacts. The many different parts of an organization that foster generative relationships within and across their boundaries - relationships that create new sources of value that need active re-imagination and re-configuration.

Business models are usually not the sole source of competitive advantage and value because of the reason that they can easily be copied, and many believe that is should be kept secret. But is is almost impossible since employees, financial market analysts and business partners need to understand the business models. In the modern information age where business activities are becoming more transparent, it is naive to think that you can run an effective business where only the top executive team can have a deep understanding of the business, or where partners or suppliers “don’t need to understand what we do”. No one can keep a company’s business model secret for long if at all.

People talk about how business strategy is so complex these days and most strategies are difficult to understand and or to manage from a risk and operations perspective. Often it is these complex ecosystems hold value and make it hard to be replicated. Strategic competitive advantage is created by the combination of strategy, culture, systems, brands, products and services and the by the people that operate throughout the organization. This creates a complex ecosystem that extends beyond the boundaries of the boardroom and indeed the business units.

Manly large organizations are so complex that it is hard to fully understand what’s going on, particular if you take a system view. They are almost on autopilot.  These big enterprise software systems that interacts with specialist systems that form the central nervous system of an organization. There is a problem when software behaves in unintended fashion when they get too big and there are too many. There will be unpredictable system behaviors when something is triggered and creating the ripple effects. Whether software is blame for Toyota's recent crisis or not, but it did raise a critical question: is software complexity out of control and what toll will its inherent bug exposure exact when millions of lines turn into billions or tens of billions.

Or the question goes beyond software and larger enterprises decision making process, everything today is too complex. There's a good piece written in the Boston Globe arguing that some systems, like some businesses, are too complex to be allowed to fail--and therefore this complexity should be averted or abolished in some way by regulators. The idea, in a sense, is that dangerously complex systems are too complex to exist. And bigness is an implicit culprit.

Some talked about the collapse of complex business models, there is a philosophical argument from an investor point of view whether it is better to invest in companies whose business models are easy to understand versus those that are overly complex. Complexity can also be an advantage and often a very big one. Companies that are successful in leveraging advantageous complexity and eliminating disruptive complexity in their business strategy can enjoy a sustainable competitive advantage over others. In fact, research shows that there is a direct correlation between the successful management of complex business operations and overall company performance and return on capital.

What Is White Space Mapping? Beyong The Core And Adjacencies, How Do We Identify And Map Out The Most Relevant Elements Of Future Competitive Space?

When people talk about exploring white space in innovation, often they refer externally to unserved markets or businesses that are outside their core. It is basically where unmet and unarticulated needs are uncovered to create innovation opportunities. White space is where where products and services don’t currently exist based on the present understanding of values. White space is also a tool that allows us to look at the landscape with new lenses. White space can moreover be defined as a unique set of attributes, identifying new openings where your competitors currently aren’t focusing or it is being considered part of what traditionally considered a remotely different industry.

White space is also an important outcome of a customer inquiry and discovery process that leads to new profit growth opportunities by defining potential gaps in existing markets. This process can be used to identify entirely new markets¬¬. It can also be used to map incremental innovation in products or services - new source of customer value that can be translated to economic value.

Many are reluctant to enter any white space because of the unknowns. Some can cannibalize existing products or services and some require a very different business models. And some require extensive system design and support. As a result, no one wants to take any risks and naturally retreated to their core and close adjacencies. Deciding what’s the core is an art and then deciding what’s considered adjacencies is another art. Do we look at the core from competencies, brand or assets?

How do we use white space mapping? The first step in the white space mapping process is to determine if you will approach it from an internal or external perspective.

Externally focused, the process begins with mapping the market, products or services based on whether these markets are currently served, underserved or unserved. The goal is to find gaps in existing markets, product or service lines that represent opportunities for your business. Some of these gaps may be opportunities with little or no competition. Others may identify non-consumers. Still others may uncover an entirely new market space that has the potential to transform your industry.

Internally focused, white space mapping becomes an inward looking tool to map your company’s ability to address new opportunities or threats and how efficiently and effectively it can react to these opportunities from a process, systems and structural perspective. In this scenario, white space mapping becomes an instrument to identify barriers to your company that inhibit it from pursuing new products, new markets or threats unless a new business model is developed.

As markets mature, competition intensifies, new technologies are invented and new consumer behaviors are constantly emerging. As such, white space mapping is becoming an important strategic exercise for organizational learning and strategic planning as organizations actively look for new sources of differentiation. For a company to remain relevant over the long term, it must respond to these shifting conditions intelligently and white space mapping needs to be part of their strategic planning efforts.

Emotion Detection Technology Will Become Mainstream. You Can Decide Not To Pick Up The Phone When Your Boss Is Angry.

The financial crisis has pretty much stalled all start-up investment activities but now there are signs that they are slowing coming back. Among a few cool companies on the radar is Exaudios. It is the equivalent of a lie detector but works more like an emotional detector. They can analyze the intonation of someone’s voice when they call you on your cell to see if he or she is calm, stressed out, cheerful or simply angry. They claim that it is up to 80% accuracy. I have been playing with the idea for a while and I think they have solved some of the key technical challenges.

Their strategy is to sell this to call centers but I am not sure why, I guess when an angry customer call then they can  switch to an automated response and when a happy voice call they forward the call to the sales center to cross sell you cable channel package or whatever. I am trying to think of other applications potential, but then any human can sense that if the other person is happy or upset, why do we need this? Only if they can apply this with different offerings and test you response. I don’t think it makes sense for call center at all, because most people are pissed anyway that they have to call for support. Everything can be done on the web, and if they have to call, they have reasons to be unhappy.

I think most call center people knew I was unhappy when I called, I didn’t think they were empowered to do anything. They weren’t allowed to give you a name to escalate. And sometimes people don’t care, why would that person three thousand miles away sitting in a five hundred people call center cared about your emotions? There is not much they can do anyway.

The only thing I think it would work is when a customer starts yelling, the system will detect it and the call will be redirected and jointly handle by a senior person, that way you can yell at two persons instead of one. Or there are special units that are good defusing angry customers, call them ‘negotiators’. The intonation analysis software can also correlate with physical conditions.  I still don't think call center is the right application although they think that's where the money is.

The company also sells a solution for HR. It is SaaS application that allows organization to determine the emotional attitude of a candidate towards a specific job, providing an insight into the personality of a candidate and suitability for a specific job. I am not sure how it works. Everyone can sound happy during a job interview. They also claim that the solution predict the likelihood of employees to work together as a team. That’s a stretch and you have to convince me. But I do think this technology has potential, but not the applications they have in mind. I have a few in my mind.

The Banking Industry Is At Its Industry Breakpoint. Industry Transformation Is Now In The Making.

We are finally reaching the end of the financial turmoil; it was bad but not as bad as anything close to the great depression. China is a key factor although many are skeptical. The dilemma facing Beijing will be to balance the use of its huge foreign reserves to boost its own slowing domestic economy against continuing buying U.S. Treasury bills. As the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasury bills, China will inevitably end up financing the $700 billion bailout plan ultimately went to the banks and auto industries.

If China chooses to stop buying U.S. securities, or even to sell off its holdings, the effects could be devastating; there are no reasons why they won’t continue to finance their biggest customer. It is like walking into a dealership buying a car and they won’t lend you the money to make a sale. For now, Beijing seems willing to help maintain U.S. financial stability and continue to purchase government-backed treasury bills. It also announced a $586 billion national infrastructure program, the largest stimulus effort ever undertaken by the Chinese government to lift its economy.

For the banks and other financial services, it is time to start thinking forward, time to deal with new realities. Suddenly an industry that was traditionally recognized, as stable now needs to rethink their business architecture. What lessons they can learn from others that can help bankers to reframe, rethink and reinvent the future.

With times of change, bank executives and corporate strategist need to think, work and execute beyond the the normal - to drive the banking industry into uncharted paths and directions and be better equipped as change agents. There are a lot of complex problems to solve, trust to rebuild and new meanings to drive and support organizational change. No longer is yesterday’s “normal” the standard or all your benchmarking is a throwaway. Imagining and leading in the future requires a deeper involvement to tackle the daily issues and the big picture issues.

How banking and the personal financial services might respond post turmoil? Understanding this shift requires banks to likewise shift, to reinvent themselves by rethinking architecture, products, customer experiences and relationships. Here are some possible approaches: Bankers should redesign their product development approach and process so they can be more agile and responsive to rapidly changing market needs.

• Bankers should replace their mass-market thinking and start thinking individual segments. It is time to write off some of those millions of (sunk) investments of useless CRM systems.They need to out serious effort in creating differentiated products and services. They need to figure out how to attach meanings and emotions to financial products.
• Bankers should sort help to rethink product platforms completely differently than before, re- emphasizing capital preservation over aggressive cross-selling of investment products. Banking must relentlessly eliminate complexity in all products and services. What’s simplicity means for personal financial services is a good starting point. Making sure relevancy, value and convenience are the core of the value equation.

• Bankers should revisit the fundamental design of internal processes. From product development to product and service integration, there are plenty of broken links. Bankers must re-design risk management at a model level, not just relying on models with a normal distribution curve of risk, they need to reassess risk algorithms to deal with abnormal market periods.
• Bankers need to accept and prepare for more government involvement. Example is Credit Card issuers need to revamp internal systems and overhaul how they communicate with customers and it will spread to other financial service products. The new rules limit fees, restrict changes to interest rates etc.
• And for Swiss bankers, this is the end of Swiss banking as we know it. No bank will be shielded by the banking secrecy anymore with the diplomatic showdown between the US and Switzerland. Swiss banks will race to rethink their value propositions and market positioning.

The list is non-exhaustive and I can write another 10 pages. But need to get back to my day job and have some rest, my jet lag from the Asian trip is killing me.

The Evolution Of The ATMs. 30 Years Later Still Struggling To Make Them Scam Proof. It Is All About The Human Factors.

I find that people are over-concerned with online security every time there is a piece of news about identity theft on TV. It is really not that bad and we need to accept the fact that it will not go away. Whatever security mechanism being put can fix one hole but usually create another hole. Let me take the example of the ATM, it is a very mature technology (probably about 30 years). Not many people know the first mechanical cash dispenser was developed and built by Luther George Simjian and installed in 1939 in New York City by the City Bank of New York, but removed after 6 months due to the lack of customer acceptance. No customer wanted to get money from a machine. It was a failed innovation.

I remember the one ATM card (Standard Chartered Bank) I used, every time I used it the machine will eat the card and mail it back to me. Not sure what security reason caused the design. So I can only used it once until they send it back in 2 days. It is designed to prevent fraud.

30 years later, there are still many ATM scams. Japan is still trying to figure out a way to stamp out ATM frauds. Chiba Bank has installed phone signal jammers at four unnamed ATMs at bank branches in the Tokyo region, I am not sure what exactly the criminals were able to convince people to do via mobile. I think there is too many cases criminals instruct victims to withdraw cash from the ATM through the cell phone. The often target the elderly, often telephoned by perpetrators claiming to be relatives and in need of some emergency funds. A new innovation is Aichi Bank is now ATMs will now no longer allow consumers to complete the transaction until they hang up. So you cannot be talking to your friends while getting your money.

How it works? A metallic film around the ATM will block access if it detects mobile phone waves. Essentially ATMs will become out of range for mobiles. Not only might this prevent the criminals from relating their information, it also helps to provide a break for the consumer to think carefully about the transaction.

While others are jamming cell phones, BT Broadband is converting 2,500 ATM machines to serve as free Wi-Fi hotspots. And for some places like Tibet, people are blessed (literally) with money with their ATM withdrawals. A relatively new addition to Lhasa's old city urban infrastructure an ATM machine - including the red pasted duilian - effectively blessing every transaction that passes through this machine. It is a way to making money clean (legally). Here's another real customer unmet need. (Photo courtesy of Chip Chase)

What Are Next Big Innovations For Personal Banking? Yes, The Current Customer Experiences In General Are Pretty Bad.

What are the next disruptions for personal financial services? Are they ready for a full “reset” ? Can they develop new perspectives fast enough and overcome their dogmas? How do we inject out-of-the box thinking and make them work within-the-box? Or can we re-shape the box? The last 6 weeks, we’ve been focusing some of the most interesting paradigm shifting ideas of how to transform banking, insurance and healthcare. Back to personal banking, there are so many opportunities for innovation.

Here’s one interesting one. iPhone check deposit. The military bank and insurance provider USAA recently launched mobile check-deposit technology, which lets users deposit checks from anywhere using an iPhone. USAA customers take photos of both sides of a check with the phone and transmit the images to the bank, which then verifies and makes the deposit.

The bank has just one branch in San Antonio and, because of its military legacy, has customers in Afghanistan and Iraq. That is so cool because it integrates with existing checking habits. It is reported that USAA has deposit growth nearly triple the industry average over the past three years. Further, 17% of all its customers across investing, insurance and banking use USAA's mobile app, which also facilitates on-phone trading, filing claims for auto accidents, loan calculations and the usual access to account information.

The future of banking is mBanking. The phone will become your wallet (contactless payments), your branch (for deposit) and your credit card. Just don’t lose it. We’re prototyping a number of cool mobile wallet and developing scenarios how they would fit it into a social-media culture. And what it means for SMEs etc.

Nokia will be a big player and could use P2P payments as an entry-point to emerging markets -- and a new revenue stream. It's partnered with Redwood City, Calif.-based Obopay to launch Nokia Money, a service that lets users make financial transactions on their phones. With Nokia Money, which will start to roll out in 2010 in undisclosed markets, mobile users can send money to other mobile users, pay merchants and utility bills, or top up prepaid cellphone minutes. I think more will join. We will end up having Nokia Money, iPhone Dollars, Tata Rupees, Ericsson Krona. Then we will need another kind of currency exchange.