Category:Innovation

via mag+

From Electronista:

HP's 2012 shareholder meeting on Wednesday saw Apple become a centerpiece of its conversation. During the question and answer session, most questions centered around why HP was not more like its fellow Southern Bay Area counterpart, which had a tenfold larger market worth even though it spent less on research and development. When asked if she had a vision like the late Steve Jobs, CEO Meg Whitman argued that the company had to place more bets on "disruptive" innovation like Apple, creating categories or fundamentally changing them instead of the mostly "evolutionary" approach HP used.

Sure, HP just needs to be disruptive like Apple.

And I just need to be musical like Thom York to be a great musician.

Easy.

shoot&scribe on how Steve Jobs cracked the innovation code:

Apple's growth has been astronomical because Steve Jobs has, in effect, solved the Innovator's Dilemma. Apparently, during his hiatus at Next, he read the Innovator's Dilemma and cited it as one of the most important books he ever read.

Essentially it turns around Apple's complete willingness to destroy its own revenues. It built a phone that destroyed it's major source of revenue, the iPod. It built Macbook Airs that have now disrupted another major source of revenue, their Macbook Pros. It built the iPad, which is already beginning to disrupt the Macbook itself.

If you dig innovation and disruption but haven't read The Innovator's Dilemma or know about Clayton Christensen, get on it.

Michael Loop on why hacking is important.

Read the whole thing, but this is great:

Reasonable people are often scared by the new. This is because reasonable people are not Barbarians and they are not hackers. They appreciate the predictable, profitable, and knowable world that comes with a well-defined process, and I would like to thank each and everyone of them because these people keep the trains running and on time. No one likes Barbarians because the Barbarian strategy is one at odds with civilization. By definition, a Barbarian, a hacker, is building on a strategy that is at odds with the majority.

It's awesome.

Yes, about halfway through writing my post on Top Gear, this Oatmeal post did pop into my head.

In Michael's previous post on the subject, he points out that entertainment industries have yet to figure out how to adapt to new media. Everything we've seen from media companies, whether it be film, television, music, or books, has been part of an attempt to restrict access to content. How silly is that? Media companies are stuck in a model that says, essentially, "the less people see our product, the better."

The counterargument is that these companies are not restricting content for people willing to pay, but that's not necessarily true. E-books are a case in point.

If a book has been published in the United States, there's a good chance a large library system will have a copy for checkout. I live in New York City, which has not one, but three public libraries run by the city. The New York Public Library, serving Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island is a gigantic repository of books. If you want to read something, it can be reserved online and when a copy becomes available, it is sent to a branch of your choice for pickup. It's a remarkably convenient system, and this comes from an institution operating on a gutted budget.

Libraries have always been repositories of free content that book publishers have been willing to live with. But the e-book model is changing the relationship publishers have with public libraries.

When a popular book comes out, libraries have to buy many copies to keep pace with demand, just like a bookstore. As copies are worn down with use, replacements are bought, or, if demand has peaked, not replaced. Physical media demands multiple copies for multiple uses. But as libraries are setting up online libraries and warehousing content for e-readers, they are asking the obvious question, "Why should we have to purchase more than one digital file? Can't we just host one copy on our servers and let our users download it?"

Publishers, understandably, don't want that to happen, as open access to a library's content would be legal piracy. So the system the two sides have come up with, and that is still being worked out, is a complicated licensing system whereby libraries pay publishers for a certain amount of checkouts. When a particular book has reached a cap, the library has to purchase more licenses. Users who have the downloaded book on their device have a limited time to read it before it erases itself from their machine. Because digital storage and transmission has completely upended the weight of content, the owners of that content are having to invent artificial barriers (that negate advances in technology) to its distribution.

Public libraries are free for its members. They do not fit into any pay model currently in use today, yet even they are now subject to the methods of an industry flailing to find its place in the 21st century.

For an example from television that breaks the pay model, one need look no further than hulu. Hulu.com has deals with all four of the major broadcast networks to carry their content online. Some of that content includes entire series runs of shows that are long off the air. It's wonderful for anyone who loves television. But the spectre of artificial restrictions once again rears its ugly head.

The X-Files is one of the most popular shows of the 1990s. It ran for nine seasons and spawned a pair of films. All nine of those seasons are on hulu, but only for users who pay the monthly subscription fee to be part of hulu plus.

This is a television show that aired on network television, where the price to watch was paid in time, in the form of commercials, but in its online incarnation, that commitment is not good enough for the owners of the content, so the show resides behind an artificial barrier. For those not willing to pay with anything other than their time, using a torrent to steal the episodes is now more of an attractive option.

I would be willing to bet that if that content was taken out from behind hulu's pay wall, and was interspersed with normal commercial breaks, like everything else on hulu, instances of piracy of that television show would decrease. I bet that would work with all shows. Weightless data is inherently hard to hide, and has created a new class of casual criminal. A great way to bring these people in from the dark, for movies and television, anyway, is to make content they wish to see available, and then sell ad space within it. Something like this has only been applied to relatively small amounts of content, so far. As soon as television and film companies realize more of their viewers aren't wedded to a clock, and that they are willing to pay with their time like they always have been, that should begin to change. But hurry it up, already. I want to watch The X-Files.

I've been busy this year, between work and preparing my wife and I for our move from New York to Los Angeles at the end of this month. Because of this, I haven't been able to watch any episodes from the new season (Season 18) of Top Gear (the original awesome UK version, not the shitty US version). Not a big deal I tell myself. I'll check iTunes.

Nope. iTunes only has Season 17 to download.

That's ok, I pay out the ass for premium cable television, and we get BBC America, which includes BBC America On Demand, so maybe they'll at least have the first few episodes from the season up.

Nope.

The BBC is refusing to embrace the innovations the Internet and mobile computing have brought to our lives. Their behavior is representative of the cable industry at large.

The result of innovation is disruption. When you find a new way to do something, you disrupt the existing way of doing it. In commerce, when you innovate, you're also disrupting existing streams of revenue.

There's two ways to react to innovation:

- adapt/change your business model(s) and find new revenue streams
- preserve existing revenue streams

By ignoring innovation and preserving existing revenue streams you end up antiquating your business, potentially (inevitably?) ending it. IBM used to make typewriters, then personal computers. Then they sold their computer business to Lenovo and went into the enterprise market. IBM has adapted in order to survive (I know, IBM has more than those few things, but the point is still valid).

By not adapting to the ways people can now watch television, the BBC encouraged me to find other means of obtaining their content. I could probably download all of this season's episodes of Top Gear from a Bittorrent site. But I don't want to. I'd rather do it the right way, whether it be through iTunes or some other method the BBC endorses, but so far nothing exists.

What am I left to do?

John Gertner for the NYTimes on Bell Labs:

So how can we explain how one relatively small group of scientists and engineers, working at Bell Labs in New Jersey over a relatively short span of time, came out with such an astonishing cluster of new technologies and ideas? They invented the future, which is what we now happen to call the present. And it was not by chance or serendipity. They knew something. But what?

The guy who was responsible for creating the creative culture was Mervin Kelly.

How did he do it?

One element of his approach was architectural. He personally helped design a building in Murray Hill, N.J., opened in 1941, where everyone would interact with one another. Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall's length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible. A physicist on his way to lunch in the cafeteria was like a magnet rolling past iron filings.

Sounds like another building from an institution known for creativity and innovation, the original MIT Media Lab building (via):

The Lab, which has its origins in architecture (the founder of the Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, is an architect) draws upon the tradition of studio design critique; we have daily visits from our industry partners and other practitioners with whom we engage in an authentic critical dialogue about the work. In this exchange, the work is discussed within a broader context -- ideas (and prototypes) are exchanged, improvements and alternatives suggested. We then advance to the third phase of the innovation cycle -- iterate. Iteration within the Lab means returning to 'Step One' to push our ideas further. Iteration within our partners' organisations means taking a prototype towards real-world application. In both cases, we can learn from our mistakes (and successes).

This quote is from In The Plex by Steven Levy (via Sci-Fi Hi-Fi via Daring Fireball)

Google products are machine-driven. They're created by machines. And that is what makes us powerful. That's what makes our products great.

This kind of quote is to be expected from a company run by engineers. The problem isn't that Google's products are made by machines. Everyone's products are made by machines. But it is't why you should be proud of your products. And it's not what makes your products great.

What engineers and companies run by engineers need to get past is thinking the general public cares about the same things they do. Like how (supposedly) open their platform is. Or how precise their algorithms are. Or how fast their processors are.

Engineers are very gifted individuals. I know, because my father is one.

Engineers have the uncanny ability to talk to machines. Write code. Fix car engines. Rewire houses. Help their son install a stereo into their car, explaining which wire is connected to the ignition, which one is connected to the battery and which one is grounded (I believe the black wire is ground). Oh yeah, and check to see if your speakers are in phase.

Where engineers need help is converting their brilliance into something a regular person can use and enjoy.

Designers convert brilliance. They connect dots.

This doesn't make designers better than engineers.

They need each other to create anything meaningful or useful.

Recently I had a sit down chat with Dominic Coballe, the co-owner of the Canadian-based company N-Product. This is the company that has brought us the Deckster Timepiece—the natural companion to your iPod Nano.

Thirty-nine. That's the number of bits and pieces that make up one Deckster, packaging, inserts and all. In our tiny workshop, each one is hand-assembled. Once packaged, after a hug and a kiss (we wipe it afterwards), it's sent into the world ready to love and to be loved.

What struck me the most when talking with Dominic was his overall passion and determination in making the best possible product. Deckster is 100% North American made and is packed with ethically sourced materials in its construction. The Leather straps are made by a Montréal-based company known for supplying brands such as Louis Vuitton, Cole Haan, Armani Exchange and Alexander Wang.

Recently the Re:Class line of Decksters were released. This line was created in partnership with Canadian retailer Mountain Equipment Co-op and utilizes discarded bicycle tires, inner tubes and backpacks for their watch bands. It is bringing new life to things that would normally end up in a landfill.

In purchasing a Deckster this holiday season, you are breathing new life into your iPod Nano, reducing environmental impact and ultimately supporting the growth of a company that will go on to produce many more quality products.

Give the Gift of a Deckster. Or buy one for yourself.