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.

Influencer: Sony DVD Remote, 1999

Influenced: Apple iPod, 2001

I think it’s one of the goals we have in our work—to create something that is memorable—to create a moment that you might remember.

The box was a fascist symbol and the architecture of freedom and democracy needed something besides the box. So I started out to destroy the box as a building.
—Frank Lloyd Wright

via Analogue

A human would answer that question when asked. Tablets are a Windows phenomenon? Who knew?

Co.Exist is a Fast Company initiative that focuses in on ideas and innovation that are changing the world.
The editor of the site describes it like this:

This site is focused on groundbreaking innovation, innovation that’s going to change the way we live and the resources we use. We’re for brash and creative solutions, that make everyone rich while helping the people of the world lead lovely, clean, and fulfilling lives.

We look forward to making this a Daily reading at the Exhaust.

Co.Design: Among Six Types Of Failure, Only A Few Help You Innovate

Most of the time, I’m in complete agreement with this sensibility, but what concerns me is that in this counterintuitive embrace of failure we may be conflating different kinds of failure, and doing so at some risk. Perhaps all this is a necessary antidote to capitalism’s “success at any cost” mentality. But I have a creeping sense of anxiety that the rise in the rhetoric of failure dovetails in troubling ways with a shift toward esteem building in child raising and general education — in other words, trophies for the last place team, too. And not to sound like a hard-driving, unforgiving “tiger mother,” but I do wonder what this ubiquitous positive vibe surrounding failure really means for a nation in decline on almost every measure of productivity, achievement, and social equity. Coincidence?

This video of Steve Jobs giving the closing keynote of the 1997 Worldwide Develops Conference (via) is awesome on 2 levels.
First, it’s awesome on the macro level. Jobs on the mic – showing clarity of vision, expressing that vision clearly and concisely and showing he understands the technology space. For anyone who’s seen any of his other keynotes over the years, this isn’t shocking, but it’s just fun to watch him command the stage.
The second level of awesome is on the micro level and it happens at around the 14:40 mark (my emphasis):

Ok, let me describe the world I live in. About 8 years ago we had high speed networking connected to our now obsolete NeXT hardware, running NeXTSTEP at the time and because we using NFS, we were able to take all of our personal data, our ‘home directories’ as we called them, off of our local machines and put them on a server. And the software made that completely transparent and because the server had a lot of RAM on it, in some cases it was actually faster to get stuff from the server than it was to get stuff off your local hard disk because in some cases it was cached in the RAM of the server if it was in popular use.

But what was really remarkable, was that the organization could hire a professional person to back up that server every night and could afford to spend a little more on that server so maybe it had redundant disk drives and redundant power supplies. And you know, in the last seven years, you know how many times I have lost personal data? ZERO. Do you know how many times I have backed up my computer? ZERO. I have computers at Apple, at NeXT, at Pixar and at home. I walk up to any of em, and log in as myself. It goes over the network, finds my home directory on the server and I’ve got my stuff wherever I am.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but he’s just described iCloud. But in 1997. I understand what he described in the keynote was networked storage, and not actually downloading things locally to your device(s), but the experience he describes is the heart of iCloud – “It goes over the network, finds my home directory on the server and I’ve got my stuff wherever I am.”
Here we are in 2011, just now catching up to Jobs’ vision.

Patrick Rhone on how amazing Microsoft’s Kinect is and how they don’t know know how to use it in any capacity except as a toy:

It is really is an amazing and magical technology. Think about it. You are using natural real-world movement to mimic an action and it is happening in real time on a screen in front of you. No special gloves, wands, cables. Nothing. Just you. You pretend. It makes it real.

The problem is that Microsoft does not, can not, see it that way (and perhaps never will). They invented a device from the future yet could not untether themselves from the past and present. They could not see the potential to change the world with this device because they are too wedded to the idea that it had to work with the present. So, instead, it is just a toy, nothing more.

Why Leaders and Innovators Need Solitude to Do Good Work

Forty years of research on brainstorming shows that individuals produce more and better ideas than groups do. Studies also suggest that the path to excellence in many fields is not only to practice, but to practice alone. And creativity researchers have found that many highly creative people were shy and solitary in high school, and recall their adolescence with horror. (I explain all this in detail in my forthcoming book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.)

This is one of many reasons that introverts — who are more likely than others to carve out solitary time — are often very creative, and make unexpectedly fine leaders.

While a different idea, this brings to mind having one decision maker on on a project versus design-by-committee. As anyone who’s been on a project (design or otherwise) knows, when there isn’t a go-to person and everyone’s voice has to be heard and incorporated into the product, that product inevitably ends up a watered-down mess. Barely competent at many things, great at nothing.

asymco: Calling the end of innovation in mobile computers

People are lining up to call the market for mobile phones. Analysts and amateurs alike are connecting points on charts and predicting with confidence the future of mobile platforms. Consensus is forming that there is no future but a quiescent state. By the acclamation of pundits, the survivors are declared to be iOS and Android. They are also predictably arranged in a way similar to OS X and Windows. End of story.

Except for one thing.

3.5 years ago neither of these platforms existed. In fact, it was only two and a half years ago, in mid 2008, that one of the finalists even became a platform with the launch of an app store. The other “winner” only launched in a handset later that year and had no significant volumes until a year ago. In other words, these suddenly predictable platforms have been in existence for less than the life span of one device that runs them.

Have I mentioned how fucking useless analysts are?
Must be nice to have a job that revolves around guessing about the future.
It takes much larger balls to bet the future on a product you actually have to build and sell.