Archive for January 2010

What will it take for the rumored Apple Tablet to be successful?  After working on the IBM engineering team for the failed PC Jr., I realized there must be a better way to guarantee a product or service’s success at launch.  What I have found during the past 20 years of study and research is that most companies do not have a disciplined, predictable business process for listening to consumer needs and turning that into true innovation.

Yes, Apple has had some huge successes.  The iPod, iPhone and Mac, just to name a few.  But with those successes came a number of failures including the Cyberdog, ROKR, Macintosh Portable and the Newton.  What’s curious is that Apple has had a product fail miserably in almost every category they have ever entered. If the Apple Tablet is to become a success, it must:

Help people get important “jobs” done that they cannot get done effectively on today’s laptops or iPhones. If Apple wants to convince folks to ditch their laptops altogether, the new device must help people do all the things that a laptop does. PLUS it must offer some cool new features – such as managing the book reading or photo sharing experience as well as it currently manages the overall music experience.

Change the entire way people consume media. iPods changed the way we buy, search for and listen to music. How much of a “game changer” will the Apple Tablet be? For example, will there be an app for the new Tablet that allows us to change the way we create and give presentations? Will it let the presenter see what is on the screen behind him? Capture questions from the audience to assist in improving the presentation? Translate questions into the presenter’s native language in real time? It must help people get an important job done really well and in its entirety.

Offer and perfect a new interface. People draw on tablets. If Apple can perfect this interface and create apps that make it easy to translate hand-drawn diagrams into powerful presentations, then buyers will have a new tool to get an important job done.

Simply said, the Apple Tablet must fill an important void and help consumers get important jobs done. If it’s just a pretty product that features the “same old, same old,” we could see another Apple flop.

Reflecting on the tragedy in Haiti, as well as the recovery and relief efforts that have ensued, I can’t help but have mixed emotions – sadness, for everyone that has been impacted by the earthquake and lost loved ones; pride, for my country and a world that has come together in this crisis; and frustration, for why we haven’t solved the issue of effectively getting people, food, water, supplies and other resources into an area that has been devastated by a natural disaster.

What I have realized is that no matter the disaster, the “job” – whether it’s restoring power or delivering food and water – stays the same.  Yes, the circumstances change, making relief efforts more or less complicated. But the fundamental jobs that need to get done don’t change.

It is this underlying common element that allows us to learn from previous disasters in order to improve our efforts in future disasters. While we have seen much improvement in readiness since Katrina here in the United States, we have yet to innovate substantial improvement for worldwide relief efforts. Now is the time to study this job, while our relief efforts in this current disaster are still active. We need to begin to understand the environmental and human constraints – and other factors – that have prohibited us from effectively deploying aid after a natural disaster.

From Haiti we’ve learned at least two lessons: (1) execution of the distribution process is still less effective than what is needed – the job is not being executed well enough today, even after all the lessons learned from previous disasters such as Katrina and the Tsunami, and (2) governments, non-profits, corporations and media must work in unison to effectively and rapidly respond. The partnership between the Red Cross and cell phone companies to execute the ‘text’ aid is a great example of how cooperation between entities can generate great results.  What we need is that same level of cooperation among a cross-section of organizations, resulting in innovative solutions to getting aid delivered and distributed.

With further assessment, we can create a solutions database and build a platform for collaboration among entities world-wide to innovate disaster relief efforts moving forward.

For more information on the Center for Social Innovation visit http://www.strategyn.com/about/strategyn-center-social-innovation/.

During the last 10 years, we witnessed stalled growth, financial markets with scant return, American companies giving up their manufacturing to China, organizations cutting into muscle that they thought was fat, and venture capitalists producing zero return.  To top it off, 2009 was met with the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression.  Reflecting on this, the last decade can only be dubbed, “The Lost Decade.”

What The Lost Decade did do was set the stage for renewal in the next decade.  In order to ensure that the next 10 years don’t look like the previous 10, here’s a few lessons learned – and, more importantly, what Big Business needs to do starting in 2010.

Who’s doing the big thinking? Thanks to corporate downsizing, managers find themselves having even less time and resources to spend on the important strategic planning activities that are needed to ensure company growth. To solve this problem, companies must reinvent their often fragmented and inefficient strategy and innovation processes, dedicate and entrust a small number of people to execute these new processes, and invest in new tools that will not only make sure big thinking takes place  – but that it takes place consistently, effectively and with few resources.

Don’t Follow the Crowd. Forget open innovation. Despite all the hype around companies soliciting ideas for their next breakthrough from outside the company, open innovation is a fad – a band-aid solution that masks the real problem. Many managers falsely believe that innovation is a “numbers game” and the more ideas they generate, the greater their chance for success. Instead, companies must use new and effective ways to uncover attractive markets and unmet customer needs before engaging in idea generation. When company employees know what unmet needs must be addressed, they are often the most qualified to devise new solutions.

What happens when the luck runs out? Less than 10% of new businesses succeed. Of those entrepreneurs that do succeed (according to a recent study), 73% said luck was a key factor in their success. In 2010, we’ll see more start-ups arise from thousands of Americans out of work. To succeed, they’ll need to start businesses in attractive, underserved markets – markets that consist of a large number of people who struggle to perform a specific job or task that they perform frequently. Next, they must offer a product or service that helps people perform that job or task better than competing solutions. Consequently, the entrepreneur must have a deep understanding of the job the customer is trying to get done. Lastly, entrepreneurs must work diligently and consistently to fine tune their offerings so they are always helping people get that job done better than competing solutions.

VC needs some TLC. The past decade has been a tough one for limited partners who invested in venture funds. After the dot com bubble burst, venture investors have significantly underperformed – especially if you factor in the risk that they ask their limited partners to take with high management fees and long-term capital commitments. The last decade has revealed that without a huge wave of technological change, like the personal computer or the internet, venture investors are not very good at identifying opportunities and investing in innovation. The venture model is fundamentally broken because traditional firms don’t create enough value for entrepreneurs. Money is not enough. The venture firms that succeed in the next decade will have to do the hard innovation work of identifying markets, discovering customer needs, creating company strategies, and generating solution ideas. This is how they will help entrepreneurs succeed.