Honda has designed and demonstrated a new unicycle that is similar to the Segway for people who want to sit down instead of stand up. The design is impressive in how it works, simplicity of use, and compactness. What remains to be seen is how much it costs, when it will be available, and whether they can increase the battery life beyond the one hour currently specified. As a benchmark the Segway X2 has a range of 19 km and a top speed (20km/h) that is twice that of the Honda unicycle. Prices for different models of Segway vary but are approximately in the range of $5,000 to $7,000.
Honda has designed a new unicycle robot
April 16th, 2010Erring on the side of Happiness
March 1st, 2010One of the great things about being in business for yourself is creating the opportunity to do business your way. Common Craft is a creative explanation business that has decided that their business philosophy is Erring on the side of Happiness.
This is a counterpoint to the view that you don’t really have a business at all if you aren’t building and growing it to operate (or sell) independent of your involvement. Both views have their merits but the important thing is to make the choices that are right for you.
A documented company purpose, beyond making money, can help provide guidance when making these decisions.
Apple Innovation
February 24th, 2010
At the end of the day, I know it’s a cliche, but people are our most important asset in the world by far. It’s people who deliver innovation. We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose.
Apple COO Tim Cook
Excerpt from Dan Frommer’s full interview with Tim Cook at the Goldman Tech conference February 2010.
Why you should care about business models
February 6th, 2010Most consumers don’t know and don’t care about the business models underlying the products they buy because, let’s face it, life is complicated enough and bottom line what really matters to most people is just the availability, quality, and price of the product they buy. People should care about business models, however, because they affect the profitability of different enterprises in the supply chain and their ability to provide value or even exist. This eventually does impact availability, quality, and price if the enterprises affected were providing value.
Charlie Stross provides a book publishing business model supply chain explanation on his blog. It explains what is behind the fight between Amazon and MacMillan that casts a light on who are the good guys and bad guys in this dispute. Without being informed, consumers might tend to side with Amazon who positions the fight as Amazon standing up for consumers to bring a consistent low price for products. Once there is an understanding the business model and supply chain a different perspective can emerge that the battle is really about roles, control, and who gets what portion of the profit. It also exposes what is at stake in the ability for market forces to operate vs. an enterprise exercising monopoly like control. Consumers might actually have an opinion over which enterprises can provide best value in a role and would like choice with free competition. Even if an enterprise professes to be a benevolent dictator (e.g. do no evil) my vote is for the distributed power of letting the market decide availability, quality, and price by consumers voting democratically with their dollars. There may be a temptation for just going for the lowest offered price but without understanding the business model implications there is a real danger of creating unforeseen consequences by putting portions of the value chain out of business.
In Canada, another example of a business model battle that has gone public, is the TV distributors vs. the local TV content providers. The content providers business model has changed and they can no longer remain profitable with advertising so they want payments for their content from TV distributors. The TV distributors (e.g. Bell ExpressVu and Rogers cable) pay for other content from the US but don’t want to pay for local content. They are positioning these proposed local content payments as a tax that has to be passed through to consumers. A public relations battle is taking place to see if and how the business model will be changed.
Business models are also important for workers who are increasingly concerned about the viability of their jobs. It may be tempting to think that viability of a company’s business model can be left to the CEO or marketing department but ultimately workers need to make informed decisions about where they work and the industry where they earn their livelihood. This needs to be based on an “eyes wide open” view of where their employer and industry fits into the supply chain, what value they provide, and is the business model structured to reward that value. The world is getting more complicated by the emergence of innovative and complex business models but this is the reality of the brave new world of opportunities and risks.
Microsoft Innovation
February 5th, 2010Dick Bass on Microsoft’s lack of Innovation
A critique from a former Microsoft VP about Microsoft issues with innovation shows that even with huge resources, talented people, and world class research, cultural roadblocks and internal competition can severely impede successful delivery of innovation.
Official Microsoft Response
Surprisingly, as John Gruber noted, Microsoft officially responded without refuting any of the points made. Their main arguments are that their objective is success on a large scale, that it is difficult, and it takes time sound like excuses that don’t give you the feeling that the problems are going to be addressed.
Scott Berkun former Microsoft manager and Innovation Author
Good to see Scott Berkun offering his opinion on Microsoft creative destruction since after all he has the background to speak authoritatively on the subject of Microsoft and innovation. His list of reasons for the problems:
The key thing here is not to bash Microsoft – they have had some successes too – but to highlight issues that could be holding your organization back from innovative market success.
Do You Want Magic or Specs?
January 30th, 2010
There is a lot of reaction to the iPad announcement and much of it is criticism. Fraser Spiers explains it as Futureshock. Much of the commentary is about how the iPad is not like other computers as if this is a bad thing. How would innovation occur if suppliers listened to sources like ZDNet (10 things netbooks do better) that insist that all the existing features of older technology must be provided in the old way. Ultimately it is not about technical specs. It comes down to meeting user needs and enabling productivity and creativity. What many analysts are missing when they complain about what can an iPad do that con’t be done on a laptop or even netbook is it is not all about WHAT. HOW is really important too and if something is even just a little bit easier and simpler it can lead not just to better productivity but in whole new uses by reducing barriers. Existing users can do more and new users start using new tools that are suddenly more appealing to them.
One way of thinking about it is to use the left brain/right brain paradigm. The left brain perspective compares the devices by the specs. Which device has more memory, hard drive space, processor speed, ports, etc? From a right brain wholistic perspective all the specs are irrelevant compared with what is really important – how does the device help me accomplish my purpose. How does the device make me feel, is it beautiful, how does it respond, what can I do with it, is it intuitive, can I accomplish my objectives without getting frustrated, does it distract me by making sweat a lot of details unrelated to my work or play?
One of the ways of explaining where there is magic is that something miraculous happens and you don’t have to understand how it was done. The technology is only there to make the magic not for its own sake. Sure not all the magic is there yet in the iPad since the platform has just been announced but where is the most potential for magic? What will best enable new ways of doing new things, netbooks or iPads?
Look at the advertising. Does the product emphasize specs or does it emphasize the experience, results, and use cases. Surely that is a clue on which is better value – what the product supports you to do.
What makes a Successful Tablet?
January 15th, 2010Daring Fireball has a thought provoking retrospective on the Newton regarding how the new Apple tablet will differ from its tablet predecessors. This will eventually make a classic marketing and product management case study once the dust settles and we see how successful or not the new product(s) become.
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| Newton Messagepad tablet | Newton with keyboard |
What are some of the lessons of the Newton and other tablets which didn’t achieve widespread success?
First it isn’t about technology although partly previous efforts have experienced issues by trying to use technologies before they worked well enough to be relied on. The critical success factor is a well defined purpose for the device and doing those things well so it has immediate value beyond the potential evolution. In fact by trying to market the device to do features that are not quite ready actually damages its reputation by encouraging people to try things that they will eventually be disappointed with. Handwriting recognition is the primary example with the Newton although it did have devotees who loved it despite its limitations.
Take the text input challenge for a tablet. For a larger screen device how do you hold it and enter text on the screen comfortably? This is where such items as prosaic as a stand and external keyboard could be “key” but how is this reconciled with portability? Clearly both the on the go and fixed location use cases need to be addressed and the solution is most likely different for each. I think that without some surprising breakthrough, text input has to be recognized as a secondary feature for a tablet. If you want to do heavy duty text input, a laptop form factor currently makes more sense. For small amounts of text input an onscreen keyboard can work especially if the tablet is not too hot to put in a person’s lap. It is useful to have a wireless keyboard and stand for fixed use just because this functionality can be provided for little incremental cost or added complexity for that part of the market that doesn’t want to purchase the optimized device for each type of use. If voice recognition performance is reliable enough perhaps it can be another alternative added to the mix to address special case (quiet environment) text input.
Where the tablet can shine as a primary use is as a graphic interface, mobile media viewer, and large screen sensor interface. Touch gestures could excel for drawing, media browsing, and gaming. Sure surfing the Internet or reading ebooks requires some (text) input but buttons, gestures, popup keyboards, and voice input could work much more elegantly in this environment. It is even easier to see the tablet being used for watching movies or playing games although for playing music the ipod touch should be just as good and more portable.
Positioning the tablet as primarily a graphical touch input device also helps promote a synergy between the products so people see the need for all four. After all the ideal for Apple is to create a set of systems that all complement each other and all add value to different aspects of people’s lives. The desktop is the fixed large screen high capacity server, the laptop is the portable fairly capable general purpose computer with built-in keyboard and touchpad, the tablet is the portable media player and creative full screen graphic input touchpad, and the iphone/ipod touch are the pocket communicator sensor computers. Not everyone will have the optimized environment of all four but the ideal is for the products to have that integration and complementary functionality synergy where it makes sense while also providing stand alone capabilities that provide enough value that they can be purchased separately.
I have left out the Apple TV or Mac Mini as a media center but that is an example of how this product spectrum extends even farther. It is not hard to imagine future products including (3D) glasses, more sensors, and projector video camera to evolve the computer into interacting with the environment even more.
Phenomenal Product Manager
September 24th, 2009Brian Lawley at the 280Group has a really great promotion for his new book The Phenomenal Product Manager (The Product Manager’s Guide to Success, Job Satisfaction and Career Acceleration). It is only available until October 1, 2009 and it includes membership in the AIPMM (Association of International Product Marketing Management).
Three Entrepreneurial Books To Read Before You Turn 21
August 28th, 2009Three Entrepreneurial Books To Read Before You Turn 21: “Feld Thoughts”
It is ok to read them after you are 21 too.
Business Models for Startups
July 29th, 2009Steve Blank has done an excellent presentation for the Cleantech Accelerator conference on the difference between business plans and business models and how they can complement each other. He provides very clear examples, templates, and a structure on how diagrams can be used to clarify your business hypotheses and plans. Business clarity and simplicity have a crazy way of providing focus which can save a lot of time and money.
This applies to all types of business (and personal) endeavors especially for those in new businesses and the public sector. Some good candidates for business model diagrams are where major change is planned, there is a complex web of alternatives, and end objectives haven’t yet been completely defined.