Oct 5, 2011 | Innovation
Nothing new ever happens when the past is just repeated.
When Apple was at the bottom of its life-cycle, when they basically ran out of cash, and survival was improbable, Steve Jobs, just reinstated at the company he founded took a step that redefined the persona of the business.
He made an advertisement, aimed at the diminishing pool of customers, and potential customers, but also at the employees and other stakeholders, an ad that should be remembered as one that started the redefinition of the business that now pervades every category they create. The ad was sufficiently successful to attract that doyen of social commentators, the Simpsons, to have a shot.
Thnking differently is a challenge to most, it creates anxiety, the fear of failure, and puts people at risk from the naysayers and bureaucrats, but without them, we have no innovation, nothing different.
What a boring world that would be.
Sep 23, 2011 | Communication, Customers, Innovation, Small business, Social Media
Ask a SME manager in packaged goods, “would you like a phone call from Woolworths ordering stock of your new product for every store in the country?” and you will most likely get a tear with the nodded head.
Enter the “Orabrush” story, they got the call from Walmart without any of the usual begging.
There are many hurdles for SME’s in the packaged goods industry to jump before distribution in the major retailers can be obtained, and then the problems really start, because SME’s lack the resources to move the product off shelf before the trial period runs out.
Social media has helped over the past couple of years, you now have the opportunity to reach highly targeted groups of consumers, and deliver them a message, but generally it has not helped much to get the product on shelf in the first place.
Orabrush really broke the mass market model with a product I still find odd, but great creativity and lateral thinking combined with social media has turned the product into a hit, and can now be found in Walmart stores around the world
Have a look at the Youtube ads in the link, gems.
Sep 13, 2011 | Change, Innovation, Social Media, Strategy
Coles & Woolies are starting out to reduce the gap between their marketing practices and those of the trendsetter, Tesco in the UK.
I guess this is not surprising given they are both watching Tesco very closely, and Coles management is now dominated by ex Tesco personnel, but I wonder if Australia has the depth of Innovation capability to not just copy what others have done, but to create genuine innovation in this exploding digital space.
We appear to have taken the edge off our capability, Universities and research facilities are starved of funds, hobbled by any current political agenda, and standards do not appear to be sufficiently rigorous to test and train the very best minds we produce. This is a long term challenge, way beyond any political cycle, but in my view should be high on our agenda if we are serious as a nation about the role we play into the future. It is not just about the carbon tax (look at what Iceland is doing) or what to do with a few desperate people arriving in leaky boats, it is about how we set up our nation for the long term.
Insead Business School and the Confederation of Indian Industry have produced a credible report that ranks our performance in the all important “Innovation Stakes” at 18, better than Thailand, but behind New Zealand. Australia’s profile is on page 79.
Sep 5, 2011 | Innovation, Management, Operations, Strategy
Googles purchase of Motorola poses an interesting management challenge.
To date, Google has been a producer of software, an intellectually intensive activity that can be accomplished anywhere the brain is located.
Manufacturing is a different beast.
Suddenly you have factories, supply chains, unions, fragmented regulatory regimes covering OH&S, environment, waste, and a myriad of other stuff that sometimes seems designed to ensure you drown in red tape. What a difference!
This will stretch Google’s leadership and culture, as any manufacturing executive will tell you, it is not as easy as it looks.
Sep 4, 2011 | Change, Innovation
Gordon Moore first promulgated his now well know law in an “Electronics” magazine in 1965, that the number of transistors that could be packed onto a standard chip would double every year for at least 10 years. Moore updated his forecasts in a 1975 presentation but the general direction has held true now for over 50 years.
In 1955 when the transistor was first commercialised, they cost $5 each, now they cost billionths of a cent each, an astonishing change.
If this development trajectory were to be repeated, even 100th of it, the dreams of politicians trying to sell the notion that a carbon tax will lead to an explosion of technical development in renewable energy, will be realized. Perhaps this is not as far fetched as the notion in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip on would double every year?
Sep 1, 2011 | Innovation
Not my normal patch, writing about cookbooks, but this is a exception because of the input if Nathan Myhrvold, a tech entrepreneur with an astonishing range of interests, and who has changed the digital innovation landscape with his patent trolling activities.
Modernist Cuisine is a multi volume cookbook, but is far more than just another a cookbook by a chef trying to get his head on TV, this is an examination of the technology and science of cooking, lavishly and innovatively photographed. Have a look at the trailer on the website, not just another cookbook.
