Sep 20, 2010 | Change, Innovation, Social Media, Strategy
“Open source innovation” is rapidly becoming an accepted strategy, an increasing trend as the communication tools on the net make it progressively easier, and people think up new ways to use them.
Eric Von Hippel a professor at MIT wrote “Democratising Innovation” some years ago, and put it on the web for free download, P&G have a deliberate strategy of seeking innovation from outside the firm rather than keeping it all internal, this is not outsourcing, rather it is casting around for the best ideas wherever they come from. Now, the idea has spread to more modest companies, one of my clients is experimenting with a “Wiki” as an adjunct to their more traditional and too slow technical processes.
These types of initiatives thrive on low communication costs, low barriers and transaction costs, it is the speed to market, the creative networks, personal kudos, and energy created that works for the initiators and participants, not necessarily the promise of royalties.
Sep 12, 2010 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
Product optimisation is not product discovery, the techniques to get the best results differ, usually markedly, as the challenge to collect data to mitigate risk for entirely new products is substantially more difficult than collecting the same data for what is effectively a range extension .
However, in a web environment, experimentation is becoming easier and easier with the Google analytic tools now freely available, so product optimisation is easier and quicker than ever, to the extent that there is no excuse not to use them. The same tools also make collecting data on new products, almost as easy, so long as an “experiment” can be set up.
However, outside the web environment, where the results are not so immediate or transparent, a bit of creative thought will open up ways to use the tools of the web to track test markets, early adopter customer feedback and reactions, service difficulties, unexpected uses that evolve, and the myriad of other factors at play in a genuinely new product, it just takes a bit more effort to dream up and implement the experiment.
Aug 26, 2010 | Change, Innovation, Social Media, Strategy
The challenge of competing successfully in the digital age is to build the advantages of scale, without the inertia of the bureaucratic structures that usually come with it as a means to manage and control activities and investment priorities, not to mention the governance and compliance challenges.
This remains as true for services delivery as it is of manufacturing demand chains, private, NFP and public sectors.
The evolution of technology and its application to communication has wrought profound changes in the way we manage, and the pace is quickening.
For those of us who remember the emergence of the Fax, just 30 odd years ago, the sense that something extraordinary had happened was profound, but who has used a fax for the last 5 years? Since then email has emerged, followed by an explosion of web tools and mobile technology.
It is probable that the next innovation is just around the corner, are you ready?
Aug 24, 2010 | Communication, Innovation, Social Media
Conventional wisdom of the past decrees that copyright is essential to the well-being and motivation of the suppliers of the publishing stock in trade, authors.
This self serving position is contrary to mountains of evidence accumulating as the web goes into its teenage years of development beyond the geeks. There are thousands of new authors of everything from childrens fiction to scientific treatises on many subjects, and everything in between, things like this blog included.
In this Speigl article, the argument is made, convincingly so given the current evidence from the web, that copyright law is in fact an impediment to publication, and its benefits, rather than a protector.
Aug 17, 2010 | Communication, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
The word curator brings to mind an old bloke (mostly) running a museum, deciding what is displayed, and how, what gets bought or created, what gets thrown out, and what gets saved for another day.
The job of an editor in the one-way media (print, radio, TV) is effectively as a curator, making those same decisions. But the world has changed, now the web is a two way street, those decisions no longer have to be made, now everything can be published, by anyone, so in effect, the role of curator has lost most of its power. But there is a wrinkle, there is so much stuff out there, that a curating role is emerging to trawl the web for items of value, and to create and edit material that goes to a specific set of interests.
One of the best is the Eureka Report, run by a group of Australia’s most credible business journalists and commentators, who have created a conversation with the “tribe” whose interests are around business, politics, and wealth creation in Australia.
It is the newspaper of the future.
Aug 15, 2010 | Branding, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
How do you compare prices in a range of stores when standing in the aisle of your local supermarket?
The easy answer now, is “on your iphone“. A crowd called Red Laser have an app that scans the code, compares the product/price to others scanned (presumably there is a data base somewhere out in the cloud) and using google maps is able to compare prices in your general location.
This development has the potential to re-write the equation between brands, the value of things like location and parking, and price in the retail space, and with effectively an FMCG retail duopoly in Australia, it will consume some headspace in Co-op castle in Melbourne, and the Taj in Sydney.
It is a “pity” we wasted millions on a “Grocery Watch” white elephant, a technology/populist bet in the early days of the Rudd government, when a couple of years down the track, a similar thing can be done better on your phone. We now have the same sort of thinking making a 45 billion dollar bet on the NBN, a bet that will impact on generations. Hope they get it right this time!
