I'm fascinated with fail culture and the movement to embrace failure as an opportunity to improve and evolve. It's something American corporate and educational culture has had trouble with for some time. If you've been following the evolution of cell phones lately you'll know that Adobe and Apple have been duking it out over the importance of Flash on the mobile device. Without going into the specifics Apple argues Flash is an old technology and Adobe argues in favor of open markets, a response hinting that Apple must let go of its strangle hold and yield control to developers. There are a variety of perspectives, but the fact is that Apple only has 10% of the mobile phone market and the other 90% of the market share IS supporting Flash.
The bigger question here is not about the success of Flash but rather the ability of Apple to learn from its past failures in the PC business. Didn't they fall to Microsoft because of their hard headed decision to open their operating system to other hardware manufacturers and isn't Job's following a similar path to failure within their mobile business?
Below are 3 great discussions by 3 great minds on innovation. They will challenge you to question your process, environment and what you think about the conventions of innovation. Godin, Kawasaki & Semier are the rockstars of innovation and I think they bring home the bacon in these 3 speeches; here's what I took away.
Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain - You're all creative but your job isn't to "be creative", it's "to ship" or bring your product or service to market. Thrashing early benefits your business because it means you won't sabatoge your work right before your about to send it to market. This human tendency is a primal impulse that we must fight so that we can be successful. - We are all creative. We try to change the status quo, we come up with a creative idea but never commit to it or execute. - Being a genius is getting the lizard brain to shut up long enough to over come resistance. - Do a lot of thinking, scenario analysis, arguement & discussion up front because once you get over the initial hump you are going to finish (ship.)
Guy Kawasaki: 10 Steps to Innovation 1. Make Meaning. Decide you want to change the world for the better. This will make you money, bring you success. 2. Create a succinct mantra. It should be based on why your product should exist. It should be 3 words in length. 3. Jump to the next Curve. Define business in terms of a benefit you provide instead of what you do. True innovation happens because you jump to the next curve not because you get 10% better on your current curve. 4. Roll the D.I.C.E. Is your product: Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant? 5. Don't Worry, Be Crappy. Don't make your product perfect, at a certain point just ship it. Get it out and then start to make revisions. 6. Let 100 Flowers Blossom. Unitended people will use your product in unintended ways. Embrace it. 7. Polarize people. Create passion in people. Some people will love your product or service, some will hate it. It's ok not to be loved by everyone. 8. Churn. Improve your product/service. Create better versions by listening to how people want it to change. 9. Niche yourself. Find a specific market, be unique and be valuable. 10. 10 / 20 /30 Rule. Great communication is simple communication. When creating a ppt deck use 10 slides, present yourself in 20 minutes and don't use a font smaller than 30 point.
Ricardo Semier It's been 100 years, why haven't we invented a car that parallel parks by turning the wheels 90 degrees perpendicular to the curb? Why hasn't office structure ever changed, why do we still work 9 to 5 sitting in a cube? Why do decisions have to be based on metrics instead of intuition even when intuition works so surprisingly well and metrics are such poor indicators? Here are a few other points made in Semier's 45 minute talk. - Intuition: When playing chess Big Blue can calculate 4 million possible chess moves in the one minute time limit it has to make each move; yet it still loses to a chess pro who can only think 4 or 5 moves ahead. This analogy equates to business because the human mind has the capacity to make great decsions but corporations do not tolerate decisions made on intuition. - The capitalist model rewards growth but growth has never been related to the success of a company.
Today's mashup consists of a talk on innovation by Charles Leadbeater and an idea I read in "The Four Hour Workweek," by Timothy Ferris. We live in a world where innovation is just as likely to come about from a professional amateur (someone who is passionate about their "hobby") as it is to come from an innovation or R&D department. Just watch Klunkerz (a doucmentary about the origins of mountainbiking) to get an idea of how this happens. The mountain bike was created out of a real need by a bunch of guys who loved biking in the woods out in Marin, not by the R&D division of Trek.
So how is the approach to business evolving, well I think there is a shift in how a business interacts with the market place and all of it's users/consumers. An entrepreneur can provide people with a platform, tools and some rules and then orchestrate a conversation that stimulates creativity; it doesn't seem like a new idea but it's disruptive to the conventional work place. It's a bit analagous to the open source movement because when passionate people are empowered they are extrememly productive. Even less conventional is allowing the consumer to create content linking the community of users with the company and in essence creating a two way relationship between business and consumer. It's a concept that has made Threadless, Etsy and the Apple iPhone application store a huge success. This is a business model that I think is going to continue becoming increasingly popular.
Creative vs. selling out, capitalist vs. socialist, greed vs. community service : these opposing forces stand at the forefront of american culture. The greed described in Wallstreet has become very real and personal. Now the assumption that successful business and doing good are conflicting practices is about to change.
Generation G "captures the growing importance of 'generosity' as a leading societal and business mindset as consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy." GOOD magazine, promotes a philosophy that aligns business with doing good.The Taproot Foundation, Planning for Good and other such organizations realize that non-profits need professional services and seek to connect volunteers with service programs.
These are great but the concept of Generation G is acknowledging that it isn't enough to volunteer on your free time. What if businesses ingrained this philosophy into their corporate mentality? Putting a $500K cap on the salaries of greedy execs is the beginning of a trend that will change the fundamental principles of how businesses operate.
Here are a few ways corporations are looking to join Generation G: 1. Co-Donate - customer collaboration Google's Project 10^100 is a good example 2. Eco-Generosity - a shift from simply offsetting carbon footprints to boosting the environment. Ecoigo aims for their green car service to be carbon positive and offset double the emissions of their trips 3. Free Love - companies offering free products or services. TripWolf offers free travel guides. 4. Brand Butlers - assist customers in smart, relevant, generous ways. IKEA let's customers use bikes with free trailers to carry products home. 5. Perkonomics - brands that offer perks for preferred customers 6. Tryvertising- allowing consumers to decide on products based on experience, not messages. 7. Random Acts of Kindness - everything from picking up the tab to sending a surprise gift to loyal customers 8. Frigid No More - It’s about return policies that don’t require a receipt from loyal customers. It's what Seth calls learning how to lose. It’s about hotels not charging an extra night for that late checkout. It’s about ditching three-months-notice rules for a gym member who wants to cancel his membership due to illness.
I'm fascinated with fail culture and the movement to embrace failure as an opportunity to improve and evolve. It's something American corporate and educational culture has had trouble with for some time. If you've been following the evolution of cell phones lately you'll know that Adobe and Apple have been duking it out over the importance of Flash on the mobile device. Without going into the specifics Apple argues Flash is an old technology and Adobe argues in favor of open markets, a response hinting that Apple must let go of its strangle hold and yield control to developers. There are a variety of perspectives, but the fact is that Apple only has 10% of the mobile phone market and the other 90% of the market share IS supporting Flash.
