One thing about the January 27th launch of the Apple iPad clashing with President Obama's first State of the Union address was that they both focused on Jobs.
And check out the awesome enthusiasm Steve Jobs and his team have for their new baby in this video!
A lot of hype and hyped-up criticism have accompanied the launch of the iPad. Nothing new there. Apple attracted lots of criticism with the launch of the iPod in 2001 (total sales: 220 million) and the iPhone in 2007 (total sales: 34 million). They centered on a perceived lack of functionality. So it's not surprising to hear gripes that iPad doesn't support HDMI or Flash graphics, or have a built-in camera.
The critics have missed the point. The iPad is not a netbook or scaled-down laptop. In fact, it is only a distant relative to the traditional PC or Mac. Instead, its lineage is the DVD player, the VCR, the television set, the radio, the newspaper, the telephone, the telegraph. It is not a workhorse loaded up with functions and hardware. It is a platform for story-telling, interactive, personal and immediate.
The story of human technology is the relentless advance in the direction of greater utility, connectivity, immediacy, affordability and flexibility. The iPad represents a quantum leap in that direction.
We want to communicate with each other, cheaply and easily. We want information where and when we need it. We want to be entertained and to entertain ourselves. We want to get closer to the people and the things we love. The iPad promises to do that. Technology that fails to serve that purpose is just a gadget, suitable for little more than collecting dust.
There's an interesting blog post in the NY Times predicting that the iPad will become an irresistible toy for children because kids will love the tactile nature of the device (they love to jab at things!), 'painting' software allows for mess-free splatter, it's an ideal distraction for car trips, and the screen offers endless story opportunities. I couldn't agree more, but the author could go even further: They are pretty compelling reasons for adults to get their hands on an iPad, too.
Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.
"Ultimately, the iPad is a large iPod touch: a great device to draw your inspiration from, but perhaps not the seismic shift in technology that we were expecting."
- Claudine Beaumont, Apple iPad review, The Telegraph
The much anticipated announcement of Apple's iPad tablet was met with a resounding... "ho hum" or worse from much of the technology crowd. The biggest criticisms were its lack of key features (no Adobe Flash, lack of USB ports, where's the camera?, etc.). The Apple iPad as a technology innovation is a disappointment.
But with Apple, and Steve Jobs, that's not really the point now, is it?
Sure, Apple has had plenty of technological innovations along the way. But then, so has its competitors. Yes, Steve Jobs is a showman, but that effect only lasts for MacWorld presentations.
No, what Apple does well is put forth "radical innovations of meaning". That term is from Roberto Verganti, who wrote about the concept in his excellent book "Design-Driven Innovation".
Apple's skills with design-driven innovation are what will make the iPad a success.
Design-Driven Innovation: Innovation of Meaning
"Market? What market! We do not look at market needs. We make proposals to people."
Verganti's books builds the case for a different form of innovation. One in which companies tap the undercurrents of societal changes early, and create products addressing them. As Artemide chairman Gismondi puts it, these products are so different, they are akin to "making a proposal" to a market. They are not linear updates to existing products.
As Julian Bleeker notes in his review of the book, design-driven innovation is not a "follow the trends" approach. "Trends" are what any company can do. Rather, it's deciding that conditions are right to introduce a product that plumbs changes previously unexplored in your industry.
Verganti describes this work as the radical innovation of meaning. Many purchases are based as much on meaning as they are on features. Innovation of features is an ongoing process for companies. But innovation of meaning is a stunted process for many firms.
Take a product that has an accepted use, a common set of features, and provide something new that turns the traditional meaning of the product on its head. In the book, he describes multiple examples of this, drawn mostly from Italy, his home country. For example, Alessi, a manufacturer of household items, successfully innovated the meaning of many common items. It introduced a series of playful characters that represented everyday kitchen items:
While it may sound trivial as you read this, this product line was an absolute gangbuster in sales. Alessi figured out that people still enjoyed playful experiences, even as adults. No one else was thinking this way in the industry at the time. But now the kitchenware actively pursues emotional design. It was no accident either. Alessi spent time researching changes in societal norms. That we still like to be kids was a change they saw (and one that many of us today take for granted).
Companies that do this well are both influencers and participants in what Verganti describes as the "design discourse". This is an ongoing conversation with thinkers, tinkerers, researchers and companies who target the same evolving changes in societal context. Often, these are people outside your industry who are studying the same changes you are interested in.
It is by accessing these networks where companies can "see" evolutions of societal norms that offer opportunity. These are opportunities not driven by expressed consumer desires, but by shifts in cultural norms. Done well, companies that successfully innovate the meaning of products enjoy significant growth and profits.
Oh, and early on, these innovations of meaning can be slow to gain acceptance by the market. Explains the early iPod and Nintendo Wii reactions.
Apple iPad: What Is Its Radical Innovation of Meaning?
OK, if iPad is innovating meaning even more than it is technology, what meaning might that be? Here's my best guess:
iPad is tapping into an emerging dynamic of a more interactive, tactile experience with digital technology and information. These interactions make technology less of an interface, and more of an extension of ourselves and our environment.
The tweets above are a couple that show the natural way children engage with technology. Given the iPhone experience, they turn around and want to apply it to other devices. Buttons on devices, our traditional form of interaction, are divorced from the screen. They provide a measure of distance from the digital experience.
Touch, however, represents a new level of intimacy in the digital experience. In technology terms, it's just an alternative form of interface. Touch, mouse, tab, whatever. But touch is a vital human sense, and a core part of experience. It's how we interact with others, how we shop, experience textures and so much more.
In terms of the "design discourse", there are pointers of changes ahead in terms of integrating touch more deeply into our digital engagement.
Digital Wellbeing Labs: Responsive Feedback Behaviors
Designer Alexander Grunsteidl noted the impact of both the iPod and the Wii on our perception of how to interact with technology:
The Wii and iPhone, and before the iPod click wheel, have created a popular introduction to gesture based interfaces, demonstrating responsive feedback behaviours, applying "natural" physical effects like flipping and inertia, similar to the ones we are accustomed to in the real world, to improve usability expectations of an interface.
As new "cultures of use" emerge we are creating opportunities to form a language of gestures, similar to the conventions of "right-clicking" and standardised keyboard shortcuts.
Note the term "culture of use". Not industry trends. Because the dominant form of interaction for computers and video games is still mouse and buttons. And consumers aren't asking for touch.
But there is an underlying change in thinking about how people interact with technology and information.
Architectural Design: Digital Intimacy
University of Nottingham Nottingham UK student Stephen Townsend received a commendation in the recent President's Medal competition in the U.K. His entry, Digital Intimacy, depicts a concept where interaction is built into the architecture.
If you notice the graphic to the right, you will see people reaching out their hands and interacting through touch. Townsend calls it the "kinesthetic interaction space". Kinesthetic refers to a style of learning based on physical activities.
He designed this kinesthetic interaction space as a therapeutic solution for children with special needs. Here's how he describes it:
"The 'Kinesthetic Interaction Space' is conceived as an interactive architectonic intervention aimed at children with autism, providing sensory stimulation to assist with intervention methods and aid interaction with other children through shared kinesthetic experience. The focus of the thesis is on the development of dynamic material systems that could enable new forms of interactive environment. Architecture is conceptualised as an embodied interface and physical space has been fused with digital media in order to stimulate the imagination of inhabitants. K.I.S. is intended to facilitate playful explorations and fluid dialogues between people. The user learns to interact with their environment through an intuitive process, engaging the physical presence of inhabitants and forming spatial narratives."
While Townsend's concept addresses children with autism, the underlying design is consistent with greater digital intimacy overall.
TEDEx Talk: Phones That Touch Us
PhD student Fabian Hemmert presented at a recent TEDx talk. He is working on a concept where phones include physical movements that better connote actions to people using them. In the video below, you'll see him describe how the phone would shift weight in relation to changes in movement on a map.
As Hemmert notes, humans live in a physical world, one "which tastes good, feels good smells good". He wants to design products that better integrate that experience.
iPad: The Future of Computing
Those three examples I just gave are part of a larger design discourse about the nature of digital engagement in our future. Are we "locked in" to the mouse and keyboard? Or will we continue to evolve the interaction experience?
In Wired, Brian X. Chen sees things similarly:
"If you think about how a computer like this will impact people sociologically, suddenly the iPad is far more than a larger iPod Touch, as many have described it. It's the computer for everyone: an idea Apple has been working toward for years.
That doesn't mean the iPad will be the only computer for everyone and destroy every PC on the market, because that's not even remotely likely. But it will introduce a significant new category."
Bold pronouncement for sure. But entirely consistent with a radical innovation of meaning. Henry Blodget sees an outcome of this drive for digital intimacy: pervasiveness.
They won't live on desks, the way desktops do, and they won't be carried everywhere, the way mobile phones are. They'll just be there, around the house, on tables and counters, the way today's books, magazines, games, and newspapers are, booted up, ready to use.
Keep in mind student Stephen Townsend's kinesthetic interaction space, built into the house. How about an iPad in every room of the house, ready to go? You can see thinking evolving on similar lines here.
I can see people becoming quite attached to their iPads. Their little units of digital intimacy.
Once you see where this is going, it should come as no surprise that Apple may be working on a larger version of its iPad, as a full computer. Steve Jobs is placing his chips on this radical innovation of meaning.
Hutch Carpenter is the Vice President of Product at Spigit. Spigit integrates social collaboration tools into a SaaS enterprise idea management platform used by global Fortune 2000 firms to drive innovation.
A recent article in The New York Times discussed the innovation process at Apple. Clearly the process begins and ends with Steve Jobs. And clearly Mr. Jobs is a creative genius. He also has a lot of help with top notch design engineers. As a result, Apple is perceived as one of the most innovative companies on the planet.
If you have visionary leadership at your company, this might be a good way to go. But companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) also have strong leadership and they have taken a different route to innovation. P&G has been a leader in Open Innovation, and many of the new products they have launched in the past few years have come from outside the company.
Which approach is better? Some say that Crowdsourcing produces a lot of good ideas, while "home grown" innovation is capable of producing bigger breakthrough ideas.
I love Apple (full disclosure: I own Apple stock and am a big fan of their products). However, I am not sure that the "elitism model of innovation" is one that can be expanded to a lot of companies. I believe that Steve Jobs is a true visionary, and that people like him come along far too rarely for this to be a workable model of innovation. It does work for Apple... but how many other companies can implement it?
I was intrigued when I read on the Harvard Business Review web site "Do we celebrate the wrong CEOs?" The article quickly pointed out that many of the best known CEOs - and often named as most respected - didn't come close to making the list of the top 100 best performing CEOs. Some of those on Barron's list of top 30 most respected that did not make the cut as best performing include Immelt of GE, Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, Palmesano of IBM and Tillerson of Exxon Mobil. It did seem striking that often business people admire those who are at the top of organizations, regardless of their performance.
I was delighted when HBR put out the full article "The Best Performing CEOs in the World." And it is indeed an academic exercise of great value. The authors looked at CEOs who came into their jobs either just before 2000, or during the decade, and the results they obtained for shareholders. There were 1,999 leaders who fit the timeframe. As has held true for a long time in the marketplace, the top 100 accounted for the vast majority of wealth creation - meaning if you were invested with them you captured most of the decade's return - while the bulk of CEOs added little value and a great chunk created negative returns. (It does beg the question - why do Boards of Directors keep on CEOs who destroy shareholder value - like Barnes of Sara Lee, for example? It would seem something is demonstrably wrong when CEOs remain in their jobs, usually with multi-million dollar compensation packages, when year after year performance is so bad.)
The list of "Top 50 CEOs" is available on the HBR website. This group created 32% average gains every year! They created over $48.2B of value for investors. Comparatively, the bottom 50 had negative 20% annual returns, and lost over $18.3B. As an investor, or employee, it is much, much better to be with the top 5% than to be anywhere else on the list. However, only 5 of the top best performers were on the list of top 50 highest paid - demonstrating again that CEO pay is not really tied to performance (and perhaps at least part of the explanation for why business leaders are less admired now than the previous decade.)
Consistent among the top 50 was the ability to adapt. Especially the top 10. Steve Jobs of Apple was #1, a leader and company I've blogged about several times. As readers know, Apple went from a niche producer of PCs to a leader in several markets completely unrelated to PCs under Mr. Jobs' leadership. His ability to keep moving his company back into the growth Rapids by rejecting "focus on the core" and instead using White Space to develop new products for growth markets has been a model well worth following. And in which to be invested.
Similarly, the leaders of Cisco, Amazon, eBay and Google have been listed here largely due to their willingness to keep moving into new markets. Cisco was profiled in my book Create Marketplace Disruption for its model of Disruption that keeps the company constantly opening White Space. Amazon went from an obscure promoter of non-inventoried books to the leader in changing how books are sold, to the premier on-line retailer of all kinds of products, to the leader in digitizing books and periodicals with its Kindle launch. eBay has to be given credit for doing much more than creating a garage sale - they are now the leader in independent retailing with eBay stores. And their growth of PayPal is on the vanguard of changing how we spend money - eliminating checks and making digital transactions commonplace. Of course Google has moved from a search engine to a leader in advertising (displacing Yahoo!) as well as offering enterprise software (such as Google Wave), cloud applications to displace the desktop applications, and emerging into the mobile data/telephony marketplace with Android. All of these company leaders were willing to Disrupt their company's "core" in order to use White Space that kept the company constantly moving into new markets and GROWTH.
We can see the same behavior among other leaders in the top 10 not previously profiled here. Samsung has moved from a second rate radio/TV manufacturer to a leader in multiple electronics marketplaces and the premier company in rapid product development and innovation implementation. Gilead Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that has returned almost 2,000% to investors - while the leaders of Merck and Pfizer have taken their companies the opposite direction. By taking on market challenges with new approaches Gilead has used flexibility and adaptation to dramatically outperform companies with much greater resources - but an unwillingness to overcome their Lock-ins.
Three names not on the list are worth noting. Jack Welch was a great Disruptor and advocate of White Space (again, profiled in my book). But his work was in the 1990s. His replacement (Mr. Immelt) has fared considerably more poorly - as have investors - as the rate of Disruption and White Space has fallen off a proverbial cliff. Even though much of what made GE great is still in place, the willingness to Defend & Extend, as happened in financial services, has increased under Mr. Immelt to the detriment of investors.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are now good friends, and also not on the list. Firstly, they created their investor fortunes in previous decades as well. But in their cases, they remained as leaders who moved into the D&E world. Microsoft has become totally Locked-in to its Gates-era Success Formula, and under Steve Ballmer the company has done nothing for investors, employees - or even customers. And Berkshire Hathaway has spent the last decade providing very little return to shareholders, despite all the great press for Mr. Buffett and his success in previous eras. Each year Mr. Buffett tells investors that what worked for him in previous years doesn't work any more, and they should not expect previous high rates of return. And he keeps proving himself right. Until both Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway undertake significant Disruptions and implement considerably more White Space we should not expect much for investors.
This has been a tough decade for far too many investors and employees. As we end the year, the list of television programs bemoaning how badly the decade has gone is long. Show after show laments the poor performance of the stock market, as well as employers. We end the year with official unemployment north of 10%, and unofficial unemployment some say near 20%. But what this HBR report tells us is that it is possible to have a good decade. We need leaders who are willing to look to the future for their planning (not the past), obsess about competitors to discover market shifts, be willing to Disrupt old Success Formulas by attacking Lock-in, and using White Space to keep the company in the growth Rapids. When businesses overcome old notions of "best practice" that keeps them trying to Defend & Extend then business performs marvelously well. It's just too bad so few leaders and companies are willing to follow The Phoenix Principle.
Adam Hartung, author of "Create Marketplace Disruption", is a Faculty and Board member of the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, Managing Partner of Spark Partners, and writes for "Forbes" and the "Journal for Innovation Science."
That's the bugging question that just won't go away. It seems to get asked every time Steve Jobs goes to the doctor. First it was a brush with cancer. Now it's a mysterious "hormone imbalance" that has left Jobs looking gaunt, forced him to cancel his appearance at Macworld 2009, and put him on a six month medical leave. Once again, people are wondering if Apple has lost its core. But why exactly does the company have this sword of Damocles hanging ominously over its head? Is the destiny of one of the world's most exciting and successful companies really so precarious? If so, what does this tell us about making one "great man" the kingpin of an organization's entire innovation strategy?
Rumors around Jobs' health (and speculation about the impact his departure would have on Apple) have been circulating the Internet for months. Yet this is merely the latest episode of a recurring nightmare. The troubles began in 2004, when - out of the blue - Jobs was diagnosed with an incurable form of pancreatic cancer. He says that, up until that fateful moment, he didn't even know what a pancreas was. As it turned out, Jobs was an extremely lucky man. A biopsy revealed that the cancer was actually of a rare type that is curable with surgery. So Jobs arranged to have the surgery, and that was that.
Well, not quite. News of this medical event released a shockwave that could be felt all the way from Palo Alto to Wall Street, and throughout Apple's global fan community. Quel horreur! What if Steve Jobs suddenly disappeared? What would happen to Apple? Last time Jobs was removed from the picture - which was during John Sculley's troubled tenure as CEO - Apple very nearly went down the toilet. And ever since his "second coming" in 1997, the company's meteoric rise from the ashes - with innovations like iMac, iTunes, iPod, and iPhone - has been almost exclusively attributed to Jobs' individual genius. So what if the great genius was no longer around? What would become of the firm BusinessWeek labelled "the most innovative company in the world"? Would Apple's formidable innovation prowess just collapse like a house of cards? This was the question that sent a shiver down a lot of investors' spines.
Now that question is back with a vengeance. Jobs' severe weight loss over the last half year has quite understandably brought his health situation - and even his mortality - into focus again, with all the resulting question marks about Apple's future. In an effort to end speculation, Steve Jobs made a very rare move on January 5 by publishing an open letter to customers on the company's website in which he explained that he had a rare "hormone imbalance" but that it could easily be cured. Apple shares jumped 4% on the news. Just one week later, on January 14, Jobs announced that his health issues were in fact "more complex" than originally thought, and he would need to take a six month medical leave from the company. This time Apple shares dropped 10%.
Two things are highly worrying here. First, there's the worry about Steve Jobs himself. I've been a huge fan for twenty five years, and I can't imagine what the last quarter century would have been like without his impact on technology, and marketing, and lifestyle. Steve rocks! And we want him back. I sincerely wish him a speedy and full recovery.
The second worry concerns Apple. Is the health of the company really so dependent on the health of its superstar CEO? If Apple's primary mechanism for driving and sustaining innovation is one iconic and highly gifted individual, then there is reason for concern indeed. Of course, when we start to unpack what actually makes Apple so consistently creative, we find much more than a legendary guy in a black turtleneck and faded jeans introducing "insanely great" products at MacWorld. But Jobs' massive influence on every detail of what Apple does is undeniable.
What I argue in my books and my speeches is that for a company's capacity for innovation to be sustainable, it has to become a systemic capability that is widely distributed throughout the organization. It simply cannot rely on a single, charismatic leader to keep it alive. Innovation has to be woven into the everyday fabric of the company just like any other organizational capability, such as quality, or supply chain management, or customer service. It has to become a deeply embedded core competence that is resilient enough to accommodate internal or external disruptions (i.e. leadership loss or succession, changes in economic cycles), and to keep rolling on as a reliable, well-oiled engine of growth.
Ask yourself: would Toyota suddenly lose its world-class ability to manage quality if it got a new CEO? Would the Four Seasons forget how to take superb care of its guests if somebody else was at the helm of the hotel chain? Core competencies don't come and go with the changing of the guard. They become part of a company's bloodstream. They are built on a system of interdependent and mutually reinforcing components that guide everyday patterns of behavior across the entire organizational culture. They have specific mechanisms that make them self-perpetuating.
So what about Apple's innovation capability? Is it robust enough to survive the loss of its chief babysitter? Has it become a systemic capability - a core competence - that is intrinsic to the company's DNA, or has Apple's innovation power been centered solely on one "great man". Only time will tell. My hope would be that when Steve Jobs passes the leadership reins to Apple's next CEO, as he has in the interim with Tim Cook, the company's innovation system won't even miss a beat. There's no doubt that filling Jobs' giant shoes will be an immense challenge, and it's going to take ages for any new CEO to come out from under his shadow. But it's a chance for Apple to show the world that behind its great leader there truly is a great team and a great company – one that has successfully made innovation a way of life.
Rowan Gibson is widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on enterprise innovation. He is co-author of the bestseller "Innovation to the Core" and a much in-demand public speaker around the globe. On Twitter he is @RowanGibson.
Last night I was hungry and decided to make some tuna fish. I opened my refrigerator and found an 18 ounce squeeze bottle of mayonnaise. As I started to make my meal, I realized that the mayo had expired 6 months ago. I guess I don't use it very often because the bottle was still 90% full.
After throwing out my expired food, I realized that there is a lot to learn from things we take for granted around the house. Here are just three thoughts I had this morning:
Fail Cheaply - Although Costco is one of my favorite stores, I rarely buy perishable items there because I can't predict how much I will use. Sometimes, as is the case with my mayo, buying the smallest size and paying a premium is better than saving money on larger quantities. Smaller quantities result in less space used, less waste when things don't work out, and lower costs all around. In business, your best bet is to become masterful at creating small, inexpensive and scalable experiments that give you insights into the real world... not just backroom-based predictions. As you gain new insights and become more confident that a new idea will work (i.e., there is greater predictability), then you can ramp up and go for efficiency.
Sell One, Make One - I debated using a different example for this... One situation no one ever wants to be in is sitting on the toilet and running out of toilet paper. The best solution is to always have a spare roll within reach. When the main roll is finished, the spare role is put into the dispenser, and the backup roll is replaced. This is an example of a simple manufacturing technique called "sell one, make one." To avoid running out of product, companies often produce large quantities of inventory. But as we saw in the "fail cheaply" example above, this can lead to waste. Items that don't sell need to be liquidated at significant discounts. In the meantime, the inventory takes up space and hurts your cash flow. Instead, if you get your manufacturing process (or your innovation implementation process) efficient enough, you can make one immediately after you sell one - that is, when you sell one, you make one. You will never run out if demand never exceeds your ability to manufacture.
Lather Rinse But Don't Repeat - Shampoo bottles are famous for telling you to lather, rinse, and repeat. I have been doing it every morning without thinking. As an experiment, I tried skipping the repeat step. No difference. I even experimented with using less than one pump of shampoo. Same result. Sometimes we take on wasteful activities because we never through to step back and question them. I reduced shampoo usage by 75% without any impact on my hair. From my experience, most companies can reduce wasteful activities simply by questioning what has always been done in the past.
Here's something to try. Every day, find something interesting around the house:
It could be the upside-down ketchup bottle (what took them so long to come up with that idea?).
It could be the laundry detergent that is super concentrated so you use 75% less liquid, meaning less packaging and easier carrying.
Or maybe it is the Clorox Disinfecting Wipes that impregnate paper towels with cleaning solution to simplify cleaning.
After selecting your innovation, see how that concept could be applied to your business. Do not look for ways to apply that specific product. Instead you want to apply the thought process that was used in developing the product. For example, with the Clorox wipes, where in your business can you combine two distinct items (products or processes) to create something that is simpler and more efficient.
The purpose is not necessarily to find new ideas (although that would be nice). Rather it is a great way to exercise your creativity muscle.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc, once said, "Creativity is just having enough dots to connect... connect experiences and synthesize new things. The reason creative people are able to do that is that they've had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people."
Or, in my words, creativity is about "collecting and connecting" dots.
This daily exercise will help you become more observant (collecting dots). And it will help you become masterful at connecting dots. All of this will help you become more creative every day.
For more on my perspective on creativity, read my article on "Dot Versus Line" thinking.
Stephen Shapiro is the author of three books, a popular innovation speaker, and is the Chief Innovation Evangelist for Innocentive, the leader in Open Innovation.
Our goal is to make innovation and marketing insights available for the greater good. The more innovative our organizations are, the better it is for people and the planet (less waste, more meaning).
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Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.
"Ultimately, the iPad is a large iPod touch: a great device to draw your inspiration from, but perhaps not the seismic shift in technology that we were expecting."
University of Nottingham Nottingham UK student Stephen Townsend received a commendation in the recent President's Medal competition in the U.K. His entry, Digital Intimacy, depicts a concept where interaction is built into the architecture.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0f5e0a97-cceb-4a00-9b7b-d96c49dd0bbd)
Which Is Better?![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=aa8662b7-7b54-453f-82a8-accde0148e58)
I was intrigued when I read on the Harvard Business Review web site "
Adam Hartung, author of "
That's the bugging question that just won't go away. It seems to get asked every time Steve Jobs goes to the doctor. First it was a brush with cancer. Now it's a
Last night I was hungry and decided to make some tuna fish. I opened my refrigerator and found an 18 ounce squeeze bottle of mayonnaise. As I started to make my meal, I realized that the mayo had expired 6 months ago. I guess I don't use it very often because the bottle was still 90% full.
After selecting your innovation, see how that concept could be applied to your business. Do not look for ways to apply that specific product. Instead you want to apply the thought process that was used in developing the product. For example, with the Clorox wipes, where in your business can you combine two distinct items (products or processes) to create something that is simpler and more efficient.
