Ged Carroll

Category: innovation | 革新 | 독창성 | 改変

Innovation, alongside disruption are two of the most overused words in business at the moment. Like obscenity, many people have their own idea of what innovation is.

Judy Estrin wrote one of the best books about the subject and describes it in terms of hard and soft innovation.

  • Hard innovation is companies like Intel or Qualcomm at the cutting edge of computer science, materials science and physics
  • Soft innovation would be companies like Facebook or Yahoo!. Companies that might create new software but didn’t really add to the corpus of innovation

Silicon Valley has moved from hard to soft innovation as it moved away from actually making things. Santa Clara country no longer deserves its Silicon Valley appellation any more than it deserved the previous ‘garden of delights’ as the apricot orchards turned into factories, office campus buildings and suburbs. It’s probably no coincidence that that expertise has moved east to Taiwan due to globalisation.

It can also be more process orientated shaking up an industry. Years ago I worked at an agency at the time of writing is now called WE Worldwide. At the time the client base was predominantly in business technology, consumer technology and pharmaceutical clients.

The company was looking to build a dedicated presence in consumer marketing. One of the business executives brings along a new business opportunity. The company made fancy crisps (chips in the American parlance). They did so using a virtual model. Having private label manufacturers make to the snacks to their recipe and specification. This went down badly with one of the agency’s founders saying ‘I don’t see what’s innovative about that’. She’d worked exclusively in the IT space and thought any software widget was an innovation. She couldn’t appreciate how this start-ups approach challenged the likes of P&G or Kraft Foods.

  • Lean web development + more

    This is more of a wish list of what changes I’d like to see in technology and related areas in the next 12 months. This is based around a number of concepts, a few of which are lean web development, security, SSD pricing, better product design and service breakouts.

    Lean Web Development

    Lean web development. This have gotten ridiculous when the average size of a web page is now 1MB. It adversely affects page load times and assumes that bandwidth for the end audience is limitless, which is a fallacy when you have mobile broadband caps and telecoms providers looking to meter broadband use moving forwards. Lean web development recognises that wireless and wired networks don’t provide the kind of limitless low latency broadband technologists assume exists. It might be about turning the approach to web development on its head and developing for mobile devices first and then adding on content or features depending on the device rather than trying to hyper-mile existing web technologies.

    Security

    A more secure web. At the base level an increased awareness of security: why do companies store credit card details or personal information in unencrypted files? At an architectural level:

    • Re-secured DNS and SSL certificates
    • Secure VPNs over IP v.6 networks
    • Effective IP address and system configuration masking to protect from privacy intrusions and badly executed behavioural advertising

    SSD price decrease

    The price of solid state drives (SSDs) to fall so that they can be used on my MacBook Pro as the primary storage drive for my life. At the moment whilst devices like the MacBook Air are attractive. they don’t have enough storage capacity and act as an adjunct or special purpose personal computing device. At the present time that just isn’t possible. Cloud is interesting as an idea, but the reality of networks doesn’t make it as practical as people seem to think.

    Design

    An increased appreciation of ergonomics in device design. In the mid-90s I had an Apple PowerBook which came with legs that flipped around to angle the keyboard at an optimal angle for typing. My current MacBook Pro doesn’t have any kind of similar feature. My iPhone feels too wide in my hand as a phone and my iPad is awkward to hold. And I haven’t even started into a rant over the pictures under class interface and soft keyboard of the device with no haptic feedback.  Part of this is down to a size-zero aesthetic design obsession and interface designers per-occupation with the Tom Cruise film Minority Report – but its making designs that are not particularly human-friendly and leading to poorer product performance.

    A move away from general purpose technology hardware and smartphones to focused designs. Convergence has been a watchword in hardware and software design. A less positive spin on this is bloatware. In hardware that has meant personal computers and smartphones. The personal computer is currently being challenged for dominance by tablet devices which only use a fraction of the computing power available. Why is it that Microsoft Word only allows me to write as fast in the latest version for the Mac as Word 5.1 which was released two decades ago? It is ironic that smartphones like the Apple iPhone can do a range of great and trivial tasks, but are quite poor at being a phone. Dropped calls, poor call-quality and a form factor that still feels a bit too wide in my hand as I hold it to my ear – it is a great example of being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. Whilst a Swiss army knife or Leatherman tool is useful at a pinch, you are still better off doing the job with the right tools if available. With software or digital services space and weight aren’t an issue, yet we have products that have overloaded awkward functionality that leads to a poor user experience. By all means get different things to talk to each other: iftt provides a great template for how that should look; but don’t try and do all of those things on the one user space. 37Signals ethos to become the norm, rather than the exception.

    Service break out

    One of the Chinese services like Sina.com’s Weibo crossing over and giving Twitter a run for its money. Sina.com have kept innovating with their product getting ahead of Twitter and innovating in terms of the user experience. A side benefit of compliance with Chinese government legislation has meant that they seem to do a good job on spam as well.

    Wireless choice

    A clear idea of what on earth is happening with Research in Motion | Intel | Sony in the mobile space and excellent differentiated products to bring some choice back into the wireless world rather than more of the same. The wireless device industry is starting to exhibit some of the dynamics of the PC industry: with ARM and Android being the Intel X86 and Microsoft Windows of the handset world, with Apple doing their own things. Costs are coming down but innovation only seems to look like what Apple does at the present time. There is a reduction on the types of form factor designs and interaction methods.

    Media

    The return of Geek Monthly. This was a US publication that I came across in Hong Kong. It’s publisher filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but it got picked up by a new firm looking to get it back on the road. Hopefully they’ll succeed. This Current TV programme should give you an idea of what to expect:

  • IWC 59210 movement

    Why does someone who spends his working day thinking about the future and all things digital care about the IWC 59210 mechanical watch movement? A modern quartz movement watch can be more accurate.

    An analogue watch has some advantages over a digital display in terms of legibility and the ability to see how much time one has until an appointment, but that can have quartz movement behind it.

    I like a mechanical watch movement because:

    • The movement of a good mechanical watch is an object of beauty in itself. The great watch companies take as much pride in making the insides look as beautiful as the watch exterior. It is rare to see that detail in the design of modern products outside those designed by Apple
    • You have a lifelong relationship with a mechanical watch. Companies like Rolex will service your watch for you every few years or so and will even refurbish it if necessary. Patek Philippe have used the same strapline in their advertisements for years: You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation. Good quality design is products that you will want to own until you wear them out, or they wear you out. It is also a good way towards creating more environmentally friendly products and I haven’t even got on to challenge of battery disposal…
    • Finally, I like to be able to know the time all the time. I wear my watch in bed, in the shower, in fact it only comes off if I find it getting in the way typing. Part of this comes from having done scuba diving when I was younger; your watch became part of you. I had a quartz watch and moisture got in stopping the watch dead. A friend had an automatic watch movement in a Seiko which had a little damp in but kept on going. Both of use eventually invested in good quality Swiss watches

    The IWC 59210 is a marvel of the watchmakers art. It holds up to eight days power when fully wound up and runs at 28,800 beats per hour which is a marvel for a mechanical device that small.
    IWC calibre 59210
    The IWC 59210 movement goes into the Portofino range of watches which have a case that is not as technical as the style of watches that I like, but make a nice dress watch if you like that kind of thing. More related content can be found here.

  • Gucci + more news

    Gucci

    Shenzhen sweatshop allegations force Gucci to act – FT.com – PR nightmare and management FAIL for Gucci. The Gucci story is unusual in that it affects service workers. Luxury in Asia requires a certain servility of service that I find uncomfortable and the Gucci story of long oppressive days for retail staff sounds emblematic of it. That its happening in the Gucci Shenzhen store doesn’t surprise me at all

    China

    China Favors Direct Investment to Create ‘New Blood’ in Europe – WSJ

    Maersk builds LatAm “reefer” factory | FT.com – because the cost of production is growing faster in China than Latin America

    Consumer behaviour

    What Wealthy Women Really Want – WSJ

    For Their Children, Many E-Book Fans Insist on Paper – NYTimes.com – the tactile arguments for toddlers are the same reason why I prefer print books

    Culture

    Alan Moore – meet the man behind the protest mask | The Observer – it was a nice literary tail for the Guardian to loop back with Alan Moore

    Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 211, William Gibson – interview with the cyber punk don

    Economics

    Housing prices fall in Chinese cities – FT.com – property developers and small businesses have been suffering

    Brussels warns on risk of UK double-dip – FT.com – UK economy stagnating and government’s deficit reduction strategy isn’t working according to a European Commission report – a deep and prolonged recession complemented by continued market turmoil cannot be excluded

    The way (not) to rein in the yen – FT.com – A more aggressive quantitative easing programme, targeting 10-year government bonds instead of shorter maturities, would contribute more decisively to ease the pressure on the exchange rate. More importantly, it would also stimulate the largely stagnant domestic economy (paywall)

    The Long Haul to Capitalizing on Web Trends – Digits – WSJ – According to comScore Inc., almost 62% of the ads shown on Facebook in the July through September quarter came from advertisers that are not among the top 1000 digital advertisers in the U.S.; on Yahoo Inc., just 23% come from such small advertisers. These sorts of Facebook advertisers range from nail salons marketing to people who live a particular town, to recruiters targeting employees at a specific company – going down the long tail due to targeting ability, not great on context like Google local search though

    Ideas

    Information: Be careful what you signal | The Economist

    Possibility Is Thrust of 100-Year Starship Study – NYTimes.com – in 10,000 years, the speed of humans has jumped by a factor of about 10,000, from a stroll (2.6 m.p.h.) to the Apollo astronauts’ return from the Moon (26,000 m.p.h.). Reaching the nearest stars in reasonable time — decades, not centuries — would require a velocity jump of another factor of 10,000

    Innovation

    Marubeni Launches 3D Printing Service — Tech-On! – interesting that it is aimed at making precision resin dies etc

    Japan

    Japan’s #1 Mascots: Kumamon, Bary-san, and Nishiko-kun | Japan Probe – Japan seems to have mascots for everything, kind of cool actually

    Japan Today | Toshiba to close three semiconductor plants

    Korea

    South Korea’s economy: What do you do when you reach the top? | The Economist – interesting economic profile on Korea

    Luxury

    Von Furstenberg to Chinese Women: Stop Chasing Men – WSJ

    The rise of quiet luxury: Understated chic that is very, very expensive. – Slate Magazine

    China’s Menswear Market (Quietly) Booming « Jing Daily

    Luxury’s anti-social (media) brigade | FT.com – variable adoption

    Brussels finally recognises luxury | FT.com

    Luxury Second-Hand Shops Spreading Like Wildfire In China | Jing Daily

    The moral of Dior’s numbers | FT.com – Galliano story didn’t affect Dior sales

    Media

    Secret documents reveal the flimsy case for Ofcom to give into BBC’s public TV DRM demands – Boing Boing

    Technology

    HP CEO: Apple will become market leader in personal computers | MacNews

    Wireless

    Nokia’s Microsoft Phones May Not Get Traction, Analyst Says – NYTimes.com – no USP, apart from a bucketload of advertising

  • Systeme D

    According to Foreign Policy, the D in Systeme D comes from the French word débrouillard which is used to describe people who are ingenious or resourceful. In the Francophone companies being resourceful means operating outside of proscribed government regulation and bootstrap entrepreneurship hence, systeme D. Back in France, this might have been applied to people smuggling in a new fangled personal computer into the workplace.

    Foreign Policy writer Robert Neuwirth argues that this grey economy exists across the developing world and has been driving economic activity from Chinese factories to African bazaars. Back when I was first visiting Hong Kong, there was a stream of west African business people travelling to Hong Kong. They would go to Chungkung Mansion. Buy a suitcase full of electronics (predominantly cellphones)  and then get a flight home. 

    There was then larger scale players based in Shenzhen and Guangzhou buying product. They then either supplied the merchants of Chungkung Mansions or shipped product home by the container load. Who knows what would happen with the customs in their destination country. Systeme D often relies on the kind of manufacturers relying on shanzhai style innovation. 

    Whilst this black economy would be seen as detrimental in developed countries due to it undermining a system that broadly works (look at the Greek government’s problems with non-payment of taxes). In developing countries where governments are less likely to be looking out for their citizens interests – so the black economy can be considered to be having partly a positive impact.

    The latest trend is that a lot of mainland Chinese people who have worked on infrastructure projects in Africa staying behind and becoming merchants, cutting African entrepreneurs out of the Systeme D model. There are well over a million of these Chinese entrepreneurs now doing business across sub Saharan Africa.

    More information

    The Shadow Superpower – By Robert Neuwirth | Foreign Policy

  • Video futures

    Peter Jackson has been shooting a really interesting video diary for the forthcoming Hobbit two-part film. Whilst all the Tolkien geeks are pouring over it salivating at what they are going to spend their next ten year’s disposable income on, I was curious to know what it was likely to tell us about the future of video. Jackson heads up Weta Workshop and Weta Digital, constantly innovating in video production. Below is the first entry, it is worthwhile working through all of them

    • Technology still hasn’t addressed the need to shoot 3D in an elegant way. Much of this is down to the fact that the economics and scale that has driven semiconductor innovation hasn’t been replicated in other aspects of technology such as camera optics, so they use Heath Robinson-esque mirrored set ups to get around the interocular (replicate the distance between your eyes) distance issue
    • The amount of dedicated cameras that Jackson is having to use suggests that 3D product isn’t likely to come down in cost anytime soon; so we are still likely to have shoddy post-production versions plied on cinema audiences for a good while yet. I could see the demand for 3D dying out, at least until VR starts to make a serious impact on lean back experiences.
    • Higher frame rates make a difference. I hadn’t realised that the human eye can distinguish at up to the equivalent of 60 frames per second. Shooting at this speed makes imagery more believable. So we are more likely to go to 60fps 4K video than 24fps at 8K resolution.
    • Digital doesn’t mean perfect reproduction. If you’ve listened to an iPod versus a decent CD player; or a decent CD player versus a decent record player – it would be easy to understand this point; despite the historic branding as digital having a higher fidelity to the original. However it was still interesting to hear how the high quality digital cameras de-saturate the video and the make-up artists and set designers have to work hard to compensate for the colour loss on screen

    More related content, alongside other aspects of technology can be found here.