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.

  • Innovation starvation + more news

    Innovation starvation

    Innovation Starvation | World Policy Institute – in his article Innovation Starvation author Neal Stephenson talks about the decay of innovation in the west. Innovation starvation is about an inability to get big things done – I worry that our inability to match the achievements of the 1960s space program might be symptomatic of a general failure of our society to get big things done. My parents and grandparents witnessed the creation of the airplane, the automobile, nuclear energy, and the computer to name only a few. Scientists and engineers who came of age during the first half of the 20th century could look forward to building things that would solve age-old problems, transform the landscape, build the economy, and provide jobs for the burgeoning middle class that was the basis for our stable democracy. Innovation starvation has multiple causes from a research mythical man month type problem due to increasing specialisation, lawyers, search engines, pressure groups and activists have a lot to answer for

    Economics

    More Conflict Seen Between Rich and Poor, Survey Finds – NYTimes.com

    Hong Kong

    China denounces ‘Hong Konger’ trend – The Washington Post

    How to

    Use the Ten Second Rule to Cut Impulse Purchases

    Innovation

    New details surface on the UPU: A next-generation CPU architecture | ExtremeTech

    [CES] Sony Develops Self-luminous ‘Crystal LED Display’ — Tech-On!

    Japan

    What’s happening in Japan right now?: Social Games in Japan – interesting that this is part of mobile gaming

    The Myth of Japan’s Failure – NYTimes.com

    Korea

    Samsung Merging Its Bada OS With Intel-Backed Tizen Project – Forbes

    Luxury

    What Luxury Brands Should Learn From Dolce & Gabbana’s Hong Kong PR Disaster – Forbes

    Media

    Microsoft hits pause on web TV service because shows cost too much – SplatF

    TVShack Admin Fights Extradition To U.S. On Movie Piracy Charges | TorrentFreak

    CES: Survey Finds Traditional TV Viewing Is Collapsing – Forbes – this is more about more personal, less social (within the family) media consumption and also consumers are exhausted by TV innovations that don’t matter. I still rock a Sony Trinitron from the late 1990s

    Online

    Snapshot: Viaweb, June 1998 – Paul Graham on what the web used to look like when I first started off in agency life. The site looks curiously mobile friendly!

    Security

    Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA

    Cars: The Next Victims of Cyberattacks – IEEE Spectrum – if this doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you, it should

    Wireless

    Apple Suspends iPhone 4S Sales in Mainland China Stores – NYTimes.com

    CES 2012: Mr. Elop makes bold statements about Nokia in the Windows Phone space | ZDNet – ok what is important here is what Elop isn’t saying. No real reasons around Android and they seem to be having a problem building an on ramp that gets their ecosystem to support them

    Groklaw – Nokia Moves To Quash Barnes & Noble’s Letter of Request the ITC Sent to Finland Re Discovery ~pj – oh dear, sounds like Nokia and Microsoft have been caught looking a bit shady. Even if there is nothing here, it feels like there is which isn’t good from a reputational point-of-view

    Microsoft, Defying Image, Has a Design Gem in Windows Phone – NYTimes.com – this looks like a classic bit of PR-led storytelling – where you give the journalist the bread crumbs that lead him to the story you want to write. The most interesting bit of this is Microsoft  (whom I presume was the client) was willing to throw its other partners such as HTC and Samsung under the reputational bus to big up Nokia. Yet a lot of the hardware issues are due to Microsoft dictating specs to the hardware manufacturers.

  • Product design stalemate?

    Kurt Anderson wrote an essay in Vanity Fair where he argued that product design in everything from fashion to homewares has stood still over the past two decades. It was an interesting that got me thinking about hypothetical reasons why his theory maybe true.
    Why hasn't design changed
    There were a number of possible factors that I came up with:

    Design – product design education has gone global – design professionals now know more about product design than they ever have done before. You now have product designers who can access the same influences from all over the world from the same place. The design computerised tools haven’t changed radically from the early 1990s but they have become more pervasive. Product design and culture are inextricably linked and culture as we previously knew it has been disrupted.

    Culture – The structure of culture has changed. Where the mass-media, publishers like Taschen and (often hard-to-get) style magazines or fanzines were the arbitors of the latest tribe, high and low culture trends, now Google is likely to turn up images and blogs about what whatever you want. This has meant that fashion is no longer linear in its timeline, but massively parallel: from cosplay and rockabilly  to ‘rugged’ style – fashion sensibilities resonates around the world in a self-sustaining loop with more power than previously.

    The pressures on culture have also changed; in the west there is no longer a sense that progress is inevitable. Even up to the 1990s with the Hubble space telescope and the Channel tunnel; big exciting things were being done and aspects of technology were interesting or exciting. You still have this; only its in China, Brazil and India. Environmental concerns and a wider anti-science movement that has gained momentum have squeezed the joy out of progress.

    Societal change – seems on some levels to be going at an ever faster pace, which means that culture values things like authenticity, by looking to simpler times in the near past. Authenticity comes from:

    • Simplicity
    • Heritage
    • Esoterism
    • Quality

    Globalisation – Autenticity can also be seen to be a backlash against the tyranny of choice that globalsiation has provided. Retailers in the west have created giant sheds to handle their massively expanded but similar product lines. This has promoted a homogeneity in many product lines and product design in those product categories. It has also promoted a throwaway culture: H&M clothing for instance – which is at odds with environmental concerns, particularly when you think about what goes into growing cotton. On the plus side it has also created opportunities for mass bespoke manufacture – supporting various subcultures through ecommerce and better logistics.

    Marketing – finally marketing has changed from being intuitative and demand-driven to being much more data and insights driven in nature and this has affected the product development process with every aspect of it undergoing scrutiny. The key challenge is that often people don’t really know that they want, but the space for vision is now lacking.

    You can find more design related content here.

  • Patriot Act + more news

    PATRIOT Act

    PATRIOT Act clouds picture for tech | Politico – the PATRIOT Act passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, giving the US government access to web services to try and fill in the gaps in intelligence. However the PATRIOT Act covers data held outside the US. So many foreign multinational companies are baulking at using US web services for their businesses. This is particularly important given the move from server and software apps to cloud computing. So the PATRIOT Act is disrupting US businesses from scaling

    Consumer behaviour

    Trendpool » Panasonic’s Female-Only Consumer Trial House

    Students of Virtual Schools Are Lagging in Proficiency – NYTimes.com – interesting that technology isn’t the panacea that people thought it would be in education. Smartboards haven’t been successful given their cost either

    Counterfeit goods losing attraction | SCMP.com – (paywall) Brands stand for quality – like they did in the Victorian era

    Young Women Go Back to School Instead of Work – NYTimes.com

    Economics

    More on What’s Left Over After Paying for Housing – The Atlantic – interesting article on housing and economics. Its less about house prices and more about income net of housing expenses

    Big Developers Dabble in Apartment Market – WSJ.com – decline in home ownership

    Finance

    Ray Dalio’s Richest and Strangest Hedge Fund : The New Yorker

    Innovation

    Single-Atom Wires Could Help Moore’s Law Live On

    Omron smartphone app comes close to instantaneous text translations | The Japan Times Online – like something straight out of a DARPA project

    Domestic robots failed to ride to rescue after No. 1 plant blew | The Japan Times Online – law of unintended consequences and innovation

    Liquid metal capsules used to make self-healing electronics | ExtremeTech

    Roboden: Japanese Company Develops World’s First Elastic Electrical Cable (Video) | TechCrunch

    Japan

    Woodford to sue Olympus, citing lack of investor support to get his job back ‹ Japan Today – not surprising he didn’t get support, first he trashes their shareholder value (probably exasperated by his theatre) then he asks for their help. They won’t care about the truth they’ll care about the 70 per cent drop in the market capitalisation

    Korea

    President Lee Myung-bak talked a lot about controlling high prices. – WSJ – growth and price inflation both considered issues

    Legal

    US Threatened To Blacklist Spain For Not Implementing Site Blocking Law | TorrentFreak

    London

    An Obligatory and Pointless Debate About the Olympics | VICE – but Vice nails it

    Luxury

    NetEase’s Luxury E-Commerce Site First Casualty Of 2012 « Jing Daily – interesting, especially since Netease has a lot of expertise in online businesses. I guess luxury handbags aren’t like World of Warcraft

    Will China’s E-Commerce Market See An Industry Shakeout In 2012? « Jing Daily

    Taking First-Class Coddling Above and Beyond – NYTimes.com – … first class represents less than 5 percent of all seats flown on long-haul routes, and business class accounts for 15 percent, those seats combined to generate 40 to 50 percent of airlines’ revenue, according to Peter Morris, the chief economist at Ascend, an aviation consulting firm

    Marketing

    UK marketers anticipate change: Warc.com – Ball & Hoolahan expecting marketing departments to get nuked in amalgamation with other departments

    Media

    Beijing Calling: The Trouble With China’s New English-Language News Network | Fast Company

    Retailing

    UK retailers face “carnage”: Warc.com – partly economics, partly industry structure due to etailing

    Wireless

    Nokia Moving to China from Singapore – WSJ – interesting complex reasons for choosing China or other countries outlined

    Interview with Murtazin – Will Microsoft Buy Nokia’s Smartphone Unit? – Forbes

    Text Messaging Is in Decline in Some Countries – NYTimes.com

    Nokia N9 outsells all other phones in Finland during October – Neowin.net – did Nokia’s move to Windows screw the pooch? Anecdotal evidence that it probably did. Also this code is now called Tinzen being pushed by Intel and Samsung

  • 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.