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.
It ensures its inbound investment into the UK becomes more important. China can have more influence and spend less money proportionally than they had to do before
It weakens the EU a bit, in particular amplifying the power of just two partners in the bloc: France and Germany. It means that the northern bloc including the Netherlands has less of a voice in the union creating opportunity for division
European power projection is reduced. As is European soft power
China is the big winner, but Russia also has similar benefits on a smaller scale
Materials science is helping to transform China into a high-tech economy – technique-wise very similar to the west. Back over 20 years ago we weren’t using brute force in the labs I worked in but computer-assisted formulations. You did some trials, put the results in. Put in the desired results and then the computer worked to bring you towards an optional formulation using fourier analysis
Apple’s new iPads cling to old Apple Pencil | The Verge – this looks like a potential mess. Why do the styli need to have technology in them? How long is a styli supposed to last for? Are new styli backwards compatiable with older styli? Its like the move from the 50 pin iPod connector move to lightning connectors on steroids.
WSJ City – Feds scrutinise development and FAA approval process – interesting how they have gone in this direction focusing on the FAA approval process. I am surprised at the organisation capture that Boeing managed to make happen. It might be a mix of corruption and and incompetence. Dinging the FAA approval process could damage future US aircraft sales and trust in US certifications in general. It would be a boon for Chinese aspirations in the global aircraft market outside the US and EU
Weber Shandwick’s UK Consumer Lead Quits – it’s interesting that she’s going without a plan. Weber Shandwick don’t seem to be too worried about contacts walking out the door.
Interesting talk with Ken Kocienda, covering his experience on product management and software design at Apple. Kocienda was a software engineer at Apple during Steve Jobs second time as CEO. Kocienda has since written a book – Creative Selection about his experiences.
Interesting bits include:
Apple’s approach to open source in 2001. Apple looked at licensing and building their own software, but felt that open source was the right thing to do. Especially when it was the responsibility of a team of two to build a browser. Netscape was built for 20 different platforms, in that respect the Apple team had an easier time. KDE Conqueror had to only be moved from Linux to the Mac.
The role of demos in Apple’s development process. Safari was built with a stop watch because the brief was to deliver the best experience to customers. Speed was the differentiator that Ken Kocienda and the team locked on to very quickly. Dial up usage at the start of the development made page load time critical. A page load test was used on builds to ensure that there was no speed regression, build on build. At launch Safari was three times faster than Microsoft Internet Explorer for the Mac. Demos were done on a regular basis to demonstrate strength and potential of a project as its built.
Importance of focus. Apple doesn’t ship a lot of products (compared to rivals). Essentially the Mac line-up is four products laptop and desktop, consumer and professional. Because of the focus, it allowed the management to keep tabs on how the software doing.
The concept of a “Directly Responsible Individual”. Team formation and building was important part of culture. Top down leadership and bottom up contributions. The vision was very clearly communicated.
The role of whimsy and playfulness in designing software
Faster Robots Demoralise Coworkers | Careers | Communications of the ACM – If you get the pace wrong would the effect of robots demoralise coworkers limit productivity? Is the future not robots augmenting coworkers, but replacing coworkers a more productive alternative. A Cornell-led team has found that when robots are beating humans in contests for cash prizes, people consider themselves less competent and expend slightly less effort—and they tend to dislike the robots – to be fair I’d expect to see something similar if the same person kept winning employee of the week. I know that workers on the line at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port used to sabotage the robots on the line on a regular basis. This might phenomenon of robots demoralise coworkers be part of their motivation (along with laziness and malice)
Marbridge Consulting – China’s February 2019 Domestic Handset Shipments Down 20% YoY – 14.51 mln mobile handsets were shipped in China in February 2019, down 19.9% YoY and 57.4% MoM, according to new figures released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a department of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). The significant month-on-month drop can be explained in part by the week-long Chinese Lunar New Year holiday towards the beginning of February. Of total shipments in February, 13.98 mln were 4G handsets, down 20.2% YoY, 37,000 were 3G handsets, and 0.49 mln were 2G handsets
Aging Millennials Soothe Themselves With Childlike Fashions – WWD – to try and hang on to youth. The attenuation of youthfulness is a cross generational phenomenon. For instance middle aged dads the still buy streetwear rather than Superdry, skate and go to gigs.
SXSW 2019: Virtual Cinema – JWT Intelligence – culture is still trying to adapt AR and VR. Whilst it has the energy of an early SIGGRAPH demo reel, I still think the storytelling aspect of things is struggling to find its legs
Patrick Pruniaux: “There Truly is an E-commerce Potential for Horology” | Luxury Society – Kering haven’t been particularly good at using Ulysse Nardin as a brand in China, but they are rectifying it now. Kering are looking to tap into ‘new’ watch consumers who can’t spend Rolex money on a watch, this position now looks more tenable since Apple has stopped going for the luxury sector with the Apple Watch
How to Create an Authentic Luxury Experience for Millennials | Jing Daily – if a luxury brand wants to entice today’s consumers, whether it’s in China or beyond, it needs to underscore its authenticity and relevancy. Powerful words, to be sure, but what does it mean to be authentic and relevant? For the moment, let’s start with the opposite. During many of my brand strategy sessions, I often hear the expression “they feel staged” when people describe brands that they would never buy. Needless to say, when brand feels staged, it is neither authentic nor relevant. The synonyms unnatural, deceived, cheated, and faked come to mind. In other words, a staged brand is bullshitt*ng their consumers.
Louis Vuitton Has a Michael Jackson Problem | Intelligence | BoF – LVMH invested significantly in Virgil Abloh to elevate its menswear line. However, the potential failure of Abloh’s Michael Jackson-inspired collection—whether due to pulled items or lack of consumer interest—is unlikely to significantly impact Louis Vuitton’s overall revenue, as men’s ready-to-wear is a small part of their business. The real concern for Louis Vuitton is protecting its brand reputation, which remains strong unlike some competitors who have faced recent social media backlash. This is especially crucial now, as consumers are quick to criticize any perceived missteps.
You May Have Forgotten Foursquare, but It Didn’t Forget You | WIRED – interesting how Foursquare went from being useful (I use it as spatial bookmarking, so that I can return to new places that I like) to where 2.0 middleware with a bit of ad tech creepiness thrown in for good measure (paywall)
Chinese netizens on Zara model controversy. I love Asian Boss’ qualitative interviews. The Zara model controversy happened only because its in China. Chinese netizens over react to anything they perceive as a slight. Fashion isn’t about ‘beauty’, but that subtlety sailed past Chinese netizens. Freckles indicate age and peasantry in Chinese culture. Beauty is porcelain flawless skin.
Anand Giridharadas on the modern gilded age and how we should be skeptical of plutocrat philanthropy.
New Balance China tends to march to the beat of its own drum. But even I was surprised by these sweatshirts with new romantic type detailing. China is unique in terms of its faux Korean aesthetic. I just don’t get the sportswear versus flamenco dancer look, I am just speechless at it.
Samsung’s facial recognition is surprisingly easy to defeat. This is particularly bad for Samsung. Samsung’s other biometric authentication finger print ID isn’t as good as Apple’s. Samsung isn’t even as good legacy finger print scanners found on the back of Android handsets. Users have no reasonably secure option beyond PINs. I knew of siblings (not twins): a sister unlocking her younger brother’s phone at a glance.
The moral of this story is that physical security of your phone is required to prevent unauthorised access to your device. Regardless of whether its made by Samsung or any other vendor.
Goldman Sachs have a great (if terrifying) video on the use of biometrics in public places like airports and stadiums. This is really disturbing, nay, dystopian viewing if you care about your privacy at all. The human factors issue of the laptop loss at Clear affected the brand reputation. What’s impressive is the fact that the Clear brand survived disaster. It is rare for lightning to strike twice, even more so in technology.
