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.

  • 2015 crystal ball gazing, how did I do?

    I did some predictions in January this year, how did I do in my 2015 crystal ball gazing?

    Sony Corp. cleans house with the management teams of its US businesses. One of Sony’s start-up bets (the e-ink watch, smart locks etc) comes good. Sony will still be supported by its Japanese financial services business.

    Not quite sure how Sony’s management team survived but they did, only Amy Pascal got canned rather than a wholesale purge. Sony still seems to have its start-ups percolating, instead Sony has blown up in DSLR cameras and selling sensor components to rivals. Sony’s financial services business still seems to be contributing to the bottom line. Sony decided to spin out its audio and video business, just as it had spun out its TV and PC business already.

    I could see the student becoming the master as Huawei sells into IBM enterprise markets in the developing world and possibly Europe.

    Huawei is making big gains in enterprise storage, with a shot of getting a worldwide top three vendor in the immediate future.

    Shareholder activists don’t take a run at Google. Google is moving from a growth stock to value as search advertising revenue growth is declining.

    But that didn’t stop them rolling out Alphabet to make the big bet efforts more transparent for investors. It was also an admission that Google is becoming a value stock more like GE as top line revenue growth declines. Its two tier share structure still prevents shareholder activism, but that doesn’t mean Google has a cloth ear.

    Google’s privacy and antitrust regulatory woes will continue to fester outside the U.S.

    The European Union, Russia, Korea and possibly the U.S. I reckon I have this one.

    Expect more societal push-back as geeks become the new investment bankers in terms of being societal punch bags.

    The localised protests in Silicon Valley against the ‘Google Bus’ expanded. What drove protests transnational was the rise of the sharing economy alongside the labour market and economic distortions that it drives; just Google Uber or AirBnB.

    There won’t be an over-arching XML type bridge for the IoT. Battery life will limit the fantastic visions that pundit have for wearables and the internet of things.

    The market is fragmented for the cloud infrastructure on IoT. We still have Apple Watches that struggle to get a days use out of a battery charge.

    We are going to continue to see baby steps towards more immersive experiences, as VR glasses slowly make progress in the marketplace. OLEDs would be an ideal application for VR glasses, particularly if they want to hold off smartphones in a frame.

    So far, we haven’t seen OLEDs being used and the Oculus Rift still isn’t an expensive consumer product yet.

    Content is likely to role out in a similar way to IMAX – visually stunning documentaries about space and nature alongside computer games.

    Content has been slow in coming to the fore, the stuff that I have seen is marketing content (I was involved in making films for New Balance to market their football range of products). I am still waiting for content to come through, it will take time, possibly longer than 12 months.

    Despite The Interview, Hollywood still won’t do cinema / digital simultaneous releases, or global simultaneous releases for any content that wouldn’t have been direct to TV/video in an earlier age.

    Looking back, I feel guilty putting this one in, there is nothing more predictable than the intransigence of the media industry.

    The YotaPhone2 won’t get the customer base it deserves as it struggles against the superior marketing muscle of Samsung in the premium Android segment of the market.

    I was right on this, but not for all the right reasons. Samsung had a hell of a time this year as cheaper Chinese players further commoditised the Android marketplace at such a pace it even started to hurt their supply chain. Yota did make an impact however in a different way; Huawei’s P8 launched with an option e-ink back to the phone.

    Late on in the year, Yota Device sold a substantial share to REX Global Entertainment Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong listed company that is better known for its leisure, tourism and gaming holdings than its expertise in technology. In essence this looks like some sort of shadow purchase. Having the backing of a Chinese company could speed the entry of the Yotaphone 3 to market – the previous models were dogged with slow access to market (presumably getting through the Shenzhen eco-system).

    The Cyanogen distribution of Android won’t go anywhere fast due to its geographic exclusivity agreements with the likes of OnePlus and MicroMax cramping the style of handset manufacturers with global ambitions.

    Cyanogen isn’t going anywhere fast, OnePlus went their own way with an Android distribution.

    This offers an opportunity for Jolla’s SailfishOS.

    But not of enough opportunity apparently, the company has had to restructure and can’t get the kind of funding it needs.

    Google revamps the resources and process to get more Chinese smartphone manufacturers going through its official channels for compatibility (CTS) and have a Google Mobile Services (GMS) license.

    No Google still didn’t get its act together.

    An increased emphasis on paid media over earned engagement / community management and marketing automation makes social look more like electronic direct marketing.

    I am taking this, in the words of a media agency strategy director I was speaking with ‘Facebook offers a combination of the reach of television (advertising) with the precision of direct marketing.’

    Asian platforms WeChat, LINE and KakaoTalk have led the way in both consumer and brand adoption. They will continue with a relatively slow international rollout.

    Their rollout has certainly been slow with adoption picking up slowly in East and Southeast Asian markets. Facebook Messenger is apparently experimenting with e-commerce, but its early days.

    I suspect that international e-commerce will have breakout years.

    What I didn’t expect was that the demand would come from Chinese consumers

    We’re likely to see European states take a similar stance to India and China and more widely blocking sites for security considerations and media IP enforcement. Expect the UK and Australia to lead the way in terms of site censorship.

    Between anti-terrorist legislation and the right to be forgotten, I have this.What I didn’t suspect was the sustained war on cryptography.

    More information
    2015: just where is it all going? | renaissancechambara
    Sony will spin off its audio and video business as it searches for profitability | The Verge
    Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal stepping down in wake of hacking scandal | The Verge
    Why Huawei Thinks It Can Enter Storage Market Top 3 by 2018 | eWeek
    Google Owner Accuses EU of Antitrust About-Face | WSJ
    Google Said to Be Under U.S. Antitrust Scrutiny Over Android | Bloomberg
    Korea Government to Investigate Google’s Android OS for Anti-trust Violation | Android Headlines
    San Francisco’s guerrilla protest at Google buses swells into revolt | The Guardian
    Don’t buy the ‘sharing economy’ hype: Airbnb and Uber are facilitating rip-offs | The Guardian
    Huawei P8 E-ink Smartphone Case Sports a 4.3″ Screen | The Digital Reader
    Yota Devices aims high after buyout, with $50 million promised for product development | Android Authority
    Oxygen OS 2.1.3 Update OTA available now for OnePlus X; Android 6.0 Marshmallow next | Venture Capital Post
    Mobile OS Maker Jolla To Cut Half Its Staff, Restructure Its Debt After Funding Stalls | TechCrunch
    Amazon.com is seeing a surge in buyers from China – Quartz
    Net-a-Porter’s China General Manager Claire Chung Talks Mobile Sales and Yoox Merger | Jing Daily
    Europe’s Latest Export: Internet Censorship | WSJ
    Porn filters: Cameron vows to protect internet censorship from EU law | Russia Today

  • San Bernardino + more news

    San Bernardino Shooters’ Phones Had ‘Built-In Encryption,’ Just Like Every Phone | Motherboard – all of this smacks of the WMD report in Iraq. The FBI are trying to use the tragedy of San Bernardino to get mass-access. This would be unwise. It sets a precedent and even a technology framework for other countries to demand access – like Saudi Arabia or China… It means US products wouldn’t be trusted abroad. The US government has a international trust deficit due to disclosures from ECHELON to Wikileaks. More cryptography posts here.

    Settlement in suit over ‘Happy Birthday’ copyright | The Japan Times – So basically Warner Chappell had been asserting rights that it didn’t have to make $2 million a year… And kept going until they were taken to court

    How Chinese manufacturers are adjusting to the new normal | HKEJ Insight – move from OEM to ODM – taking over design. It makes sense for Chinese manufacturers to want to do this. They can simplify manufacturing, reduce the bill of materials and over time build their own brands. Though brand building is probably the hardest aspect of this for them

    Alibaba buys the South China Morning Post: Full Q&A with executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai | South China Morning Post – The newspaper, the broadsheet, is iconic. And there are still a lot of subscribers. Lots of people still want to touch and feel that paper in their hands. What we hope to do is to build on that and add more digital subscriptions and digital distribution. – artefacts still matter, though the South China Morning Post isn’t a social signifier or tool in the way that the FT  or The Economist is

    China’s Hippest Smartphone Maker Warns Shakeout Will Get Worse – Bloomberg Business – its like watching 15 years in the PC industry in time lapse as the smartphone industry has got commoditised and grown so fast at the same time

    An introduction to the trippy, far-out world of quantum computers

    Panetone de Oreo — The Sandwich Cookie Hijacks the Traditional Christmas Treat – Video – Creativity Online – new product usage occasion – baking desserts

  • Encryption backdoor + more

    Mossberg: An Encryption Backdoor Is a Bad Idea – Re/code – Walt Mossberg explains in non-technical terms why an encryption backdoor is a really bad idea. More security related content here.

    The best buyer for Yahoo’s core internet business may be… Alibaba – not convinced that Alibaba would want to. There few synergies with its existing business and would need a major effort to reinvigorate the Yahoo! operations overseas. Then there would be the political issue of a Chinese company being obliged to support the Chinese government in their intelligence efforts holding hundreds of millions of email and instant messaging accounts….

    Pando: Has Pando missed the heart of the Uber problem? A transportation industry expert writes… – a must read (paywall)

    Daring Fireball: Bloomberg: ‘Apple Gets More Bang for Its R&D Buck’ – but where does this leave them in terms of patents?

    Airbnb CEO Blames TBWA for S.F. Campaign That ‘Embarrassed’ the Company – really? At the least AirBnB paid for the campaign, signed off on the brief and signed off on the creative. The response kind of mirrors the passive aggressive tone of the original ads. This feels like provenance to me rather than allowing AirBnb to build space between themselves and the campaign.

    No need for detergent—ultrasonic-infused water can clean by itself – jewellers and laboratories have been using ultrasonic baths for decades. It will remove the food, but it won’t necessarily clean germs.

    How to Fix Everything | Motherboard – Apple quietly stopped accepting applications for “Authorized Service Provider” designations in 2010. There are the seizures of “counterfeit” parts being imported from China that may be legally legitimate. There are the lease programs carriers and Apple have started that ensure you won’t ever actually “own” a phone ever again

    Troy Hunt – Inside the massive VTech hack – interesting diagnosis of the breach by Troy.

    Could China have an ICAC? HKEJ Insight – it would be interesting if it did. I don’t think it would work with the rule of law as a tool of political power.

  • Green labels + more news

    Green labels

    There are more than 450 meanings behind “green” labels – Eco-conscious shoppers have probably noticed hordes of new “green-approved,” “100% natural” eco-friendly goods—claiming to be “certified” by some organization or other—popping up on store shelves. Green labels have many problems. One of them is that environmentalists can’t agree on what’s green so green labels are challenged. Let’s take take hybrids versus old cars on carbon footprint – since most carbon release is in manufacture, yet the hybrid cars would sell on green labels. Or electric cars overall, we don’t understand the energy requirement to recycle them yet they will get green labels. Ands thats before you look at how electricity is generated where they are being sold. Chinese electric cars may get green labels, but the majority of China’s electricity generation comes from coal-fired power stations.

    Business

    I, Cringely Amazon’s cloud monopoly – I, Cringely – Bob Cringely provides some interesting insights into the market position of Amazon regarding cloud services. It also highlights the challenges that Alibaba, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP in addressing Amazon’s cloud monopoly

    Yahoo, NHL Ban Employees from Paid Fantasy-Sports Sites | WSJ – ethics (paywall)

    Consumer behaviour

    68% of Chinese men are smokers—and millions will die because of it | Quartz – most of the cigarette brands are owned by state owned firms and China has a surplus of males to females. More China related posts here.

    Innovation

    Weekend edition—The lure of Mars, citizen Schmidt, lobster mysteries  – Hot on the heels of the release of the action movie The Martian—and the discovery that the red planet still has liquid water—NASA has unveiled a bold three-stage plan for getting humans to Mars – interesting lessons in messaging and storytelling from this

    Marketing

    adam&eveDDB, Temptations Dress Up Cats for the Holidays – Ad Week – blatant link bait

    Has Essena O’Neill signalled the end of influencer marketing? | Econsultancy – probably not, influencer marketing is too much ‘on trend’ but it does beg the question are the fees worth it?

    Online

    WeChat reading rates are dropping. How much, and why? – In mid-2015, the number of views of WeChat subscription accounts started to decline. Some popular accounts saw a decline of more than 50% in readership. More on WeChat here.

    product insights from wechat — Medium – interesting WeChat insights

    Technology

    Will You Ever Be Able to Upload Your Brain? – NYTimes.com – so your cryogenics is probably wasted

    Web of no web

    Watch How to Eat a Virtual Cookie | MUNCHIES – how is a virtual cookie possible? By altering the taste of food with different visual cues using virtual reality techniques – literally creating a virtual cookie.

    Wireless

    iPhone Vs Samsung: Apple is still the marketshare leader | BGR – Apple still commands more than 90% of all the profits in the smartphone market

  • Learning machines discussion

    Why learning machines? Simply because I don’t want to get into an argument of what an AI actually is, so hence the title change – but interesting watching.

    The Churchill Club manage to get top drawer panelists for this session on learning machines

    • Yoshua Bengio, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, Universite de Montreal
    • John E. Kelly, Senior Vice President, Solutions Portfolio and Research, IBM

    The panel was moderated by long time New York Times technology journalist  John Markoff.

    Key takeouts for me were:

    Cycle since the 1950s of over-promising and under delivering that drove nuclear winters and booms. Current cycle goes back to the DARPA autonomous vehicle competitions of the past decade. Neural networks weren’t seen as ‘AI’, they went out of research fashion in the 1990s and research picked back up in 2005. Deep learning is basically layers of neural network – more layers = ‘deeper’. Deep nets are now the standard for learning machines. Object recognition improved in 2012 and both industrial and media interest took off.

    Performance has been helped by improved hardware, which has driven the breakthroughs.

    Learning machines still need a lot of human guidance, unsupervised learning isn’t doing as well. It probably explains why IBM has so many people working on Watson projects. This also explains why Watson is externally seen primarily as a ‘marketing concept’.

    Rate of change in semiconductors. Moore’s Law is likely to top out at 5nm. Carbon nanotube devices will be the new silicon in semiconductors. Quantum computing will drive performance in certain types of calculations by a factor of 20. Graphene is better for analogue devices, nanotubes are better for switching. The cost of transistors has stopped falling, which has an implication for new disruptive industries.

    We’ll get performance and density, the cost of which is more uncertain. Computing power is important for learning machine technologies. Power consumption (computing power per watt) is tremendously important. IBM Watson on Jeopardy used 85,000 watts to beat two 20 watt humans.

    Back propagation allows the use of lower power processors. Speech and vision are areas of a big push, but the most exciting area is language recognition and understanding with recurrent networks – implications for conversational interfaces and services.

    IBM think cognitive computing is a wider area than ‘machine learning’. Cognitive computing is what IBM think will transform ‘digital transformation’ through learning machines.

    AI has a definition problem due to fashion and academic quarrels.

    Watson was originally designed to deal with massive unstructured data rather than building an AI. Data was growing faster than IBM could develop for. Watson had a data centric focus. It sounds rather like the vision I once heard articulated for both Autonomy and Palantir.

    Consumers will see Watson as ‘insights’. Watson as a learning machine focuses on comparing and contrast to try and find patterns.

    Interesting that IBM went in so hard on healthcare as an example, given how they eventually retreated from the sector after scandals over unsafe diagnosis.

    UPDATE: October 6, 2020 – report on AI progress here.

    More technology related content here.