I had coffee with a clever marketing consultant last week and one of the topics we discussed was the impact of location on a group’s ability to innovate. At the time we spoke about getting people to think in new ways by getting people to think in new places. That is to say that if you always meet in the same places to try and be creative as a team, don’t you ultimately get the same types of thinking? In other words, do you hit a creativity plateau by meeting in the same places all the time? I believe we ended up agreeing that this is the case.That of course is part of the reason that companies have off-sites, but I would argue further that the “same places” includes the typical locations for off-sites. I would argue that if you are trying to get people to think differently that you … Continue reading →

Do you truly know how your customers want to consume your product?Cigarettes are of course typically sold by the pack or by the carton. These have been the standards for a long time, and you start to take for granted that these are the only way to purchase them.But, lo and behold I was in 7-eleven the other day and a woman in front of me ordered a single cigarette. The price for the convenience of buying an individually-wrapped generic cigarette in either regular, menthol, or light? – $1.00 + taxAt first this seemed rather unusual and then I started to remember being somewhere like the Philippines and seeing enterprising individuals selling single cigarettes in their shops or on the streets. Not being a smoker, I hadn’t seen this in the United States before and my recent experience got me thinking about two things:Why aren’t the major labels going after … Continue reading →

I came across the following articles on Engadget and thought they serve as a foil to the recent Unnovation Award winner:Telecommunications – Plantronics’ Calisto Pro makes telecommuting funGaming – Sony’s PlayTV turns your PS3 into a TV tuner / DVR, plus VoIP on PSPAnd finally, another article on Engadget hypothesizes that worldwide sales of the Nintendo’s Wii (mainly due to strength in Japan) will soon surpass that of the XBox360. This is further validation that Nintendo’s strategic innovation of being “good enough” on the value dimension of graphics quality and exceeding expectations on value dimensions such as interactive play and casual gaming have proven to be a better strategy than competing on the traditional value dimensions of graphics power and extendability like PS3 and XBox360.

Usually I like to talk about great things that I’ve seen different places, but occasionally a company does something so nonsensical that it deserves special mention.For this purpose I’ve decided to create my own word in the English language. Here is the word and the definition:Unnovation (n)- The opposite of innovation.To go with the word, I’ve created an award that I will bestow upon a deserving winner from time to time called the Unnovation Award. The winner will have done something that violates common sense and the tenets that innovators hold dear. I hope this award will be rarely given.The winner of the inaugural Unnovation Award is…Drumroll please…Motorola for releasing the Motorola HS850 Bluetooth Headset with a charger with a different device connection than that of any Motorola mobile phone I’ve ever seen (including my Razr). So now I have to carry two chargers in my laptop bag, instead of … Continue reading →

As technology advances and people’s demands for ever-thinner, ever-lighter laptops increase, more and more the thickness of a laptop is beginning to be determined by what ports it has. What are manufacturer’s to do?Well, the first thing they did was to introduce docking stations and mini-docking stations. Not a very elegant solution for mobile uses. What we need now are new standards for the biggest offenders – the biggest ports (Ethernet, VGA, and Phone). We need the industry titans to come together and give us new standards. Apple created a smaller Firewire connection and a smaller video connector, but given that all projectors out their use a VGA connection, they are not as handy as having a standard VGA port built-in. Without the commitment of all the players involved in connecting devices, these ports will hang around another twenty years.Apple is apparently looking at an interesting interim step – collapsible … Continue reading →

Traffic is a problem for drivers and bus riders alike. When traffic gets bad, it gets even worse for buses downtown. Here is why:Transit agencies, in their quest to put more capacity on popular routes, have added long “bendy” buses to their fleets. The problem is that these buses require twice the available space before an intersection to be able to move from one block to another. They also have more difficulty changing lanes and negotiating corners than standard buses. During periods of heavy traffic this often results in “bendy” buses being unable to move to the next block for more than one light cycle, backing up traffic behind them and delaying other, shorter buses that might have fit into the smaller space in front of them. The answer?Seattle and other communities should take a second look at double-decker buses for popular routes that traverse the city center or look … Continue reading →