“Technology has made our lives more full, yet at the same time we’ve become uncomfortably “full”.”
–John Maeda

I just added The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by John Maeda to my Bookshelf. John argues that technology and life only become complex if you let it be so. Even then, as he highlights in law #5, we can’t have simplicity without complexity. With that, here are his ten laws and three keys:

• Law 1 Reduce: seek thoughtful reduction to achieve simplicity
• Law 2 Organize: achieve illusion of few through organizing many
• Law 3 Time: give a sense of simplicity by reducing time
• Law 4 Learn: drive simplicity through wisdom

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Innovation and risk go hand in hand. They are the yin and the yang. Highly innovative projects have the highest projected return and also carry the highest risk of failure. By using risk management, organizations take a structured approach to dealing with uncertainty, finding ways to manage and mitigate risk.

Traditional risk management processes rely on the evaluation of the impact vs. the likelihood of occurrence. As every innovator will tell you, Murphy has a permanent spot in their team. Given that, accurate assessment of the uncertainties the innovation process brings would be like walking on water. More importantly, attempts at managing those risks can stifle the innovation process. Using a mindful approach to risk management, organizations can improve the effectiveness of their development activities while fostering their innovations simultaneously. To start, evaluate your existing project risk management processes and update it using the following ideas.
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I just read from ABI Research that HP is exiting the HDTV business. If I had known about this when I wrote the article on Strategy 101: A Look at Positioning Through Apple’s MacBook, I would have certainly mentioned it. I know that HP engineers great products; I had the privilege to be part of the HP team. Which makes it all the harder to watch these failed attempts at transitioning into to markets that they are not positioning themselves well for. Hopefully these failed attempts will translate to something truly great in the near future. From Michael Wolf:

HP’s MediaSmart TVs have been fairly well reviewed, but that doesn’t translate into having consumers buy them. I often advise these types of vendors to start a wholly new brand when they are entering the market, since this allows consumer to develop their own fresh connotations around this new brand, instead of bringing whatever connotations have been associated with brands that may scream “IT” or “PC” rather than “great living room experience”. After all, who would have thought three years ago Vizio would gain a substantial amount of HDTV market share in the US,. while HP, Dell and Gateway would all flounder?

Technorati Tags: marketing, positioning, HP

Here is my blog’s Wordle based on my recent postings. Wordle is a fun toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. What do you think? Have I been writing about Apple little too much?

Technorati Tags: wordle

“Positioning starts with a product. A piece of merchandise, a service, a company, an institution or even a person… But positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.”
–Ries & Trout; Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition

The fact is, our world is noisy and getting noisier by the day. Positioning can help to cut through the clutter and the noise. Positioning enables a company to establish itself in the minds of its customers, and shows how the firm fits within the competitive landscape. What comes to your mind when you hear “Think different” or “Highly advanced yet simple to use“?

“Being all things to all people is a recipe for mediocrity and below average performance.”
–Michael Porter

Ignoring the concept of positioning could either lead the firm to take on its competitors head on, or appear as if they are everything for anyone. Neither is effective. Remember Zune as the iPod killer? It is through positioning we can strategize how our strengths will help create a winning situation for us. And, it is through positioning that we touch up every tangible aspect of the product, price, place and promotion to support the overall strategy.

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Innovation is about change. If you are not failing in the process, you are not challenging the status quo. The key to success is to fail, fail often and fail early.

The following is a great analogy from Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success by John C. Maxwell. The power of the human mind is amazing. So, instead of worrying about failing, focus on strengthening your safety net.

Once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the past have convinced you that the net is strong and reliable when you do fall… The result of falling and being caught by the net is a mysterious confidence and daring on the trapeze. You fall less. Each fall makes you able to risk more.

Technorati Tags: failure, safety net, Failing Forward

WSJ.com discusses and shares stories about micromanagers in an article by Cari Tuna “Micromanagers Miss Bull’s-Eye“. Article also highlights the following tips for current micromanagers to loosen control:

• Clearly articulate expectations
• Focus on hiring and placement of subordinates
• Give employees decision-making power
• Encourage questions and suggestions
• Offer constructive feedback
• Don’t grab the reins at the first sign of trouble

Here are two additional articles on this topic from the kitetail blog.

• Learn from your past managers
• One proven way to increase the performance of your teams

Technorati Tags: micromanagers, leadership

“Necessity, who is the mother of invention.”
–Plato, The Republic
Greek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC)

About now, you might be questioning the validity of Plato’s quote. After all, as humans we have the tendency to go with what we are most familiar with until we are forced to move on. And history shows that accidents, incremental changes, as well as lucky errors are the sources of many inventions: fire, penicillin, genetic engineering, domesticated plants and animals are to name a few… Yet innovation is not driven by necessity, but rather by the acknowledgment of the invention’s value: value to society or to the inventor in terms of money, fame, or a sense of personal accomplishment. Who knows how many great inventions were lost over the years, simply because they were before their time, unappreciated… Given that, necessity is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for invention.

However, it is necessity that drives the need for change which triggers the invention process. Case in point, the 1973 oil crisis. It was this and the 1930s oil crisis that stimulated the research and development of renewable energy sources, and initiated the goal to utilize existing resources more efficiently while reducing and eliminating waste. In fact, it was 1977 and on when solar energy finally left the confinements of the research institutes, becoming a DIY (do-it-yourself) phenomenon. At the White House, Jimmy Carter was the first American president to take decisive steps to promote solar energy and formulate an energy policy. He became a role model by introducing a solar water heating system for the White House in 1979. However, this sense of urgency and initiative to become more self-sufficient using renewable energy sources came to a halt during Reagan administration. With the oil crisis no longer seen as a threat, Reagan removed the solar panels in 1986. (Sorry, Out of Gas by Caroline Maniaque, Pierre-Edouard Latouche and others)
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Apple has an announcement scheduled for this Tuesday. There is much speculation of innovations within the MacBook line, including potentially a low cost product line. As a Mac user, I am eagerly awaiting what is next. Whatever their announcement is, one can be sure it will continue to build on Apple’s core competencies.

Core competency originates from C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel in their 1990 paper “The Core Competence of the Corporation.” Prahalad and Hamel highlight core competency as a source of uniqueness that a company can do uniquely well, offering a competitive advantage as competitors can’t quickly copy. A core competency can take various forms: know how, process, manufacturing, relationship, development methodology, culture, talent management, branding, marketing, distribution, research & development, …
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Is there anything more obvious than presidential elections to highlight the feebleness, fallibleness and natural biases that we call human nature?

From birth, we start building a view of our reality, our own “Matrix”, completely driven and influenced by what we see, touch, feel, think, value, experience… As a survival mechanism, we are programmed to classify and sort everything we see in terms that are familiar to us: too liberal, very conservative, too skinny, fake blond, risk taker, risk adverse, real thinker, open and approachable, too talkative, stuck in his ways, … As bad as this may sound, it is natural and it is human. Other than our past experiences, our values that have been developed through the society we interact with, we have no additional reference for what we see and hear.

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
–Ken Olson, president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
–Harry M. Warner, president of Warner Brothers Pictures, about 1927.

We like to believe we are open minded. But we seldom realize this is an illusion, a paradox. We are social creatures. We look for ways to belong and be accepted. So we seek people that share our beliefs, values and opinions. We look for evidence to support, to confirm our opinions and ideas. But we neglect to search for contradicting evidence. As much as we try, we can’t escape this natural law of humanity. However, if we recognize and accept that we are feeble and fallible, then we can establish practices to balance these natural biases that are inherent in every one of us.
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