With the announcement of Apple’s iPad tablet, you may have observed jabs between Apple and Adobe regarding the support of Flash Video on Apple’s iPod/iPhone/iPad platform. Though this article is not about this specific dispute, it has been inspired by the conflict.

Here is a quick backgrounder on the issue. Adobe’s Flash Video (originally developed by Macromedia) is a container format that is used for delivering video over the Internet. Many popular sites use this format to embed video and other content on the Web, such as YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, and Flash-based online games. Through Adobe Flash Player and browser plug-ins, Flash-Video is made available to users. Putting it mildly, Apple has no plans to support Flash on its iPod/iPhone family of products, while Adobe continues to push for its adoption. Instead, Apple has been pushing the HTML5 standard with H.264. For those that are interested, check out the Daring Fireball’s summary on the topic: Apple, Adobe, and Flash.

There are numerous examples of competing technologies: VHS vs. Betamax, Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD, GSM vs. CDMA, .Net vs. J2EE, various flavors of Unix and wireless standards, open vs. DRM, MP3 vs. AAC, AC vs. DC (no, not the music group but Tesla vs. Edison)… In many cases, competing technologies encourage innovation, arguably, sometimes at the cost of building a rich ecosystem. At the same time it is not uncommon for users to experience confusion over compatibility and interoperability, such as in the case with having too many multi-media formats and having to choose a player to match the video format. However, as a technology becomes more attractive, it will see a higher adoption rate, and increasing compatibility and interoperability with others as its ecosystem becomes richer.

This is all good, but as a technology company where do you put your money? As our computing infrastructure becomes more complex and interconnected, your customers are now looking for a total system experience: high-level of system performance and interoperability with others. With this, you need to not only control your technology but also influence and direct related technology decisions with your partners and competitors. To do this, you need to evaluate your technology strategy and decisions within the context of the purpose of your business, technology attractiveness and your ecosystem.  (more…)

A brilliant spectrum of reds, yellows and greens… That is what I see out of my office window, and I realize that it has been a while since I posted. This is party due to my summer vacation, but mostly due to my sabbatical from writing about innovation. With over 26M hits on a Google blog search with the topic of “innovation”, it is making me rethink my approach and my value-add to the blogosphere.

I have been spending my free time by going back to my roots: engineering and software development. My time is spent acquainting myself with the Django platform, reading about product design, and coaching a FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) team with my husband for a robotics competition coming up in December. With that, in recent weeks, I have been playing with LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT, including turning my dining room into a robotics lab! I have to admit, I am new to this, since LEGO® was not part of my life when I was growing up. And although my son has been involved with LEGO for most of his life, I have only been an occasional sidekick, helping out when he needed it. I must say, I missed out, but now I’m working hard to make it up.

Though we are coaching 10-13 year-old boys, I noticed an amazing amount of similarity between playing with LEGOs and managing engineering projects. I hope you enjoy my observations, and please let me know if I left out anything.

Note that I find job titles personally challenging… Though I specifically mention engineering managers, for me this covers anyone that has the duties of managing a technology and product combination, along with the responsibilities of people management.

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A recent MIT Sloan Management Review has published a research article on How to Manage Virtual Teams (registration is required). The research highlights the fact that virtual teams, despite their challenges, can deliver significant performance and outperform their colocated counterparts. The article also points out that any distance can be a challenge when it comes to collaboration.

Don’t underestimate the significance of small distances. Our research shows that performance is noticeably lower for teams with people located in the same building but on different floors when compared with teams where all members are on the same floor.

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How do you innovate within an established corporation? That is the dilemma of intrapreneurs. A company, regardless of its size, can become complacent, stalling innovation. This often happens after their first success, when all hands turn to process management for optimization.

Hopefully these personal insights will help anyone in need for little strategy to successfully maneuver around the blockades in the system. Please share your own strategy and insights on what works for you.

Recognize that a small step can create giant leaps

As I mentioned before in Small steps… Big leaps, with every small step and by using tipping point leadership principles, we can all create giant leaps. Innovation comes in different shapes and sizes. It is a multidimensional concept where the innovation can happen in varying dimensions and degrees: technology, process, product, service, business model, value-delivery, brand, design, quality, culture, market, customer/segment, … So, start small. Choose an area that you not only care about, but one in which you can also be successful: success breeds success. If things don’t go as well, practice resilience, take your learnings and start again.

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“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.”

–Buddha

We all have ideas… They come out of nowhere: in the shower, while driving, over coffee, reading newspapers… But, without taking the time to develop your ideas, they are nothing but a thought, a blink in time.

In this blog, I’ll share my 5-step process of taking an idea and transforming it into a business concept blueprint. The goal of this exercise is to engage your thinking muscles. Here is a quick overview of the steps.

1. Dive into your problem space to refine your vision
2. Chisel out your opportunity and state your mission
3. Map out your product/service concept and strategy
4. Explore the profit potential
5. Write down your next steps and action plans

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Change is a journey. It is multi-dimensional. Following the uncertainty principle, it seeds its own story of successes and failures. Many have written on the topic of change and change management. Perhaps, Franklin Covey summarizes the best.

Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.

– Stephen Covey; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

At the end of the day, our energy flows to where our attention goes. If you are a manager tasked with improving teamwork between silos, ensuring the decision-making process incorporated all the right individuals from different groups maybe more important than the decision itself. If you are implementing new processes, providing training and tools are great, but not enough without the proper incentives to ensure people are utilizing it. 

Change Cycle

The change cycle starts with awareness. Whether you are using the ready-aim-fire or ready-fire-aim method, change is a process of trial & error coupled with reflection, which drives needed course corrections. Just like a treasure map, the change process guides its followers through a complex network of interactions, activities and deliverables. Given that, it is crucial to define and communicate your change process, whether the desired change is cultural, procedural, organizational or any other type. This not only provides a structured methodology to what may seem like a chaotic process, but it also builds-in accountability and engagement for all. (more…)

Note: This is a repost from my www.kitetail.com site. 

The profitability equation is quite simple: when a firm’s revenue from selling its product or service is greater than the cost of offering it, then it is concluded that the firm is profitable on that given offering.

Profits = Revenues – Cost

If we further analyze this simple equation, then we recognize that the revenues are a function of the quantity of a product or service sold at a price that the customer is willing to pay. This price is chosen based on the attractiveness of that product or service to the customer, i.e. its attributes. On the other hand, the cost is also a function of product’s attributes and the quantity it is produced at. For profitability, the ultimate goal of a firm is to offer products with differentiated attributes that customers are willing to pay high prices for, while keeping costs low and competitors out.

What does that mean for your innovation? Innovation is about implementation of a new idea for the purpose of creating value: value for the firm, and value for the consumer. Innovations come in many forms, and the research on innovation and innovation types can be quite confusing, as each author has his/her perspective and terminology. Unfortunately, this is further exacerbated by the fact that innovation has become the latest buzzword or Holy Grail for firms as they look for growth.

Innovation Types (more…)

Innovation is not synonymous with new product releases. There is certainly an overlap, but innovation is not just about making new stuff. Otherwise, we would be in the perpetual cycle of: think ⇒ make ⇒ waste. Wait, we are… But, that is a topic for another post.

Many firms use the percentage of revenue from new products or number of new products launched as a metric to gauge the success rate of a firm’s innovation capability. Measuring innovation is certainly challenging. Inherent with any metrics program, there could be unintended, negative side effects. There is an article on Freakonomics blog regarding this complexity that is worth checking out: How Can We Measure Innovation? A Freakonomics Quorum.

Should the New Product Development (NPD) process be adopted as a framework for innovation management? In organizations where innovation is managed in an ad-hoc fashion, that certainly seem to be the case. Here is an hypothetical scenario on how innovations can be managed using the NPD process. Does this seem familiar?
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We are all creative, even when we don’t acknowledge our creative powers. How we take ideas and combine them in unique and unexpected ways is what creativity is all about. Motivation, inspiration, exploration, constraints and sharing are the ingredients of creativity. Sharing is also the igniter that starts us on the path of invention and innovation.

Sharing is risky. It generates conflicting emotions… What if someone steals my idea? What if I make a fool of myself? What if they don’t like it? What if? Yet, sharing is a must in order to prosper, to thrive, to evolve … A story comes to mind that I read recently about the difference between Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee.

…. The Dead Sea has no outlet. Both are fed by the same source but the Dead Sea can only receive an inward flow. The Dead Sea is prevented from flowing outward and the accumulation of salt has killed it. The Sea of Galilee is alive, only because what flows in can also flow out.

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