Innovation Management

Alex Goldfayn's new book is called Evangelist Marketing: What Apple Amazon and Netflix Understand About Their Customers (That Your Company Probably Doesn't). He is CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute, a marketing consultancy with clients that include T-Mobile, TiVo and Logitech. You remember, don't you? The emails magically appeared while you weren't looking.

Moore's law (the prediction that the number of transistors that can be placed in a given area in an integrated circuit doubles every two years) is an interesting case when you study s-curves. It basically implies that  - 40 years after it was formulated - the s-curve still hasn't reached its inflection point. Now that Intel has announced the commercialization of chips based on 3d (i.e. nonplanar) transistors, some observers view this as a confirmation that Moore's law is still  going to be valid for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, others might wonder whether 3D chips represent a new paradigm and s-curve. In the end, you easily realize that s-curves are not a simple concept and that - in practice - you find many "nested" s-curves.

Almost every year we see that Intel is releasing New processor is it because 1. their older chips have reached market maturity or 2. they are innovative to keep increasing their market share or 3. is because The market is asking for more ? eventhough Intel is in top company, in making chips why are they always investing in designing new products ?

A nice comparison history between Kodak and Fuji. Aside from issues associated to culture and organizational inertia, it seems that the basic error was related to identifying core competencies, witih Kodak focusing on "imaging" (but then messing up with execution) and Fuji on chemicals.

The connection between IT and physical layout of workplaces is always strong. This is an interesting article on the way Allen's old idea of the "nonterritorial office" might become fashionable again

Interesting article on the coming technological paradigms, on the role that modularity will have within them, and on its implications on industrial policy. 

Nuclear technology is a strange beast in the field of innovation. Based on science and complex technology, characterized by huge advantages but also marked by huge disadvantages, it has never gained widespread acceptance in the market. Now there might be a new application, in the field of civilian shipping.

Another article in the series on IT tools for collaboration between knowledge workers. One underlying message is "it's not easy to introduce these innovations"... routines are routines after all.

Knowledge is central to innovation, but you can also innovate the way you manage knowledge. However, lots of knowledge-management efforts have floundered. The article makes an interesting point in case on this topic

An interesting article on the impact of web 2.0 culture on firms and the way knowledge is created and circulated.

IT-driven productivity is making a comeback. According to Erik Brynjolfsson, who worked on this topic since the last decade, this time it will be analytics and data-driven decision-making who will define the phenomenon. It will be interesting to see how this will translate in different industries.

Photovoltaic panels are apparently following a nice s-curve, with 100% year-on-year growth. But this has happened  mostly because of public  subsidies, which are about to be reduced, also because cash-strapped governments will not be able to bear the burden of generous feed-in tariffs in the future. The impact is likely to be critical for highly-levered operators, who will find it difficult to service their debt, and for PV makers, who are likely to discover that the industry has a serious problem with oversupply. Add the likelihood of some breakthrough innovation leading to a new generation of cheaper and/or more efficient cells, and you see a critical investment case.

The official text of the Nokia-Microsoft agreement.

Now we understand what Nokia's CEO meant when he said the company had to "jump into the icy seas" in order to save itself. The "icy seas" in question has materialized as Microsoft's OS, It is ironical that it was Nokia that originally led the main handset makers away from Microsoft  and into the Symbian consortium for fear of becoming commoditized hardware makers. Now, years later, the company has been forced to make a dramatic U-turn. Why didn't Nokia choose Android? Probably because both Nokia and telcos - who are its main customers - fear a Google monopoly (or a Google-Apple duopoly) and don't feel threatened by a now weakened Microsoft. Moreover, the two companies are somewhat complementary, with Nokia having scale but lacking a competitive OS, and the opposite for Microsoft. But critics might wonder whether - in this fierce competition between ecosystems - it is wise to pick a weaker ally for fear of intra-ecosystem competition, and risk losing the battle between ecosystems. Moreover, Nokia will have to pay Microsoft for OS licences and not have exclusive rights, so that the risk of becoming commoditized is for real. Finally, the announcement was made today, but new products will not be ready for months (how different from Apple's approach to announcements!). In the meanwhile, Nokia's market share is likely to plunge significantly. A real jump in the icy seas  

According to Nokia, CEO, the company is like a "burning platform", and the only way out is to "dive in the icy waters". Translated: due to competition by Apple, Android and RIM, Symbian is dead and only a radical and seemingly irrational about-face can save the company (in the parable, diving the ocean's icy waters). Stay tuned for further announcements

One of the first examples of the Internet of Things, i.e. using the idea of the Web 2.0 (i.e. user-generated content) but with objects providing the information. Disruptive? Potentially yes, because it kills the need for expensive dedicated infrastructure. Of course, an interesting idea but you must also think about what will the sustainable business models be.

The article covers Netflix, whose CEO was named "Business person of the year" for 2010. Netflix is an interesting case study from the perspective of innovation. It has entered the DVD rental market with a business model innovation (i.e. sending DVDs to subscribers through the postal service) that disrupted incumbents such as Blockbuster. At the same time, it has realized that this innovation could be only transient, since the diffusion of broadband would have quickly led to the new paradigm of "on demand" or "streaming" content. So, it is a case of a disruptive innovator that is not afraid of rapidly disrupting the same business model on which it has built its own fortune.

Google is pushing on its cloud-based strategy, with multiple sources of content - be it books, TV, or else - being delivered to multiple devices from its own data centers. It is likely to find weak resistance from stalwarts of past technology, but some fierce competition from the likes of Facebook.

An interesting comment on the up and coming "cloud computing" paradigm. Pros and cons of this technology are clear, but the way with which these are weighted by customers strongly depends on their age. Which broadly means that the younger generation has definitely embraced this paradigm, even when dealing with corporate and mission-critical applications.

Facebook is not only a social network, but potentially a source of disruptive innovation in many fields, from information sharing to commerce. The degree with which this will happen is of course still a big question mark. Another big question mark is related to the degree with which all this is just "emergent" or whether it is coming from a precise strategic intent