Two recent articles have heralded Steven Jobs’ excellent timing of innovation:

• David Aaker’s article on his blog asked ”Why wasn’t the iPod a Sony brand?”: As David relates, Sony had launched two digit players two years earlier, but the technology was not yet right. Apple waited then launched when affordable flash memory was available. Article: WhyNotSony
• “How Apple Foot-Dragged to Victory” by HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. (WSJ), notes that: “Mr. Jobs’s slowness is the key to Apple’s success. His focus on the device, his emphasis on perfecting the user experience, meant holding back, not overreaching. The iPod would only be a music player. The iPhone and iPad would be Web-browsing devices that wouldn’t play most of the video on the Web… And notice that each of these device categories had been around for five or 10 years by the time Apple entered (clobbered) them.”

First mover advantage?

Is Steven Jobs the exception to the well-known “first mover advantage?” We all know how pioneers such as Apple Computer (in PCs), Gillette (in safety razors), Hewlett-Packard (laser printers), and Microsoft (PC operating systems) commanded long term market dominance by being first…

However in reality none of those firms in the previous list was first…or second…or third to market! Most entered the market 3-5 years or more after the first entrants. Bill Gates bought DOS on the cheap after he sold IBM on the product! As Tellis and Golder point out in their book Will and Vision, most of the companies we assume were first to market have simply benefitted from “survival bias” or “the-winners-write-history” syndrome.

If it weren’t for the movie The Social Network within a decade or so we would all probably have come to believe that at least some key attribute of Facebook was introduced by Zuckerberg; and would have forgotten Geocities, Friendster, MySpace, and ConnectU (Winklevoss twins). [And of course even the W twins weren't the first to think of marrying MySpace features to elite college .edu addresses...]

Will and Vision

It turns out that Pioneers often do end up with arrows in their backs and latecomers win the categories. What factors decide winners? Tellis and Golder explore key factors. Two of the biggest are persistence and continual innovation in response to market feedback. Tellis and Golder provide further support of principles underlying:

• Probe-and-learn
• Experimentation or rapid prototyping
• Lean Startups
• Effectuation
• Agile development

Strongly recommended:

Book by Tellis and Golder: Will & Vision: How Latecomers Grow to Dominate Markets

If you haven’t already, consider reading my feature article in the current issue of Social Media Marketing Magazine: http://dld.bz/SUdJ In that article I used a deep knowledge / engagement framework to categorize user research methods.

Getting at deep (or “sticky” or “contextual”) user information is the motivation of such research methods as ethnography and voice-of-the-customer.

Engagement is another dimension that draws users to tap their own creativity to improve the product or service. Examples of methods that both access deep knowledge and engage the users would be crowsourcing, open-source software development and the lead user method of Eric Von Hippel. The following diagram shows is my effort to map user research methods by deep knowledge / engagement AND show how social media is already having an impact.

Despite the effects already shown in this figure, this process is in its infancy! Totally new tools will be developed to enhance innovation; existing methods will be modified to the point that they are no longer recognizable by current innovators.

The dotted lines of course indicate contributions from social media. Communities of crowdsourcers or lead users are already contributing. And a new type of quantitative research, “netnography”, is being developed to analyze the results from data mining. I argue that existing methods are being pushed in the directions indicated by the dotted lines.

So, I would like to ask for your ideas:

1. Do you agree with this framework?

2. What new user methods do you see emerging from social media?

Please leave a comment!

Full article in SMM Magazine:  http://dld.bz/SUdJ

In an excellent blog post that I have cited before SonyiPod , David Aaker asked the interesting question: Why Wasn’t the iPod a Sony Brand? His conclusion was that Apple timed the technology:

“The answer is timing. Apple got the timing right by entering the market when the technology came together. Of course, the Apple design flare, its brand, and its iTunes store were all important, but the timing was the key.”

Last weekend, inspired by Watson’s Jeopardy win I pulled out Kurweil’s ”The Singularity is Near” – his take on the eventual triumph of machines over man. On page 3 famed inventor Kurweil notes that:

“I realized that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can’t get them to work but because the timing is wrong. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment.”

I shared that  quote with David Aaker and he said: “I love the catch the wave metaphor. It suggests also that there needs to be a way to predict when the wave will occur.”

How do you catch the wave? For those of us who study co-creation and user engagement:

Catch the Wave with Users?

Among the user- or market- driven schools of innovation I am aware of two approaches to “Catch the Wave”.

1. Probe and Learn beta-testers and effectuating entrepreneurs would keep the bets small and keep participating in the market so that they are in the market, flexible and able to capitalize when the wave crests.
2. von Hippel suggested included non-users but purveyors of the key technologies in his Lead User method to project when technologies will advance to key levels.

Those are two user-based techniques that address the need to Catch the Wave of Technological Development! Of course all user-engagement innovators actively scan the market and are open to outside innovation….

Am I missing other user-based approaches????

Friday Question: @FastCompany had an article urging firms not to focus on lead users, but to actually lead users to the products they need. There is a significant literature and many firms that use a variety of market-driven approaches to innovation such as co-creation, effectuation, and probe-and-learn. So the question was: Does innovation require you to lead users or engage lead users?

The FastCompany article: User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Ask Apple & Ikea – LEADusers via @fastcodesign @fastcompany

Great Entrepreneurs might disagree with @FastCompany: How Great Entrepreneurs Think: Effectuate via @incmagazine Great entreprneurs follow effectuation…

Effectuation stresses learning from users by getting a product in the marketplace. Limit losses but keep probing for the “Sweet Spot”. More on effectuation: “The #Entrepreneurs Brain” #Effectuation discussed @nytimes freakonomics blog: MoreEffectuate . RT @Elgar_Business @effectuation

This topic generated an interesting online discussion. Some highlights (as usual my editoral comments in italics)

Highpoints of an online discussion with @GrahamHill: Before the sale? User engagement… or effectuation to determine product and biz model… [I suggested that entrepreneurs or firms may start by consulting or doing custom work in a target market or by launching “just good enough products”] They may also be efforts to move hasten exchange or use in order to facilitate early co-creation. Is early involvement taking real options in expectation of future valuable outputs & outcomes? Innovation really starts with engagement or co-creation, but neither is likely without a ref product… Maybe we need more precision in terms. Perhaps collaboration precedes involvement precedes engagement as trust is built up…

Noted service innovation scholar @per_kristensson said:   I think that there seldom is one best way (no miracle medicines) but it always depend on the situation. My take is that firms should consider using both technology- & market-driven strategies, not just one of them? Another famous scholar, @DrGustafsson, noted that: it really depends on degree of radical – very radical (with met. we use now) would say lead user

@lord_mort asked: Is it even a choice? Combining user knowledge + designer skill/exp = possibility of innovation. Designer-led, not user-led. Not excluding that users can’t have innovative ideas though. Best approach might be to work alongside users, co-create. @lord_mort noted that @cooper_journal had some things to say about the user-led innovation article. Couldn’t agree more: EngageUsers

@annemiekvMoorst argued: Real Innovations are people-led & offer new meaning. Users are constraint by their experience, cannot think OOB= Improvement (2) people-led in the sense of broader perspective, requires multi disciplinary approach. Improvement vs Innovation.

@JeffGreenhouse stated: If you put something w/ natural value in front of them, they will naturally flow into it (like water into a channel).

@shlmld said that Innovation is _done_ in networks through resource/knowledge integration across user/market/etc

@userinsight wrote a blog response: Our take- BOTH

Innovation articles or postings of interest this week:  

A recurring theme in this blog is the danger of killing good insight or ideas by subjecting users or innovators to focus groups or group brainstorming. This is a related phenomenon: Group dynamics stifle a great idea GroupsKill RT @SusanMazza @TanveerNaseer:

Innovate don’t just advertise: Why most market expenditures fail to generate any impact: ItsInnovationStupid by @davidaaker

Lean Learning?? Toyota’s Secret: The A3 Report LeanLearning RT @GrahamHill @jacobm

How Can You Manage Creativity? ManageCreativity via @HRResource #innovation RT @GiselaBONNAUD

Redesign thinking to fit more minds – and innovation will follow! Thinking RT @ellenfweber @karen_fu #Forbes

Co-creation

Collaborative Service. Co-created social services: SocialCollaboration

 Eric von Hippel talks about innovation by consumers Users RT @mitesd

TEN wonderful articles on innovation & collaborative learning Ten2Read RT @AlexGrech

IBM’s Social Business Jam – The Fun Part Starts Now!  IBMCrowd RT @Crowdsourcing_

Gr8 Advice on Open Innovation from P&G! – SuperTide - S Lindegaard – RT @innovate

Social Media Marketing  

Bad metrics –> bad behavior? Will Klout kill Twitter?? www.servicecocreation.com #social #media #metrics This posting has generated more hits (and HEAT) than anything I have written before! CloutofKlout

A response: Thank you for your thoughtful/informative response! @PhilipHotchkiss (Chief Product Officer, #Klout) KloutSpeaks

The Top 10 Business Blogs – Business Blogs are Critical To Your Business 10Best RT @carlgerber

Great research from @reyjunco: The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades (PDF) TwitteringStudents RT @markgr

Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn’t Work MarketingVsSelling This shouldn’t = a surprise 2those who get disconnect between social & selling RT @raymondpirouz

FB vs. world! - Facebook’s Web of Frenemies OtisLovesUs

Twitter’s Biz Stone On Starting A Revolution // SocialM RT @9swords

1. Affordable loss rather than expected returns,
2. Strategic Alliances rather than competitive analysis,
3. Exploitation of contingencies rather than exploitation of preexisting knowledge, and           
4. controlling an unpredictable future rather than predicting an uncertain one.

In essence under “Knightian uncertainty”– where outcomes and probabilities are unknowable — an entrepreneur: enters a market based on his/her knowledge, experience and networks; keeps investments small to retain future options; and plans to shape the development of the nascent market with the help of customers and stakeholders (Sarasvathy 2008).

A major early theme from Sarasvathy’s research on expert serial entrepreneurs was a that “expert entrepreneurs distrust market research…, namely surveys, focus groups…” entrepreneurs trusted experience and what they could see with their own eyes. This first theme from the effectuation study is consistent with a stream of literature in innovation advocating individual direct engagement methods for innovation instead of the traditional market research, such as: “Probe and Learn” with products just good enough, corporate “skunkworks” with limited resources, von Hippel’s Lead Users who develop their own innovations, Thomke’s experimentation, etc.

By entering the market early with limit risk exposure, these innovators are able to use realtime market information instead of market research reports to guide innovation and business decisions.

A question for those of us interested in social media marketing: can SM provide “mezzanine data” that might be not as good as real-time market data but closer than traditional market research?

To again echo comments from the recent PDMA conference:

• Just Do It!
• If your first release is not embarrassing you waited too long!
• Real-time market data not market research!
• How does a firm insert itself in user innovation?
• Agile Innovation!

This question generated a lot of retweets and interests…but a surprising limited amount of six sigma and process management defenders!

The Fortune Magazine article that started the discussion: How 3M got creative again. New management and slavish devotion to six sigma process management nearly killed the innovation tradition – but it is back! 3M back

A former blog posting of mine that discussed possible danger even for a process management system designed for new product development: Process management & innovation – danger! Process MGMT is the problem

A book review that also mentioned six sigma as innovation’s enemy: Making Ideas Happen Making Ideas Happen RT @ctmarcom

Innovation articles or postings of interest this week:

Innovation and constraints: The Genius of the Tinkerer Tinkerers #WSJ.com  

Wanted: Big Ideas from Small Fry Small Fry

Top 5 Countries for Open Innovation – Open5 by @StefanLindegaard via @innovate

Sustainability is about innovations sustain RT @ecotwist

Service Innovation

Four steps to begin service innovation… 4steps to service innovation

Innovation in Education

SM in schools – I am a skeptic but… Case For SM: SMinSchools (via @Tina_Barr @mashable) RT @ashleydburleson

B-Schools discover Africa BizSchoolsAfrica

Social Media Marketing

Facebook sells your friends (and blurs line between conversation and ads) thesocialnetwork #BusinessWeek

Social Media Metrics: SMmetrics (@chrisbrogan) via @Nichole_Kelly

Weak ties — “Why the revolution will not be tweeted” tweeting the revolution RT @GeorgeDearing from Malcolm Gladwell

Don’t worry about Google, fear FB! R.I.P. 3 Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website watch out for the social network via @nowsourcing

Innovation in Education

I focused my Friday tweets on issues in education. Many twitter friends seemed to agree that innovation is especially hard in education because of (1) third party payers, (2) institutional inertia, (3) focus on professionals not “customers” and (4) government inertia. Some other thoughts included:

What if lectures were viewed at home and “homework” was done in school? Innovation in education? (Is it legal?)  Flipping “Flip-Thinking”  via @DanielPink @KateNasser

Case for free, open & timely access to world university rankings WorldEd from @schools4me @GlobalHigherEd -

Keys to Innovation

Co-creation, not focus groups for customer ideation! ForgetFocusGroups

The Path to Improved Innovation Performance – Innovate – Drew Marshall @innovate

The Surest Way to Destroy an Innovation Initiative HowtoKillInnovation #HBR @HarvardBiz

An interesting – part interview with the creative director at Saatchi on the ‘Seven Keys to Creativity’. Interview w/ @Tim_Leake Creative Dir. Saatchi (Part 3 – also see parts 1 and 2)  SaatchiWisdom @ckburgess

Buyer Experience Innovation: Five Management Principles BuyerExperience RT @socialmedia2day

Social Media Marketing

Don’t worry about Google, fear FB! R.I.P. 3 Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website MeetTheNewBoss via @nowsourcing

Too much of what is being written about social media marketing (SMM) these days still has the ring of futurism. Wake up—the SMM era is already here! Companies are increasing their SMM budgets today, and their sales are being driven by customer-to-customer buzz at this very moment.

Much of the current focus on SMM by companies, as well as the business press, is about 1) designing marketing and PR to affect the C2C buzz, 2) monitoring how much and what is being communicated about their products and services, and 3) influencing the conversations about their products and services online. These direct efforts to create, monitor, and influence the online narrative of a company and its products will continue to be the focus of SMM strategy for most organizations.

However, SMM will also have a huge impact on marketing research and innovation in organizations. It’s no secret that many of the traditional marketing research tools (focus groups, surveys, brainstorming, and phone interviews) are woefully ineffective at uncovering the deep knowledge of customers and users that organizations today seek to enhance innovation.

More effective research methods, such as ethnography or individual interviews, have become more widely used but are viewed as excessively expensive or time consuming. SMM will change these economics. For example, online ethnography is already a growing area of study by anthropologists and marketers alike, and individuals are being engaged one-on-one synchronously, using Internet tools. These evolving online qualitative methods will provide better user insight and information to drive innovation.

As I have spent the majority of my career in service and product innovation, I may perhaps be biased, but I believe that ultimately the impact of SMM on innovation is likely to prove even more important than the much more publicized effect on how companies communicate with their target audiences.

Through the use of SMM, organizations will never have to drive innovation alone. Key users and customers will always be co-pilots. The nature of user involvement will vary, but it will be ubiquitous. Sometimes, product innovation will be driven through crowdsourcing. Sometimes, only “lead users” will have a seat in the cockpit. And at other times, users will be selected by criteria specific to a product. But users will be involved in the innovation. Actually, the difference between user innovation and simple user outreach is not always clear: users involved in innovation become engaged customers.

Certainly it will prove exciting to watch the evolution of SMM. And I look forward to monitoring the changing world of marketing.

To view the full inaugural issue of SMM Magazine go to http://www.smmmagazine.com/

Student teams get a question of social significance and have 8 days to demonstrate a solution on youtube. This years question was given that the low savings rate in nations such as the US may have contributed to the global economic collapse (no Keynesians at Stanford…) how can we make saving fun?

The winners at Radford are listed below – look at some of them!

A week ago Friday the UIC Innovation center held an open house and reception for academics attending the AMA Summer conference in Chicago. Al Page, professor of Marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Stefanie Lenway, Dean of the UIC Business School discussed the Center, which was funded from a multi-million dollar grant from Motorola.

Housed in a former grocery store on the UIC campus, the center has flexible space, industrial size bean bag chairs, rapid prototyping machines and the feel of a start-up (except for  expresso machines or ping pong tables).

The origin of the center was a year long innovation class that combines MBA students, design students and engineering students. The class is sponsored by a company that seeks innovation ideas. Motorola was an early sponsor and was pleased with the results.

There was an impressive collection of new product development scholars at the conference in addition to Dr. Page, including Abbie Griffin,  Anthony Di Benedetto, Gina Colarelli O’Connor , Peter Koen, and many others.

More about the exciting interdisciplinary educational effort at:

http://randdlab.com/visions/january06/education.php