Tag Archives: apple
Why creating new categories is so successful
Creating a new category. The Holy Grail of Innovation. The Holy Grail of entrepreneurs. It’s when you can create a new category that you command the skies. Think of the iPad. Is it a new category?
It is. But not because people think it is, but because Apple defined it as such. Experts characterized the iPad as a tablet, but customers did not. That’s all that matters.
Other examples of category creation exist. For example Gatorade created the sports drink category. Chrysler created the minivan. Toyota created the Prius. Each had a good amount of time before any competitor entered the space.
So why is it that you should embrace creating new categories? (more…)
Innovation posts of the week: The Genius behind “Genius Lunches”
- Flipping Orthodoxies: Overcoming Insidious Obstacles to Innovation – Monitor
- The Surprising Benefits of Solitude – HBR
- What is the definition of “innovation”? by @ovoinnovation
- How Apple Disrupts Markets and then Goes on to Dominate by @timkastelle and @digitaltonto
- Why Is Diversity Vital For Innovation? – Forbes
- The genius behind “Genius Lunches” – Salon
Ideas trump hierarchy
Yesterday I was having lunch with a buddy of mine who is looking to create a startup incubator in Tijuana. I told him that it seems to me that everyone wants to start an incubator nowadays as a good excuse for stimulating the economy.
But more importantly, what nobody is asking themselves is: How do you establish a culture of innovation?
There’s a reason why places like Silicon Valley and New York are breeding grounds for startups. They have a unique mixture of people that come there to create new things. To innovate.
Because of this diversity, the quality of ideas is very high. (more…)
Infographic: Most Disruptive companies in tech by the numbers
What is disruption?
Disruptive companies create innovations that invade the market, force change, and create new sectors of the industry. And for companies like Google, Apple, Netflix, Skype, Tata and Pandora, disruption is their game.
And what do the most disruptive companies in technology have in common? They challenged the conventional market and created a new one. (more…)
Innovation posts of the week: Innovation lessons from the life of Steve Jobs
- Innovation lessons from the life of Steve Jobs – Innosight
- What I learned from Steve Jobs – by @guykawasaki
- Steve Jobs and Management by Meaning – HBR
- Why Innovative Leadership Can Help You Surmount Challenges
- Infographic: Product Development: 9 Steps for Creative Problem Solving via @mashable
- How to manage through chaos – Fortune
Innovation posts of the week: The 3 Types of innovators
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Defining Customer Needs In Volatile Times: Two Steps To Accelerate Innovation - Business 2 Community
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From the Trenches: Musings from an MBA at an Innovation Firm – Frog Design
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3 Types of Innovation-Structured [Apple], Unstructured [Amazon] & Open [Google] via @rowangibson
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Four Ways To Spot Markets Ripe For Disruption by @lukegwilliams
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The Fringe Beats the Mainstream by @practicallyrad
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Innovation must be constantly top of mind by @ovoinnovation
Be gone with categorization
This was in response to @marihuertas, who also thinks there’s no such thing as social media experts.
Recently I fell into the categorization trap…
We are doing some branding work for a publicist. Specifically coming up with an identity that’s uniquer to her. When doing this type of work, an anything for that matter, you start off asking the client about them. You want to find out what makes them unique, sometimes this is easy but most of the time this is hard. Ultimately you want this process to result in creating an identity that the client will get excited about but also people will remember and love.
But sometimes you let old habits take control. You let the client direct what they ‘supposedly’ want. It’s a balancing act letting the client ‘direct’ and then proposing alternatives. We fell into the trap of letting the client direct and not get any traction because our client is ‘not sure’ of what she wants. Our client can tell us she wants X, Y and Z; we have to transform this into a look and feel.
We were frustrated because we haven’t hit the nail.
It then occurred to me that we might be trying to do this taking a practical approach, and as result we’re not getting excited about this process. We are not directing the scene but getting directed. And as a result our enthusiasm is sapped.
I had to remind ourselves that there are two types of work: the visionary and audacious and the practical and predictable. The first leads you to inspire others to adopt a vision. It’s all about excitement. The other leads to ‘me-too-ism’, predictability.
It’s that simple.
Defy categorization
Practical steps come into play when we want to fit into a category, in our case our client is a publicist. We take steps that worked for us before or that worked for someone else. And when letting our client direct the scene, she’s going to follow what’s in her head about what a publicist looks and sounds like because that’s the way she sees the world.
Our job is to short circuit this and propose alternatives. To stretch their minds. Our job is to excite and inspire as much as it is about executing.
After exchanging emails with my team for about half an hour, I continued pondering our mistake. I quickly glanced at Tweetdeck and saw this tweet by @lindegaard (which brought a smile to my face): (more…)
