Apple’s Big Event: Buzz Reaches Fever Pitch

After a couple of uncharacteristic missteps and mishaps, will Apple be getting the magic back with its next big announcement?

Its last product unveiling, for the iPhone 4, proved to be anticlimactic after tech blog Gizmodo released photos of a prototype phone. Then came the infamous Antennagate press conference, in which CEO Steve Jobs moved to quiet criticism of reception on the iPhone 4 by announcing that Apple would give free cases to owners of the phone.


Associated Press

But now Apple seems to be back in the swing of things, at least as far as creating that patented Apple buzz around product announcements. The speculation about its latest event is at normal Apple levels — by which we mean that it’s completely insane.

Read more on Wall Street Journal
Bottomline:

It doesn't really matter what big announcement Apple makes tomorrow... What matters is how Apple will WOW the consumer, yet again with new innovations!! Could it be the new iPad with multi-processing (oh, how I wish I can listen to Pandora while browsing, and writing some notes), or a new iPod touch (with everything someone can ask for including videoconferencing & a larger form factor than the current iPod touch, but smaller than the iPad, including an eBook reader - watch out Amazon), or a new iTunes business model with partnerships with TV & Movie studios (Offering 99 cents TV show rentals and even 99 cents movie downloads! It's about time Apple does video right...), or a new Apple device altogether... (how about a new iRadio or something?).

Be enthralled...

Apple Innovation and Creativity in Business Case Studies

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is one of the Top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index.

Apple Innovation eBook - Apple's Innovation Strategy, Innovation Process & Innovation Model

Apple Innovation StrategyHow does Apple, the #1 innovative company in the world, innovate and create game-changing innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and more? What is Apple's secret recipe for innovation success?

What is Apple's Innovation Strategy? Download these Apple Innovation eBook insights and learn to be like Apple... like Steve Jobs, the innovator and CEO of Apple. The eBook has been revised in 2011, now contains 125 slides, and has Steve Jobs interview.

― "There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote
that I love. 'I skate to where the puck
is going to be, not where it has been.'
And we've always tried to do that at
Apple. Since the very very beginning.
And we always will." —Steve Jobs

Apple innovates through:
• Creativity and Innovation
• Innovation in Products
• Innovation in Business Model
• Innovation in Customer Experience
• Innovation and Leadership
• Steve Jobs

This Apple Innovation Strategy ebook provides insights, strategy, best practices, facts and much more...

Apple has built an Innovation Factory – one that harnesses creativity in its people, stimulating new ideas, and launching successful, profitable new innovations... Apple leverages its diverse culture, innovation processes, partners and networks to seize the new opportunities in the marketplace and grow its business...exponentially…

How did Apple do it?
• Increase revenue more than 400% in 8 years…
• Increase net profit more than 650% in 8 years…
• Increase market cap more than twenty times to over $200 billion and
counting…

Buy Apple's Innovation Strategy and learn to innovate, like Apple, today!!

Learn more




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The Transient Nature Of Private Clouds

An interesting thread is now on within the enterprise irregulars group on what constitutes private clouds –as again very enlightened discussion therein. The issue that I want to talk about is if private cloud do indeed exist, then what is their adoption path ? Lets start from the beginning : the issue is can we can use the term ”cloud” for describing the changes that happen inside IT architectures within enterprise? Thought there can be no definitive answer – a series of transition to a new order of things, will in my opinion, become imminent.

The pressures on IT & the engulfing sense of change in the IT landscape are hard to overlook. The pressures would mean more business begin to seriously look at SaaS, re-negotiating license terms, focusing on rapid adoption of virtualization etc. As part of this and beyond, internal IT would be forced more and more to show more bang for the buck and it is my view that organizations would begin to look more and more to question committed costs and begin to aggressively look at attacking them more systematically – earlier sporadic efforts marked their endeavors. This could also unlock additional resources that could potentially go towards funding new initiatives. There are enough number of enterprises going this route and their service partners are also in some cases prodding them to go this way.

The change in many senses may make IT inside enterprises to look , behave and perform like cloud computing providers – though there would be limitations( in most places serious) on scale, usage assessments , security and the like. There are strong incentives propelling enterprises to channel their efforts and investments over the next few years in mimicking a private cloud service architecture that gets managed by them internally. This could well become their approach of staging towards finally embracing the cloud(public) over a period of time . These baby steps to nearly full blown efforts are needed in preparing organizations to embrace clouds and it may not be feasible at all to make the shift from on-premise to cloud like flip switch. Serious licensing issues, maturity, lack of readiness, integration concerns, security all come in the way of enterprises looking at public cloud in a holistic way. These steps need not be looked down – they would very well become the foundation to move into public clouds in a big way.

Let’s for a moment assess this theme from a security perspective - a dominant concern business expresses when it comes to clouds. While assessing security requirements in public clouds,we see the recognition that a whole host of chnages need to be done at application architecture levels, the need to accomodate specific compliance requirements, privacy provisions in the public cloud etc.

Lets think through this : setting up private cloud is a motherhood statement at best( in many organizational surveys, one can find setting private clouds is not in the CIO’s top three priorities – if anything virtualization finds a place-) to make this happen in a credible way means re-examining most parts of IT functioning and business –IT relationship inside enterprises. IT teams while conceptualizing private clouds are happy to retain existing architectural designs, happily propose a clasical DMZ/Perimeterized model for providing security and enabling access, too often leveraging a highly virtualized infrastructure. More often than not, it’s enabling virtualization, automation and self service and color it as private cloud. Do recognize the implicit differences in constructing a private cloud and a public cloud. Comfort with the status quo with some adjustments versus an opportunity to rethink architecture, security, privacy,compliance needs in a way summarizes the nature of thought process and expected results between the private and public clouds. Speaking more directly, public clouds present the opportunity for enterprises to review and achieve specific requirements in the areas like agility, flexibility and efficiency at optimal effort Versus a skewed , boxed implementation of private cloud setup. Taking advantage of the public cloud benefits would far outweigh the advantages of getting boxed inside with private clouds.

Most elements of the bedrock gets affected – the processes, culture, metrics, performance, funding, service levels etc. Well thought out frameworks, roadmaps need to be put in place to make this transition successful. These frameworks need to cater not only to setting up internal cloud but eventually help in embracing the public cloud over the years- not an easy task as it appears. A few of those organizations that master this transition may also look at making business out of these – so it’s a journey – that needs to be travelled onto embracing public clouds. Some business may take a staged approach and call it by private cloud, internal cloud or whatever but eventually the road may lead into public clouds!

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The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs : Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success

A "THINK DIFFERENT" APPROACH TO INNOVATION-- Based on the Seven Guiding Principles of Apple CEO Steve Jobs

In his acclaimed bestseller The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs author Carmine Gallo laid out a simple step-by-step program of powerful tools and proven techniques inspired by Steve Jobs's legendary presentations. Now, he shares the Apple CEO's most famous, most original, and most effective strategies for sparking true creativity--and real innovation--in any workplace.

THE INNOVATION SECRETS OF STEVE JOBS

"Steve Jobs has reinvented music distribution, the mobile telephone, and book publishing. You might want to take a look at how someone creates multi-billion dollar ideas, and turns them into multi-billion dollar products that everyone loves and admires. This book is not an option. Buy it now, bank it tomorrow." -- Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Little Red Book of Selling

“In The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, Carmine Gallo captures the true mindset of Jobs and Apple. This book is not just for the techie and marketing crowd, although they will gain valuable insight that can be applied to their worlds. It is also for anyone who loves technology and wants to understand how to createsimple devices that are easy to use and can impact our lives.” -- Tim Bajarin, president, Creative Strategies, Inc.

Learn how to RETHINK your business, REINVENT your products, and REVITALIZE your vision of success--the Steve Jobs way.

When it comes to innovation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is legendary. His company slogan "Think Different" is more than a marketing tool. It's a way of life--a powerful, positive, game-changing approach to innovation that anyone can apply to any field of endeavor.

These are the Seven Principles of Innovation, inspired by the master himself:

  1. Do What You Love.
    Think differently about your career.
  2. Put a Dent in the Universe.
    Think differently about your vision.
  3. Kick Start Your Brain.
    Think differently about how you think.
  4. Sell Dreams, Not Products.
    Think differently about your customers.
  5. Say No to 1,000 Things.
    Think differently about design.
  6. Create Insanely Great Experiences.
    Think differently about your brand experience.
  7. Master the Message.
    Think differently about your story.

By following Steve Jobs's visionary example, you'll discover exciting new ways to unlock your creative potential and to foster an environment that encourages innovation and allows it to flourish. You'll learn how to match—and beat—the most powerful competitors, develop the most revolutionary products, attract the most loyal customers, and thrive in the most challenging times. Bestselling business journalist Carmine Gallo has interviewed hundreds of successful professionals--from CEOs, managers, and entrepreneurs to teachers, consultants, and stay-at-home moms—to get to the core of Steve Jobs's innovative philosophies. These are the simple, meaningful, and attainable principles that drive us all to "Think Different." These are The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs.

Order Now

Apple's Innovation Strategy

How does Apple, the #1 innovative company in the world, innovate and create game-changing innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and more? What is Apple's secret recipe for innovation success? The eBook has been revised in 2011, contains 125 slides, and has Steve Jobs interview.

Download Apple's Innovation Strategy, and learn how Apple became the #1 innovator through:

• Creativity and Innovation
• Innovation in Products
• Innovation in Business Model
• Innovation in Customer Experience
• Innovation and Leadership
• Steve Jobs Visionary Leadership

Learn more...




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The World Business Forum

The Global Leaders and HSM Global have announced a strategic partnership. HSM, the sponsor of The World Business Forum brings together world business leaders such as Al Gore, Jack Welch, James Cameron and Joseph Grenny for this year's meeting in New York's Radio City Music Hall on October 5 and 6. TGL members will get a very special opportunity to have VIP seating and a private luncheon with Joseph Grenny, the author of Influencer and other best selling business books. TGL members will be able to register on www.tgleaders.com this week. We are very excited about this partnership, linking TGL and one of the most regarded business forum and education companies in the world.

This is another example of how TGL is bringing value added services to our members and followers. More information will follow this week.

Doing Both : Protect The Present & Create The Future

Cisco founded in 1984,is a global technology powerhouse and a very admired corporation. Its seminal breakthrough of the router connecting two different computer networks laid the seed for the internet enabled networking industry.. Today, as we look ahead, Cisco is positioned to lead the evolution of the network to enable a ‘connected future’ which is increasingly "collaborative, video-driven, personalized, and mobile." With more than 7,000 patents, Cisco today is the worldwide leader in networking technologies that are changing how the world works, lives, plays and learns. The company’s commitment to innovation, customers have been key to Cisco’s success over the years—and it helps shape the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners.
In less than fifteen years since it was started in 1984, Cisco achieved the feat of the most valuable company ever on earth when its market cap soared to 500 +billion dollars during the dot.com boom era. Cisco is one of Fortune's most admired companies, and being a technology bellwether, has successfully managed multiple transitions in its last 25 plus years of existence. In the mid-1990s, for example, Cisco was strictly a router and switch vendor. But over time Cisco has moved from making gear for data networks to providing all kinds of equipment for voice communications and video systems, highlighted by products like Cisco TelePresence. The company has also become much more focused on software to make networks work even better for communicating, collaborating and entertaining. Perhaps more importantly, Cisco has also been able to reinvent its business operations – continuously!

Cisco is also widely credited as the tech company which has done maximum number of acquisitions in the last ten years and it scores as the leader in a number of areas and initiatives. Understanding Cisco’s mind and its style of execution is something that every investor, partner, executives across industry show interest in. Inder Sidhu, Cisco’s Senior Vice President has come out with a lovely book titled “Doing Both” describing Cisco’s strategy for success. Inder Sidhu points out that by pursuing new and existing business models alike- Cisco has positioned itself to be as nimble as it is strong and as flexible as it is precise. That, contends Sidhu helps Cisco when market transitions frequently! It should be noted that this book is not about technology. Instead, it addresses the fundamental dilemma that every business struggles with at some point - making a choice between two equally attractive strategic alternatives. Some of the nature of choices Cisco had to navigate through as brought out in the book include:

• Sustaining and Disruptive Innovation
• Existing and New Business Models
• Optimization and Reinvention
• Satisfied Customers and Gratified Partners
• Established and Emerging Countries
• Doing Things Right and Doing What Matters
• Superstar Performers and Winning Teams
• Authoritative Leadership and Democratic Decision Making

This is highly relevant in fast changing industries like High Tech where Cisco operates. Arguably, some may say that with globalization comes heightened competition and therefore the pace of change has substantially increased for every large industry in the world. The book brings how in Cisco’s DNA the philosophy of exerting both choices is built inside and how in its various points in history, Cisco was guided by this approach leading to spectacular business success. The book brings out the various business models that Cisco planned to pursue and executed around Consumer, Video, Services & Collaboration space. As Sidhu shows how Cisco sort of walked the talk and shares details, the reading of the book becomes more interesting and as we reflect on these, realization dawns about the significance of how tough those decisions must have been to even conceive and still more difficult to execute!

The eight principal dilemmas that the book showcases from the prism of Cisco’s decision making and execution of those make a fantastic reading. Among those covered are classic dilemmas like investing in incremental innovation vs breakthrough innovation simultaneously. Some might think that larger organizations are bestowed with the ability to take right decisions and make those decisions work out successfully. In reality, such a proposition is far from being true - swift decision making and flawless execution are not easily achievable inside large enterprises. Just imagine how may stakeholders need to align to create something new or modify something that exists – enormous pressures from different directions would make it hard for such shared objectives and well aligned execution to happen easily.

The strategic insights that the book provides are quite interesting- such as how Cisco manages the partner channel – how they changed the channel strategy, the globalization initiative of Cisco, deputing talents to potential spin-in’s, the fabled Cisco operational committee’s – Discussions centered around these areas provide a very powerful insight into the decision making rythms of the ever successful industry leader.

If we sort of step back from a very absorbing reading pleasure the book extends – (I finished reading the book in less than 24 hours after I got the book – this while attending to other things), I am drawn to the classical innovator’s dilemma paradigm of Clayton Christensen- he has written extensively on what characterizes a sound management framework. In a nutshell he outlines the framework in terms of ability to have a good set of state mechanisms that executives would go through on varying circumstances and then by extension the mechanisms to make right decisions towards an efficient and successful navigation. Seasoned executives are sort of trained to parse through this framework many times to know what could be the most appropriate path to take in a given context. The grind of analysis of known contexts and the audacity to traverse new paths when faced with a new type of context makes radical winners (like Cisco) more special and those are the type of insights that this book brings out.

Inder Sidhu brings out the key tenets of of Cisco's strategy, very well with his theme based discussions . Cisco is an outstanding exemplar of a firm that has been able to combine profits and productivity - today's success - and expansion and adaptation in an uncertain environment leading to tomorrow's growth. This is the core theme of the book: the seamless fusion inside Cisco of highly optimized operations co-existing with truly flexible, innovative and adaptive continuous expansion. This is a tall order – very very few high tech companies have been so consistently successful as Cisco is in pursuing this strategy – in fact examples of companies that could not manage ever evolving transitions abound in the high tech space. Making spin-in acquisitions for talent, new ideas, new lines of business have proven to be a tough task to execute by many business

As a company besotted with growth, Cisco keeps trying multiple options and in the process tries many novel things to keep growing and maintaining the margins. The principles and the thought process behind the acquisitions like Linksys, Scientific Atlanta, Webex make great reading- I particularly liked the discussion about what new things Cisco got out of these acquisitions in terms of learning and practice knowledge besides their products and services – this is very very important to know that such a culture of reverse assimilation is institutionalized inside Cisco. The rest of the book is skillfully presented and interesting. It captures Cisco's multifaceted strategy well and is full of insights into global strategy and execution – It covers significant areas like how Cisco re-jigged its supply chain soon after it had to write off 2 billion dollars in the dot com bust attributed to supply chain build up, Cisco’s globalization efforts including how it scaled up India as the alternate global headquarters outside of San Jose . For example in the case of supply chain, Cisco implemented a rationalization plan that brought 1300 component suppliers down to less than 300 in four years and it reduced the number of contract manufacturers that it worked with from 20 to 4 in the same timeframe. The book shows that today Cisco is able to handle two times the volume that it had during dot com days and more importantly could get this done with half the people! Successful companies need to take tough decisions and execute on those decisions very well and the book shows Cisco is no exception on this. Another important reading in the book is around Cisco’s structure to bring executive teams together to drive new initiatives together and charter areas of growth around new ideas. Inside Cisco, powers have been shifted from traditional business owners –like head of sales, marketing, engineering into councils and boards, populated with executives across the company. These councils and boards complement the traditional hierarchy, providing scale and replicability of a centralized company and the speed and flexibility of a decentralized one. Cisco’s IT absorption in the last ten years is well chronicled and the insights into how it is now trying to push the collaboration framework inside shows the unending zeal with which Cisco keeps pushing new frontiers. A very lucid description of Cisco’s decision making mechanism is covered inside the book. Takeaway : A highly collaborative system can also move fast if properly driven and can yield significant returns.

The book , I think by design avoids picking on how Cisco outbid the competition in a myriad number of areas it competes - understandable as this book is meant to chronicle Cisco’s internal process , systems and decision making mechanism. Some very powerful examples of failed business models pursued by Escada, Harley Davidson amongst others and how Cisco avoided getting trapped like them makes this book a comprehensive read.

I recommend this book as a refreshing and lively read. This is a classic book – one that chronicles the global strategy and high class execution prowess of Cisco , a top technology player in the world! Very rarely, we will see such a well chronicled book on a successful mega corporation come out from executives inside the organization - Sidhu is an exemplary writer – he brings the situation that he writes about right in front of the eyes of the reader and the discussions are centered around very important aspects of running global business. Highly recommended reading for business leaders and practitioners around the world.

Note : Article first published as Book Review: Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today's Profit and Drives Tomorrow's Growth by Inder Sidhu on Blogcritics

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Philanthropy and The Global Leaders


Today, TGL announced its strategic alliance with The Millennium Cities Initiative. This is the first of several philanthropic groups that have joined The Global Leaders. Our mission is to provide our members with the ability to collaborate on global issues and efforts. Great leaders often have favorite philanthropic efforts they participate in, because they recognize their social responsibility and their internal desire to give back. They often use this type of effort as a rallying point for their employees, usually with great success.

Recently, several very wealthy people have donated more than half of their wealth to worthy causes and have been recognized for those efforts. The Global Leaders is proud to provide a platform for philanthropies to showcase their efforts and to work with global leaders in an effort to help the underprivileged people around the globe.

Apple Innovation eBook - Download your copy today

Sanjay Dalal, CEO of oGoing Inc., Chief Innovator of InnovationMain.com, and author of Faculty eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business has launched a new book on innovations at Apple, Inc., the world's most innovative company.

If you have asked these questions, the eBook has answers for you: "How does Apple innovate?", "How does Steve Jobs come up with ideas?", "What is Apple's innovation process?", "What are Apple's plans for 2010 and beyond?", "What makes Apple cool?", "Why Apple inspires us?", "What made Apple the #1 innovative company?", "Can Apple overtake Microsoft?", "What will Apple do with $25 billion in cash?", "What products will Apple create in 2011 and beyond?", "Who are Apple's innovators and leaders?" "What drives Steve Jobs?" and many more...

Apple Innovation Strategy
How does Apple, the #1 innovative company in the world, innovate and create game-changing innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and more? What is Apple's secret recipe for innovation success? The eBook has been revised in 2011 and contains Steve Jobs interview.

Download Apple's Innovation Strategy, and learn how Apple became the #1 innovator through:
• Creativity and Innovation
• Innovation in Products
• Innovation in Business Model
• Innovation in Customer Experience
• Innovation and Leadership
• Steve Jobs, CEO & Co-Founder
Learn more





Apple Innovation eBook is a must read for businesses, professionals, innovators, Apple fans, faculty, professors, consultants, business & engineering students, and media all around the world.

How does Apple, the #1 innovative company in the world, innovate and create game-changing innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and more? What is Apple's secret recipe for innovation success?What is Apple's Innovation Strategy and Innovation Process? Download the Apple Innovation insights, case study and report, and innovate like Apple... and think like Steve Jobs, the top innovator and CEO of Apple.

"There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote
that I love. 'I skate to where the puck
is going to be, not where it has been.'
And we've always tried to do that at
Apple. Since the very very beginning.
And we always will." —Steve Jobs, Apple CEO

Apple innovates through:
• Creativity and Innovation
• Innovation Process
• Innovation in Products
• Innovation in Business Model
• Innovation in Customer Experience
• Innovation and Leadership
• Steve Jobs Infectious Leadership

This Apple Innovation Strategy ebook provides insights, strategy, best practices, process, facts and much more...

Apple has built an Innovation Factory – one that harnesses unbridled creativity from its people, stimulating bold & enterprising new ideas, and launching successful, profitable new innovations... time and again! Apple leverages its diverse ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners & global networks, proven innovation process, and a winning culture that doesn't accept second place - to seize the new opportunities in the marketplace and grow its business... exponentially…

Innovation FactoryHow did Apple do it?
• Increase revenue more than 400% in 8 years…
• Increase net profit more than 650% in 8 years…
• Increase market cap more than twenty times to over $200 billion and counting…

Download Apple's Innovation Strategy and learn to innovate, like Apple, today!!

Apple Innovation Leadership - Innovation Quadrant
Apple's Leadership in Innovation

Apple Innovation Strategy eBook details invaluable tools to unlock:
Creativity -> Ideas -> Innovations -> Success -> Profits
Who should buy?

If you are a product manager, marketer, product marketer, sales operations manager, sales director, sales consultant, business consultant, product designer, brand manager, marketing manager, VP of products, VP of marketing, VP of technology, research & development director, product director, marketing manager, marketing consultant, brand consultant, innovation consultant, chief innovation officer, design engineer, business school professor, business school student, consultant, trainer, management consultant or entrepreneur - this definitive guide is for you! If you are one of the key executives of the company or the CEO, buy this guide for your company!

Table of Contents

Apple in 2000
Apple in 2001
Apple Fast Forward
Apple Today

How did Apple do it?
Apple’s Innovation Strategy
Innovation in Products
Innovation in Business Model
Innovation in Production Model
Innovation in Customer Experience
Apple’s Innovative Leadership

Apple iPod
iPod made Apple #1
Disruptive Innovation
iPod and Apple Revenue
iPod Growth Challenges
iPod Falling Price / Unit
iPod touch
iPod Opportunity
Can Apple create iPod turnaround?

Apple iTunes
iTunes Challenges
iTunes Opportunities

Apple Strategic Innovation Shifts

Apple iPhone
Apple iPhone Juggernaut
Apple iPhone Apps
Apple iPhone Innovation

Apple Macs

Apple Innovation Leadership
How does Apple innovate?
Another Apple innovation... the new iPad
How Apple Innovates?

Apple Innovation Takeaways
Where’s Apple headed?




About Sanjay Dalal

Sanjay Dalal is an innovator and entrepreneur with over fifteen years of leadership experience in Silicon Valley and High Tech companies. Dalal is the author of the Faculty eBook and Definitive Guide on Innovation, and has published over 250 articles in the last year and a half on the real-time state of innovation in business at his blog Creativity and Innovation Driving Business. Dalal introduced the Innovation Index in December 2006. Dalal was the president and managing director of the innovative investment company, Innovation Index Group, that systematically invested into the Top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index. Dalal has launched innovative products to market and grown businesses to the tune of $70 million plus a year. Dalal holds executive certification on Leading Management Teams from Cornell University, and is an engineering scholar graduate in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Dalal attended Arizona State University for graduate education in Computer Science. Dalal secured the first position in the 50th William Lowell Putnam Math Competition. Dalal volunteers as a basketball coach for Irvine NJB - 7th graders, as an art master for 2nd graders, and as the secretary in the School Site Council. Dalal, a philanthropist, was an appointed member of the Dean's Leadership Circle of The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine and Web 2.0 adviser for Cal State Fullerton.

About InnovationMain.com

The mission of InnovationMain.com is to provide uncommon insights, strategy and solutions with proven processes that drive Creativity and Innovation at your business, create real market growth and success for your products and services, and achieve market leadership. We make innovation a sustainable competitive advantage, help build an innovation factory, effect and manage change and grow your business. We have considerable experience and expertise in working with small, growing and established companies, various departments and distributed teams.

InnovationMain.com is located in Irvine, California, the business capital of Orange County. Call us at: 949-288-6680 to learn more about the Apple Innovation eBook or send us an email at: info @ innovationmain dot com
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The Fallacy called Patents -Time To Discipline!

Vivek Wadhwa writes,"Patents make a lot of sense in many industries; they are needed to protect the designs of important components or design of physical products. But in software these are just nuclear weapons in an arms race. They don’t foster innovation, they inhibit it. He adds, That’s because things change rapidly in this industry. Speed and technological obsolescence are the only protections that matter. Fledgling startups have to worry more about some big player or patent troll bankrupting them than they do about someone stealing their ideas". A recent Berkley patent survey shows,venture backed business file for more patents as against startups across industries including software. Brad Feld points out to the absurdity behind the idea of patents. Bob Warfield with multiple startup credits and himself a patent holder points out how difficult it is to fight suits against patent trolls. He points to several absurd situations that we all come across in the name of patents while defending genuine progress.


Earlier we covered why patent systems need to be disciplined and went to the extent of saying that its time to abolish patents for atleast software industry. On the other hand some people think that we have reached the dark age of innovation – Physicist Heubner says that rather than growing exponentially, or even keeping pace with population growth, major innovations & scientific advances peaked in 1873 and have been declining ever since. While examining number of patents granted in the US from 1790 to the present. when he plotted the number of US patents granted per decade divided by the country's population, he found the graph peaked in 1915. The global rate of innovation today, which is running at seven "important technological developments" per billion people per year, matches the rate in 1600. Despite far higher standards of education and massive R&D funding "it is more difficult now for people to develop new technology”.

Patents impede innovation and not encourage innovation. Innovation may be the core to success and it is not be mistaken against patents or R&D budgets. As Michael Scrage wrote brilliantly, the simple fact is that R&D spending is an input, not a measure of efficiency, effectiveness or productivity. Ingenuity, invention and innovation are rarely functions of budgetary investment & pointed to the fact that Wal-Mart, Texco and Dell have miniscule R&D budgets, their quality, procurement and growth requirements have probably done more to drive productive innovation investment than any competing initiatives. Growing market competition, not growing R&D spending, is what drives innovation. A successful innovation policy is a competition policy where companies see innovation as a cost-effective investment to differentiate themselves profitably. John Hagel adds that it is a fallacy in equating patents with innovation. Normally the focus is on product innovation, ignoring process and business model innovation. Process innovation is far more powerful than product innovation – it has a multiplier effect that product innovation can rarely match & notes that the only effective measure of innovation activity is the rate of productivity improvement in an enterprise – the growth in value added generated per employee. Static productivity measures can be misleading & what may really count is the ability to sustain and amplify productivity improvements through innovative products, process improvements or new business models. Lets all shout for more innovation and whatever comes in the way that may include patents – lets get rid of them!
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Change As The Constant, Reflex As The Saviour

Just finished some random reading. Started with Jeane Bliss on customer loyalty and Zappos is profiled therein in detail. Zappos decision making paradigm seems to be centered around making far reaching changes happen as part of their DNA. As Tony Hseih says in his afterword of Jeane Bliss book on customer loyalty –“Decision making not purposefully directed can lead your company down a path and to an unintended conclusion. Products, Services, Companies can be taken down the wrong direction whereas well thought out , purposeful decision making centered around customer needs can make a huge difference to business growth !

The more and more I think of it , decision making gets more impactful when it meets the trajectory of change. Look at Seth Godin’s post on the calculus of change. Seth outlines how how a change in operating systems (from DOS to Windows) made people look at different things – in this case, people began to rethink about choice in word processors. The leader at that time was Word Perfect but when Windows began to take centerstage, World also grew along with it -all this while Word Perfect was not ready on the Windows platform. The closest analogy is in Smartphones and where Android is set to get to the top of the heap, many business are having just an iPhone app and not investing in getting an Android App out fast. The point of maximum disruptive timing is the point where people have to make something new or different to happen, got to make a change and can't be avoided.

Extend this logic. When is the last time when the sales , marketing & customer service function of our business got a refresh – no am not taking about just changing people but the process, measures, response etc. Extend this a litte further – when did the core technologies that run our business enterprise get a meaningful refresh – Am talking about Enterprise Software here. Today emerging technologies revolve around Java, MySQL, Open Source, Cloud Computing, and Web 2.0 Social Media. Clearly, these did not exist in full form when the current enterprise software leaders began to dominate the space. Each one of these forces are powerful forces of disruption .

As the beneficiaries and victims of the technology gap phenomenon can testify. For people in both the camps, everything in their digital lives have changed so much. Today, more than 4 billion people around the world now use cell phones, and for 450 million of those people the Web is a fully mobile experience.Alas the big fat guys of the technology world are so slow to embrace and make them as part of their core offerings. We all know the lessons of history.

Look at what change can do to the employed. The evolution of the role of the employed is indeed remarkable. Thomas Malone believes that we're headed for equilibrium in the global wage market.It may take a decade or two, but at some point, people capable of doing work will get paid roughly the same amount wherever they are. It will happen a lot faster than people think," Malone said. He earlier wrote,"Four decentralized organizational structures—loose hierarchies, democracies, external markets, and internal markets—that will be enabled by technology but centered around enduring human values shall be the dominant model. The shift from "command-and-control" management to "coordinate-and-cultivate," and the new skills that will be required to succeed would become critical to succeed. A framework for determining if a company’s situation is ripe for decentralizing and which organizational structure would be most effective would evolve".

Mckinsey identifies ten important tech-enabled business trends to watch out- Its an important read. For the first six trends, which can be applied across an enterprise, it will be important to assign the responsibility for identifying the specific implications of each issue to functional groups and business units. The impact of these six trends—distributed cocreation, networks as organizations, deeper collaboration, the Internet of Things, experimentation with big data, and wiring for a sustainable world—often will vary considerably in different parts of the organization and should be managed accordingly. Three of the trends—anything-as-a-service, multisided business models, and innovation from the bottom of the pyramid—augur far-reaching changes in the business environment that could require radical shifts in strategy. CEOs and their immediate senior teams need to grapple with these issues; otherwise it will be too difficult to generate the interdisciplinary, enterprise-wide insights needed to exploit these trends fully.

Mckinsey rightly observes, the pace of technology and business change will only accelerate, and the impact of the trends above will broaden and deepen. For some organizations, they will unlock significant competitive advantages; for others, dealing with the disruption they bring will be a major challenge. It’s clear that organizations should incorporate an understanding of the trends into their strategic thinking to help identify new market opportunities, invent new ways of doing business, and compete with an ever-growing number of innovative rivals. Embracing change in every major twist and turn is an absolute must and decision making process that can force technology companies to respond in a timely and efficient manner would bring huge rewards to the stakeholders of the business. To keep trying to change regularly needs to be in the decision framework and DNA of sustainable growth focused business . Watch out for the alternative : Standing still is the kiss of the death and those standing with deep roots would not see such waves of change but when they get affected, it would be a massive hit for them.

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