The Product Vision blog

Dell innovates for real

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | commentary, news | 2 Comments

Some meaningful innovation coming out of Dell.  Its premium Latitude Z has:

• a second on-board OS (Linux) and subsystem for instant-on computing:

“Some users Dell surveyed spent 70 percent of their time working in the instant-on mode. Microsoft is sure to take note of that figure. Windows has turned into a clunky, cup holder.”

(Then again, this sub-system is not integrated with the main system.  Different OS, different file system, different apps.  It’s like having a cheap netbook hacked into your laptop.

This all points to the still-unmet need of a truly instant-on system.  I still await the time when our main laptops achieve the instant-on performance of the 1983’s TRS-80 model 100.)

• a docking without cables, including inductive charging (is that energy efficient?),
• wireless USB (sweet!) and:
• wireless display interface (beat Apple to the punch)
• a super thin enclosure (Zzzz)
• an interesting black cherry finish (ooh aah)
• “the right side of the monitor acts as a sort of touch-wheel, letting you scroll through application icons and start applications just by rubbing your finger along the edge of the laptop.”

  It reportedly doesn’t work well in this incarnation, but the idea of having more touchable surfaces has potential.  (Wouldn’t it have been more convenient to reach along the edge of the base rather than the edge of the display?)

• a few other minor innovations

Good for Dell.  These premium innovations can be perfected, reduced in cost, and trickle down over time to their lower end hardware.

Take this as a sign that the world is finally learning Apple’s lessons.  Consumers will be better off.  Product companies better be prepared for more intense competition.

My big question: did Dell pull all of this off in-house?  Or did they enlist the help and vision of an external innovation agency?

If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em

Monday, September 21st, 2009 | news | No Comments

Last week, Intuit announced that they had purchased Mint (to the chagrin of former Quicken users who had been happy to escape from years of dissatisfaction with Intuit).

If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em, and then either grow ‘em or eliminate ‘em off the market.   It’s a common tactic for the big guys who have trouble growing breakthrough products in-house.

The problem is, it’s too risky to be a reliable strategy.  A competitor might snap up the company first.  It could start a bidding war forcing you to overpay.  Bad acquisitions will happen, as with any huge investment.  (I’ve seen too many).  And the upstart may refuse to sell themselves to you for inordinate greed or non-business reasons (such as, you are Microsoft).  You have to be among the fattest of cats to be able to absorb this risk.

Intuit has struggled to invent substantial new products.  And the Quicken business was slowly dying off (even Microsoft exited the business).  Intuit got a great deal by buying the disruptive Mint.com for a mere $170m.

You can’t focus on fog

Monday, September 14th, 2009 | commentary, product vision | 2 Comments

The CEO of a hitherto search engine company reportedly told the troops:

Let’s focus on a great Yahoo! Our average user is just trying to get through the day…looking to find out what’s going on in the big world and their own world. They want their Internet site to be great, and to work. They don’t care about how or about deals. They care that we are a trusted dependable site.

That is our simple mission. Focus on it!!!

Let’s itemize that.  Yahoo’s simple mission is to:

1. Help users get through the day
2. Help users find out what’s going on in the world and their own world
3. Make an Internet site that is great, and works
4. Have a site that is trusted and dependable

That’s a rather hazy vision to try and focus on.  Only #2 provides a modicum of guidance.  And even that amounts to, “Let’s do more of what we’ve been doing for the past 10 years.”  If that was the right strategy I doubt Yahoo would be where they are now.

Someone could use a little help with their product vision.

Favorite reads of the month – August 2009

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | monthly compendium | No Comments

Here are the most interesting articles I read this month:

1. The New, Faster Face of Innovation

This article discusses the qualitative changes taking place in the nature of innovation itself:

Technology is [..] allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago. They can stick features on Web sites and tell within hours how customers respond. They can see results from in-store promotions, or efforts to boost process productivity, almost as quickly.

The result? Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can often be started in seconds for cents.

And that makes innovation, the lifeblood of growth, more efficient and cheaper. Companies are able to get a much better idea of how their customers behave and what they want. This gives new offerings and marketing efforts a better shot at success.

2. Succeeding with Scrum: Start by Creating an Effective Product Vision

A common question I am asked is how my product vision process fits in with Agile.  The short answer is that they are complementary.  The product vision process is for establishing the product vision.  Agile, on the other hand, is a development methodology.  It can help tune the vision, but it is not a proper process for generating the idea.

Have you ever worked on a Scrum project where the overall goal was not clear? Where you had a product backlog but the people involved in the development effort only vaguely understood the purpose of the release? It happens more frequently than any of us would like, even on projects with multi-million dollar budgets! Often Scrum’s emphasis on “getting work done” is misunderstood as a rush to develop with not enough thought to where the project should be going. Don’t make that mistake. Every Scrum project needs a product vision that acts as the project’s true north, sets the direction and guides the Scrum team.

3. Apple Afraid Google is Taking Over the iPhone?

If you consider yourself a student of product vision and strategy, you might want to follow the fascinating dance playing out between Apple and Google.  Two of the world’s most visionary companies are erstwhile friends, and now, looming competitors.  Techcrunch has the scoop:

[..] Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features. The Google Voice App takes things one step further, by giving users an incentive to abandon their iPhone phone number and use their Google Voice phone number instead (transcription of voicemails is reason enough alone). Apple was afraid, say our sources, that Google was gaining too much power on the iPhone, and that’s why they rejected the application.

4. Reed Hastings on Culture of Innovation

This slideshare on Netflix’s corporate culture is really about your corporate culture.  There are enough powerful insights and ideas here to warrant multiple careful viewings:

Lots of companies have nice sounding value statements.  Enron had a nice-sounding value statements with 4 values: Integrity, Communication, Respect, Excellence.  Their four values were chiseled in marble in the main lobby, but had little to do with the real values of the organization.  The real company values [..] are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go.

Reed Hastings on Culture of Innovation

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 | commentary | 2 Comments

Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, made his first batch of millions building a company that merged with another.  Things went downhill for the combined company as bureaucracy set in.  He then spent two years thinking about what went wrong.

This remarkable deck on Netflix corporate culture reflects what he figured out in those two years.  It’s longish, but worth grabbing a cup of tea, closing your door, and taking time to reflect upon each slide and what it says about your company.

Reed Hastings has been added to my list of heroes.

Tags: corporate culture, leadership