This model comes from Kay Plantes, a PhD strategist from MIT that has her own consulting practice.
Her thesis is simple: the ONLY source of competitive advantage a company can have is its business model. A winning business model is proactive and changes with time. The consequence (rather than the business model) are great products and services.
[via The Planning Lab]
How to turn gaming into a source of social change.
Read the complete article by innovation firm Method.
Thinking Ahead...Always!
It started when I began collaborating with my former agency to search for, and appoint, an innovation agency in developing an integrated lifestyle platform for an off-shoot independent shop. Eventually, that project evolved with my own company sending a brief to this innovation agency/inspiration lab to 'rethink' our agency's business model, and recommending innovative ways of servicing our clients.
That was four months ago. A lot has happened since then.
Happy hunting!
Franklin Ozekhome.
t: @donniefranklin
One thing every company has in common is a desire to innovate. Whether it means creating entirely new products or improving existing ones, everyone is familiar with the anxiety that accompanies all things new. All too often, we strive to get everything right the first time around. As a consequence, our products suffer from costly delays and insufficient feedback prior to launch.
For a solution, we can steal a page from the playbook of modern Internet and technology companies that have pioneered the practice of “launching in beta.” As you probably know, most of Google’s products are launched in beta (with bugs and all) for the world to adopt. The “Labs” icon in the top right hand corner of Gmail is a treasure trove of quickly executed ideas that Google is testing. Some are clearly half-baked, but all are available.
Why? Because sometimes it’s best to launch a product before it’s perfect. I call this acting without conviction. You may be uncertain – and some things may remain unfinished – but you’ve got to push it out. The reasons are both practical and psychological.
"Sometimes it’s best to launch a product before it’s perfect."
On a practical level, you can only get feedback and real user data when the product is released. Google makes major changes to their products while they are in beta – and these changes are made based on rock-solid analytics. Also, if there are fundamental flaws in your assumptions about your product, you will realize them more quickly if it’s live. Rather than spending many months (and lots of money) on the finer details, getting early feedback can lead to priceless realizations.
On a psychological level, a team thinks differently once the first version of a product is up and running. Rather than working for a hypothetical group of customers, everything you do affects real people. Your team will become more expedient and start to think of the project in smaller chunks rather than as an insurmountable giant.
Even Apple, a company that is known for perfection and control, releases products with known shortfalls in exchange for market data and an early impact in the marketplace. Inside chatter that I’ve heard suggests that the critical “copy/cut/paste” functionality, noticeably absent from the early iPhones, simply wasn’t good enough yet at the time of launch. Rather than hold the iPhone back, Apple released the product anyway. And when they figured out the right solution, they upgraded the functionality many months later.
Especially for those perfectionists among us, it is important to weigh the benefits and costs of extending development. Oftentimes, the bounty of information and insight garnered from launching (or “going public”) is greater than the cost of early adopters finding a few bugs — and bringing them to your attention!
[via 99%]
Welcome to the new, hyper-connected, technology-based travel paradigm. It’s the era of the smartphone as ubiquitous tool of navigation, when what matters is not just the here but the now. Google Maps and Google Street View blanket more and more of the planet. Facebook and Twitter allow users to ‘‘geotag’’ their updates with specific geographic coordinates, while Foursquare turns ‘‘checking in’’ into a form of entertainment. Users of the photo-sharing site Flickr geotag more than four million photos per month. And augmented reality (AR) technology, which allows travelers to navigate their way to nearby attractions by aiming a smartphone in any direction, weaves together all those geodata points into a miniaturized virtual world.
[via 1982*]
The focus of the program allows students to virtually co-create brand strategies, interactive campaigns, and digital platforms for clients who are looking to integrate an immersive + collaborative experience in the creation and design of marketing ideas based on specific needs.
Students with interests in digital media, design thinking, trends research, product innovation, strategic management, and design engineering are encouraged to apply, and share in this experience.
Inc's 2010 List of the Top Entrepreneurs Under the Age of 30
Naveen Sevadurai
Naveen Sevadurai, 28, and his co-founders at Foursquare are rocking it in the geo-location space. With more than million users, the business is valued at nearly $100 million.
Sarah Prevette
This 28-year old Toronto entrepreneur created Sprouter to combat her own feelings of isolation. The Twitter-like social network lets small business owners connect, network, and advise one another. At last count, the site had 15,000 users.
Vikas Reddy and Jeffery Powers
Occipital's founders created Redlaser, the highly popular iPhone barcode-scanning app, which they recently sold to eBay. They used the proceeds from the deal to hire three engineers who are now working on developing more cool products. The Boulder, Colorado, start-up, which was backed by the incubator TechStars, will post $2.5 million in revenue this year. Reddy is 26, and Powers is 27.
Ellen Gustafson and Lauren Bush
FEED Projects mixes style with a strong social mission. Profits from the New York City company's collection of canvas bags – some designs are simple, others are more ornate – are donated to fight hunger. With sales this year of $1.5 million, FEED has provided 56 million meals to children worldwide. Gustafson just turned 30. Bush, 26, is the niece and granddaughter of the former presidents.
Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan
Making blogging as simple as sending an e-mail is the goal at Posterous, a San Francisco start-up. The company developed technology by which users can automatically create a Web page when they send a post, a picture, or a video to [email protected]. The business has raised more than $5 million, and is backed by Y Combinator, the prestigious incubator. Agarwal just turned 30; Tan is 29.
View complete list here.
[via Inc]
