Design Thinking Digest

Innovation: Laying the groundwork in the enterprise

This post is adapted from a paper that appears in the Journal of Business Strategy entitled Cultural Innovation in Software Design: The New Impact of Innovation Planning Methods.

In the world or celebrity fame often seems to come overnight—sometimes it does. With entrepreneurs and startups success often seems to happen overnight as well. In truth, many great ideas and, and stars, are made and shaped over time. This is double true in the enterprise, where size and inertia can sabotage the best of intentions. Many of the successes we see in the market place today—or that are imminent, really got there start long ago.

the fall of 2007 Steven Ballmer addressed Microsoft employees during its internal annual meeting and outlined the strategic imperatives that the company would focus on for 2007 and 2008. In addition to talking about Microsoft’s core pillars of business and technology, he focused on a new one, User Experience. Mr. Ballmer spent a considerable amount of time talking about how user experience would become the third pillar on which Microsoft would stage its success in software. This was welcome news to the 574 designers that worked at Microsoft in the fall of 2007, comprising just a fraction of the 79,000 total employees that worked at Microsoft at the time. However, the news came at a particularly troubling time. Microsoft was recently experiencing a exodus of senior design talent. This presented a troubling dilemma if Microsoft was to focus fully on this new imperative and an internal study indicated why. Despite an executive commitment to design, such as the recent hiring of design researcher Bill Buxton and the success of designers such as Steve Kaneko with the Xbox and Zune, many designers simply didn’t feel that the company had a cultural grasp of the value of design.

“21 out of 23 designers interviewed expressed that executive staff ‘does not understand design’ and they do not believe design is ‘part of the Microsoft culture’.”[1]

The UX leadership teams were faced with both a dilemma and a wonderful set of circumstances in which to solve it. One of the first things UX leaders did in Microsoft was take a hard look at some of the challenges of being a designer in Microsoft and developed a special leadership program for UX designers that was launched in January of 2008. The program focused on four key areas which were: strategic thinking, user experience vision, communication, and organizational agility.

We’ll cover the first one in today’s post and then dive into the remainder three in future posts.

Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking programs were focused on helping traditional designers and user experience practitioners in developing skills to align decision-making cycles with business strategies to drive innovation. In turn, these skills and their benefits were also readily explained to product managers across Microsoft—the role that ultimately guides and provides leadership for the vision of a product or service within Microsoft.

Two major influences in this area had impact. One was the work of Roger Martin and his thesis around how organizations need to seek validity versus reliability.[2] Martin’s work resonated specifically around Microsoft’s need to balance incremental innovation through refinement of existing knowledge with the need to enable breakthrough innovations.

Microsoft, as typical of many enterprises, focused on developing evidence for future products needs based on past outcomes. It used a limited number of objective variables to removed judgment and bias from decisions to support innovation. Martin characterized this type of substantiation as reliability (looking into the past to make an informed judgment about the future). Designers focused on substantiation based on future events. They used a broad number of diverse variables. Using processes that integrated judgment and acknowledged the reality of bias or looking for a production of outcomes that meets objectives for product. Martin characterized the skill sets and their propensity via the predilection gap[3] and although working from different directions and using different vocabularies many in Microsoft recognized that the concept of reliability versus validity needed to be better integrated into our product development lifecycles.

Image Copyright © 2008 by Roger L. Martin

This type of thinking was starting to be applied to Microsoft’s product planning thinking. For example, the following chart refers to existing product development models that possess a strong focus on reliability.

Figure 1. Traditional program management

Recent trends and thinking around the reliability versus viability dynamic have altered this model to be more representative of the following.

Figure 2. Current trends: Value proposition and combined engineering teams

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[1] (Petschnigg, 2007)

[2] (Martin, The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2005, 2005)

[3] (Martin, Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage, 2008)

Now what’s interesting is to pay attention to how some of these changes that were put in place a few years ago are impacting Microsoft today. One of the first places this thinking was applied was with Office 2007, one of the second was the development of Windows 7. Increasingly we’ll continue to see the benefits of this thinking with products and services that will be announced in 2009.

Productivity: Business value in software development

My last post looked to the past to explain how productivity was a key to Microsoft’s initial success but that new business models and the ascent of the internet has changed that equation.

One simple way to illustrate this is to look at software development. Historically software development has had it’s roots in what is good for the IT organization. Is it cheaper, easier, manageable for technologists to do what they need to accomplish? This was pretty evident in the systems design and command and control structure of technology as it evolved in the 50s through the 80s.

The advent of the PC opened up a new opportunity. It made technology more accessible to folks outside the traditional groups that controlled technology. In effect, non-technology oriented folks in consumer and enterprise markets had a new say in how things could be done and if they didn’t like what the IT organization was saying or doing they could often take things into their own hands. This basically let to the birth of modern operating systems and productivity software as we know it.

But this phase held on to some of the patterns from the command and control days, de-facto standards were held by a few an interoperability was something people thought about begrudgingly or not at all. In fact the business models of all the competitors of the day were based on this thinking, in short the models worked—for a time.

But the internet caused a disruption to this way of thinking. In the enterprise folks had grown frustrated with established hegemony and the Web opened up a new way of thinking. One, it made it easier to write applications that anyone could use. Two, it simplified distribution. But compromises were made around ease of use and productivity often took a back seat to the utility that the internet provided.

In addition, as the utility of the internet spread to consumer focused applications created by a whole new general of developers abandoned the traditional practices of application development—in fact many were never exposed to classic development projects in the first place.

There were benefits to this for all of us. As consumers we could things online or get access to data that previously might have been very difficult, it might be difficult to use these new tools but difficult was better than impossible

This new models made life easier for developers too, they were a step down the path of ‘write-once, run everywhere.’

In the late 90’s however cracks began to appear in this revolution. The concept of being easier for developers did not necessarily mean cheaper. It wasn’t uncommon for early commerce sites for large scale efforts to cost anywhere from 15 million to 100 million US dollars—amounts that almost defy description today. Much of this was because IT in the late 90s was similar to automotive industry in the early parts of the 20th century where there were hundreds of car manufactures competing for consumer’s business, there was no standardization and no interoperability, this made things really hard.

Worse still is what happened when these cobbled together systems actually started generating revenue. It became increasingly difficult to modify or make changes to applications that were mission critical but that were so complex that every feature rollout was the IT equivalent to performing brain surgery where a single mistake could cost millions in lost revenue.

Two things happened that pulled this revolution back from the brink and both of them really boil down to productivity.

One is that developers and software makers started focusing on standards—regardless if the solutions they created were ‘free’ or ‘open’. Web developers demanded it and used technology that was exclusively standards-based and enterprises that required more than standards could provide at least wanted the flexibility to interoperate with these standards and other technology. It’s hard to find any standards-based or proprietary technology today that doesn’t think about interoperability.

The second is that the level of frustration with the usability of technology came to the forefront. It wasn’t just about did an application actually work but could a person actually figure out how to use it.

Both of these drivers have been a key part of the Web 2.0 phenomena with the popularity of AJAX and rich media experiences enabled with things like Flash, Silverlight, etc. It even extends to the power of client software, such as iTunes, WPF applications, AIR applications and other solutions that take advantage of client hardware versus a browser.

I think the next wave of productivity is starting now and it’s focused on productivity in application development and life cycle management and in total cost of investment and return on investment.

When we think about productivity in application development and life cycle management we are really talking about the concept of the ‘Inverted-T’. Which can be defined at the repeatable best practices that we can apply to every project versus re-inventing the wheel. For example why build a content management system when you can buy one or save money implementing an open source option? Why spend money designing a architectural work pattern for a manufacturing facility if you can license one? Why build an authentication system if you can leverage one as a service? This type of thinking represents the horizontal part of the ‘T’. This way of thinking allows us to go deep and focus the majority of our attentions on the parts of our business that allow for differentiation and innovation.

We can also think about life-cycle management. For example does our workflow allow asynchronous round tripping through of projects and assets from designers to developers. Very few workflows do this today, one does (I’ll be polite and not mention them by name). I suspect this type of workflow will become standard in many environments and that in some agile Web processes traditional design tools will be eclipsed by tools that work in the target delivery medium (Vectors versus bitmaps for example or HTML and CSS that don’t need to be factored from static visual designs).

The final dimension in the next wave of productivity is probably services. We already have a myriad of services available to us around commerce, community, identity, location, search but the next wave of services, commonly called ‘cloud’ services are going to go far beyond that. In the future Knowledge Management or email systems might make more sense for many companies if they exist outside of an enterprise’s data center and in a cloud—much like we host many of our Web sites today if we’re a small to mid-size business. These type of moves will start letting developers in the enterprise and smaller entities focus on the core strategies that allow their business to innovate.

We’re starting to see signs of this already in the market. For example look at the ability of a service-based site like Mint.com. Their ability to innovate and role out new features is far more capable that some of their more traditional peers.

Lesser known examples might be click-ones applications that can silently and quickly introduce new features without proactive user activity.

The next post in this topic will dive into services and show how once we’ve taken advantage of the productivity gains that can come in software development and services that we’re ready to set the table for real breakthrough innovation.

Productivity: Business value through efficiency

This post is adapted from a paper that appears in the Journal of Business Strategy entitled Cultural Innovation in Software Design: The New Impact of Innovation Planning Methods

Microsoft is a company that historically was guided by a simple premise, “A PC on every desk and in every home.” Microsoft’s role in that premise was simple, to be the creator of the software that would run on those computing platforms, creating every piece of software a consumer would need. As the Economist noted in a July 26^th, 2008 Microsoft’s success in this endeavor hinged on two important insights.

The first was that computing could be a high-volume, low-margin business. Until Microsoft came along, the big money was in maintaining a select family of very grand mainframes. Mr. Gates realised that falling hardware costs, combined with the negligible expense of making extra copies of standard software, would turn the computer business on its head…Profit would come from selling a lot of them cheaply, not servicing a few at a great price.”

“Mr. Gates also realised that making hardware and writing software could be stronger as separate businesses. Even as firms like Apple clung on to both the computer operating system and the hardware—just as mainframe companies had—Microsoft and Intel, which designed the PC’s microprocessors, blew computing’s business model apart.

Although it’s difficult to recognize how inspired and innovative this thinking was over 33 years ago it was augmented by another important and unique characteristic of Microsoft in its early days as the Economist continues to elaborate.

The technology industry likes to sneer at Microsoft as a follower. And it is true that the company has time and again bought in or imitated the technology of others…His (Bill Gate’s) genius was to understand what he needed and work out how to obtain it, however long it took. In an industry in which visionaries are often sniffy about anyone else’s ideas, the readiness to go elsewhere proved a devastating advantage.

In effect, Microsoft in its early days was a company that was focused on incremental technology innovation and product optimization. The combination of this one-two punch of innovation in business model and technology enhancement has enabled Microsoft to become one of the most successful and profitable companies in the world.

But as Microsoft prepares to enter the twilight of its fourth decade in existence it faces new challenges that require a fundamental reshaping of its core value offerings and how it will develop and innovate in the realms of software in the future. These challenges include emerging business models focused on advertising supported software, search, open source software, and services. The emergence of new computing form factors in the mobile space and among consumer devices focused on media and entertainment space also are having a dramatic impact on how businesses and consumers perceive and embrace computing in both established and emerging markets.

So…how does Microsoft consider to grow and thrive in this new market where open source and new business models are the disruptive innovation? My next post will look at some of the changes in Microsoft over the past few years that serve as ‘ingredients’ for innovation, and set the table in Microsoft for how to address these challenges.

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Quotes from The Economist. (2008, June 26). The Meaning of Bill Gates. Retrieved July 17, 2008, from Economist.

Resetting Design Thinking Digest

It’s been some time since I’ve used Design Thinking Digest as much of a forum, for commentary or curation. Some of this is because I’ve found tools such as Linked In, Facebook and Twitter have replaced much of what I used Design Thinking Digest for—but some of it is probably also due to what I’d characterize as ‘social media fatigue’. After SxSW and MIX I wasn’t certain I was contributing much that was unique or that warranted a blog post.

Over the past three months a big part of my daily activities I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about how the economic slowdown is impacting the digital marketing and digital agency ecosystem that I frequently work with.

Like any other segment of our economy it’s been hit hard by current events. But, perhaps not surprisingly to many readers, parts of these eco-system are also thriving as they never have before.

As I put a toe back in the blogosphere I see three trends that will impact designers greatly over the next 12 to 24 months.

Welcome to the new normal

Our new economic environment is not a downturn as much a  reset. The realities that we deal with today are marketing dynamics that we’re gong to have to deal with going forward. In fact this is a theme that Steve Ballmer has been touching on for some time in many public speeches. In Chicago recently he framed it this way at a luncheon at the Chicago Executive Club.

I want to talk a little bit about the economy, but really only to set up the thing that to me is probably more important to talk about, which is productivity and innovation. We are going through an unprecedented kind of economic (crisis) – I like to call it reset. I don't think we're in a recession; I think we are resetting. I think this is the new normal, and yesterday was the exception. And I think we got ourselves there in a lot of ways, but economic growth in general is fueled, GDP growth is fueled by productivity and innovation and debt, and over the last 10, 15, 20 years we've seen debt for businesses and consumers rise to almost 300 percent of GDP. It was 150 percent, by the way, before the Great Depression. And we were kind of borrowing our way to prosperity, and I'm afraid post-reset we're going to have to innovate and improve productivity to drive GDP growth.

It's clear debt will not be the economic growth driver of the next 10 years. After every major deleveraging of the world's economy in the last 200 years, people were slow to bring back debt.

Social media is the driver of innovation in marketing and mass media

Although I may have ‘fatigue’ from social media it’s perhaps more important now than it ever was. Social media is the glue of just about every advertising, marketing, communications or public relations scenario that you can think of. But most CTOs or CMOs misunderstand or are flat out terrified of the implications. There has never been a better opportunity for professionals and services that can enable the architecture of social media scenarios. But it’s still a nascent space requiring a hybrid of skills that is not the exclusive domain of social media pioneers that build great individual brands nor digital marketers focused more on digital, but traditional, push or destination marketing in the digital realm.

Productivity and innovation will drive economic growth

We we talk about an economic reset one pillar that companies use to fuel growth, debt, is effectively off the table for many folks. For fueling growth we need to turn to the other two pillars of innovation and productivity.

If you compare the capital costs of starting a business in 1999 to 2009 it’s a different world. The infrastructure to get phone service, office space, internet and office productivity tools is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. A committed entrepreneur can have a digital shingle on a door in a matter of a few hours today because of the advent of services that we just not available and competitive in the world of Web 1.0.

But if you look at the way we build and implement business-both physically and digitally you might find that little has changed in many economic segments.

If you look at how companies measure or ‘sense’ what their actual business performance is many companies are lousy at it.

The successful companies of tomorrow will use technology and new business processes and workflows to increase productivity in areas they’ve yet been able to, or had incentive to address.

Productivity alone is now enough however, it’s a tide that raises all boats if we continue with metaphors. What does provide a competitive advantage is innovation. Innovation isn’t borne completely of technology, but is also a result of the application business strategy and the innovation planning process that a company can bring to bear. This where concepts like a thorough understanding of customer experience and platforms can allow a company to shine. It’s why the iPhone and the Application Store are such a success, it’s why Windows, with a global platform of one billion users and vast developer ecosystem is still incredibly powerful and valuable despite recent predictions about it’s demise.

Over the summer I’ll be focusing a bit on the things we can control as designers in our own profession practice and with our customers—namely how can we be more productive and how can we, as designers, be a key driver of innovation.

The Minneapolis PhizzPop Challenge: Posted

Here’s the challenge that the PhizzPop Minneapolis teams got on Friday, January 9 at 4pm CST.

If you haven’t registered to see PhizzPop in Minneapolis there may still be seats available. Go to www.phizzpop.com and register right away we’ll do our best to accommodate but are literally with in a dozen seats or so of being full.

Touching consumers:
Thriving with online retailing and multichannel promotion

Overview
2009 represents one of the most challenging environments that retailers in the US have experienced since the Great Depression, these challenges extend to the entities that also distribute their products through retail channels—including content creators, consumer electronics, clothing, consumer and packaged goods, etc.

Online revenue for traditional online retailers has dropped 2% this year after 5 years of 20% growth. Revenues during the November to December season for traditional physical retailers (which represents 30% of the retailer’s business is down 7%) making for one of the worst performing years for traditional retailers since records were kept.

However, austere environments often create optimal opportunities for new business models and consumer experiences. You’ve recently been retained by a private Dutch-based company that currently owns and operates a variety of pharmacies and supermarkets in the Southeast United States and a number of big box retail chains in Western Europe, they’ve hired you to help them with a new physical and online shopping venture they’ve launched in 5 physical locations in each of two test markets, the Minneapolis metro area and Denver/Boulder metro area and across the US via an online channel that is tightly coupled to their physical operations.

Your client’s enthusiasm has been bolstered by the recent and continued retail success and resurgence of stores like Wal-Mart and Target that cater to different spectrums of the big-box retail market and on the high-end with retail stores like the Apple Store in the brick and mortal world.

They’ve also watched with enthusiasm as Amazon has quickly become ascendant in the online retail space and become even more interested in how nimble and adaptive competitors such as Netflix have rapidly evolved their business models.

There are a few pieces of information that they’ve asked you to ponder closely as you work with them.

One is a recent report by a trusted market research firm that found that brands are critically important to socially connected consumers, to the degree that socially connected consumers valued content created by their favorite brands more than peer generated content. Your client is very interested in how technology and social media can leverage their own brand and the brands they sell. They want to take that have social currency to increase relevance, affinity and loyalty consumers.

The second item is that your client is struggling with the success Amazon is having with programs like Amazon Prime and they are eager to explore experience strategies that can engage an audience that doesn’t always require instant gratification or can leverage any unique characteristics from a technology or services perspective that can enable new, disruptive experiences that increase relevance, affinity and loyalty with your client’s venture.

The new CEO of this consortium spent the previous three years in Europe in managing the firm’s retail expansion in big box stores. After much thought and how to best leverage the consortiums resources he chose to play on the firm’s strengths. In an effort to enter the US market they’ve focused on the concept for a new type of retail store that merges the mass market success of big box retail like Costco, Wal-Mart and Target with some of the brand affinity of stores that aspire towards the mastige like success of alternative groceries and coops such as Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and REI.

As a consultant and trusted advisor to this CEO you’ve been asked to develop a proof of concept that can be given at the firm’s board of directors meeting that can demonstrate how technology can be used both in a store environment, in physical branding and promotions both in the store and out of the store and via experiences on the store’s Web site and third-party online Web properties.

Although the primary objective of this exercise is to demonstrate that this retailer has a ‘plan’ to its increasingly fidgety board of directors, there are also critical secondary audiences whose objectives must ultimately be met, and include:

1. Price conscious consumers that must be inspired or incented to begin a relationship with the retailer with repeat purchases of consumer packaged goods, house wares, clothing, toys, consumer electronics and media.

2. Consumer packaged goods and consumer electronics manufacturers that are eager to determine new ways to position their products and (increasingly) services to consumers in physical and virtual channels that provide differentiation and value

3. Media companies that distribute books, magazines, audio and video content in both physical and (increasingly) digital formats

4. Other emerging next generation service models that can generate revenue and brand affinity around these repeat purchase behaviors with consumer packaged goods, consumer electronics and content.

Assignment

Your assignment is to demonstrate next generation scenarios that can enhance physical shopping scenarios, brand awareness and improve online promotion and traditional online browsing, selection and cross-sell scenarios.

How can social media, services, digital distribution and enhanced experience design differentiate customer purchasing scenarios? The CEO has asked you to focus on the following areas:

1. Encouraging repeat purchases of consumer packaged goods, or the key drivers of the retailers revenue “beer and diapers” and more mundane goods like laundry detergent and clothing.

2. Offer compelling alternatives to secondary competitors that are eroding physical media sales, such as the Apple iTunes store, Netflix and Blockbuster.

3. Determine how an over arching strategy of web-based services and advertising models could or should be a part of this firms strategy for the above category or a more traditional category such as consumer electronics, pharmacy services, registry, etc.

Your client is adamant that you focus your thinking on both the attract and engage modes of the consumer experience and is less concerned with the specific purchase and sustainment phases of a consumer lifecycle. This means your solution should focus on.

A. In-store or out of store promotion scenario using technology (mobile, digital signage, kiosks, other) that utilize unique Windows mobile, touch or services-based solutions.

B. An online interaction via the client site or a third-party site that leverages Microsoft technologies such as WPF, Silverlight or Live Services technology that demonstrates a promo, configuration, acquisition, usage or services scenario.

Assumptions

• A multi-platform Web-based experience is part of the expected solution proposals
• A much of your demonstration as possible should contain real interaction components and data exchange (which can run locally, leverage APIs, reliable internet access will be available to all teams)
• For promotion focused scenarios we’re not expecting teams to be experts in online coupon fraud, promo-code redemption, etc.
• The use of services and social media strategies should be used to extend at least one scenario
• Channel optimization across different types of channels and mediums (Mobile, in-store, touch interfaces, desktop clients, disconnected experiences should be used to extend at least one scenario
• Variations or parts of the experience can be delivered to desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile device, Surface, etc…
• Solutions should make use of technologies and services that provide rich, interactive, unique and collaborative experiences that leverage the best of Web 2.0 and social media, but it should also extend the capabilities and effectiveness of these services. (Including use of audio, video, etc.) where a unique and valuable experience can be added.
• Interface(s) must be delivered as Microsoft WPF and/or Silverlight 1 or 2 experiences as a core enabling feature.
• A Microsoft Surface and HP Touchsmart computer will be available to demonstrate scenarios on if requested. You’ll be able to test your solutions on this equipment starting Tuesday morning at Microsoft offices.

The name of this venture is Indigo. When asked to define the style and tone of Indigo one industry pundit said that Indigo is… “What would happen if big box retailers married the customer experience of Nike’s marketing with Nike.com and the user enthusiasm of friend feed to sell you zit cream, movies, iPods and IKEA furniture.” In bus stops and transportation hubs in Minneapolis and Denver they experimented with the following campaign.

Considerations

The following are considerations, not guidelines that should be evaluated when designing a solution:

• Extending the experience outside of the retail physical and online brand experience (including but not limited to Windows Live Services and leverage third-party communities—thinking beyond just Facebook, etc. but also looking and community sites for brands, ie pampers.com as an example, or affinity marketing such as the working lunch site (http://workinglunch.msn.com)
• Looking at how advances in visualization, viral marketing, relationship marketing, affinity marketing, casual gaming, advocate networks, offline applications can be utilized for this effort. For inspiration see http://www.artefactgroup.com/portfolio/nau/.
• Integration of Microsoft Live Services such as http://maps.live.com/ and http://dev.live.com/ and http://www.windowslive.com/explore.
• Usage of QR codes or online promotion and coupons and other next generation tagging and geo location services. See www.microsoft.com/tag.

Personas

Sandra Ladd, Mom

Sandra is a 51 year old homemaker in Littleton, CO. She’s just getting settled into a new townhome that she purchased with her husband after sending their youngest child off to college at the University of Texas. Her husband recently took a voluntary ‘retirement’ package from his employer and is now consulting part time—for a fraction of his previous income. Because the Ladd’s were planning on a retirement in a few years they are taking advantage of this opportunity to move into a new phase of their lives.

The have less money to spend, but they also have less expenses. Their son’s college is paid for with previous funds and their retirement savings is relatively intact. Sandra’s most recent splurge? Trading in the mammoth family Suburban for a Toyota Prius. Sandra is determined to put her family on a path towards simplicity, she’s exhausted from raising three children in a mammoth house, driving massive cars and just doing everything…well big. The Ladd’s would be considered middle-upper class by most standards and as Sandra sees what’s going on around her with the economy and even a few friends that are experiencing financial difficulties she feels a bit guilty about some of her families more conspicuous past consumption. But…she’s still got a new town house to decorate and now is the time for her and her husband to enjoy some of the simple pleasures and fruits of both of their labors. She’s using some of new found time with her husband to volunteer at a few local non-profits that they are both respective board members of and get more active in their local school district—which served their own children so well.

Sandra goals are to continue doing the simple things she enjoys, but she’d like to simplify what she does and minimize her impact on the world. She’ll still continue to by the cosmetics and brands that she loves and she’s also got a home to decorate, but she’d like to be a bit more intelligent about how she goes about decorating this time. She’s mostly looking for simply accessories to accent what she already has and isn’t in a particular hurry to get things done. She’s begun shipping care packages to her son at the University of Texas but has become a bit a frustrated when her youngest son complained about the Guns and Roses Chinese Democracy CD she sent him.

“Mom, nobody listens to CDs!” he told her on a recent phone call.

“You’ve been waiting for that one to come out for years.” She replied.

“That’s true he said, but not in this format, I’ve moved on.”

Sandra promised no more CDs but privately thought “I raised that kid for 18 years and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to continue to mother him.” But…the next time she sent him a gift card to download music on Amazon.com.

 

Philip Mendoza, Business owner

Philip mad a frantic call to his wife as he drives to work on Monday morning and takes an exit ramp on the expressway and prepares to return home. His wife answers the phone.

“I’ve got it.” She said. “I’ll be waiting for you. Can you still make your meeting?”

“Yea, it will be close but I’ll make it. You’re the best; I’ll see you in five minutes.”

With his video projector now safely in his trunk and ready for his meeting as he drives into downtown Minneapolis Philip starts running through a list of what he needs for his office. Post it notes, coffee, tea and small TV for the reception area. He’s certain he’ll forget most of this. What was he thinking when he left his cushy job to start his new business? He missed being able to dump a pile of receipts on his assistant’s desk and have her reconcile his expenses as he focused on what was ‘important’. Right now, everything seemed important as a business owner. Already locked into a lease because he didn’t negotiate favorable terms he’s determined to be smart about every decision he needs to make. But…”I’ve got to focus on what’s important too, growing this business and landing deals that pay us.”

Philip is the type of guy that starts a project at home and spends about as much time running to a Home Depot or a Lowes as he does doing the actually project. About 25% of the time he winds up hiring a professional to redo much of what he simply didn’t do well.

As a small business that consists of only himself and a part time receptionist he needs a simple way to keep on top of the little things he needs for his modest office. He looks at his calendar on his smart phone and notices that he’s got 6 meetings scheduled over the next 8 days at his office. “I use Skype for my offshore team, Trip It for travel, Mint for my finances. Why can’t I find an easy way to keep note pads in the office, staples in my stapler and Red Bull in the fridge?”

Philip’s not going to enter into any long term agreement or relationship with the multitude of companies and partners that can help him with his business. He’s too cheap and too unorganized to want a long term commitment. He goes to Office Max when he needs to and the grocery store when he needs to, he loves serendipity but realizes he needs more discipline and structure too. He needs someone that can help him keep the office coffers stocked with supplies and food and handle the last minute fire drill. What he really needs is someone that can tell him what he needs before he needs it.

 

Manuel Rob, College student

Manuel glances down at his cell phone and sees that it’s his local video store calling. He looks over at the dresser in his bedroom and knows immediately that they are inquiring about the DVDs that he checked out—4 weeks ago. “I need to get another NetFlix subscription”. He thinks, but then he remembers he had one, one that got cancelled after his credit card expired. He never bothered to update it and still has a movie on his shelf, “The Wages of Fear” that he checked out for a cinema writing class he had last semester. He sighs as his roommate comes in his room and asks if he’d like to go grab lunch.

“Not with you! I take care of myself and I know you’re just going to the Italian Beef place, it will screw up my work out this afternoon if I go there with you and all that salt will mess up my skin.” He states.

“Suit yourself you metrosexual prima donna.” Says his roommate as he grabs his cellphone and heads out the door, but before he leaves, he stops, “Hey, I forgot, you’re Mom called. She wants to know what you want for your birthday. I suggested a new attitude and she agreed but you should let her know if there is anything else. Oh, and I ate all your beef jerky and those dried cranberries you had laying around for breakfast, you should get some more.” The shoe Manuel threw at his roommate landed with thud against the door as his roommate sprinted out of the apartment.

Manuel flopped down on the couch and grabbed his laptop. “I should write that summary on Revolutionary Road for my lit. class now.” He thinks. Instead he watches Futurama and South Park on You Tube for a half hour and engages is a lively debate on Friend Feed about the pluses and minuses of various herbal supplements and facial moisturizers.

Finally he writes his short summary paper and hits print. As he surfs afternoon television for a few moments before departing for class he hears his printer beeping in his room. He walks into the room and discovers his printer is out of ink. He grabs his jacket, book, laptop, phone and MP3 player and heads out the door towards the library to print out his paper before his class thinking that perhaps he’ll pick up that new Robert Downey Jr. movie after class. “I just need to see if I can chase someone down to watch it with me.” He thinks but then remembers that he’ll actually have to buy it if he wants to watch it too as he’s persona non grata at all of his usual rental outlets. He ponders this as he walks to class thinking if he was a bit more together he could be having his family getting him some of this stuff for his birthday. He also remembers that his sister’s birthday is coming up quickly too. He knows he needs to get her something nice (but inexpensive as he is a college student after all) after she had been very generous and purchased an Xbox for him over the holidays. “I better show I care.” He thinks.

 

Ruth Cho, Global Product Manager, Consumer Packaged Goods Company

Ruth looked at her computer screen and cringes as she reads how Wal-Mart has missed its earning guidance. What is most troubling is that in a dismal year Wal-Mart is the highlight, outperforming all of the other retailers and grocers that carried the brand of frozen and refrigerated baking products and meals that she was the global product manager for. As she stepped out of her office and into her ‘war-room’ it was hard to fanthom how it would be possible to successfully launch the four new products from their portfolio in the coming year.

“What are we going to do?” She thinks. Recently negotiations and agreements with retailers and distributors had become even more painful coming out of a holiday season where every retailer had tried to out Wal-Mart Wal-Mart and, in effect, hurting everyone. But the year was not without highlights. Brand satisfaction and awareness was at an all time high for almost her entire portfolio. This was largely credited to Mrs. Cho’s efforts in conjunction with the CMO and CTO to overhaul the infrastructure for all of their Web properties and consolidate the agency vendor list that produced the myriad of branded sites for her portfolio.

The results were impressive on two fronts. The master brand site had been live for only 18 months but already had 1o million members. A recent affinity campaign done with a third-party portal and social networking site had brought over 600k new members to the site. “But how can I capitalize on this?” She wonders. She looks at her calendar and notices that she’s got a board meeting with the retailer Indigo, a position she was asked to take because of the industry recognition of Mrs. Cho’s success with using communities to increase affinity and loyalty with her brands. “I sure wish some of our partners could demonstrate how we could extend and leverage this.” She thinks.

PhizzPop New York

PhizzPop occurred in New York City on November 4th (Yes, THAT November 4th). Get a taste of what’s coming to Chicago on November 20th and register for this free event at www.phizzpop.com before we sell out (We’re getting close).

See an alternate version of this video here. (You'll need and be prompted to install Silverlight to watch these videos.)

Something new: BizSpark

Design Thinking Digest has been a bit of a ghost town lately and that’s largely due to two big efforts I’ve been focused on. One is the return of the PhizzPop Design Challenge Tour in the US (which I’ll talk about later) and a new program we announced today called BizSpark.

Some background. It’s sometimes easy to forget the roots and heritage of a company like Microsoft. Like many great businesses of yore it wasn’t sketched on the back of napkin but formulated in a dorm room. It was started by folks with a sense of curiosity—an itch that needed to be scratched. Sure there was ambition, there was also risk, but the founders of Microsoft had something that every great company also had that is seldom discussed. Someone that believed in them and enabled them.

In the case of Microsoft this occurred after Bill Gates called the creators of a new microcomputer called the Altair 8800. Bill and team demonstrated an implementation of the BASIC programming language for the system and afterward the computer maker agreed to distribute Altair BASIC. This enabled (or encouraged depending how you think about this) Bill Gates to leave Harvard and move to Albuquerque, where the computer manufacturer, MITS was located. It was there that Microsoft was founded.

So, how does Microsoft pay this forward as it were? One way we do this is through programs focused at higher education.

One of these programs is called DreamSpark. DreamSpark enables any eligible post-secondary student to download professional design and development tools from Microsoft at no charge during their education. This program is supported by active communities and a global innovation challenge that is called Imagine Cup.

But today Microosft is announcing that we are taking the principles of DreamSpark to a new level and a new audience. That audience is entrepreneurs and the program is called BizSpark.

BizSpark is a global program that will help startups grow into successful businesses through software support and a vibrant ecosystem that will allow new startups to deliver superior business advantage.

We’ll do this in three ways.

1. We’ll help startups receive fast and easy access to Microsoft’s current full-featured development tools, platform technologies, and production licenses of server products for immediate use in developing and bringing to market innovative and interoperable solutions with no upfront costs and minimal requirements.

2. We’ll also help startups receive professional support from Microsoft and BizSpark Network Partners around the world who provide a wide range of support resources for software startups. Network Partners are incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies and hosters who are vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship.

3. Finally, we’ll help startups get visibility. A dedicated Website, the BizSparkDB, will highlight promising companies from around the world every day. Through their relationship with Microsoft and BizSpark Network Partners, startups will achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners.

Every great idea needs a little push to be successful.

BizSpark will support startups with a global community of peers, entrepreneurial resources and experts who can help address the unique technical and business development challenges that startups face. 

If you happen to be in Chicago on Thursday you can join me for an event where we’ll discuss what BizSpark means for Chicago.

Please RSVP here or drop me or, if you have questions, drop me an email.

Addendum:

Some great insight on BizSpark.

Microsoft Jump-Starts Global Entrepreneurs With BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark Puts Startups on the Path to Business Success

Microsoft's BizSpark initiative offers free servers and software to startups

Microsoft offers free software for start-ups

Microsoft launches BizSpark program for startups

Introducing the startup of the day!

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/513652/35371200

Looking Closer: The future of the startup

Starting with a post by Jason Calacanis we see that the hangover of our overinflated economy is starting to impact the lifeblood of innovation in our culture, the startup. I suspect things will get a bit worse until they get better but some of the best innovations of our time in business models and products have been borne of grim economic realities. Regardless if you’re in a start-up or not there are some important things to consider.

If you’re a startup it’s time to give up the bread and circuses approach to running the business. Provable revenues matter more that share right now and leveraging technology, frugality, and business acumen to get to them quickly are more important than ever. There’s still a lot of capital in private hands right now that is looking for a great place to be. If you can demonstrate that you’re a good place for that exciting things can happen.

If your a service based company or a larger company think about what kind of services can you provide that can help startups overcome many of the obstacles they face in technology adoption or business market validation. It will be interesting to see what companies to do address these realities and continue to enable startups. Startups that can leverage accelerators to get there businesses spun-up and generating revenue will be the only game that matters soon.

The Olympics Tipping Point: Why Television will never be the same.

I think the 2008 will be looked at as the year that television and how we think about broadcasting begin to alter into something that would be unrecognizable only a few years ago.

The catalyst for this? NBC's broadcasting strategy for the 2008 Olympics. It's easy to look at what's disappointing about this effort (The lack of access to this great tool outside of the US and the somewhat challenging process of identifying your local NBC broadcaster but the benefits of NBC's actions and consumer demand will, I suspect, make these constraints go away in the future too.

NBC is basically conducting the largest online media event that has EVER been done on the Web. They'll offer up over 3,600 hours of video coverage and highlights that will reach tens of millions of viewers and enable hundreds of thousands of viewers to CONCURRENTLY watch events live or after the fact in the most mainstream Web browsers available for Windows PCs and the Mac. Below is a screen capture of the enhanced player with LIVE commentary.

The site is about far more than just streaming video. Enhanced modes in the player provide a wide screen experience, picture in picture and what I like to call the 'Elvis' mode which lets you go into a control room and watch 4 events at one. This is couple with commentary integration and a rich interactive navigation structure that lets truly see how much content is available.

There are three ingredients that were necessary to make this happen. One was a business rationale and way to monetize this experience. Truthfully this is where the regulatory structure of broadcasting and business models have work that must continue and it's also where existing online models fall short. The cost of the infrastructure and bandwidth and the regulatory environment of broadcast rights have been historical barriers. More cost effective technology and new service-focused advertising scenarios are what rationalized this effort for NBC.

The second was the technology that can make it happen. In this particular case NBC chose to use Silverlight because it was the most cost effective and scalable media presentation technology that could be used for this event. Silverlight made what NBC was attempting to do possible where just a year a ago it wouldn't have been possible from a cost and scalability perspective. Just like Tivo changed how consumers consume and watch traditional broadcasting I think Silverlight has the ability to change how we consume content as a connected social community online.

Finally, NBC focused on the experience and brought the 'long tail' of the Olympics to consumers. Gymnastics clubs across the US for example can now see everything that occurs at the Olympics, from training and trials and warm-ups to the entire event without having it crosscut with other competing events.

If you want to see the Olympics and everything that makes it a truly breathtaking event check it out at http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/

If you like what NBC is doing let them know about it at feedback@nbcolympics.com

I'm speaking at Webmaster Jam Session 2008

Want to get up close and personal with some of the best designer and Web developers in the country? Want to be inspired and get away from the same, old conference prattle? Then check out Webmaster Jam Sessions in it's new Atlanta home this year. Sean Seibel (Peer UXE) and myself will be talking about using the Web as a stepping stone for new ideas and concepts around social media by looking at the influence of gaming, imaging and robotics.

This is a nice conference where you truly get to interact with the speakers during the sessions and during the 'seams' of the event.

This is an accessible and reasonable event that I had a wonderful time at last year, it's even more of a no-brainer if you take advantage of a special discount code. Want to attend Web Master Jam Sessions and save 30%? Use the code 'MSOFT' when you register at https://2008.webjamsession.com/register/