Here is another interesting talk from TED. Tom Wujec analyses the Marshmallow Challenge (www.marshmallowchallenge.com) and what it takes to succeed.
Just came across this interesting talk by Dennis Mong at TEDxNASA
So while scoring a goal is very well possible today, it will take some more development until robots really can play football, also emotionally.
And at 12:20 he starts sharing the labs secrets of innovation and creativity. Very interesting.
Amazon just announced and released the next service on their Web Services / Cloud Service for Notifications (Amazon SNS), giving applications http- or email-notifications for free (up to a limit).
At the recent keynote announcing the new iPhone OS 4 Apple also introduced improved push notification support for the iPhone through a always-on IP connection.
Obviously also for Android such a service is available through Xtify. This even supports geo-location based notifications.
In parallel the GSMA, the global organization of telco operators is working – in the 3rd attempt – on standardization of push notification APIs within their OneAPI activity. This API will allow to directly interact with the network operators infrastructure. The first version works with SMS and MMS, i.e. once operators have implemented the APIs and opened to application developers (access conditions still to be defined).
So the question is whether there is still a need for such operator based APIs in the future?
Well, the key difference is that those APIs would work with any kind of device based on SMS and MMS (obviously with limitations in on-device application integration). Looking at the betavine community, endorsed by Vodafone, as an framework for implementing, supporting and testing the OneAPIs, a focus is on developing countries. There extending application support for simple devices will a major driver for extending their value.
Mobile Payment has been a topic in the mobile telco industry for the last 10 years with several attempts on standardized APIs and a few successful implementation in some countries.
Now this area of potential mobile operator unique value-add is also in the process to disappear due to smartphone applications. The last one I came across is Square (https://squareup.com/, see also cool video at youTube), which provides a cool credit card reader for the iPhone (and now the iPad). So this does not only work with virtual money, but with credit cards.
Or take Bump (available for iPhone and Android), which also allows to exchange money between mobile phones.
The space for telco operator based payment solution is shrinking.
[Update] There is more news out now that waving iPhones (or any other mobile phone in the future) will become an official payment method in stores soon.
Over at Design Thinking Tim Brown (Ideo’s CEO) asked the question about the beauty of organisations. I have started to think about a similar question concerning business models so I dropped a few thoughts as comments.
Still working on finding an answer on the business model question.
I really like the question of beauty and aesthetics of organizations. The major challenge with organizations is that you can not feel, touch or experience organizations. So you can not easily build prototypes or enact the service experience. And I guess organization is also related to the corresponding business model and in some cases has a legacy/history/tradition aspect that is hard to capture.
The underlying issue here is that we are lacking a agreed visual representation of organizations and business model that would allow us to use aesthetic rules to evaluate them. The closest I have come across up to now is the Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder (http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com/) that allows to show business model, but still lacks aesthetic criteria.
Evaluating organizations the question is also what the final success criteria is and whether “beauty” is really translated in to innovation or business success or profitability. And is a hierarchical organization more beautiful than a small team collaborative approach. Is the 150-organization size limit at Gore beautiful ?
So I would start with looking at ways to visualize organizations and translate business models that allow aesthetic evaluation.
Hi Tim
couldn’t stop thinking about your “organizational beauty” question on top of
my previous post and here are a few more thoughts.
You take the bee colony as an example of beautiful organization and I would agree. The focus of the bees, however, is not so much on innovation but on robustness and survival. So innovation might require a specific view on organization.
Your question tries to map the abstract concept of organization to the abstract concept of beauty (and throwing in innovative-ness as a third) and I feel you probably need to put some “facts” in the mapping process.
So I would start by identifying measurable criteria/factors assumed to be relevant for innovation and organization like: team size, different areas of knowledge/competency involved in innovation process, number of
contacts required in teams, geographical distribution of teams, speed and levels of decision making within organization, innovator archetypes involved in teams, distribution of power within team (equal votes vs. few leaders).
I would then put this in some tool that could translate this for different organizations into a visual representation, e.g. using Processing and tree diagrams (see for example http://www.generative-gestaltung.de/M_6_4_01_TOOL ).
Playing around with this I guess you could already see whether there is beauty, e.g. very colorful or evenly distributed patterns in specific organizations.
Coming to the organizational archetypes for innovation you could feed organizational structures for teams which could be considered innovative/creative and look at the results, e.g. film studios/tv productions, ad agencies, research institutes, product design/development firms, startups, etc.
I would think that this could also generate some overarching principles for innovative teams, e.g. like Gore’s “not more than 150 people in one organization” or Shaker-like principles you already mentioned.
Today I found time to watch the complete recording of Eric Schmidt’s (CEO of Google) appearance at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February.
Just came across this outstanding analysis of Clay Shirky. It covers many interesting aspects of how the Internet effects traditional, complex business models. He compares business models with old cultures (e.g. Mayas, Romans) and uses the theories of Joseph Tainter about the fall of complex societies as a model for complex business models.
An interesting reading in this context is also Jared Diamond’s “Collapse“, who also looks at the reasons why societies collapse and especially addressed environmental aspects.
Clay Shirky takes the 2 key reasons Joseph Tainter identifies for the collapse of societies: a complex, (overly) sophisticated organisation and environmental change and maps this to the impact of the Internet (environmental change) to the complex business models (organisation) of old industries like media/movie, telecommunications.
A brilliant analysis with a lot of take-aways.
[Update] And Idris Mootee at Innovation Playground is also contemplating on the challenges and risks of large, complex organisation in an ever faster changing environment.
Engadget and AppleInsider report of an Apple filing of a head-mounted iPhone dock patent (or here). Is this the next thing Apple would do ?
Considering how many cool augmented reality apps we have seen and discussed at he MobileMonday Germany National Summit in December, it seems clear that this will be one of the next big things. (Or see on iPhoneNess here for a list of augmented reality iPhone apps). However, current handling by holding your smartphone up and shifting around in front of you is probably not a sustainable mode of operation.
So head-mounted devices (not even considering 3D for the moment) would be the next thing to provide an easy user-experience for augmented reality. Whether the proposal outlined in the patent filing is the best approach is to be seen.
Would Apple really take this up ? In the past their approach has been to use an existing category, e.g. MP3-player, smartphone and create a device, iPod, iPhone with superior customer experience and end-to-end integration. The iPad is the first where they have really driven a new category and not taken the existing netbook category and evolved it further. Although admittedly there have been tablet PCs and eBook readers available before, but not to a significant market presence. So a head-mounted device would clearly be pushing this new category approach even further.
On the other hand the patent filing outlines more an accessory to an iPod or (smaller) iPhone than a new device category. Wearing classes myself for the largest part of my life I think that the accessory approach would probably be not very comfortable and too heavy to wear over a longer period of time. Some kind of head-up display projected into glasses would probably be more suitable for long-term usage in augmented reality applications. So taking the accessory approach I would rather see a small, bluetooth connected projector that can be attached to glasses.
But definitely pushing this with a convincing user experience is a fascinating next step to watch.
[Update:] Well, I played around with my iPod nano a bit and the challenge is that the eyes have difficulties, i.e. it is impossible, to focus at the close distance of classes on the picture on the screen. I don’t think that this is a resolution issue, so some more research is probably necessary to make this work.