Steve Jobs lets out a big secret - How to innovate
The Iphone is already a hit - its an innovation, rule-changing, category killer , and its not even shipping. But what I find most interesting about the keynote and Jobs interviews is when he said (rough quote) "We were going to partner with a different phone company, but wanted to retain total control of the hardware and the software". Thats a gem we can all consider when trying to foster innovation.
Why do "startups" seem to be easier places to innovate than large corporations? Why does "incubation" or a small off to the side team sometimes lead to innovation inside large companies, but sometimes not? Why are the Xbox, the Ipod, the Iphone, the Tivo all successful at being rules changing innovators? (And yes, I include the Xbox, while I don't have one nor a Tivo.)
The Xbox did convince consumers, as well as Sony and Nintendo, there is a market for expensive game consoles. The Tivo broke ground on all the problems with VCRs we have been "putting up with" for years. Same for the Ipod. And it dawns on me - to innovate, you want total control of the entire "stack" - hardware, software, OS, etc. You can't innovate with too many other parties, other companies saying "no , that can't be done" or spending tons of time convincing them to add a feature "no one else wants" (by definition, you are going to try to do that when you innovate...)
Which also explains why its hard to "outsource innovation" or rather - innovate when parts of your stack or process are outsourced. Its a total contradiction. No phone company would agree to all the hardware demands Jobs made to make the iphone what it is. So he kept total control.
Innovation comes from talent, and isolation from executives, third party suppliers, anyone who can say "no". And you have to control your entire stack to truely innovate - if your OS, hardware, drivers, anything, comes from outside your company or work group - its hard to innovate - you are slowed down, beaten into marginal tweaks and improvements, and also your ability to keep things trade secret are greatly reduced.
There are hardware demands that the xbox software teams needed to make the xbox what it is, same for the tivo, ipod, and iphone. And they would not have been able to get where they are without total control. This explains a lot of the new "devices" that we all love, and where they are, and are not, coming from. We are starting to see a lot of them (not a newton or palm every 5 years, we are seeing 5 new devices every quarter...) because the costs and intellectual experience curve to control the whole stack (hardware, connectivity, software) are getting easier, the development and design environments are getting better.
Look at the Zune - a compromise between what the customer wants , lots of (too many) folks at MSFT want, and what the recording industry wants. Loses out. Ipod - more of what the customer wants, few folks at apple, very few demands of the recording industry. Ipod wins.
Too many cooks spoil the soup.
It also makes you look at companies like SAP and DELL differently - as we move into the decade of innovation and intellectual value, not production value - our service based economy matures - companies that don't own thier entire production and engineering and stack have trouble innovating. Folks along thier production "supply chain" (that we all started in the 90s - the extended corporation) can borrow your new ideas into your competitors products as soon as you ask them to place them in yours...
Its a big failing of the "just in time", "outsourced", "distributed" corporation that has become popular. You are dependant and controlled and influenced by these partners. You can't innovate in that situation.
Iphones, Tivo, Xbox, Ipod, and Java - all great game changing innovations - partly because they had control of the whole stack.
There are a number of technologies that are getting so easy to use, a single small team of geniuses can handle it, from design, hardware, software, to application. And this contentration of talent, of innovation, is going to really change the product space in the next 20 years. Breakthrus in ease of use of the prior list, robot platforms (roomba ships a platform kit now), and nano technologies are going to cause an "explosive" innovation age.
The "guilds" are being broken up.
So how does this affect my trying to deliver software, and perhaps yours?
Own, understand, and control as much of your "dependency stack" as you can. Open source OS, languages, platforms, tools. Give your teams this "freedom" to innovate and not be curtailed by your "partners".
And keep the number of execs, and thier wishes, to a minimum, and to 0 once requirements are frozen.
I have seen many a project in my days what went run-away from the hidden cost, of the quiet requirements that never stopped, from executives that the team did not want to "say NO" to.
To many cooks, and the soup never ships....
Why do "startups" seem to be easier places to innovate than large corporations? Why does "incubation" or a small off to the side team sometimes lead to innovation inside large companies, but sometimes not? Why are the Xbox, the Ipod, the Iphone, the Tivo all successful at being rules changing innovators? (And yes, I include the Xbox, while I don't have one nor a Tivo.)
The Xbox did convince consumers, as well as Sony and Nintendo, there is a market for expensive game consoles. The Tivo broke ground on all the problems with VCRs we have been "putting up with" for years. Same for the Ipod. And it dawns on me - to innovate, you want total control of the entire "stack" - hardware, software, OS, etc. You can't innovate with too many other parties, other companies saying "no , that can't be done" or spending tons of time convincing them to add a feature "no one else wants" (by definition, you are going to try to do that when you innovate...)
Which also explains why its hard to "outsource innovation" or rather - innovate when parts of your stack or process are outsourced. Its a total contradiction. No phone company would agree to all the hardware demands Jobs made to make the iphone what it is. So he kept total control.
Innovation comes from talent, and isolation from executives, third party suppliers, anyone who can say "no". And you have to control your entire stack to truely innovate - if your OS, hardware, drivers, anything, comes from outside your company or work group - its hard to innovate - you are slowed down, beaten into marginal tweaks and improvements, and also your ability to keep things trade secret are greatly reduced.
There are hardware demands that the xbox software teams needed to make the xbox what it is, same for the tivo, ipod, and iphone. And they would not have been able to get where they are without total control. This explains a lot of the new "devices" that we all love, and where they are, and are not, coming from. We are starting to see a lot of them (not a newton or palm every 5 years, we are seeing 5 new devices every quarter...) because the costs and intellectual experience curve to control the whole stack (hardware, connectivity, software) are getting easier, the development and design environments are getting better.
Look at the Zune - a compromise between what the customer wants , lots of (too many) folks at MSFT want, and what the recording industry wants. Loses out. Ipod - more of what the customer wants, few folks at apple, very few demands of the recording industry. Ipod wins.
Too many cooks spoil the soup.
It also makes you look at companies like SAP and DELL differently - as we move into the decade of innovation and intellectual value, not production value - our service based economy matures - companies that don't own thier entire production and engineering and stack have trouble innovating. Folks along thier production "supply chain" (that we all started in the 90s - the extended corporation) can borrow your new ideas into your competitors products as soon as you ask them to place them in yours...
Its a big failing of the "just in time", "outsourced", "distributed" corporation that has become popular. You are dependant and controlled and influenced by these partners. You can't innovate in that situation.
Iphones, Tivo, Xbox, Ipod, and Java - all great game changing innovations - partly because they had control of the whole stack.
There are a number of technologies that are getting so easy to use, a single small team of geniuses can handle it, from design, hardware, software, to application. And this contentration of talent, of innovation, is going to really change the product space in the next 20 years. Breakthrus in ease of use of the prior list, robot platforms (roomba ships a platform kit now), and nano technologies are going to cause an "explosive" innovation age.
The "guilds" are being broken up.
So how does this affect my trying to deliver software, and perhaps yours?
Own, understand, and control as much of your "dependency stack" as you can. Open source OS, languages, platforms, tools. Give your teams this "freedom" to innovate and not be curtailed by your "partners".
And keep the number of execs, and thier wishes, to a minimum, and to 0 once requirements are frozen.
I have seen many a project in my days what went run-away from the hidden cost, of the quiet requirements that never stopped, from executives that the team did not want to "say NO" to.
To many cooks, and the soup never ships....
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