Out-of-the-box Thinking

Rajesh Jain has an interesting quote from Andre Hargadon, the author of "How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth about How Companies Innovate" on out-of-the-box thinking. Its quite an interesting read:

"Innovation is the practical exploitation of any novel idea. Novel ideas can be inventions in the strict definition of the term, which means they didn't exist before, but most often they're not. Instead, they're based on taking an idea that's been developed somewhere else -- or combining a number of existing ideas -- and introducing them to a market that hasn't seen those combinations before.

By focusing on recombining existing ideas -- rather than inventing new ones -- we can better exploit the sources of innovation and, at the same time, increase the likelihood of their impact. It's much easier to think of things that have already been done and, when you introduce those ideas into new markets, they are already well developed. The trick is putting yourself or your firm into position to be the first to see these opportunities. Highly successful firms have developed a set of innovation strategies, called Technology Brokering strategies, that enable them to move between different worlds, to see how ideas from one market's past can be used in new ways in another market.

[There are two critical two roles of brokering.] The first is to bridge different worlds by moving between industries, markets and knowledge domains and seeing the range of existing ideas that are already out there. The second role is to build a new community around the ideas to attract not only customers but also competitors and suppliers. Don't focus on inventing and hoarding the rewards of that invention but instead on creating a community that wasn't there before.

It's much easier to recognize the similarities between two things (analogy) rather than come up with something that you've never thought of (invention). Solving problems with analogies means having an open mind, it means having seen many different things, and it means admitting that, whatever problem you're attempting to tackle right now, you're likely neither the first to try nor the most qualified. Somebody somewhere else has already solved this problem. Find out what they did and build on what they created."

Ian Fogg: Texting spam grumbles

Yes, I agree 100% with Ian here. There is nothing worse than SMS spam - especially if you end up paying to receive it ! Just over a week or two ago, almost everyone I know with a NEXTEL account got SMS-spammed by some vendor selling wallpapers and ringtones for NEXTEL products.

I'm waiting to get my bill this month - to see if I get billed for that message. If NEXTEL can't take precautions to ensure that large-scale SMS dispatchers are identified and blocked, the're going to face some serious issues from their customers.

Also see: http://blog.org/archives/cat_spam.html#000756

New gadgets from Nokia

A note from ">Russel Beattie's blog prompted me to check out Nokia's web site for more details. Being a Motorolan, it helps to keep track of the competition. The devices that got my attention:

* The Nokia 7600 - cool looking phone, comparable in uniqueness of shape to the Motorola MS150/200 (available only in South Korea). Now, how in the world do you hold/talk with one of these ?
* Nokia photo frames that allow you to beam/send images (via infrared or MMS) to a 5" display screen that has a 4K color and 320 x 240 pixel resolution. How good are the images taken from a cell phone camera gonna look ? - decent, maybe.
* Nokia Medallions - innovative. Probably the first vendor out there (besides Ericsson or Siemens I forget, who have fashionable wearable phones) to build a cool looking 'techno-jewelry'. It looks cool on the models on the site. I'm sure the teen market will get into it - especially with pictures based on your emotion feature.

Jet Blue and Privacy

JetBlue messed up its passengers by leaked out their personal info to a Pentagon contractor - for a study. The study might have been useful, but the fact is that they did not look into the best interest of their customers - who trusted their info with them. Seth Godin didn't quite agree with the fact that customers sued Jet Blue for this.

Seth says:

"Do these folks have ANY IDEA how much buying and selling and sneaking and lying is going on behind their back? If you've got a credit card, you've got no secrets."

That is analogous to saying, people rob others in many parts of the world. If a cop sees a thief mugging some, he should let him go, after all there are so many thieves out there. Somehow I don't quite agree with the logic. My comments, posted on the site, reposted here:

"Seth, you might be correct in saying that the people suing JetBlue might be doing it for selfish reasons - or maybe they didn't want their trips to be revealed since they went places they didn't want others to know... whatever be the reason.

The fact remains that what Jet Blue has done is not in the best interest of their customers and is irresponsible on the part of a corporation. I am a staunch believer that the American legal system's approach towards law suites [that makes pursuing them (however trivial) a piece of cake] is killing our own industries, making us less competitive than, say the Japanese. In spite of this conviction of mine, I also understand that the only way we can curb irresponsible behavior in this country is to sue the perpetrator.

If everyone lets this incident go, it would be a precedent for others to follow - maybe even bring the back door agreements you were alluding to, to the mainstream - since no one really cares. At least with back door agreements, both parties need to take extra caution - and this overhead itself might be putting a ceiling on such activity."

When do you say your Blog has focus ?

Well, one measure - at least for people with Google AdSense on their site (or for ppl like me, hosting my blog on Blogspot/Blogger) would be the ads listed on the Google Ad. Right now, my personal blog doesn't seem to have any focus and gets random ads. Check out my mobile blogging blog - this one seems to have some focus.... at least according to Google.

An Atlas of Cyberspaces

An amazing site with breath-taking visualizations of cyberspace and related stuff.

Friendster et. al.

An interesting service where ppl can meet one another via their friends. I can see a great deal of commercial use of this technology in corporations where this idea may be used to bridge corporate barriers and better interaction between individual for the benefit of the organization.

Mayber I spoke too soon orgnet.com seems to be built around this concept.

Ben Discoe describes his amazing work on visualizing his pose at Friendster. His 'future steps' section has a great deal of interesting content - namely substitute for Friendster, visualization tools etc.

What's the Hype with Skype ?

Skype - the new P2P telephony app from teh makers of Kaza. Supposed to have better audio than telephony and should work across firewalls and NATs. I need to download it and check it out muself.

Fast Company Now

I really didn't realize I had people viewing my site. Heath, to keep you in the loop. The talk went well, but I really haven't seen results - yet. But, recalling an anecdote regarding an CEO with an alcohol prohblem, from Susan's book, sometimes the results take upto 6 months to see light.

I'm a patient person..... :-)

WiFi Hotspots

Would I pay for WiFi access ? Maybe, if its introduced as a marginal addition to the cost of coffee or a sandwich that I purchase at a cafe. This is a listing of HotSpots in the Chicagoland area. Most of them are commercial - TMobile and the likes. I remember reading an article some place that says that Starbucks reports one or two users per hot spot - maybe price is what distracts people.

I for one would like wifi hotspots in more cafes. Panera Bread is my favourite in this regard - but I only know of two locations where I actually do get free wifi access - Panera Bread on IL-59 at Aurora, IL and another Panera at the intersection of Skokie Blvd and Golf Road in Skokie, IL. I wished the ones in Schumburg and Streamwood would add wifi to theirs - I would have frequented them more often then. Also see : http://www.wififreespot.com/il.html

Wi-Fi Networking News: SingTel Uses SMS to Admit Visitors

This is a pretty neat idea for network access to customers of cellular networks to access hot spots. Check out the article on SingTel

Yahoo! News - Should License Be Required to Go Online?

The argument given here is that since motorists are required to get a license before they are let onto the streets, why not have the same for internet use. Well, the analogy might be slightly incorrect IMHO, I would believe the analogy (that would correspond to the scanrios cited in this story) should be - people allowed to walk down a city street need to be licensed since a lot of people get mugged every day.

What a waste of bandwidth reading this article.

Fast Company Now

An interesting book I read the other day - Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. FastCompany has a few interesting questions taken from it. A few of my notes are:

1. If you decide on having a serious 'talk' go ahead and do it before its too late. Make sure you get the the point early on and don't beat around the bush. I just had mine at the office today. Its too early to judge the results, but I am optimistic.

2. Remember to note 'whats at stake', what you want to 'resolve' and bring the other party in the discussion.

3. Make the first pitch short - 60 seconds at the most. Grab their attention.

4. Don't be afraid to be to the point.

More later....