Business Strategy, Marketing, Innovation, Technology, New Product Management



Breakout Topics

Photos of the Breakout Topics from our Flickr group

3D Pong Game

Sep 7th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, General, Information Technology, Innovation, Strategy, Technology, Technology Strategy

From Engineering.com

3D Pong Game

While this is a fun time waster.  What does it tell us about the future of interactive technology?  Will 3D TV etc. be big?   What does this mean for business?  How can you use the emerging 3D technology to create competitive advantage?

What do you think?



Officeless Generation (CNN Video)

Sep 7th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Information Technology, Technology Strategy

From CNN

Officeless Generation

Technology has enabled the “officeless” generation.  Do you think this will continue to grow as a way of working?  Will this just become an extension of our offices and work anywhere/everywhere world?  Is this a good thing?

Should we as managers encourage and plan for this work-style?

What do you think?



Genesis of Sixth Sense with Pranav Mistry

Sep 4th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, Information Technology, Innovation, New Product Management, Technology

Thanks Naif

These two videos have Pranav Mistry explaining how the Sixth Sense Came to be at TED India.

Pranav Mistry ONE

Pranav Mistry TWO

What do you think?



Coolest Keyboard Ever!

Sep 4th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, Feature, General, Information Technology, Innovation, Technology

From Gunnar

Check out these videos of the coolest keyboard design ever.

BlindType

Do you agree?



“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aug 5th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Knowledge Management, Quotable Quotes

Quote Details

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aristotle



YouTube Category Killer over iTunes?

Aug 4th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, General, Information Technology, Innovation, Lean Product Development, Marketing, Technology Strategy

From Fast Company

Check out the graphs and trends.

State of Internet Music

From the article “Interestingly, it wasn’t Apple that Garland viewed as the most important name in music, even though the company’s iPods, iPhones, and iTunes indicate otherwise. “YouTube is increasingly the category killer,” argued Garland. “When people ask me what is the biggest name in music in my opinion, they want me to say Apple. I usually answer: YouTube.”

The music business is shifting.  It is setting the stage for our business models in “everything” to change.  Products?  Services?  Can you have a product without a service, or, for that matter, a service that does not somehow connect to the web?  There are lessons to learn in marketing, product development, strategy, information technology, and just about everything community and commercial.

From the article ” Pandora now represents 1.7% of all radio listening–really a shocking figure to think about.”.   Wow, FREE service, possibly paid service overtaking the ad space?   Lessons to be learned here?

Choice rules.  Custom selection of music is killing “album” sales.  From the article,  ”The music business historically has been built around albums,” explained Silverman. “This album-centrism is like saying the sun revolves around the Earth. We don’t listen to albums now; we listen to collections of songs.”

What are the Lessons to be learned from this article?



Product Placement in Music Videos

Aug 4th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Brand, Marketing, Online Marketing, Technology Strategy

Thank you Jason

From: The New York Times

With our choices for entertainment and “content consumption” being ever wider, and the traditional venues for advertising becoming increasingly less effective, advertisers are looking for more places to place TARGETED ads.

Product Placement in Music Videos

Are you seeing more of this?  Are you tolerant of this?  Do you expect this?   Will you pay more for no ads?



Jul 19th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, Feature, General, Leadership

Reposted from the Greenleaf Newsletter

http://www.greenleaf.org/

The Rock Upon Which A Good Society is Built

ias

“THIS IS MY THESIS: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built.  Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions – often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt.  If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”

Servant Leadership as a way of leading.

What do you think?



Fortune Google 24/7 Blog

Jul 15th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, Feature, General, Information Technology, Innovation, Technology Strategy

From Fortune Magazine

Fortune GOOGLE 24/7

This blog looks like a great way to keep up with all things GOOGLE from a business and technology standpoint.  I will be checking it often.

What do you think?  Any other sources so dedicated besides GOOGLE itself?



Knowledge Workers and Bitsmiths

Jul 12th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, Feature, Information Technology, Innovation, Knowledge Management, New Product Management

From Harvard Business Review Blog

Do your Knowledge Workers have a Bitsmith?

This post presents a wonderful concept that points out the need for specialized tools for the knowledge era.  That of a “Bitsmith”.   Bitsmiths, according to the post ” are people who have deep knowledge of both the work content and the tools used to support the work. In other words, they are almost as expert in derivatives or computer design as they are in computer-programming languages. Because they understand both the domain and the tools, bitsmiths can take an idea from concept to implementation quickly .”

The article makes the case that high performance teams need to have a “bitsmith” just as many towns in the “old west”  had blacksmiths to create the tolls they needed.

What do you think of this concept?



B2B Marketing Lessons

May 18th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, Marketing, Online Marketing

From HubSpot

This blog posting lists 27 “Lessons” for B2B Marketers.  B2BMarketing Lessons   I really like the recognition of the role of keyword driven content in a number of the items listed.  The focus on integrated marketing tactics across traditional, social, and online tactics is also interesting and important for B2B marketers to understand.

What do you like? Are there any tactics or lessons you would add?



Managing Customers’ Dreams

May 17th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, New Product Management, Operations Management

From Managing Automation Blog — Chris Chiappinelli

Managing Customers’ Dreams

This blog post plus video sums up the business challenges and requirements of the design-build (Continuous Product Development) business for industrial automation well.  http://www.enhancedautomation.com

A focus on the customer requires a focus on quality, cost, specification and reality; often many of these concepts clash.

Are there other challenges?



Product Portfolio Management (PPM) Research

Apr 25th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Leadership, New Product Management, Technology Strategy

From PDMA Visions

Portfolio Pain Points

This study, once again points out how poorly we manage our NPD Projects.  We do not seem to think of the collection of projects as a portfolio and do not manage them as such.  If we are to achieve our strategic goals for NPD as well as our objectives for each of the projects we have in process, we need to manage them as a portfolio.

Too many projects and poor decision making is at the root cause of poor success rates for both strategic and tactics objectives.

This research connects to a previous post regarding an article by Robert Cooper   Cooper Article

What do you think?  Am I overly concerned?



FORD to use Web to Harvest Product Ideas

Apr 25th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: General, Innovation, Knowledge Management, New Product Management

Thanks Peter for the article suggestion

From Detroit News

FORD Product Idea Website Article

From the website “Ford Motor Co. is creating a “idea portal” on its Web site, to give consumers the opportunity to suggest new features, allow others to critique them and vote for which ones should be considered by Ford’s product development team.”

Seems like a great idea.

Article on FORD Site About Idea Gathering

What do you think?  Should they allow ALL comments to be seen by everyone?

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100413/AUTO01/4130330/1148/Ford-to-harvest-product-ideas-from-Web#ixzz0m9T8mjH4



GOOGLE (and others) Tracking your Wireless Address

Apr 25th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, Information Technology, Technology

From “Digital Society”

Google tracking and mapping your wireless devices

From the blog post “The MAC address which can uniquely identify a person’s laptop, smartphone, or any other device with 802.11 Wi-Fi capability”.

What do you think?  What will you do?



Effective Gating — Gates with Teeth

Apr 25th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Innovation, New Product Management, Technology Strategy

This article is from Marketing Management — You may need to be a Member of AMA to Access all content

Effective Gating by Robert G. Cooper

Effective Gating ABSTRACT

This article is a great reminder that we have TOO many projects in our product development pipeline.

We have ineffective gates (and NPD Processes) that do not KILL bad projects.

We do not have effective (NPD) portfolio management systems and governance processes.

We have TOO many small, incremental projects to be an effective  (NPD) profit growth engine.

What do you think?



Google Execs Prosecuted in Italy

Apr 24th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, Information Technology

Thank you Amita.

Video from Wall Street Journal Online

Google Execs Prosecuted in Italy

This (February 2010) video brings us some news, but it also points out how powerful social media can be and the concerns over privacy.

It also brings to light the power of governments (and their courts) along with differing opinions of “freedom of information”.

What do you think?  Should GOOGLE Execs be responsible?



Google Doodle

Apr 24th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Information Technology, Innovation, Marketing, Online Marketing

Thanks Hugh

This article is from GOOGLE

Doodle for GOOGLE

From the article ” Doodles are known as the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists.”

I have always enjoyed the doodles, but did not know the history.   One of my Favorites is featured in the article, Einstein’s Birthday

CNN Article on GOOGLE Doodle

Perhaps you might submit a suggestion.  Check out the history and pick a favorite.



NSF and Birth of the Internet

Apr 24th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: General, Information Technology, Innovation, Strategy, Technology, Technology Strategy

Thank you Hugh

From the site of the National Science Foundation

Birth of the Internet Interactive Presentation

This interactive timeline has some great pictures, text and video segments that talk about the history of the development of the internet.

What was your favorite part?  Mine is in the 1990’s section.  “Tools to Untangle the Internet”.  Development of the Web Browser.    Check out how the “number of computers on the internet grows”   Also, take a look at the sequential map of the growth of the internet from 1969  through 2007.



Better Email Marketing, Better Subject Lines

Apr 22nd, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Breakout Topics, Feature, Marketing, Online Marketing

From Constant Contact

Better Email Subject Lines

I found this brief article with 6 direct points on how to write a better email campaign communication.  When creating your marketing tactics, you need to understand your customer or prospect to get their attention.  Once you have it, do not forget to have a well integrated, measureable  campaign with clear objectives and a great, valuble “call to action” included in the communication.

What do you think?