From Harvard Business School Working Knowledge : Professor Clayton Christensen

This blog post hits on so many high points of marketing and new product development, I do not know where to begin.  Check out the ideas of “hiring a milkshake” and the market research that was done to determine the drivers for purchase (no pun intended).  Be sure to check out the video embedded into the text.

Milkshake Marketing

Also check out the comments about the Greatest Tool ever, the Milwaukee Sawzall “Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. has cornered the market on reciprocating saws with its trademarked Sawzall, which does the job of helping consumers safely saw through pretty much anything. Its Hole-Hawg drills, which make big holes between studs and joists, are also quite popular. The company’s other tools, which rely on the Milwaukee brand, are not nearly as celebrated.

“The word ‘Milwaukee’ doesn’t give you any market whatsoever,” Christensen says.”

Suggested by Luke

Oregon Manifest Article and embedded videos.

From Luke “Design competition/collaboration of leading design firms like IDEO with bespoke/custom bicycle shops.  Very interesting to see the different approaches”

What do you think?

Thanks Lane.

Smartphone Ultrasound

Product development can use the smartphone as a development platform and delivery mechanism.  Notice how the product includes a peripheral and software.  Now, what about the online service.  Humm, NPD is changing.  No?

New Product Development strategy — using the phone as a platform, creating new business models,  adding value through ongoing software development.  Should we build “analog” products that do not have associated services?  Ever?

From Fast Company

An interesting read  User-Lead Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs

It could be “harmful” to listen to users.  Apple and Ikea agree.   From our class, we could also say Toyota agrees.

From the article ” The user is king. It’s a phrase that’s repeated over and over again as a mantra: Companies must become user-centric. But there’s a problem: It doesn’t work. Here’s the truth: Great brands lead users, not the other way around.”

What do you think?

Thank you Luke for the recommendation

Kick Ass Prosthetics

Now this is wonderful customer driven design.  Great engineering, innovative design and wonderful products.

Check out the video at the end of the article about how and why this has been designed and developed.

What do you think?

Article from Fast Company

3D Multi-Touch Everywhere

Have you seen people getting frustrated trying to use “Apple touchscreen gestures” on devices other than an iphone or a ipad?  Apple would like to “own” the 3D Multi-Touch.  The article talks about using it in sports equipment for user feedback as well as TV remotes.

Have you actually tried “flipping” from a touch screen that did not have the feature?  I have.   What do you think? Cool?   Where could the patent be used?

Thank you Lane.

GM Names new PD Chief

Focus on Speed and Quality.  Humm, sounds like they are falling right into Toyota Lean Product Development clutches.

What do you think?

Thank you Gunnar, Aaron, and Luke for this wonderful recommendation.

Steven Johnson Video

If you are into Innovation and a neat way to present ideas, you need to check out this video (and book) by Steven Johnson .

What do you think?

From Fortune and Fast Company

Conversation with Jan Chipchase – Fast Company

Formerly of Nokia Fast Company TED Video Included

Fortune Magazine — Indiana Jones in Asia

Voice of Customer in Cell Phone Development– How he does it.   What do you think?  How can YOU do this for your company?

Thank you to Professor William E Huxhold for speaking to our class regarding the “Use of GIS in Business” as a prelude to GIS Day at UW Milwaukee and for suggesting the following videos an introduction to GIS.

http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/episode1/complete

http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/episode2/complete

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXqLHSBP_x0 (Start here)

How can you see GIS being used in Marketing as well as other aspects of business?

AP Video on YouTube

Article on Manufacturing Business Technology

ABC News Video and Comentary on Engadget      Check out the Video Reporter walking in front of car

Amazing?   How long will it be before we realize this is a reality, not science fiction?   Should we be developing this further?

What do you think?

A short Video regarding the Tablet coming out in early 2011

RIM Tablet Video

Forbes Article

Can they be viable competition for Apple?  Why or Why not?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

From KM Edge

Referred by Evelyn of MSOE Rader School of Business MG-750

KM Edge (blog) from APQC presents a wonderful PPT which looks at three Ba Based Knowledge Management approaches in Japanese Companies.  As we study Knowledge Management, we learn more of the concept of Ba.  This presentation gives us some insight into the power of Ba.

Ba Based Knowledge Management Approaches

Comments?

An article on “strategy+ business” entitled “Profits Down, Spending Steady: The Global Innovation 1000″

” Booz & Company’s annual study of the world’s biggest corporate R&D spenders finds that most companies have stuck with their innovation programs despite the recession — and many are boosting spending to compete more effectively in the upturn.”

Within the article we read quotations from business leaders  “Innovation is what drives our competitive position in all three of our markets — automotive, professional, and consumer — and therefore we can’t back off,” says Robert Lardon, corporate vice president for strategy and investor relations at Harman International Indus­tries Inc. Adalio Sanchez, general manager of IBM’s System X server business, echoes that point of view: “I would argue that the recession is a catalyst for in­creased innovation.”

This is encouraging for new product developers and a welcome sign that innovation is live and well, and in fact, an imperative for survival — long term.

What do you think?

Ok, here is some more information and a look at the Plastic Logic eReader.   Looks pretty cool to me.

Plastic Logic Que e-Reader

We read that the Que may be actually targeted at something other than the Kindle. ” But Archuleta also repositions the Que as something a little different to merely being a Kindle killer e-reader device. He notes “Que enhances business performance and gives you a competitive edge.” The business angle’s also played up with mention of support for PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel…and there’s even the intriguing phrase “powerful tools for interacting with and managing the content.” That implies you may be able to do more than just annotate documents on the Que–will you be able to actually edit them, or run a Powerpoint presentation? We can’t tell yet, but it certainly seems that Plastic Logic’s Que will enter the e-reader game right at the top end, perhaps tending toward limited Tablet PC capabilities.”

What do you think?  Pretty cool?  Will the market handle a “premium product”?  Does this seem to square off with the new tablets that we read are coming?  DO you want one?