It seems that the end of the summer is also a time to contemplate. Foliage with its fascinating and colourful “designs” visually tells us that a new season has begun.
I don’t know how my friends at the US west coast experience this time of the year, but I find it always hard to get the transition between seasons and accordingly get the switch done. As a consequence my blogging activities here on Vol.2 design-management.de always slow down a little bit. While I’ve stepped off from blogging for more than a month in Oct/Nov/Dec 2004 this year I’ve spent some time reading other people’s blogs and leaving comments on various sites.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able yet to sophisticate the “commenting business” ;-) as my friends from the US like Niti Bhan, Michael Wagner (follow his exchange of thoughts with Niti on her blog) or Steve Portigal. On the other hand I find it highly inspiring to invest some more time in reading what other people have to say.
While some of you here in Europe might have noticed BusinessWeek has considerably increased their activities around Business, Design and Innovation in the last months and since September 05 Bruce Nussbaum also runs a blog. Bruce seems to be a fan of Apple Computer (I don’t know if he owns an iPod?) as well and ever since I own an iPod Nano since late September this year as meanwhile some 1.000.000 consumers in the world I’m wondering as well if I should have waited for the latest iPod video with a similar look and feel as the Nano. Anyway after I’ve bought a silicon jacket I feel well protected against scratches ;-)
While the “scratching” discussion is somehow neglectible I find the debate about Apple’s product launching strategy far more interesting. Many users or potential buyers want the best value for their money and accordingly wait for a new product to arrive in the shops and ignore the current but almost “old” product. The same logic applies to the iPod mini and its successor the Nano. The issue in this case however is: What if the successor is not perceived as a “real” replacement and if customers suddenly split in two groups each favouring either the Nano or the Mini?!
Well, there are many smart people out there on the web discussing this from various perspectives: Marketing, Technology, Design, etc. While following the various discussions this reminded me on the topic of “disruptive innovation” a term initially coined by Harvard’s Clayton Christensen. A very good and critical summary of these ideas can be found on Dave Pollard’s Blog (I must admit that for more than a year Dave’s insights are a real benchmark for me and I’d wish I could summarise and comment on complex ideas in the same manner as he does; My compliments Dave and thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!)
To make a long story short: While the identification of “disruptive forces” is not really rocket science, but rather logical and comprehensible I find the application to the case of Apple quite tricky. The following quote is taken from Dave’s blog who’s taken it from Christensen:
The Innovator’s Dilemma or The Innovator’s Solution, he (edt. note: Christensen) recaps the definitions of the two main categories of innovation:
– Sustaining Innovations are new, higher-margin, significantly more valuable products and services brought to an existing market, a known group of customers. Large corporations, who ‘have’ most of those customers, have a huge advantage in introducing such innovations.
– Disruptive Innovations are new products and services that extend the market to a whole new class of customers (usually down-market, by introducing a cheaper version or alternative). As these innovations improve they gradually start to eat away at the up-market version, sometimes destroying it. (His books have many examples of both types, the most famous disruptive innovations being the Mini-computer and the PC which largely destroyed the mainframe computer market.”
Does the Nano follow a “disruptive” approach by addressing a different product dimension called “physical size” or is it rather bringing an offer to existing customers following the same product/services development path as previous products? Is the iPod Video addressing a new segment destroying old habits of consuming TV shows or movies? Or is it rather loading the gadget with new features (which is an indication of sustaining innovations)? And last but not least: Can a company roll-out too many good products in a too short time frame? And: What is the role of the designer in this process? How much “Design Thinking” is possible and how much “Stock market Pressure” is there at work? Questions worth to be considered by a “Design Manager”!?
