Noise Between Stations

Category: Products

  • Employee-Customer mashups

    For the sake of innovation, it’s tempting to mash up people internal and external to a company. We’ve seen how important it is that employees be customers, like JetBlue’s employee-centered priorities, and how customers can contribute to companies. This could be one of the most important changes in culture we can bring to companies, but not one of the easiest. Beside the discomfort it will arouse in traditional corporate cultures, we’re still figuring out how to do it.

    For example, I’ve realized lately in working to co-create with clients that it needs to be gradual process, because the party you’re creating with doesn’t share the same content or process and needs time to learn. Rather than strive for immediate immersion in creation, I’ve taken a hint from surgeons who say, “watch one, do one, teach one.” Spreading these steps over whole projects may be necessary for both learning and change to happen.

    Two more examples come from friends who have recently launched exciting projects that mash up “internal” and “external” resources. Christina Wodtke — a co-founder of MIG — has launched Public Square, software that recognizes the importance of reader-contributed content by allowing quality rankings of people and content to better balance editorial direction and reader input.

    And Lou Rosenfeld just launched Rosenfeld Media, a publishing venture in which readers play a vital role in everything from deciding which topics get covered to influencing the actual authoring decisions.

  • We’re trying to underdo the competition…

    …No one can really beat us on the low end. It’s just what you need, and nothing you don’t. You’re always going to have more people on the low end who just need a few things.”

    I love that Jason Fried quote, he’s proving out the worse if better argument.

    One benefit he didn’t cite was disintermediating IT departments. I’ve seen this happen: IT departments spend months deciding whether to offer a service, evaluating packages, and designing a scalable offering. Meanwhile, individuals and teams simply sign up for a web-based service and get their jobs done.

  • 500 years later, da Vinci’s bridge is constructed in Norway

    Leonardo di Vinci Golden Horn bridge design in Norway

    A story of classic inspiration…

    Norwegian painter and public art creator, Vebjørn Sand, saw the drawing and a model of the bridge in an exhibition on da Vinci’s architectural & engineering designs in 1996. The power of the simple design overwhelmed him. He conceived of a project to bring its eternal beauty to life. The Norwegian Leonardo Bridge Project makes history as the first of Leonardo’s civil engineering designs to be constructed for public use.

  • Handles On Everything

    table lamp with big handle Remember when everyone copied the translucent color of the old iMacs and missed what made them special underneath? Here’s a surface feature that’s incredibly useful, seemingly obvious, and worthy of copious copying: a big handle to reposition your lamp, courtesy of Tobias Grau. The rubber feels great in your hand. The ball joint allows positioning in any direction. You grab it and put it where it belongs and focus concentration on your work, the way it should be.

    On the same trip to Europe we rented an Opel Meriva that used a similar big handle to reposition the side view mirrors (and similar-feeling big, grippy volume knob on the stereo) instead of timid little electronic buttons. Such a simple thing, and yet the physicality evokes an emotional response that makes me smile and pull out my wallet.

  • Vodafone’s Simply

    Recently I met with some people visiting New York from one of the big electronics manufacturers in Japan. We were talking about market opportunities and I was lobbying for a super simple mobile phone, not realizing Vodafone’s new Simply mobile phone is that phone.

    Designers, particularly the usability-focused variety, won’t have much trouble seeing the potential for this product, but that’s rarely how products get the green light. It’s helpful to see to how the Wall St. Journal describes it:

    • Top-down market sizing was done. One data point is how the percentage of Europeans interested in non-voice mobile services decreases directly with age (can we give them a cheaper phone? can we make it easier to use these services?). Another shows saturation in under-40 Europeans (what do over-40’s want? why aren’t they buying?).
    • A personal look, considering the case of Ann Ridley, 65, living in the UK who rarely gives out her mobile number and doesn’t even use it to store numbers because it’s too complicated. She spends less than $18 a year (would she spend more under different conditions?).
    • How the CEO became convinced there was a market need and made it happen.

    And the groupthink the CEO had to overcome to produce the phone was substantial. When requesting designs he received reactions from manufacturers “like I was from Mars” and younger Vodafone product managers kept trying to add features along the way. When it came time to develop the advertising, the CEO would show it to the product managers working on more advanced phones: “The more they hated it, the more we knew we were on the right track.”

    It’s as if the CEO is a more thoughtful product manager than the product managers.

    Customer research also played a role. Older customers were afraid to enter numbers in the phone and then lose it. They couldn’t adjust the volume. The designers made all the obvious design changes. But this design work was done after the company had already placed a bet on the opportunity.

    Update: It’s the reverse of the RAZR story where the delivery teams had to get a working prototyping into the CEO’s hands before he saw the potential. But in both cases the CEO was key in deciding to get the product to market.

  • The Experience Store

    The Experience Store sells Cooking Classes in Provence ($3,995), Zero Gravity Flights ($3,750), Tank Missions ($1,249), and Driving Tours of Iceland ($2,800) among others. Playthings for the affluent, but not much imagination involved.

  • Job Search

    I pitched an old colleague last year on a job search engine concept. He was working at one of the big job websites and I figured they were all threatened by Google. After all, if a “job search” is a form of search, then why wouldn’t Google want to conquer that? He wasn’t interested.

    But I still think it’s a good idea, so I’ll be keeping my eye on Simply Hired.

  • Innovation in cartoons



    New Yorker cartoon taxonomy
    The cartoon editor mentally classifies cartoons in a 2 by 2 of normal/abnormal setting vs. normal/abnormal caption.

    We just saw Bob Mankoff, New Yorker cartoonist and cartoon editor, talk about his job. I was happily surprised to see the magazine using both sides of its brain in figuring out which were the best cartoons for the magazine, trying to innovate in the unlikely area of cartooning.

    He and the other editors ultimately use editorial judgment to select pieces for each magazine from among thousands of submissions. But he also uses group discussion (in which he noted the inevitable group think involved). He uses surveys, and found that women consistently rate cartoons funnier than men. He’ll test one illustration with multiple captions. He considers the psychology behind cartoons (“It’s the opposite of empathy, and closely paired with fear. If you want to get children to laugh, run at them with a snowball in your hand.”) The University of Michigan’s Humor at Michigan study started with the complete collection of New Yorker cartoons and used eye tracking to analyze how people look at the illustration and the caption in different kinds of cartoons. And lately they’ve encouraged participation from readers with a caption contest on the back page.

    It all adds up to make Mankoff a highly educated student of what is funny and why. And it makes me think: if they can do this for cartoons, what can’t we do this for?

  • Opportunity for handling a crisis: Guidant

    Barry Meier of the NY Times reports the Guidant recall story…

    The Guidant Corporation said yesterday that it was recalling about 29,000 implanted heart devices because of flaws that might cause them to short-circuit when they are supposed to deliver a potentially life-saving shock.

    What makes the product flaw so important in this case is that the defibrillators are located inside the users’ chests. If quality control alone wasn’t bad enough,

    The recall, which comes at the urging of the Food and Drug Administration, involves three models of defibrillators made by Guidant. In the case of one model, the Ventak Prizm 2 DR Model 1861, Guidant did not tell doctors for more than three years that it was prone to electrical failure because of a design flaw. The company also disclosed yesterday for the first time that two other Guidant units had also repeatedly short-circuited.

    So not only is the device rather difficult to “recall”, it happened only when the government stepped in, has been an undisclosed problem for years, and incidentally there’s a couple more products that are now revealed as flawed. I guess that last disclosure signals they are owning up to the problem, but one wonders if they’re doing enough to fix the problem.

    The company said it was aware of two recent deaths involving the units at issue. It is not clear how much the recalls may cost Guidant.

    I’d bet Guidant has a pretty good idea of how much it will cost, that cost is the reason for their delay in disclosing the problem, and accounts for their passive position on the issue…

    While the action is technically a recall, it will be up to patients and their doctors to decide whether to undergo surgery to replace the affected devices. Such decisions are typically based on the age and health of a patient and the physician’s assessment of a device’s risk.

    The physician’s assessment of the device’s risk? Wouldn’t physicians want to avoid the risk of recommending the use of a flawed product (and be paid to replace it)? Hasn’t Guidant learned from the Tylenol crisis how to save a brand even when your product has led to accidental deaths? Do they perceive this as a product issue or a brand issue? Or a moral issue?

    Ironically, Johnson & Johnson — makers of Tylenol — is currently in talks to buy Guidant…

    “The events reported by Guidant are serious matters, and Johnson & Johnson is engaged in discussions with Guidant to help the company understand the issues,” the statement read.

    So is that J&J getting help understanding the issues, or Guidant?

    Update: Meier updates the story today: Defective Heart Devices Force Some Scary Medical Decisions

    …some patients like Ms. Alexson and Mr. Parsons are sharing a similar emotion: a sense of betrayal that Guidant did not disclose the problem earlier so that some people might have been spared the tough choice they now face.

    While Guidant has offered patients a free replacement unit, Ms. Alexson plans to get one made by a competitor, Medtronic Inc., and battle out the financial issues later. “I can’t trust these people who sit around in their offices and decide whether I’m going to live or die,” she said

  • Aromatherapy tipping point

    I knew scented candles are incredibly popular because I have trouble finding the unscented variety, but it turns out scented pencils are also quite popular, based on some sales data I’ve seen.

    I wonder if the flower trade is worried?

  • User-centered automobile

    This year’s Rinspeed concept car — the Senso — takes user-centered to the next level…

    The “Senso”, which runs on environmentally friendly natural gas, has, not without reason, been labeled the most sensuous car in the world. The “Senso” actually “senses” the driver by measuring his (or her) biometric data, and then exerts a positive effect on him with the help of patterns, colors, music and fragrances. A person who is relaxed and wide-awake simply drives better and more safely.

  • Programming language design

    For some reason I’m fascinated by programming language design. One reason is that innovation can happen at the tools level, and the tools that fuel software are undeniably important.

    In the hands of a great author, writing on this topic weaves together the technical, the social and the personal forces at work. One of my favorites is Worse is Better, an analogy that applies beyond programming languages. Another is Paul Graham and his work on Arc.

    In The Periodic Table, Primo Levi tells a story that happened when he was working in a varnish factory. He was a chemist, and he was fascinated by the fact that the varnish recipe included a raw onion. What could it be for? No one knew; it was just part of the recipe. So he investigated, and eventually discovered that they had started throwing the onion in years ago to test the temperature of the varnish: if it was hot enough, the onion would fry.

    We’re going to try not to include any onions in Arc

    An exciting part about Graham’s work is that he starts by admitting Unix/C has won. Then he proceeds to set his goal even higher. This is the spirit of design, of always turning whatever situation you have now into something even better.

  • New Army combat uniform

    The U.S. Army’s new combat uniform is an interesting study in apparel design. Whereas before they needed three different uniform colors for camoflage in different environments, this one does a pretty good job in all cases. It has a reflective material that allows them to identify each other at night through night glasses. And there’s more changes in the fit, pockets, use of velcro, etc.

    Here’s some video.

  • The Daimler-Chrysler merger at work

    James Cobb of the New York Times generates the latest praise for the Chrysler 300 and adds,

    It also melds Stuttgart engineering with Detroit style, providing a rebuttal to those who were skeptical – we know who we are – of Daimler’s takeover of Chrysler. Beneath its audacious design, the 300 is packed with well-engineered parts shared with the pricier Mercedes E-Class. The old Chrysler Corporation could not have produced such a well-rounded, well-engineered, well-made car on its own. Nor could Mercedes have designed such an audaciously American car or sold it such an accessible price.

    Black Chrysler 300

    That’s good news for them when you see how competitors like Renault and Scion aren’t afraid to take chances.

  • Foster and the French build highest bridge

    A private French firm spends somewhere in excess of 300 million Euro to build the highest bridge in the world. It’s located in Millau and designed by British architect Norman Foster. Slideshow