GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Executing an innovation ecosystem

Editors note: This is a 2 part series. See 1/2 here.

According to previous of Ovum analysis, enriching their core product with services acting as a shield for the network, has come to the fore for Telcos.

Strategic domains to embellish the network are commonly shared: they have names such as Rich Communications (Joyn), Broadband access (LTE, Fiber), Cloud services, Big data, NFC, Mobile Financial services, Identity and privacy concerns, Multiscreen experiences, Intelligent Things, Smart home / city / car / retail, Context aware services, Wearable devices.

Selecting the Smart services where Telcos have to commit directly is not so easy. The criteria of ‘using the network to drive innovation activities’ helps significantly: screening and prioritizing your ideas, you can ask yourself:

• which ideas are closely tied to the network ownership,
• which can be accelerated and scaled thanks to the network features,
• and reversely which ideas reinforce the role of the network as a differentiator.

When shaping an innovation ecosystem, one has to think one step ahead: the role of the innovation manager is here to create platforms and toolkit that will help others to design, to provide a toolbox for design, a ‘features-generative’ platform.

Because the process is more complex than mechanically deriving an enabler from the network domain, we speak of ‘API Design Thinking’. In this process, the key user is the developers’ community as shows Vision Mobile scheme.

‘API Design Thinking’ involves meaning, target, expandability, scalability, and inspiration:

• Meaning: API is not such a sexy word that it drives crowds to get up in the morning: we need an enticing vision! Shallow intention won’t last: market trends, user observation, interactions with customers, one must forge a lasting conviction, and define “a reason why”;
• Target: identify who your customers and the end-users are, and listen to them, also once the service is alive, focus on user, not yourself; from the start you have to imagine the best methods, data and formats to deliver to your business partners and developers’ community, extrapolating the end-user services they will initiate; go for plurality of data formats, and differentiate access depending on type of customers;
• Expandability: ‘Do as little as possible now (but no less) to ensure room for extensibility in the future!’ claims Brad Abrams, Microsoft architect and Google product manager. Let space for disjunction and creativity to shape new relationship between API functions, actions on the App, and properties;
• Scalability: no one is immune to success: the more customers your innovation seduces, the more additional features will be required, the more workload will support your servers; prepare your platform to experience solid organic growth, being able to add millions of users without any interruption of service;
• Inspiring Developers’ Community: crossing the chasm requires making an appropriate exposure of the API, streamlining subscription process, and staging the API with a “killer demonstration-app”: develop multiple use case scenarios; accurate documentation makes your API hard to misuse, explicit error message suggest parameters values. Look-up for rewards and motivation in the domain of social appropriation of technology: pride, fun, search for elegance. Keep your API a living innovation welcoming creative apps, leading to new features and cross-fertilization among your customers.

Crafting an efficient API platform, and growing a community of users-developers-designers clearly relies on a conductor with high technical- and use- competences.

Out on the edge, African ‘street-innovation’

For international Telcos, the challenge of embellishing the network with services and APIs becomes all the more difficult when operations and innovation labs occur in different countries: looking for cooperative innovation across borders, you really need someone to bridge the gap.

Let’s take the example of Africa: everything you’ve always taken for granted regarding mobile use might prove to be slightly different there. Safaricom’s MPesa is a mobile money service, an unexpected use of a mobile: it lets people tranfser money via SMS from mobile to mobile, the amount of money is stored on the SIM card. It has met phenomenal success in Kenya and now disseminates across Africa: ‘Orange money’ offers mobile payement with stores or M-Sente, Uganda Telecom’s mobile wallet offering.

Jan Chipcase, Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at Frog is a tireless traveller in search of nuanced patterns in human behaviour: ‘When it comes to cutting-edge technologies that haven’t yet been implemented in the community or country you’re interested in, it helps to go elsewhere, to the early-adopter places. They aren’t always the most tech-savvy cultures, just the ones that took a particular step first. Thus, for mobile money services, Kenya provides the dominant model’.

He unfolds a few surprises about mobile use in developing countries in his Ted speech:

• ‘What do people carry? Keys, money, and… mobile phones!’;
• ‘Bank account are not a widespred mean; for people with no bank account, storing your money in a phone is a safe way to keep your money’;
• ‘Illiteracy: how do you access and manage your contacts when you can’t read? one uses delegation and gets help from friends and family’;
• ‘Street innovation: fixing and repair shops have multiplied in the streets of India, it challenges the way we design things’;

Jan expresses some key lessons for design: ‘Understanding the immediacy of ideas and objects that mobile is bringing, designing toolbox for street innovation, following conversations and developing ability to listen, are fundations to build relevant mobile innovation’.

At Netexplo Digital Awards, Amadou Mahtar Ba, Co-founder & Chairman AllAfrica, shared a few insights :

• ‘Digital pattern in Africa: when a lady touches her hair 20 times a day, an African citizen touches his phone 84 times a day’
• ‘One key economic lever stays in greater connectivity to collect, visualize, interpret, and improve social and human life’;
• ‘Kenya is leading the innovation in digital media, way before South Africa, thanks to positive regulation’;

And Yoza Cellphone Stories, a Netexplo laureat, added: ‘Mobile data is cheap and reliable in Africa. Mobile unleashes infinite possibilities for creative services’.

Mobile connectivity is paramount: in some Africa’s refugee camps where there is no water nor electric power, there is a generator to recharge your mobile battery, says Claude Guibal, journalist expert of Africa. Rural African families tend to send their chidren to urban universities more and more. Why? Because once the children find a job and earn money, mobile money makes it easy to send some back to the villages .

For Mickael Ghossein, Orange Kenya, CEO, ‘Future of mobile is data’. His assumption might turn real quite fast, as Mozilla and Foxconn are partnering to produce Smartphones priced below $50.

Recently Orange opened access to a large dataset from its network in Ivory Coast: 2.5 billion records, calls and text messages exchanged between 5 million anonymous users were shared with researchers worldwide. D4D (Data For Development) Challenge showed tremendous projects, and surprising findings, correlating for example phone calls activity with pandemic spread.

Getting the right start for your API platform requires an in-depth understanding of developers local uses: think of the ‘street innovation’ anthill of activity.

Innovation hubs are surging: in Kenya incubation places and accelerators such as iHub and 88MPH are paving the way of a Silicon Savannah.

It’s time to go in the field and meet with Africa’s mobile app makers and entrepreneurs.

Observing usage patterns, capturing innovation trends and dataset needs, connecting to innovation Labs, and specifying bespoke ‘toolbox for design’ and purposeful enablers for mobiles apps, developing, testing, learning and relentlessly iterating with entrepreneurs-developers community, are the ingredients of the cutting chase and agile formula.

image credits: joniniemela.com, pandorasotherbox.com, JanChipchase.com, VisionMobile.com, Frenchweb

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

How should Telcos innovate?

Ovum completed a throrough analysis about Telco’s innovation challenge: ‘Understanding How Telcos innovate’. The entire report by Emeka Obioudu is worth reading as it includes case studies on AT&T, Telefonica, Telenor, Orange, D&T, Singtel, Telstra, and Vodafone.

A few insights capture quite well the huge innovation challenges Telcos are facing, and the resilience they should develop:

• Innovation benefits should be encompassed in a broader scope: innovation is not limited to new product development but covers building efficient infrastructure, reducing costs, and improving processes. Ovum suggests the notion of ‘net innovation’ as a result of ‘net new revenues’, ‘net cost savings’, and ‘net non monetary benefits’, it draws attention on the fact that ‘saved revenues’ should be appraised similarly to ‘new revenues’ and ‘cannibalized revenues’;
• Telcos should stress their network as an innovation platform: ‘designing new product as an embellishment of their core product, Telcos can build a veritable shield for it’; by ‘extolling the role of the network as a differentiator’, not imitating, but ‘using the network to drive their innovation activities, making it adaptable and malleable for multi-purpose use’, they will keep their capital intensive asset as a considerable barrier to entry, and shape the network as a ‘killer structure‘;

• Telcos must ‘compete less and collaborate more‘: digital hub or units, VC units are a way to ‘create channels for the Telcos to engage and assimilate ideas and knowledge from external parties’, and to ‘prevent internal inertia’; Telcos must ’employ people that have an intimate understanding of external innovation trends’; nevertheless, these units ‘raise the question as to when the new products or services should be handed back to the product teams for development’;
• Innovation requires ‘agile and lean operations’: Telcos should empower community of developers to create Smart services by layering ‘risk-accepting’ accesses to their infrastructure through bold APIs, and cloud services, and setting-up an exchange ecosystem where partners can simply ‘plug and play’; similar innovation flexibility can be achieved internally with ‘modular design’: ‘AT&T has thus separated the building blocks of its innovation structure’;

• Innovation can not happen without resolute supports: a clear and explicit vision of the ‘what and how’ of innovation, CEO commitment in ‘communicating innovation objectives to the entire company and getting people to work together towards the same goals’, C-level sponsoring personified in a Chief Product and Innovation Officer, promotion of a “bounded risk” approach to innovation enabling to learn from failures, are essential to unleash an ‘innovation hungry’ culture;
• In a higher perspective, Ovum believe Telcos must recast themselves as “Enablers of the Digital World”, partnering and acquiring the capabilities that they need to enable the digital world.

What is a win-win API business model?

Does future of Telcos rely on proactive offerings composed of cloud services, infrastructure and APIs supporting the development of Smart services on their networks? Michael Vakulenko from Vision Mobile is on the same page in their ‘Telco Innovation Toolbox’:

• Presenting a vision of ‘Modular Telco’, comprised of three business layers: connectivity, services, and distribution;
• Exposing ecosystem as new distribution channel,  and how ‘APIs are the key technology enablers of this new distribution channel’;
• Unravelling  the mysteries to successful API business model: ‘considering developers as value-added resellers, Telcos should design API propositions for win-win outcomes, not expecting a source of direct revenues and up-front payment, but allowing free, small-scale usage of the API’;
• Finally, raising the real cost of doing nothing.

How should Telcos mould their ‘killer structure’ in the shape of attractive APIs and enablers? How to capture inspiration to design a cutting-edge exchange ecosystem with apps developers?

Read our next episode on : Enablers of the Digital World (2/2)

image credits: publicinterestfoundation.com, www.telco2.net, VisionMobile.com, ashklytoosi.edublogs.org

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

What is a design manager? Is it someone who is active in design management?

Well yes and no, or rather not completely as it implies only a part of the responsibilities of a design manager and that, in some companies, design management is not the Design department’s responsibility, it’s often in the hands of the Marketing activity.

Design management and managing design team

Design management is principally concerned with the brand, creating a vision, developing it into a plan, deploying it, making regular checks on how it is progressing, correcting the trajectory whenever that is necessary, making a step by step journey towards excellence, towards creating even more value… Aim towards that nirvana for our brand that we all aspire to reach.

(Also read the “design ladder” model which provides three levels for design: design seen as style, performance or strategy)

Yes but, a design manager what does that mean if it is not related to design management? The very notion of the verb «manage» is interesting, it suggests to achieve by whatever means, to carry on despite difficulties or again, to succeed in accomplishing despite obstacles… as in : «I managed to get the last 2 tickets to the cup final».

I manage a group of designers, or I’m the design manager? Managing a team of designers does not seem to warrant further explanations, or does it?

Let me tell you that looking after the destiny of a team of designers, on a daily basis, is no picnic. Managing them is a little like watching with great attention a saucepan full of milk on a gas stove. Stressing! as the risk of spilling over if you wait too long are real, and the consequences annoying, but if you take the saucepan off the stove too soon, the risk maybe that you will have to face a mug full of lukewarm milk, which I don’t know about you, but it always makes me feel sick.

So, what is a good design manager? It’s someone who will leave the saucepan on the stove long enough to be at the right temperature, keeps himself focused, and takes a timely decision, what else?

A timely professional

A design manager must be an excellent administrator who encourages beyond reproach behavior in order to avoid the prejudice associated with «arty types», which would reduce to ashes the carefully built edifice of creative excellence. If the team of a design manager is often referred to «that bunch of artists» the thing is beyond repair. The worm is in the apple, it signals the end is not far, the fruit will soon crash rotten to the ground.

A good design manager will know how to orient his team towards excellence in order for it to be acknowledged as a well managed team. It will, for example, always arrive on time, (I never want to hear again : «We’re just waiting for Design»), it will anticipate, prepare its presentation meticulously, communicate beforehand with its partners, its logistics will be be at the very best level, it will not allow its monthly reporting systems to be late : be it its overtime statements, the projects worked upon or its traveling expenses.

Its reflexions will be nourished by a 360° approach, whilst making the team’s right hemisphere work at full power, after all, it is their most precious asset. A good design manager will run his team like a high level sport organization, in order to obtain a highly creative output.

And that, only allows you to have a right to speak, not to be relegated as being a group of teenagers, nice bunch of people, but that cannot be trusted for the more serious stuff. But if, by chance, a design manager understands the importance of passing the day to day examination, that finally allows the word designer to be associated with the word rigor… Well then, the Design entity will not only have a say in the company but more than that, it will be able to claim a strategic role, if of course it has the intellectual qualities, that is…

A listening leader

But then what is a design manager as viewed by his own team? It’s someone who ensures that his team remains at it’s highest potential level of creativity. He will be attentive to maintaining a careful balance, knowing that a good team spirit is something very delicate to nurture, particularly as today, teamwork has replaced the solitary genius.

And yet the design manager knows that within his team, he has champions but also close seconds, and others… that even though we may find the George Orwell citation from Animal Farm cruel : «Everybody is equal, but some are more equal to others», a team could be looked upon as being made up of losers and winers, the losers being the majority of those whose projects have not been chosen. The design manager has to be able to handle such a sensitive moment when a designer learns that the project he has worked upon for so long has not been selected. He will make sure that no one loses face in this peer to peer relationship, he will know how to deal when that moment comes and someone realizes : «My project has not been chosen».

For design is a question of feelings, of engagement, of what I am, of the deeper me. So is this an impossible mission in which our design manager can only but fail? And what if… What if the design manager  shared openly with the whole team the project? What if he sponsored each of the propositions made by the individual designers, encouraging each one to per sue an individual path, promoting the notion of a design open house where each one is given a specific mission?

For then, at the moment the choice is made by the client, the projects that have not been selected can no longer be described as failures, they will have all taken part in the team’s  exploratory phase, each one contributing to a part of the creative overview, leading to the emergence of the selected project. And that is for me the key to a team in full bloom.

In the case where designers work within multidisciplinary teams, be they as  members of an innovation team, or perhaps a feature team, the design manager should not step back and abandon his team member to the manager in charge of the entity. This is what I have too often witnessed, and it invariably leads to the creation of animosity and organizational dysfunctions. On the contrary, it’s all important that the design manager maintains an even closer relationship with the designer, helping him, coaching him to better contribute to the project team as a whole, and amongst other things : to distill creative free flowing approaches that might not be common practice to other members of the project team.

So all is well, our Design team is in high spirits but, vis à vis the outside world, out there it can be cold and hostile, is our radiant team performing at its best level as a whole, or is it starting to purr like a self satisfied cat?

A holistic chef

A design manager is not only responsible for the performance of his team at a given moment, he also has the responsibility to make sure that, where it is going is not a dead end. How many design teams have corked the Champagne following a well deserved success without noticing that it was driving on an almost empty fuel tank, that it was feeding itself on petits fours and forgetting to nourish it’s source of inspiration? How many designers entered the boulevard of mediocrity without even noticing?

Without inspiration, without external influences coming from the parallel worlds that exist all around us, we designers can become rapidly experts in our thing, we can lose the contact with the real world, the people, their habits, the permanently changing culture, the appearance of weak signals.

I’ve always been struck by this phenomena so often to be found with impassioned individuals, as for example automobile designers. Of course automobile design can become addictive, it can very quickly materialize in a closed world to outside influences, it then becomes a selective passion which eventually turns out to be an exclusive obsession. That is why, in the year 2000, when I clearly noticed that the creative inspiration of our team was waning, I proposed to our automobile designers to participate in a program called Trend Missions (which phonetically is close to Transmission): we took them out of their  close environment, their comfort zone, we took them to the Milan Furniture Fair, we accompanied small groups of 5 to 6 designers for a 3 day discovery, meeting and exchanging with remarkable designers coming from other planets, be it Ross Lovegrove, Tom Dixon, Ingo Maurer, Patricia Urquiola, Richard Sapper, or Jean-Marie Massaud…

We also visited extraordinary cities like Stockholm, Barcelona, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow or New York. Each time we encouraged debates to take place, meetings, exchanges, and we made videos in order to share with those who were not lucky enough to join the trip.

Soon enough the videos were shared with our closest colleagues in other departments, Product Planing, Marketing, Advanced Engineering and then it spread like a bush fire, and the President himself was always keen to have his review and ask pertinent questions.

Thus Corporate Design was able to instill an overture, to encourage a far greater sense of curiosity to its designers, which progressively turned into a new wind of change within the whole company. And that is also the mission of a DESIGN MANAGER, which we then can write with capital letters.

Patrick le Quément is a world famous Car Designer. Patrick’s motto is Design = Quality; his structural changes of Renault design were to develop an independent and innovative formal language, turning Renault Design in an effective brand name.

Patrick is now working as independant Designer, and President of the Advisory Board “the Sustainable Design School”.

image credits: www.complydirect.com, unmaldesmots.blogspot.com, jdca2025.wordpress.com, www.flickr.com, www.interiordesign.net, blog.padmapper.com

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Since the mid 1990s, everyone spontaneously refers to the Silicon Valley as the Eden place for digital entrepreneurs: it represents the perfect match between venture capitalists (sellers of finance) and dot-com startups (buyers of finance) “clustered” in a geographical limited area.

In the late 1990s emerged other clusters like the Digital Media City (DMC) of Seoul, a tremendous cluster of multi-media, IT, and entertainment industries, leveraging on similar pattern, assembling in a network effect start-ups, investments, technically skilled people, universities, infrastructure, and tax incentives.

Since 2000, there is another place which shows a remarkable innovation spirit: it’s called Israel.

Though investments weight (there are 30 times more venture investment in Israel per inhabitant as compared to France) and university excellency are common assets for cluster areas, Israel shows some strong peculiarities, the first one being its home market: while the US are a huge addressable home market, Israel only counts 8 millions inhabitants. You have to go international from the outset if you want to survive.

When Israelis analyze the reasons for their entrepreneurship, they mention such words as ‘fighting spirit’, ‘hunger for life’, ‘team building’, ‘field operations, skills they often link to the 3 years experience they spend in the army, and to the fact that the country has limited natural resources: it had to conquer ‘self-reliance’, to go against the odds, and pull out life from the desert.

‘Crossfertilisation between immigrants and homegrown, ‘overpassing multicultural lowdowns’, ‘immigration perceived as a right and an enrichment, not as a burden’, ‘fresh start’ belong to the country culture.

Moreover Israel presents start-uper as citizen models. ‘If you have an idea, you do not go for scientific research, you create a start-up’. Therefore Israel is called ‘the start-up nation’ in a book published in 2011. State aids and tax cuts participate to this dynamic made of autonomy and emulation.

In 2 days at Tel Aviv, I visited a true start-up hub with an awesome fellow group of HEC Buisness School. Combining institutes for innovation, tech companies like Google, and start-ups, it reflects a proactive, resolute and full of hope state of mind:

• Gvahim is a non-profit organization assisting highly-skilled returning citizens to fulfill their professional aspirations and launch a new business in Israel, connecting them to Israel’s economy, society & culture, and proposing a Start up Accelerator Program called The Hive: The Hive typically mixes the common set-up of an original project with significant mentoring. It’s quite new, but 50% of entrepreneurs got funded at the end of the first session;
• Rounds is a start-up created in 2008 with a focus on fun video chat with friends and family: you can hang out, video chat, play games, take freaky snapshots, and watch videos with friends; Rounds is a team of 21 people: it has built a service seducing 8 millions users, mostly teen-agers, and has raised $m 5. About the start-up movement, their CTO confided: ‘We benefit from a trusted environement, more open; we get the rightly skilled people, they know how to work in group’;
• Google Campus, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, is a hub for entrepreneurs and developers; it is open to everyone who wants to run an event about tech and start-up: it accomodates from 5 up to 170 people, and 2 to 3 meetings any given day. It’s a place for testing as well, with an extensive device library. One key event is the Launch Pad, kind of bootcamp for start-ups, where best presenters  come to give you tips. It’s not an incubator or accelerator, Google doesn’t get any equity;

• 8200 EISP is an accelerator program, harnessing the vast network of 8200 alumni to support entrepreneurs and new ventures. 8200 is a very unique IDF Intelligence unit, which until a few years ago was top secret: it is considered one of the leading sources for Israeli innovation, a foundation for a vivid community of technology, entrepreneurship and venture financing. ‘Stage 1’ is a 5 months workshop, alumni are presenting perspectives, how they do things, not mentoring. It ends with a Demo day with 250 attendees. ‘Stage 2’ is a post workshop support, ‘1 on 1’ year long mentoring from seniors. Commitment is massive: 41 alumni, all start up founders, 22 funded start ups, 26 product launches, 170 people involved;
• Zikk is an early-stage start-up which is part of the 8200 program: its service is about setting the parameters of your friends and family phones from anywhere. Who has never been asked for help by his closes with their cellphones? With Zikk you can fix it from remote, and monitore such things as: download apps, wifi settings, add an email account, set an image, set a song as a ringtone, display settings set a time, alarm clock;
• Navin follows the 8200 program: it presents a self deploying navigation solution where GPS is not available (indoor), relying on the wisdonm of the crowd, device sensor + wifi/cell networks to provide exact position in real time;
• Wibbitz is a platfom turning text content in video: it extract text, summarizes it, matches it with images, and turns it in video in less than 15 seconds! A vocal text comments on the video. Wibbitz targets content owners, publishers to generate large scale video with its self service tool. It’s a team of 14 people. The upshot is that it serves 50 000 web sites, 17 millions views, and it has raised m$ 3. Stay tuned: Wibbitz is launching soon its own consumer facing app;
• Vodio is a pleasurable video app, extracting videos from multiple sources on the Web, and presenting them in well ranked channels; it curates videos based on criteria like genre, most shared videos, recently posted videos, identity of the publisher, and personalizes the display based on what you have liked / disliked, and shared on your social feed. It’s a team of 4 people which has build an app downloaded 500 000 times on the App store in one year, and who’s launching soon its Android version.

Let me recap this dizzying atmosphere: self starter, no fear to fail, confidence, fulfillement, are you getting it? Let’s learn to dare!

Innovation is not the negation of the past, it’s not about imitation but ownership: France has its own identity, that it can enhance, integrating external experiences. We can be proud of being a unified country for over a millenium, to be part of a newly appeased European construction, to train excellent engineers, performant business men, and great artists. We have proved our ability to Resistance and Renaissance, and the Declaration of our belief in humanistic Rights is still resonating. ‘We’ve come too far to give up who we are’ sings nicely French band Daft Punk in another context!

That’s not crummy track, nor depressing: it’s a glimmer in our back which enlightens the horizon of our future. Let’s reconnect with a sense of joyful engagement, and emulation.

Albeit, I wove we try to do things slightly differently:

• Shouldn’t we start from the situation potential, assessing with humility where we can bring creative value, starting with small bets, and step by step, approaching ‘radical incrementalism’?
• What if, we could put on hold for a moment ‘The French Greatness’, the ‘All-or-nothing’ personality’, and develop ‘A modern French Touch’? Failing fast, learning from it, and bouncing higher, developing a risk-taking culture,  leaving apart existing benefits and petty squabble, playing collectively in a Smart world?

Current crisis is a call to reinvent ourselves based on our DNA, and shake up our brand. What do people have in mind when thinking of France? I hope it’s made of creativity, elegance, romantic charm, cool and collected manner, frankness, solidarity, life sweetness: lets’ pick up some (non exclusive) attributes, and bring them one step further with innovation.

image credits: www.innovation.gov.in, jssnews.com, Google Campus, vodio

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Previous: Free, Tackling Disruption

Mobile is the first screen

The digital world is dizzying: cloud, big data, intelligent things, contactless NFC, mobile financial services, smart home, smart city, smart car, identity and privacy concerns, multiscreen experience, context aware services, wearable devices, next-generation networks (LTE, Fiber, Wi-fi, small cells),… It’s not easy to catch the weak signals unfolding emerging trends.

Let’s borrow Free glasses for a moment. What are the keywords we’re looking for? Telco, broadband, Internet, TV, mobile. With these tags, we can google the market differently, and be more specific: two signals stand out frome the multitude.

Firstly is the spot I draw in a previous article: ‘Mobile is becoming the first screen of our daily life’. It involves mobile devices and tablets, and mix general mobile use and surging video consumption. New quotes and announcements are gushing everyday:

• ‘Mobile is our remote control for life: wallet, keys, health consultants, and soon fingerprints’;
• ‘Mobile is the ‘new smoking’: people pick it up and engage, they do not go an hour without checking’;

• ‘About 27% of U.S. adults watch video on devices other than a TV’;
• ‘Most mobile video experience actually happens at home’ (Videonuze);
• ‘Mash up between mobile and TV will spawn new way of consuming entertainment, news, user engagement and feedback’ (Trend Lives).
• ‘The future of video is on mobile devices’ says recent keynote from Robert Tercek;
• ‘Imagine connecting tablet to TV in a hotel room and having same viewing experience you have at home’ (Antone Gonsalves)
• ‘Everything should be made available as a live stream, on-demand and as sync-and-go, where you can download content securely and take it with you’ (Motorola);
• ‘TV definition now is: on every screen, on-demand, no charges and no extras’ (TimeWarner);
• New type of portable TV are emerging combining mobile devices, antenna accessories, and broadband / broadcast networks: Aereo, Dyle;
• ‘Magine re-defines TV by combining cloud-based live TV, catch-up and on-demand programming in the same place’;
• ‘Boxee TV is dead, long live Boxee Cloud DVR’ via gigaom.

Secondly, user feedbacks and Telco communication present LTE as a groundbreaking technology, a major step for the Internet and Video use, a gap similar to the jump from PSTN to ADSL / Brodband technology:

• ‘LTE is a very good, easily deployable network technology, offering high speeds and low latencies over long distances’ (Extreme Tech);
• ‘AT&T was rated with an average LTE-only download speed of 18.6 megabits per second and an average upload speed of 9Mbps. Its maximum download speed averaged 57.7Mbps’ (CNET): these are absolutely amazing figures close to fixed broadband speeds;
• ‘LTE allows a video experience closer to TV’ (US Telco Sprint);
• ‘Mobile video is now the killer app, but only because of 4G’ (Douglas Alston, Sprint);
• ‘Chip and software package for LTE Broadcast will be commercially available in early 2014’ (MIT Technology Review);

Nothing seems more compelling than video over LTE.

Roads to ‘Free’ dom

Mobile is not a mere toe in the ocean of possibility for Free: actually it will probaly spend the bulk of its time, trying to ratchet up a new level in the mobile market.

Mobile video is a soaring territory willing to be shaked? Freeing up is in Free DNA.

Let’s continue the role play game: what could be the angle of attack? Adopting Free ‘modus operandi’, combining leapfrogging technology, with an emblematic product and a breakthrough in pricing, we can make guesses about the ‘liberation’ scenarios Free might play:

• Unleashing the chain of the TV set: inventing a ‘mobile Freebox’ concept, letting you bring your own TV with you. It would feature best mobile video experience across networks and screens, through Cloud TV,  and Free assets of seamless handover with Wi-Fi (EAP-SIM) and swipe over screens (Free Air Media Vidéo);

• Breaking the rigidity of current subscriptions: promoting packaging over multiple screen, with unlimited data plan. Developing flexible pricing adapted to video consumption (family plan, on-demand content gifts, pay as you go): ‘making content mobile rather than being tied to a specific device’. Leveraging intriguing partnership to subsidize mobile data usage (ESPN);

• Opening wider the door for creative mobile apps: building API faciliating connected experiences across Freebox, Smart Phone, Tablets and Intelligent Things, and Cloud TV platform (AssistanTV, ReCatch.tv, Freebox Recorder). Letting the fresh air of social and community breathe, and nurture innovation: ‘Open Source Solutions + Open APIs = Innovation age’.

Challenges along the road

Creating a product so compelling it becomes ‘as commonplace as your remote control’ is a huge challenge. We’re not looking here for a passive device, but for a living product, spreading an empowering feeling for the user, building on existing relationship between user and his mobile to define a new landmark for TV, a passion video service.

One of the challenges for ‘The man of the Freebox’ will be to adopt another point of view, to put on ‘Mobile glasses’, and disrupt himself. ‘Mobile first: let’s stop considering mobile as an extension of the computer’ tells us Francis Pisani.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step: it all starts with creating more perceived value for the customer.

To catch the sky over the fence, one must go beyond its own interest and embrace shared value, mixing impact and profit. ‘Most amazing business models are those where profit and impact live in harmony’ rates Alex Osterwalder via Deborah Mills-Scofield.

Credits: www.gizmodo.fr, warofthemobiles.com, www.themalaysianinsider.com, www.extremetech.com, luistovarcarrillo.multiply.com, www.canwestpropane.com, www.westlakes.co.uk

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Previous: Free, a radical story turning disruptive (1/3): Going Radical

Tackling disruption

In 2009, Xavier Niel, Free founder and owner, has made up his mind: the future of Internet will be mobile. Therefore, Free invests m€ 240 for a mobile license that will make Free the fourth mobile operator in France and changes its fate.

How will Free replicate the big hit of the Freebox, associating a dramatic advance in technology (ADSL), with an emblematic product (Freebox) and an unchallenged pricing (€29,9) in the mature mobile market?

When push came to shove, Xavier Niel found the magic formula, adopting a ‘Less is More’ approach and questioning generally accepted ideas:

• Operators subsdidize mobile handsets (against long-term commitments), and please customers wish to change regularly their device? Free will shape ‘Sim-only’ offerings, handset being acquired separately by the customer. Free message could be translated as: ‘Your real concern is now about unlimited calls and bill control, you don’t need running until exhaustion after latest shiny expensive phone’; it makes all the more sense in an equipped market where Smart Phones penetration tickles a 50%;
• Mobile consumptions are diversified, leading to a large range of rates and complex fee schedule? Free will propose a straighforward range made of 2 monthly susbcriptions: €2 for 2 hours of calls and unlimited SMS, €19,9 for unlimited calls, SMS, MMS and mobile Internet (3 Go data cap);
• Customers want to manipulate mobile handest in retail stores? Free will commercialize his service exclusively online, thus confining cost structure;
• Customers are used to a perfect quality of network? Free start will be somewhat hesitant on network capacity, hand-over with the partner network, and coverage.

What could have been a terrible bet resulted in a fantastic market entry:

• Free Mobile has attracted 870 000 subscribers in Q1 2013, far ahead of competition: SFR + 29 000 customers, Bouygues : + 20 000 customers, Orange :   -361 000 (+ 85 000 subscribers but loo of prepaid users) (2012 comparative analysis here);
• Consequently, Free subscriber base surged to 11,5 millions: 6,1 millions mobile subscribers, a figure higher than the 5,4 millions broadband subscribers;
• Q1 2013 tunover is m€ 907:  m€ 295 for Mobile and m€ 615,6 broadband;
• Iliad’s market capitalisation has risen more than tenfold since 2004 to €10bn;
• Last but not least considering legacy, Free is N°1 in customer satisfaction for the fourth quarter in a row (TestnTrust).

Let’s replay  the scene:

• A product worse from a traditional standpoint, but performing better in areas such as price?
• A first come to market which tends to be crappy but matching deeply social expectations, shifting value, and thriving a new market, through a combination of ‘low-cost’ and ‘Sim-only’ attributes?

Free Mobile clearly offers the ingredients of the disruptive recipe. Additional viewpoints show how Free inevitablbly moved from radical to disruptive innovation:

• Free adopted a classic ‘Low cost – High value’ approach that would cherish Christophe Midler : differentiation and lower costs are achieved simultaneously; it could be part of next ‘Blue Ocean’ case studies, as Free stresses a selection of features of the value proposition, while reducing or eliminating services that are less valued.
• According to Benoit Sarrazin, ‘Free Mobile’s strategy is not only about discounts; it’s a prime example of disruptive innovation, combining a change in the prevailing mental schema in the sector, identifying unfulfilled latent customers needs, communicating via a community of enthusiasts, and optimising cost structures’;
• Free does not only differentiate: it resonates with one of the deepest social crisis France has known, where millions of people under poverty theshold could not access mobile service otherwise. I prefer ‘Happy Ending’, so call me naive, but I like to believe Xavier Niel, Free founder, is sincere when he declares: ‘My greatest point of pride is that last year we gave the French €2bn in purchasing power. Each French person, I gave €40 through my work’.

Free roadmap

Free is not the type of firm able to stand still. What could be the coming marks on its roadmap?

• From the outset, Free is regularly upgrading its Freebox Revolution, and a new Freebox is  on tracks for 2014, to keep ahead of  Telco competition: Orange just released its Live Box Play, quickly adopted by 300 000 subscribers;
• Think out of the Freebox? Telco boxes are challenged by new entrants offering Internet streaming-boxes (OTT-Over The Top) such as Apple TV, Google TV, Roku, Boxee, Amazon, and ‘Smart TV’ sets; has a time come for Free to think of another form of box, ‘a Box in the Cloud’? Deutsche Telekom and others like Swedish operator Magine and Motorola are experimenting Cloud TV, ‘shifting all functionalities of the set-top box into the cloud’, ‘bringing live TV and cloud PVR, removing the complicated installation of set-top boxes, dishes and cables’;
• Free is concurrently working on reinventing its distribution model;
• Is Free thinking of going abroad? ‘Telecoms is a national business. There isn’t a European market’ answers Xavier Niel;
• What about extending its share in the value chain, going for content acquisition and production, set-up studios for original production as as Amazon and Netflix did recently? Free position has always been focused on being the best platform for multimedia distribution, not producing content;
• Going more on software and shaping a kind of ‘Free Operating System’ like Google did with Android? Free is much more focused than Google which juggles many things, sparkling innovation in multiple directions: it likes to play on a limited number of creative projects at a time, and control optimized sofware and harware integration… just like Apple;

Free is probably not going so far away:  it shrewdly bought itself LTE license for next-mobile generation (€m 271 for 4G 2,6 GHz, though no position in the 800 MHz frequency band), and it’s going to hit the mobile nail, according to its telco DNA.

What will be Free next shot? Stay tuned for our next episode on the Free story.

Next: Roads to ‘Free’ dom

Credits: www.clubic.com, www.20minutes.fr, www.not-a-pigeon.com, univers freebox

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

What is radical, what is disruptive?

Greg Satell points out the definition of disruptive innovation unfolded 10 years ago by Clayton Christensen in The Innovator’s Dilemma: ‘Great firms get disrupted and fail when they got blindsided by a completely new market’. Greg notes that disruption can ‘start with a product worse from a traditional standpoint, but performing better in areas such as price or convenience: a new market would then develop, the new upstarts will serve a different kind of customer that seemed tangential, niche and less profitable to incumbent firms’.

When radical innovation is about technological leapfrogging, disruption brings  a new market to the landscape, explains similarly Venkatesh Rao. In other words, the CD is a radical innovation (great technology, same players shoot again, with better margins) while the MP3 is a disruptive innovation (value shift, complete recomposition of the market, incumbent players get disrupted).

I have in mind 2 additional perspectives:

• disruption unveils features that meet deeply ‘social imagineries’, thus funding a solid basis for a new tradition: that’s what managed ‘Champagne’ wine, firstly a disconcerting invention by docteur Jules Guyot, patented in 1844, and then becoming tradition and common language;
• disruptive products involve high sales volumes, reducing manufacturing costs per unit for the new entrant, and leading to fast rising profits: this is precisely the iPhone business case and the Apple exponential margins.

In “four quadrants of innovation”, Hugh Carpenter goes one step more in detail, distinguishing 4 innovation types by crossing market and technological axes as shown below.

Going radical

Free is a French Internet Service Provider (ISP) set-up in 1999.

For Free, the defining moment to take over the French market is 2002 with the launch of the ‘Freebox’. A few hints illustrate Free’s radical move:

• Freebox is a creative ADSL modem home-designed by Free: it is first presented as a radical new technology giving access to broadband network, bringing the tremendous benefits of high-speed and ‘always-on’ Internet to the subscriber: a radical change compared to former slow PSTN access. Free bundled his powerful Freebox with an agressive pricing, a monthly fee of €29,9 undercutting price competition by half.

• €29,9 established a new plateau for Internet access, and is still a reference in customer’s mind 10 years later. All competitors progressively aligned with this pricing.

• Following Free initiatives led to  unbundling from the incumbent operator, thus reducing anxillary access cost, and promoting Triple Play offering: Tiple Play is a combination of three services, Internet, Telephony (VoIP), and Television (IPTV) in one single subscription. Free would hit the nail by keeping the same monthly fee, while empowering its product: adding Telephony (free VoIP calls) in 2003, IPTV channels in 2004, Pay Video On Demand, Personal Video Recorder, and free TV On Demand (Catch-Up TV) over the successive years, Free delivered a continuous trend of innovations.

• Free’s strategy sent a clear and strong message to its subscribers: ‘Free provides you continuously with the latest features, at a constant price’.

Shall Free then be considered as a disruptive innovator?

ADSL and IPTV are stunning technologies which, combined with the infinite resources of the Internet, developed new markets at fast pace: 22 millions ADSL subscribers at the end of 2012, close to the number of French households of 25 millions, and 12 millions IPTV subscribers.

Though Free did contribute largely to shape this market, Free did not disrupt the historical firm, incumbent operator France Telecom.

It was indeed not the only player to surf the ADSL wave, and trigger IPTV usage. Multiple ISPs gave it a try: at peak time, 10 ISPs were commercializing Triple Play on the French market! Some players managed to follow quickly every innovative step accomplished by Free, and became nimble ‘Fast Followers’. Fierce competition ended in market consolidation: Free performed a brilliant market share, more recently with top position in acquisition in 2012, but France Telecom, now rebranded Orange, still holds a lead position.

French ADSL market  2012/12/31 :

Orange : 9 893 000 subscribers, 44.61% market share
Free : 5 364 000 subscribers, 24.19% market share
SFR : 5 075 000 subscribers, 22.88% market share
Bouygues : 1 846 000 subscribers, 8.32% market share

During this period, Free built a strong brand image as innovator, always on edge of most recent technology, and gained to be considered as ‘the best provider for Geek communities’. The offset was unfortunately a perception of ‘Do It Yourself’ service, along with a long-lasting criticized customer care. The common word was: ‘If your Freebox installation works, it’s the best; but if it doesn’t, it can be a real nightmare’. It was all the more upsetting to deal with the customer service that hot-line used to be at premium rate at that time.

The missed rendez-vous of the ‘Smart TV’ ?

Free kept on going on his innovative path, delivering the first Internet-enabled box in 2010, the ‘Freebox Revolution’, turning your TV into a ‘Smart TV’.

‘Freebox Revolution’ is a groundbreaking box providing an impressive range of services on your TV, complementing advanced IPTV services with Internet games and TV apps, a Blu-ray player, a Mediaplayer service connected to home devices, and an Internet Web Browser. It works both with ADSL and fiber networks, going one step further toward lighting speed connections.

A noteworthy focus was made on aesthetic, resulting in a slick UI (User Interface), elegant form-factor, and a futuristic remote-control designed by Starck with gyroscop and accelerometer features, facilitating web browsing and gaming.

Yet, to my opinion, a Freebox is still more perceived as a technical commodity than a personal emotional device such as the iPhone or iPad are: those create a special connection with the user, and furthermore with the Apple brand.

A slight twitch is missing to turn ‘Freebox Revolution’ into THE box.

• Maybe it relies to some extent to the fact that Internet and broadcast TV are handled as 2 distinct worlds in the Freebox experience: there is no sign of blending TV viewing with related content coming the Internet, nor is there aggregation between TV  programmes and Internet videos. As Daniel Danker, General Manager Programmes & On Demand at the BBC, puts it: ”Today TV and Internet are completely separate worlds in the Smart TV user experience, and I don’t think that is good enough. It would make more sense if Live TV and Internet TV were brought together’.

• ‘Freebox Revolution’ did not capture the primary social essence of TV. As a matter of fact, Social and enhanced TV experience through the Internet would  emerge shortly after, through the phenomena of ‘Social TV and Second Screen’: these servives display social conversations, extra content, and offering various interactions synchronized with the TV show, through Smart Phones and Tablets.

Having said that, no one has still cracked the code to design a ‘Smart TV’ and make it an unforgettable experience!

No doubt either that it’s not easy to bring people to see an ADSL box as statutory as their Smart Phone or Tablet, or in the next future, their Internet-enabled Watches and Glasses: it lacks a consumer-facing interface. A broadband box is often shelved below the TV set, gets dusty and forgotten, and is not exactly something you show spontaneously to your friends, proudly saying: ‘Hey, have a look at my box!’.

Will it be one day? Don’t miss our next episode on the Free story.

Next: Free, Tackling Disruption

image credits: www.niemanlab.org, innovation excellence, huffingtonpost.fr, www.mac4ever.com, www.trendsnow.net, www.universfreebox.com

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Below is a short interview I completed about Social TV with Natan Edelsburg from Lost Remote.

Lost Remote is the home of social TV, covering how social media is changing TV,  from Twitter to second screen apps.

They wanted to talk about Blended TV, social TV in France, and what the industry will look like in 2020.

Lost Remote: After taking an inside look at social TV in Brazil and Portugal, it’s time to turn our attention to France. Orange is one of France’s biggest telco providers, serving five million subscribers through its IPTV and satellite TV network – a 15.8% increase over last year. Leading this charge is Nicolas Bry, a Senior VP at Orange responsible for the company’s Blended TV product. According to Bry, Blended TV is “designed as a platform accessible to others trough its API,” and is “embedded in a dozen of Orange services after only one year. Orange apps welcome and display social buzz in an environment familiar to the end-user, without the need to install a new app, and over multiple screens: mobile, TV, tablet, PC.”

Below are some insights on how Social TV is unfolding in France, analyses on the various strategies of the players, and what shows are the most popular on social networks.

What is Blended TV and how will it benefit consumers?

Nicolas Bry: While we watch, we tweet! Last Super Bowl just beat a new record. Besides, even more users find value in ‘listening’ to the social conversation.

But live tweets are not always easy to read, and social networks can be quite noisy. Blended TV is Orange’s social buzz platform, dedicated to sorting real-time social conversations according to specific entertainment topics: live tv programs for social TV, catch-up TV, movies in theater, VoD, and sports competitions. Blended TV makes comprehensible social buzz, turning content discovery into a pleasurable experience for the viewer.

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

I stole this ticklish title from Ogilvie Entertainment futurist presentation ‘The end of TV as we know it’, a nice piece of work designed by @Dougscottogilvy and @Themattdoh.

It clearly hit the nail on the head that mobile, not TV, will become the ‘first screen’.

I was walking the alleys of TV connect last week,  enjoying the thriving realm of enhanced TV, watching the tide of second screen companion apps and social TV sweeping across our living room. Amidst the crowd of connected TV sets, one question came to my mind: what about the role of mobile as a triggering device for media? And what if this were the end of the TV grid, and the rise of interactive remote control apps on smart phones and tablet, guiding you anywhere anytime to profiled content?

2012 Google multiscreen research notes that Smart Phones have the highest number of user interactions per day, and serve as the most common ‘starting point’ for activities across multiple screens. Time has come to rethink the media experience, starting from a mobile point of view.

Experts panel

Harnessing affirmative experts statements on the ‘pivotal role’ of mobile device is a no brainer:

• “Mobile platforms will act as a catalyst for the next generation of connected experiences” (Forrester Analyst Thomas Husson)
• “Smartphones and tablets are proving to be a critical bridge in connecting experiences across multiple channels. (Shubhradeep Guha, India SapientNitro Manager)
• “It’s used everywhere, it’s not just used to consume media, it’s used while consuming other media” (Stragey Analytics, David MacQueen)
• “As second screen, mobile activates other media, drives tune-in, product research, or immediate purchase” (Mobile Marketing Association, Paul Palmieri)
• “As a remote control or personal media scheduler, our phone acts as media consumption funnel” (Needham’s analyst Laura Martin)
• “Social TV drives interactive programmes where the remote control is our smart phone” (@agenceindigo)
• “Smart phones are the backbone of our daily media interactions” (Google Ipsos, multiscreen world)

Beinng personal, interactive, carried constantly, mobile is all set to be the ‘first screen’.

Weak signals

Sketching out on the horizon, one can see weak signals following the same path: multiple screens, individual viewing, through ‘ultra-portable control device like smart phones, tablets, and next phablets :

• ‘Nearly one of two people aged between 12 and 39 owns a smart phone’ (Credoc France)
• ‘Streaming video over tablet and smartphone has crossed an inflection point, viewing has jumped 100% in one year’ (@DigitalTVEurope via Ooyala)
• ‘Deploying LTE mobile network will result in a 4X increase in connection speeds and huge growth in video streaming’ (@filloux, Mobile World Congress);
• ‘LTE-broadcast could turn our phones and tablets into mobile DVRs’ (@Gigacom);
• ‘Mobile devices overtake TV in the bedroom: among 36% people watching video in the bedroom, 46% view it on a smartphone, 41% on a tablet, and 36% on broadcast TV. Consumers want more flexibility across a variety of devices in how they view programming’ (Motorola Mobility’s Media Barometer);
• ‘63% of tablet owners now use their device to watch live TV’ (TV Licensing’s Telescope 2013 report);
• ‘66% of tablet owners stream video 2 to 3 times a week, in average 30 mns’; (@rovicorp);
• ‘mobiles and tablets accounted for over a quarter of all iPlayer requests in 2012’ (BBC);
• ‘85% of viewing on the ‘HBO Go’ on-demand service in the US is of series rather than movies’ (HBO);
• ‘We’re consuming content in new ways: binge-watching episodic TV, watching video on smartphones and on tablets’ (Nielsen Zero-TV homes)
• In 2010, nearly 40% of the viewers were watchning TV alone (Insee France).

Following successive stages of interactive TV and TV on-demand (IPTV), Smart TV, Social TV, and Second screen, we are finally entering the era of nomadic screen, the ultimate ‘liquid screen’ experience.

Designing a compelling mobile experience for media use

Smart phones being at the center of our media use, I wish to turn mobile into a pivotal presence for the consumer shifting to ‘experience roaming’ over any screen: it involves designing a consistent media interaction across the different places and moments of our day, and over the multiple screens we face.

To make relevant every minute of our mobile experience, I think of:

• Mobile DNA: no screen is more personal, engaging, and filled with opportunities than mobile, as it brings ‘intimacy, immediacy, and contextuality’. Furthermore, mobile can enhance viewing with augmented reality and NFC technologies, and Apple has learned us that you can turn it and shake it asw ell! Mobile is an utterly powerful platform to support the user in his next move to entertainment;
• Instant discovery: letting the viewer find quickly something relevant to watch in his timeframe, or to bookmark in his ‘watch later’ list. Less is more: one accurate tip at the right moment is the right swing. My dream-experience is one single place to discover, search,  save, schedule, watch, control, listen, share, add, and interact;
• Simple design: implementing straightforward interactions and clear call-to-actions, banishing technologism (check-in, …), erasing all difficulty in the experience, ‘reinforcing behaviors, not forcing them“.
• Stimulating feedback: rewarding micro-moments of viewer journey, engaging the viewer into progressive levels as in a game, unlocking special content, presenting his status and influence to the community, turning the discovery into a pleasure, not a learning fatigue;
• Permanent usefulness: making the mobile app useful even when you’re not in front of the TV, setting-up appointments along the day, reminding the viewer of show not to be missed, automatically refueling him with daily content hints;
• Social interaction: combining social TV with rich second screen experience, unfolding communal discovery, sparking the feeling that viewers are achieving something together;
• User knowledge: capturing interactions, yielding insights, collecting data to refine user knowledge and sharpen our suggestions, customizing relationship, differentiating new versus returning visitor, expert vs beginner. Personalized content discovery ensures continued user engagement and loyalty;
• API Openness: letting others buid value on top of our platform, and creating an innovation ecosystem;
• Scaling: starting small and growing carefully, with a staged approach, preparing for mass market usage: nobody is immune to success!

Sounds exciting? I agree, and I can’t wait to achieve a first MVP, test, iterate, figure it out, and make it really stunning!

Credits: blog.compete.com, hitechanalogy.com, themalaysianinsider.com, themobileindian.com

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Borders are not limited to geography: from one industry to another, surprising contrasts arise in ways of conducting business. If previously one could stay in his private domain, globalization and global connectivity have blown up protected nests. The question knocking at your door is: since cooperation is a “must-do”, how do we lay the foundation to drive it as its best?

Connected world urges you to cooperate

Greg Satell highlights very clearly how ‘Smart’ and ‘Connected’ are embracing every industry, involving a new way to innovate through co-creation. He explains:

• ‘Digital technology pervades the physical world, changing the principles of scale’; despite significant unplugged ilots, “virtuality is coming into reality, virtureality is here” observes Bertrand Cathelat, enthusiastic sociologist of the Web;
• ‘The Internet of Things is born, linked to smaller computer chips’; thanks also to cheap and reliable connectivity, enabling sensors to collect data everywhere; the good thing is that your ‘intelligent thing’ doesn’t have to be so smart: at your hand is your smart phone, and above your head is the smart cloud, both computing to complete the job;
• ‘The Web of Things is making machines interoperable and allowing consumers to tap into the Internet of Things. 4 pillars emerge: Smart Phones, Smart Homes (including Smart TV), Smart Cars, Smart Retail’ underlines Greg. Smart Cities stand out as well: reviewing the EU City SDK project, I was impressed by bold initiatives run by cities of Helsinki, Amsterdam, Lisbon,  and Manchester.
• ‘Hackers start taking apart product system in order to build new things with it. Marketers will have to think in terms of SDK’s and API’s. ‘Everybody will be using the Web of Things to co-create products and services with their consumers’.

Every business has to flip the switch for digital, and cooperate with people from corresponding industry: digital start-ups with peculiar know-how, IT consulting and software developers, hardware manufacturers, interactive design agencies, digital marketing and media agencies, user experience and testing consultants, digital sociologists and ethnographs … Cooperation doesn’t mean subcontracting: it involves partnering and cocreating with in-depth commitment.

Cooperation principles are powerful but demanding

Cooperation and the way to harness collective intelligence has been studied thoroughly. From the front line of innovation to actual product co-development,  it is worth capturing the benefits unfolded by ‘open innovation’, ‘strategic community networks’, ‘user-led innovation’, ‘crowd sources innovation’, ‘idea improvement program’, ‘business plan competition’, ‘open source’ approaches.

However the cooperation road is not paved with roses. Stefan Lindegaard highlights frequent obstacles, and suggests precious tips, centered on people management and open mindset:

• ‘Trust is an essential component for open innovation. It is the basis of any successful, long-lived relationship’
• ‘You should look into the following questions: what does it take for you to trust others? How do you convince your external stakeholders to build trust in you?’
• ‘Frequent barriers against building trust and relationships are: internal rather than external perspective, external partners viewed as someone paid to deliver a specific service rather than a source of co-creation, focus on protecting its own knowledge and intellectual property, insufficient time and personal commitment, and fear, people commonly feeling threatened by a new way of doing things.’
• ‘Organization is not consistent with cooperation: internal silos are too firmly ingrained; if you cannot make innovation happen across your business units, how could you expect innovation to sing beyond your company borders?’
• ‘Networking culture is lacking: people can figure this out by themselves, executives say. Not true. Executives need to establish networking strategies and employees need training, along with the time to build and nurture relationships.’

Business re-modeling with digital stakeholders might be even tougher. We are not dealing with familiar partners from our industry, or competitors turned into competitors: we rethink business with a digital viewpoint: it requires a deep dive in the digital world, acquiring knowledge on technology, media, and user behaviours to create a thrilling customer experience, matching our business identity. It all converges to knowledge sharing with the digital world, and making digital stranger a close relationship.

Cooperation involves a ‘knowledge sharing DNA’

How to manage cooperative innovation and share knowledge in a fruitful way? Insead Professor Yves Doz is an expert of the topic: in ‘Managing Global Innovation’, he studies how companies can mobilize dispersed knowledge to learn from the world. He shared a few lessons recently at AX, Polytechnique Alumni Association, in a great session set-up by Professors Sihem Jouini and Christophe Midler:

• ‘Modern distributed innovation means assembling a global jigsaw’;
• ‘We have moved from projecting home-based knowledge to building global advantages, learning from the world, sensing, melding, leveraging’;
• ‘Globalization is no more an issue, footprint is the problem: awareness of optimal global footprint derives in sensing, mobilizing and operating globally’; it’s not about susbtitution and outsourcing, it is based on complementarity and discovery’;
• Value of skills diversity shall be balanced with cost of dispersion: small team perform better, let’s focus our endeavour on established sources of knowledge’;
• ‘Knowledge is complex: one needs to foray and experience, to build ground for interaction; knowledge sharing is cultural: language facilitates exchanges, context affects embeddness. Knowledge breaks in different forms; tacit, experiential, endemic, existential’ (referring to Professor Nonaka);
• ‘Connection mechanismes are key: codified knowledge, connecting knowledge holders, connecting sites, setting-up situations for common design rather than formal knowledge sharing’;
• ‘To maximize absorptive capacity, tolerate a partially loosed culture, not entirely dependant from the culture of origin’;

‘Modular design’ streamlines cooperation

While speaking of organizing cooperation, Professor Doz mentionned TopCoder example: TopCoder divides IT project in modules and present them in an auction format, seeking for the best value on each module. It has its origin in Open Source where work is split according to modularisation and distribution, enabling a large range of developers with different profiles to participate.

Other posts have underlined the merit of ‘modular design’ to facilitate cooperation, speed up deployment, and extend innovative ecosystem: API is a hefty tool to foster open innovation and distribute your business, generating new revenue streams, strengthening your marketing campaigns, and extending your reach.

Why is ‘modular design’ triggering such a swift domino effect? ‘Modular design’ is pure ‘explicit knowledge’, that is formatted to be used by others: the kind of request, the format of the answer, the parameters you can use are well defined in API documentation, so that you can get up and running at lightning speed.

Furthermore, when knowledge is fully explicit, dispersion can be extreme: an API defined in the Silicon Valley can be used by developers teams from all over the planet.

Best contribution is what benefits to your customers

Cooperation makes us part of a bigger value chain. Entering the digital world is a kind of technological formatting. One might be afraid to dilute its business identity, or be bypassed by the digital realm. Let’s be positive: we do not not “cope with” digital, we shall leverage enthusiastically its assets.

To strengthen our position, the issue is to concentrate on the modular part where we bring best value, and where we can express leadership.

One guidance is to keep in mind a straightforward customer focus: how can new technologies enhance the value of experience to our customers? Does the latest greatest thing meet customer top of mind, or is it just fantasy? Let’s drill down digital technologies and set them up in order to create great impact on our business.

Forrester Analyst Thomas Husson believes ‘Mobile platforms will act as a catalyst for the next generation of connected experiences. Smart apps connected to products and CRM systems will emerge’. Thus Thomas examines core mobile benefits: how can we use the intimate link we have with our mobile, its capabilities to provide immediate and contextual information, to serve more timely our customers? Thomas focuses on ’empowering people in their key moments of decision and action’ and lists a few accurate hints: connect product with smart apps bringing convenience and utility, help the customer in his next task, proactively suggesting or reminding a purchase, nurture an emotional link with the brand, and ensure consistency by connecting mobile interactions to IT.

Now, it’s your time to take chances, experiment, listen, adjust, and iterate.

Credits: freestockimage.org, simcity-coexist.com, Phil Weymouth, cbbainsealcareers.com, blogspot-com, www.willem314.com

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