I am NOT Maverick Marketing Sydney

CHANGING THE NAME OF THE GAME.

Ok, lots of famous people talk about the need to innovate. Gary Hamel did it, so did Tom Peters, and Seth Godin, and many others far more famous than me.

It’s true too.

You must innovate – but none of these people tell you how to do it.

I can see why. It’s difficult to define where a breakthrough idea comes from.

But I am going to attempt it. Right now. Right here. Today. Get yourself comfortable, it’s gonna be a long read.

From a marketing strategy point of view, the truly exciting, but potentially high risk strategy is one that changes the way the game is played.

The outcome of this is usually a product, service or way of doing something that is disruptive to an industry.

In other words, they are disruptive technologies since they shift the balance of power, often from a large cumbersome dinosaur-like incumbent to an agile upstart that has the audacity to challenge Goliath.
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A product roadmap is exactly that – it is a map outlining the route your product development will take over a specified period of time.

The time span covered will depend on your product and its industry.

(For example, you would expect upgrades and changes to software products to move extremely quickly; conversely the development of a new piece of large machinery may take many years.)

The purpose of creating a product roadmap is to develop out the innovation strategy for your product (or service) – to think through and articulate the direction, the technology required, the marketing, the investment and the milestones.

As a document, a product roadmap brings together the thinking of the technologist with the marketing manager, and provides the basis for your discussions with major suppliers and customers.

It also serves the entrepreneur with a vehicle to take to investors since it describes how the products will be brought to market; the potential applications for the product; the short-term focus (and why you choose to focus where you do) and the longer term market opportunities both for increasing your market (and in case your original markets do not mature – a contingency plan) and of course how your product is different from (and superior to) competitors.
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It’s time to unleash your creativity and design your very own dream space.

Just start with a theme from scratch, drag and drop furniture, change the background and choose accessories just to make the room the way you want it. When you’re done, you can save your room, email it or print it to use as your shopping list at Ikea.

Faddish or smart retailing?

Head to the website to have a play.

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We own a Macbook Pro.

The minute it arrived, it disappeared, straight into my 8 year old daughter’s room, on to the old student desk with the lift-up lid.

Photo booth is launched, webcam is on, and I’m left thinking to myself that by the time she’s a teenager, anything will be possible.

The world has come an awful long way since I was her age.

If there is one thing that social media enables it is creativity and if there is one thing that Apple computers truly enable, it is for anyone to be creative. There is no other system that packages itself for the new Internet social-media world as well as the Apple.

Social media throws open the previously closed shop of publicly-published expression. Voices that were once silenced have been given the freedom of speech – anywhere, anytime, as long as they have an Internet connection. Artists that convention frowned upon have new platforms with which to display their work and attract new fans. Musicians who couldn’t get record deals with major labels have facebook and myspace pages, and YouTube channels, and are becoming Internet celebrities instead.

For the Apple computer, it’s the coming of age. Apple computer sales are remarkably healthy, despite global economic tightening, with the company selling 2.6 million machines over the three months ending July 2009.

People are rushing in droves to buy Apple’s – even as their first machine – prepared to pay a premium for a machine from a company that itself hasn’t demonstrated much of an appetite to engage in social media. This doesn’t mean, of course, that it doesn’t acknowledge how important social media is becoming, instead it means it is going to apply its religion of innovation and seamless plug-and-play to make social media even easier for Apple loyalists.

The rumor mill is sweeping the US that Apple will work on a standalone social networking application which is able to connect multiple social media sites. Apple is staying quiet. If true, though, Apple will take another step forward in its domination of being in the right place at the right time. It will allow users to update status information, amongst other things, simultaneously across multiple social media platforms.

This is Apple at its finest. For those that appreciate innovation, it’s another reason to support the Apple brand. For those that compete against it, it is further reinforcement of their positions as laggards.

Like Apple? Check out other Apple stories.

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According to internetworldstats, there are (as of 31 March 2009) 1,596,270,108 Internet Users – that’s just under 24% of the world’s population. (In fact, there is a great post by Dave Caffey on sources of Internet usage data if ever you’re really interested.)

And according to a recent Radicati Group report, those users will generate 247 billion email messages per day in 2009. Most of it is spam, but that’s still an awful lot of email messages that might once have been delivered via the Pony Express.

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Digital greetings are all very well, but it seems there’s something about the tangible paper card that just can’t be replaced. Now there’s Burney Cards, combining an artist-designed, fold-out paper card with a burnable CD tucked inside.

Created by Dutch firm Schmeitz+Freitag, the Burney CD Card provides content-sharing consumers with a giftable alternative to download links and plastic jewel cases. The current line includes 24 styles of cards designed by up-and-coming artists. With designs for a variety of occasions, the cards let users record music, pictures or video onto the matching CD and send it along in the included slot, with a personalized message written on the card itself.

Burney Cards can be purchased online, and international shipping is available. In addition, however, Amsterdam-based Schmeitz+Freitag is actively seeking distributors.

This (and lots of other new product ideas from around the world) can be seen at Springwise. Subscription is free and the site is full of ideas.

Do you love innovation? So do I. Check out other posts related to innovation.

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