Technology, Innovation & Telecomm

How are the most successful products and services conceived? I’m sure there’s no hard-and-fast method, but to me there appears to be two very prevalent paths (and many more no doubt):

1. “Scratching an Itch” (thus the title of this post…) - This seems to be the polar opposite of the solutions-in-search of a problem approach that I’ve read some about. In this model, someone identifies a problem that either has no solution at present or the one(s) that exist are somehow inadequate. So, an individual or group of individuals create the solution that they want and for some reason, lots of others agree. Seems like a pretty pure way to go about it.

2. “Create a market” - To me, this is often the result of considering where the future lies and providing a technology, service or other product that deals in that future before it exists. Also pretty pure. This is often where the “disruptive technolgies” emerge but not by any means is it the only place that it happens. Not by a long shot.

The reason I bring it up is that I’ve been involved in some exercises that have led me to think about how to free myself from thinking about things like I always have and with any luck, come up with something useful.

Sometimes, these exercises seem to have taken the path of “let’s inject a solution to a problem that we haven’t yet identified and in the process, create a need”. Confusing? It is to me. To me, a successful idea is one that adds value to the intended target. That can be through means such as:

1. Helping someone do what they already do, but faster, cheaper, better, or all of the above.
2. Helping someone transition to something that they don’t currently do from their present activity.
3. Helping someone do something completely new, regardless of what they do now.
4. Helping someone protect the investment they have already made. Similar to #1, but it’s more of a means of continuing what they do in the face of newer methods.
5. And the list goes on…

I do know that trying to constantly incrementally improve what we already have will most likely lead to failure.

“The light bulb was not invented by the candle industry looking to improve output.”

For a solid example, take the iPod or other music players. Prior to their introduction, portable music was possible through things like MP3s on CD, regular audio CD, and tapes. The issue wasn’t so much that you couldn’t take your music with you. You could certainly keep many CDs in a carry case and the same for cassette tapes. The issues were mainly twofold:

* You could only carry so many of either tapes or CDs. The problem got harder if you were actually planning to do something like take a walk. Size and weight were really limiting.

* Storage of your portable library could be difficult.

So, the iPod and it’s bretheren came along and solved both of the problems I listed. You could now carry and play large quantities of songs from your collection and you could do it discreetly and without threatening your back. As a bonus, by ripping your music to digital formats like MP3, and AAC, etc., you could centralize your home music collection and select from any song when you wanted. Before that, there were CD carosels but they were again limited in the number of discs they could hold, the space they took, etc.

So you have this technology that didn’t offer you any basic ability you didn’t already have. What it did was to make it *much* easier to take your music along with you and to access it any way you want. It made doing what you already could do easier, more flexible and thus more enjoyable. But what was also birthed out of this technology were things like audio-blogs, PodCasts, and other time-shifted program materials. It truly disrupted (and continues to disrupt) traditional concepts of media distribution.

Dave Winer (along with Netscape and a cast of characters) saw the future need for a means to “syndicate” Web content and be able to effectively summarize data in near-realtime. There wasn’t a lot of need for it at the time it was conceived, but Dave and others realized that there was a future for such a thing. RSS (in all its various flavors) was the result. To me that’s a case where someone anticipated the future and built for it. RSS along with Bogs, PodCasts, etc. again disrupted the status-quo and have created all new industries that empower a wider range of individuals to do things that used to be reserved for big media.

What I’m struggling with is finding something new for my company to pursue. Of course, it has its core competencies and we’re always focused there. So, how to get outside of the box just enough to see a new service or product that will fit some problem that already exists or will likely exist? It feels like it’s just outside of my reach and I want to break through it…

Protect an existing investment? Transition to a new “thing”? Create a market? Disrupt the status quo for our marketplace?

What to do…?