INNOBLOG

Leafing through this weeks BusinessWeek with the disruptive hat on

Cell Phones for the Sandlot on page 20 Chris Carter has been tracking developments in the kid-focused handset market. It is interesting to see how different companies are going after the space. From a jobs-to-be-done perspective, neither the Firefly nor the TicTalk have it quite right. The Firefly seems to have approached it from a kids-job perspective (easy to use) while the TicTalk comes at it from a parents job perspective (easy to program). It sure would be good to have the best of both worlds

Dark Days at Daimler on page 31 The cover story. Remember what has happened with this merger the next type you see hype about how the next mega-merger is going to help company X + Y do something interesting.

Drugmakers are Changing Channels on page 44 One of my favorite sayings is I know half of my marketing budget is wasted. I just dont know which half. Believe it or not, pharmaceutical companies are discovering that spending huge amounts of money on consumer-direct advertising doesnt work. Thankfully, this might mean fewer Cialis, Viagra, etc. ads. If one of these companies could take 50 percent of the brain power they focus on coming up with clever but meaningless ads and think about the broader value chain issues that might inhibit consumption, they could find themselves with an interesting business on their hands. As a teaser, Clayton Christensens next Harvard Business Review article is going to take on brand-building. The last version I saw was titled Marketing Malpractice: Its Causes and Cures. Coming later this year.

Podcast: David vs. Goliath on page 47. An interesting thing is happening in the Podcast space. Existing giants are racing into the space. Once Apple incorporated Podcasts onto its iTunes platform, existing media companies realized that a Podcast could be a great way to increase the distribution of existing content. Emerging, fringe players seem to be getting pushed aside. As is always the case, where the individual will triumph is in doing the things the media giants arent interested in doing. Trying to out-Epert Epert just isnt going to do it.

From the Brink to the Big Leagues on page 60. Data storage giant EMC has set its sites on moving up market to compete more directly against IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Can it disrupt the goliaths? Or will it be swatted back down into its niche?

"The Right Stuff for GIs of the Future on page 74 Another article asking whether it really makes sense for the Army to be spending $125 billion for a system predicated on the assumption that future wars will be fought on open battlefields against conventional enemies. Hmmm seems to be some evidence against that assumption. Weve written about this issue before, a couple of times. Mastering the resource-allocation process is one of the biggest challenges facing companies encountering disruptive threats.