INNOBLOG

BusinessWeek has a special section this week on innovation. Lots of interesting stuff in the section to discuss. My quick take: I thought there were some provocative thoughts in the article, but as always, a lot of unanswered questions.

It is clear that innovation is a hot topic right now. Some of the fundamental premises in the article -- it's more than just technology, getting inside the consumers head is key, finding new paths requires new tools -- are hard to argue with. Left unanswered are questions such as: Which market space has the highest potential for growth? When does it NOT make sense to focus on design? How can a company maximize the potential of a particular strategy? How can a company develop a process that makes the pursuit of new growth more systematic?

Of course, innovation is a complicated discipline and providing a comprehensive guide in 20 pages is pretty darn hard. I would love to hear people's reaction to the article.

There was a classic article in the WSJ on Thursday. As you may know, the local telephone companies (Verizon, et al) have announced plans to get into the cable television market. Part of this is of course the perpetual quest for new growth. Part of this is to have a weapon to use to beat back the cable companies who are using VoIP to come after the telephone companies.

In Seeing What's Next (shameless plug alert), we talk a lot about how the best way to go into these battles is to try to take some kind of asymmetric approach that your opponent doesn't want to respond to. The cable companies seem to be largely moving in this direction with their low-cost, good enough VoIP solution (just a matter of time before one of them buys Vonage ...). The phone companies seem to have missed this chapter. Everything I've seen suggests an all-out approach going right after the core of the market with a largely me-too product. The hope has been to have everything the cable companies have and layer on top some additional services that take advantage of the telephone network's flexible architecture.

Well, surprise, surprise. Sensing a potential threat to their core business, the cable companies are trying to figure out how to do switched services that allow them to match some of the new benefits the telephone companies hope to provide.

Confused yet? Read Thursday's WSJ article ("Cable Operators Rush Services To Keep Edge", registration required). It's clear a battle is a-brewin'. Hard to bet against the cable operators here unless the telephone folks can figure out a disruptive path.

The Wall Street Journal had two particularly interesting stories yesterday. The first ("How Water Backpack Went to War", reprinted without registration at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) talked about how a small company has found success adapting a backpack it developed for hikers for military purposes. The "CamelBak" gives users ready access to a clean water supply without needing to reach for a bottle, obviously a critically important need for soldiers in arid environments or under threat of chemical or biological attack.

Interestingly, the company that makes the "hands-free hydration system" (appropriately named CamelBak Products LLC) has said that its military work has helped its consumer marketing as well. The military forces it to push the frontier along different dimensions than regular consumers, and the innovations the company develops helps it further improve that offering.

A story like this one talking about how an innovation designed for the consumer market has found its way to the military crops up every few weeks. Someone who combines systematic thinking about unsatisfied jobs to be done of on-the-ground soldiers with focused innovation efforts will have a blockbuster business on their hands.

The second article ("At Starbucks, a Blend of Coffee And Music Creates a Potent Mix") discussed how Starbucks has moved into the music business. If youve been to Starbucks recently you probably have noticed this. Most Starbucks have a couple of CDs by the register. Some CDs, such as Alanis Morissettes recent effort, are exclusively distributed in Starbucks.

Although the connection between coffee and music might seem to be a bit tenuous, Starbucks forays into music make a great deal of sense. It comes back to that age-old question: What business are you really in? Starbucks wants to define itself as the third place beyond the home and the office. What do you do at a third place? Drink coffee, surf the Web and listen to music. Although its not clear exactly how big a money maker the CD business will be for Starbucks, it will be interested to see what other services the company layers on as it seeks to maintain its heady growth trajectory.

Any other examples of products cascading from the masses to the military? Or thoughts on reasonable add-ons at Starbucks?

This morning, Disney and Sprint announced plans to develop "family oriented cellular services." Here is the link - Disney/Sprint Collaboration. While the companies have not been forthcoming with details, others have suggested that the service may offer cell phones for young children.

The good news for Firefly is that the service isn't expected to launch until next year. The bad news is that if the Firefly phone is successful, we can expect to see the Disney/Sprint collaboration offering similar scaled down phones that leverage the Disney properties. A Sleeping Beauty cell phone with "Once Upon a Dream" as a ringtone could turn out to be Firefly's nightmare.