Liberating Consumer Health Information
November 20, 2009
Visit the RAZCODE Blog, our sister blog, to learn about the RAZCODE Gateway and our mission to liberate consumer health information.
Innovation in Baltimore
February 23, 2009
Tomorrow February 24, 2009 marks the inaugural meeting of the Baltimore Angels investment group at the Emerging Technology Center (in which I am participating). The Baltimore Angels puts angel investors in touch with entrepreneurs via bimonthly meetings and other events. It is exciting to see the energy around this new group that is hoping to provide alot of advice and some cash to local entrepreneurs as they strive to bring new and innovative products and services to market. This group is the brain child of Dave Troy and several other early pioneers who are all interested in stoking the fires of innovation in the Baltimore area. The other interesting element of the Baltimore Angels movement is that it started and grew via Twitter (@baltimoreangels). In fact the website (baltimoreangels.org) simply takes you the Twitter page.
Over 50 executive summaries were submitted to the Baltimore Angels for the first meeting where 3 companies were selected to present. I reviewed many of the executive summaries myself, and there were several very interesting ideas in the mix. And there were more than a few that don’t really have a chance. I think the biggest challenge I see is that there are alot of smart people trying to create “lifestyle” businesses. These are businesses that are interesting, fulfilling, and potentially very profitable, that will provide the founding entrepreneurs with a very good living and a great lifestyle. The challenge is devising an investment model that makes sense for the lifestyle business. Both entreprenuerus and investors need to profit from a lifestyle business, or the movement won’t continue to grow in my view. There is also alot of opportunity to help entreprenurs think about their markets in greater detail: going beyond – there a 14,000 customers in this market and we expect to get 5% of them in the next 3 years. After all intelligence and passion are essential, but every business still needs to solve a pervasive and urgent market problem in order to succeed.
But Baltimore is off to a great start in 2009. This is an important movement that will pay deep dividends in the future if it grows and prospers. Find a way to get involved and track the progress at twitter.com/baltimoreangels.
ASAE Technology Conference — Part 3
February 3, 2009
One of the more positive things I took away from the ASAE Tech Conference was that many associations are starting to embrace disruptive technologies.
Disruptive technologies deliver relatively simple, convenient, and low cost innovations to a set of customers who are ignored by industry leaders. Tools like WordPress, YouTube, Facebook are all examples of disruptive technologies. Many Associations are experimenting with these technologies and that is a good thing. Combining the jobs to be done process I described in my last Post with experimentation with disruptive technologies is a powerful way to deliver products and services that resonate with members and other constituencies.
The challenge is matching the availability and use of disruptive technologies with the typical way that Associations budget for and manage technology initiatives. The nature of Associations often dictactes that major technology initiatives get the approval of not only senior leadership but also the Board of Directors (BOD). The result is that most Associations are forced to follow a very deliberate strategy, where they define requirements and goals, define a set of steps to reach that goal, and then methodically act on each step. It is the only way for the leadership team to answer the Board’s questions around how much, when, and why.
This approach is evident in the dozens of RFPs I have seen over the last 4 years for CMS, AMS, and Website implementations that are all virtually identical. They consist of a large wish list of features or requirements, demand a fixed price and schedule, and want to know the total cost of ownership. And the result of this approach is that 4 years later, Associations are still saying that most of their energy is taken up fixing and replacing systems.
It seems that a different approach modeled after the Google approach that Chris Sacca spoke about on Day 2 of the ASAE conference might be worth considering:
- stay focused on the user and their unmet needs (jobs to be done)
- experiment and iterate with simple, low cost technologies.
By following an emergent strategy that is based on gathering feedback from the marketplace and retaining flexibility, Associations can experiment with new technology and change their strategies on the fly to adapt to new information that emerges from members. So when a member survey says “you need to have a blog”, you can quickly go out and set-up a WordPress blog for under a couple of hundred dollars, for example, and test whether the members will really value the blog before developing a major initiative around blogging (or video, or Twitter …).
Maybe the time has come for Associations to create small R&D organizations that are charged with innovation: understanding the jobs that members need to get done, and following an emergent strategy that incorporates learning and rapid adjustment to create products and services that resonate.
It seems to me that this is the best way for Associations to break out of the technology inertia that keeps them focused internally on their existing systems and to get back to delivering killer applications that make it easier for members to do something they were already trying to accomplish.
And then maybe next year ASAE can host the first Innovation Conference for Associations too.
What do you think?
ASAE Technology Conference – Part 2
February 2, 2009
As I mentioned in my previous post, Associations have a real opportunity to move beyond fixing and replacing their existing systems as the focus of their technology initiatives if they embrace a couple of key concepts that were highlighted by Chris Sacca in his General Session talk. These concepts are: stay laser focused on the user and embrace disruptive technologies.
Sacca talked alot about Google’s passion for solving user problems and creating compelling user experiences. In my view, this is the essence of innovation, which is fundamentally about identifying important problems to be solved. And innovation is the pathway for Associations to get beyond the technology inertia that is still focused on the AMS/CMS/Website triumvirate.
Most Associations conduct at least an annual member survey to try and understand member needs. Unfortunately, asking members what they want and need can be dangerous because the type of information members typically provide include things like solutions, benefits, needs, and specifications — none of which will help you to devise breakthrough products and services or make the innovation process more predictable (http://twurl.cc/esw).
So the first step on the innovation pathway is to change the unit of analysis from member needs and to instead focus on the jobs that members need to get done (http://twurl.cc/esy).
The philosophy is simple: members have jobs that arise regularly and need to get done. So they seek out products, services, and indeed, organizations to help them get the job done. These jobs can be functional, personal, and social. So when joininig or participating in an Association a member may want to have access to specific information or services (functional), but she may also want to enhance her career (personal) and feel more connected to her peers (social).
By deeply understanding jobs to be done, associations will really understand their members and be in a better position to leverage technology in creating products and services that resonate with them.
So the next step is to understand the power of disruptive technology, which will be the subject of my next post.
Overshooting and Innovation
December 18, 2008
I recently blogged about a new disruptive technology for PL/SQL developers, so the following discussion on Eddie Awad’s Blog (and the related conversation I started on a LinkedIn Group ) caught my attention because it highlights the concept of overshooting — the fact that many companies innovate faster than customers can keep up.
There are a large number of Oracle developers who strive to constantly learn new technologies and keep up with the latest trends. This is good. But there are even more developers who are “just PL/SQL developers” and who are overwhelmed by the need to learn a half-dozen new technologies just to deliver a richer user experience to their enterprise customers.
These developers are very valuable to the enteprise and represent a significant market opportunity because they will consider new products that will help them get the important job of “delivering rich web apps to my users” done, as long as they can leverage what they already know. In fact a recent survey I ran indicated that 90% of PL/SQL developers believe they would benefit if they could develop rich web applications on their own in a way that increased the value of their existing Oracle and PL/SQL skills.
These developers would be viewed as non-consumers of the latest middle-tier technology, application framework, or language. But with non-consumption comes incredible market opportunities if you can provide them with a good enough product that is more convenient, less costly, or easier to use.
And that’s why products such as TURBOEnterprise, that I mentioned last time, have such potential.
Disruptive AJAX Framework for the Enterprise
November 25, 2008
I have recently started working with a promising company (Bizwhazee) that is offering an AJAX framework for enterprise PL/SQL developers. I am energized about this product because it has the potential to be disruptive within the ORACLE PL/SQL developer community.
One way to to define a disruptive innovation is that it enables a new set of customers to perform a job that only specialists could previously perform. In the case of TurboEnterprise, the new set of customers is PL/SQL developers within the enterprise who have been frustrated by their inability to deliver rich, web applications to business users because of the cost and complexity associated with implementing n-tier web applications.
The TurboEnterprise strategy fits this disruptive model in several key ways:
- It removes the barrier that has prevented PL/SQL developers from delivering rich web apps themselves and has relegated many DBAs and PL/SQL developers to the role of database server babysitter — the need to learn complex new technologies that are immature and rapidly changing.
- It removes a barrier constraining the adoption of rich web apps in the enterprise — access to skills.
- It targets a market in which factors such as product cost (middleware), complexity (web technologies), or inconvenience constrain consuption — enterprise rich web apps.
Essentially, TurboEnterprise is an AJAX framework for PL/SQL Developers. It allows PL/SQL developers to “do it themselves” and deliver enterprise-class, rich web applications to enterprise users, using only their existing PL/SQL and ORACLE skills.
The sharp engineers at TurboEnterprise have leveraged their distinctive competence with the ORACLE platform and with “thick database” concepts, as well as with n-tier application architectures and AJAX programming, to virtualize an AJAX framework and a n-tier application architecture inside of an ORACLE database.
In plain English this means: Turbo-Enterprise allows PL/SQL developers to build rich web apps using just PL/SQL code. There is no need to learn HTML, Java, CSS, Javascript, AJAX or a new programming framework/language.
As more and more business users are exposed to rich web applications outside of the enterprise, from companies such as Google and many others, they are demanding better user experiences within the enterprise. IT organizations have been hard-pressed to deliver these kinds of apps because of the need to have access to highly skilled people, and the need for these people to learn yet another set of rapidly changing, complex technologies. Now with Turbo-Enterprise, IT managers can get more out of their existing staff of PL/SQL developers while delivering new capabilities to business users.
The trade-off is that you may not be building rich web apps in Java utilizing the latest, very expensive, ORACLE Fusion middleware platform, but you are able to quickly deliver enterprise-class (secure, scalable, reliable, etc.) rich application experiences to the business user for a fraction of the cost. IT managers get more out of their existing investments in technology and people, while providing their PL/SQL developers with new challenges that extends and enhances their skills.
So in summary, TurboEnterprise,
- targets non-consumption of rich web apps in the Enterprise
- addresses important jobs to be done — allowing PL/SQL developers to enhance their skills and careers and allowing IT shops to better meet the needs of the business user
- eliminates cost and complexity by enhancing an existing, mature technology.
All the hallmarks of a disruptive innovation.
(Editor’s Note: In the spirit of full disclosure I am acting as the Product Manager for this product)
Rich web applications
November 19, 2008
How would you define a rich web application? Answer here.
And how important is it to deliver rich web applications in your organization? Answer here.
Disruptive Video Innovation
June 2, 2008
I recently received a Flip Video as a gift. The Flip Video is manufactured by Pure Digital Technologies and comes in two versions: the first version stores about 30 minutes of video, and the second version stores about 60 minutes of video. The price points are about $100 and $150 respectively.
This is a great example of a disruptive innovation. The Flip Video is just good enough at what it does, while providing some significant benefits along the dimensions of ease of use, simplicity, and cost. The videos captured by this device are reasonable, but not great. However, there are no cables, no software to install on your PC, and no charger involved. Simply push a button to start recording. When finished the pop-out USB connector connects to your PC and you can copy the video to your hard drive, make use of a basic editing program stored on the device, or prepare the video to be emailed. The device just appears as a removable disk drive on your PC. All of the software is installed on the device so there is no need to install anything on your PC. A couple of simple folders are created on your PC to store your videos in albums. And that’s it.
There a just three basic buttons on the device (other than the power switch), and it runs on two AA batteries. It also has basic zoom capabilities. Simple, sweet, effective. If you are big into video, this device will not satisfy you. But if you are like me and are looking for a simple video camera that doens’t require charging, or a carrying case, and video tapes, etc., and can slip easily into your pocket, then the Flip Video is the device for you.
Look for this device to become ubiquitous in the very near future.
Video innovation
March 24, 2008
LocalOrigination is a local Baltimore company that has the potential to disrupt the multi-media communications market. Their product allows individuals to quickly and easily assemble a video-based message and to distribute it via email or a website. Use your browser to upload a video file created with a simple web cam or other video camera, upload additional content such as PowerPoint slides, images, animations, or other videos, and then quickly sync the video and the content with a few clicks of your mouse. Visit their website for a demo.
This product has the potential to become a disruptive innovation. The classic definition of a disruption is the creation of a technology that enables a new set of customers to perform a job that only specialists could previously perform. LocalOrigination fits the bill. Because of YouTube and other developments, many organizations are interested in leveraging video on their websites and in their communications with employees, customers, partners, etc. But many people are still intimidated by video production. There are many software packages, such as Flash or Microsoft Silverlight, that allow technical and creative people develop incredible video productions. Or you can outsource your video production to various agencies and consulting firms if you have the money. But for mere mortals, video communication can still be out of reach.
Now LocalOrigination is opening up the possibility of video and interactive, multi-media communications to people that have traditionally found video production too complex or too expensive in the past. This is the art of disruptive innovation.
Making the Internet safe for children
March 18, 2008
A local Baltimore start-up is creating a safer Internet for our children. safeTspace is a consumer identity management company that is practicing effective innovation. They are laser focused on helping parents (mostly moms) handle the job of keeping their children safe when using the Internet. safeTspace offers a consumer identity management solution for social networking sites such as Facebook or mySpace. It uses fingerprint technology backed by in-person identity verification and parental consent to provide a strong level of assurance that the people our children are interacting with on the web are in fact who they say they are. safeTspace has strong potential because they are focused on a real job that most parents must perform today: keeping our kids safe while they explore online. This is classic innovation at its best. And it is happening right here in Baltimore.