Apple & disruptive innovation: 4 questions innovators need to ask before moving forward!

Steve Jobs thought that most people live in a small box. “They think they can’t influence or change things a lot.” Jobs urged his staff to reject that philosophy as untrue.

Disruptive innovation is seen by many companies as a threat to them – but not by Apple who are happy to embrace disruptive technologies.

An interview with Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in FastCompany magazine shows that things are not as simple – and this offers lessons for all companies looking at new technology.

The key points are that Apple doesn’t go for every new technology. First they need to understand and have faith in the primary technology behind an innovation. They then consider two questions:

What can Apple add to this – and will it be embraced by society or be seen as something positive. These are interesting questions as a new technology will only be disruptive when people view it as adding to their overall well-being (even if initially people don’t fully understand the innovation – as was the case with first iPad where pundits said “so what” and “why do I need this”). Apple then looks to see if they can be the leader in technology – to own it. If they can’t they leave it to others.

This explains why often Apple isn’t first with something new. For example, they’ve just launched the Apple Watch. It’s too soon to say if this will be a success (although initial signs suggest it will be). Again critics have complained about it. It’s also not the first wearable on the market.

Essentially what’s being said is that to launch a truly disruptive product you need to answer four questions?

1) What is the new technology – and do we understand it?
2) Can we play in this market?
3) Will this innovation / technology / product or service contribute to society i.e. enable people to do things more easily or better than they could before or do things they couldn’t do at all before?
4) Can we be a primary player in this market?

If the answer to any of these 4 questions is no, Apple won’t enter the market. These are great questions that any company should consider before entering a new market. (The third question is perhaps the most interesting in respect of Apple – as what did the iPad offer people that other then existing devices couldn’t do. In retrospect, the answer is obvious but that’s hindsight. Spotting that the iPad, launched in 2010, gave you much more than the iPhone or the Amazon Kindle that predated it by 3 years, and that a laptop wasn’t as transportable, or easy to use was the genius of the device.

X-mas Advertising: John Lewis, M&S and Debenhams Christmas Ad Campaigns Compared

Good advertising should make you feel good inside so that it creates desire for the product or brand. Especially at this time of year, stores try to capture minds so people can buy their gifts at the advertiser’s shop. It’s all about AIDA – building an Awareness of the brand; then stimulating an Interest in it; followed by creating a Desire to Act and make a purchase.

The Daily Mash is a satirical UK news website which publishes spoof articles. It’s a UK equivalent to The Onion website in the US that has carried some world-class spoofs, believed and republished by the regimes in Iran and China with a spoof about Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

A few days ago I read an article in the Daily Mash about the Debenhams Department Store‘s new Christmas Ad campaign, describing the campaign as demonic (Satan Quits over Debenhams Christmas Advert).

Image from Debenham’s Xmas Ad, as shown in Daily Mash article

The accompanying image of a child in a red hood reminded me of Red Riding Hood. I was curious – and so watched the ad.

The ad features a group of children let loose in Debenhams after closing time – there’s the odd cleaner still around. The children seem to have full rein to go wherever they want, try on whatever they want (whether it fits or not), snatching, taking, and making a mess. I found it totally materialistic and symptomatic of a “me, me, me” attitude.

I saw the kids in the ad as spoiled brats. The only redeeming feature is that it did show the quality and range of goods available (although mostly for adults rather than children’s toys).

John Lewis – another UK Department Store has a reputation for producing really thoughtful and moving ads at Christmas. I wondered what they had produced for 2014. This was the opposite to the Debenhams ad. It showed a child, in love with a pet penguin – and how the two played together and had fun together. Except the penguin was lonely, despite his friendship with the boy. This ad captures the seasonal mood – as it’s all about sharing, friendship, love and giving – and like the 2013 ad, brings a tear to the eye.

(John Lewis’s page launching the ad also has extras to download on the theme of #MontyThePenguin. There is also a Daily Mash spoof on this – which I’m not linking too as I found it in poor taste, mentioning avian rights and trafficking!)

I’m curious to know which brings in the shoppers. My bets are on John Lewis.

(Last year’s John Lewis X-mas ad was a classic – and much praised. It is worth watching, just for how it manages to create a real appreciation of the brand. I suspect this year’s – although not as emotive – may prove to be better for sales figures as I think it finishes with a stronger call for action i.e. purchase).

I also looked at the M&S Christmas ad #FollowTheFairies. It doesn’t have quite the same magic and sparkle of either the Debenhams ad or the John Lewis one despite its theme – two fairies, delivering magic & sparkle (i.e. M&S) across town (in scenes reminiscent of Peter Pan). There was no sense of wonder – which both the Debenhams and John Lewis adverts managed to invoke. Nevertheless, I much prefer it to the Debenhams ad for the same reason that I like the John Lewis one: the emphasis is on giving and creating happiness. Isn’t that what the spirit of Christmas is supposed to be all about?

Competition or Co-operation? Collaborate & Co-operate to build and not to destroy.

Competition – or Cooperation? When companies merge, or when one company acquires another, the aim is to integrate the two into one unified entity as quickly as possible.

The problem is that often, this doesn’t happen. There is competition, resentment and rivalry and the two fail to unite. The problem is how to prevent this so that there is a successful integration of the employees of the two companies so that they take pride in the new merged company.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that the Bible gives a way forward when he discusses what happened after the Israelites built the Golden Calf in the Sinai desert. They were given a task – to build a tabernacle to pray to God. Moses asks the Israelites to make voluntary contributions to the construction of the Tabernacle – the Sanctuary. They do so with such generosity that Moses has to order them to stop.

If you want to bond human beings so that they act for the common good, get them to build something together. Get them to undertake a task that they can only achieve together, that none can do alone.

The power of this principle was demonstrated in a famous social-scientific research exercise carried out in 1954 by Muzafer Sherif and others from the University of Oklahoma, known as the Robbers’ Cave experiment. Sherif wanted to understand the dynamics of group conflict and prejudice. To do so, he and his fellow researchers selected a group of 22 white, eleven-year-old boys, none of whom had met one another before. They were taken to a remote summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. They were randomly allocated into two groups.

Initially neither group knew of the existence of the other. They were staying in cabins far apart. The first week was dedicated to team-building. The boys hiked and swam together. Each group chose a name for itself – they became The Eagles and the Rattlers. They stencilled the names on their shirts and flags.

Then, for four days they were introduced to one another through a series of competitions. There were trophies, medals and prizes for the winners, and nothing for the losers. Almost immediately there was tension between them: name-calling, teasing, and derogatory songs. It got worse. Each burned the other’s flag and raided their cabins. They objected to eating together with the others in the same dining hall.

Stage 3 was called the ‘integration phase’. Meetings were arranged. The two groups watched films together. They lit Fourth-of-July firecrackers together. The hope was that these face-to-face encounters would lessen tensions and lead to reconciliation. They didn’t. Several broke up with the children throwing food at one another.

In stage 4, the researchers arranged situations in which a problem arose that threatened both groups simultaneously. The first was a blockage in the supply of drinking water to the camp. The two groups identified the problem separately and gathered at the point where the blockage had occurred. They worked together to remove it, and celebrated together when they succeeded.

The lessons for companies trying to work together should be obvious – integration isn’t through words but actions, collaboration and co-operation. It’s NOT through conflict or continuing the “us” and “them” approaches often seen.

In another, both groups voted to watch some films. The researchers explained that the films would cost money to hire, and there was not enough in camp funds to do so. Both groups agreed to contribute an equal share to the cost. In a third, the coach on which they were travelling stalled, and the boys had to work together to push it. By the time the trials were over, the boys had stopped having negative images of the other side. On the final bus ride home, the members of one team used their prize money to buy drinks for everyone.

Similar outcomes have emerged from other studies. The conclusion is revolutionary. You can turn even hostile factions into a single cohesive group so long as they are faced with a shared challenge that all can achieve together but none can do alone.

The point is obvious. In order to integrate two groups together – whether they are companies, teams, departments or any other collection of people – you need to encourage not just co-operation with motivational words, but also set in place collaboration that involves both groups sharing and building together.

When mergers & acquisitions fail it is often because the two parts don’t behave as one. The Robber’s Cave experiment gives an explanation on why this is – and more importantly, how to correct it.

Freedom of Speech, Abuse and Social Media

Over the last year or so, social media sites have been attacked for allowing users to post abuse about other people onto their sites. These include examples of cyber-bullying on ask.fm or tweets on twitter calling for other users to be raped. The ask.fm posts have been implicated in a number of suicides while in one notable case, Sally Bercow, the wife of the Speaker of the UK Parliament, was found guilty of libel for a tweet she posted implying somebody else was a paedophile.

Abuse via social media seems new. In fact this sort of abuse is old. The difference is not the abuse itself, but the level of publicity it receives. In the middle of the 19th century an anonymous individual sent letters to various people in the rural English town of Tetbury threatening to burn their property. Agatha Christie‘s 1942/43 detective novel “The Moving Finger” tells a story of letters sent to people in the quiet town of Lymstock that resulted in the recipients committing suicide. Not so different from the ask.fm cyber-bulling (except that as a Mrs Marple story, things were not so simple and in fact the letters were used as a cover for murder).

Hate letters – often called poison pen letters – go along with anonymous or silent phone calls as one way warped minds try and subvert the minds of opponents or people they dislike. (“The Moving Finger” includes the following: “The letters are sent indiscriminately and serve the purpose of working off some frustration in the writer’s mind. As I say, it’s definitely pathological. And the craze grows….“)

Hate letters are the ancestors of today’s abusive tweets and social media comments. There is, however, a difference. Whereas hate mail isn’t public, abusive tweets threatening rape or calling the victim an “ugly cow” are. This has a larger impact as the hatred is seen by many more people and so is much more distressing.

Social media platforms must take such abuse seriously. It can, and does, lead to suicides – especially if the victims already have low self-esteem. It can escalate and lead to false rumours, as happened with Lord McAlpine – libelled by Sally Bercow. Even worse, it could lead to action against the victim.

This is not a case of freedom of speech being blocked. It’s a case of free speech that is liable to cause harm to others being punished. Anybody who tries to justify abuse using arguments that they support freedom of speech is confusing “freedom of speech” with “free speech”. Freedom of Speech is the right to communicate opinions and ideas – and censoring these is one of the first signs of a restrictive society that can, and does, lead to totalitarianism. It is not, however, a right to “free speech” where you can call for the rape of women, or abuse others through words or images. Freedom of Speech also implies responsibilities that justify that freedom.

There are people who would happily ban or restrict social media and even much of the Internet completely.  In the latter case, this includes David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, who has called on search engines to create blocks for searches for abusive pornography or be forced to do so by law. Such calls will increase, unless the relevant sites (social media, search engines, etc.) show that they accept the responsibilities of their public position, and actively look at ways of fighting, blocking or reporting abuse themselves.