Guy Kawasaki: What makes innovation?

July 2, 2009, 3:49pm PDT | Length: 00:03:01
At Cisco Live in San Francisco, Silicon Valley entreprenuer Guy Kawasaki, author of Reality Check, talks about the four qualities of innovation that he believes all successful products need. They are: deep, intelligent, complete, and elegant.

Transcript

Guy Kawasaki: What makes innovation?

music What makes innovation? First quality of innovation is that the product is deep, lots of features, does lots of stuff. You have anticipated what people need before they know they need it. They will not run out of power. Great products, great services are deep. This is an example of a deep product. This is a fanning sandal made by Reef. Every sandal in the world has one primary function, protect your feet. This sandal has twice the functionality. That area that circle that's the middle clip, the purpose of that metal clip is to open beer bottles.

laughter This sandal has twice the functionality and depth of any other sandal in the world. I is for intelligence. Great products, great services when you look at it you say wow somebody was thinking. Somebody was thinking. Somebody is solving my pain. A lot of you are using these flips, those minnows, right. Somebody was thinking. Somebody said well people want a cheap HD video device that basically no cables USB device, you stick it in, you don't have to think about it, there's basically one button, you turn it on, boom, you are done, right. Panasonic. Panasonic looked at people's homes and said, wow, like my house? We have lots of batteries. We have a frigging jar full of batteries with lots of flashlights. None of which work because there's no batteries for them. Why is that? Because the flashlights that we have don't take the size batteries that we have. Panasonic figured out that's a problem. So they created a flashlight that takes three sizes of battery. Triples the probability that you have the right size battery. C stands for complete. Great products are complete. Great services are complete. When you buy a Lexus, you are not merely buying the steel and the glass and the rubber and the leather. You are buying the totality of the experience. When you buy great software it's not just the digital download, or the DVD or the cable it came on, it's the documentation, it's the online forum, it's the online support. It's the string of enhancements, it's all the good stuff. Great products are complete. And the last thing E. Great products and services are elegant and beautiful. People care about the user interface. So when you go home, and you whip out the notes for this session, remember I want to you jump curves. But ask yourself are we creating something that's deep, intelligent, complete and elegant? Because those are the four primary qualities of something that is successfully jumping curves. Roll the dice.

==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====

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Talkback Most Recent of 3 Talkback(s)

  • No revelations here
    Guy is quite likable. And, his presentations and books are easy to digest and wonderfully simplistic. He knows that's what sells, specially for him. His name alone gives him credibility, and a jump on book sales: the 10-point lists generally seal the deal. We all want to "understand" as quickly as possible.

    But talks like this - mainly to promote himself and his own products - are past the curve. Good to see that this subject and approach are coming the mainstream market. But, as an "expert" he is late. That ship sailed a while ago. Lexus knew this in the late eighties (and spent $1B to prove it). You can even see truly excellent - and unique - products coming right out of places like Vietnam and China.

    This is not about innovation, as it is about making products and services that meet and beat expectations, mostly emotional. Many product "designers" are really great engineers. They know how to make something work, but don't entirely understand why someone would buy it. This is not a bad thing in itself, but often it doesn't produce a great product.

    Guys like Donald Norman have been beating this drum for quite a while, and even he recently began to really understand just what role emotion plays in a product's acceptance. Guy, every purchase - EVERY purchase - has an emotional component. I saw it personally back in the eighties when I sold chips and capacitors in the Valley. All decisions have some human irrationality built in. That's what all these products have in common. How "cool" is it the sandals can open a bottle! Bottle openers aren't real hard to find these days. How "cool" is it I don't have to remember to get the right batteries for the flashlight! Thanks for thinking of me. Etc.

    Drop by a design school sometimes and you'll see how far behind Guy is.

    Still like him, though.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Lucky2BHere
    29th Jul 2009
  • RE: Guy Kawasaki: What makes innovation?
    I'm not sure that what he's describing is innovative at all. It just sounds like good design. One can have Deep, Intelligent, Complete, and Elegent without introducing anything new or innovative. And I suspect that if one did all those things, even if it wasn't innovative in the least, they would have a market hit on their hands.

    There is another word which I think sums up all those four characteristics: Quality.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mheartwood
    1st Aug 2009
  • RE: Guy Kawasaki: What makes innovation?
    Your words would seem correct except for the fact that seeing a quality driven market plan emerge in the PC industry would be an innovation.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    buzongtang
    16th Aug 2009

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