Since the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007, tech launch events like those hosted by Apple have become a big deal in the consumer electronics industry. Today all the major players have their launch events, from Google to Samsung to Windows.

Over the last few years I’ve been intrigued by the question ‘what makes these launches so successful’?

Of all the companies in the world, in my opinion Apple has become the most successful at creating a dramatic launch. This single company has truly set the benchmark for this style of events, creating excitement and suspense at an international level for the launch of its products.

In this post we take a look at the stages and emotions we go through in a successful launch event. While these are all important, #4 to #7 are key for history-making events. When any company can master all 7 it is a truly a remarkable event.

#1 Awareness:

Triggered at the moment we realise a launch event will happen at some point in the future, we instantly start speculating about what may be released.  Whether it’s by reading an article online or hearing news of an upcoming event on the radio, we know there’s a time on the not-too-distant horizon when the launch event will happen.

# 2 Anticipation:

Anticipation is heightened the closer we get to the event. We’re open to market rumours and buzz. By the time the event comes around we have a laundry list of products and features we think are likely to be released.

#3 Agreement:

This phase occurs at the event itself. The most successful launch events get us to see the problem with fresh eyes. Often it is a problem that we have all come to live with. And when the problem is ‘told well’, we all say to ourselves “this is actually a problem and I’m amazed I didn’t see that before” and “you’re right, something needs to change”.

#4 Disbelief:

This is the stage when we’re told the problem has been solved. “Say what?!” It’s a powerful moment. We’ve just come to realise (in the proceeding step) that this is actually a big problem. We’ve also realised that many others have tried to solve the problem and have failed. And at this point we’re told that the problem will be solved! Stop Press! How? Can it be possible? It’s too hard to believe….

#5 Magic:

Then we are shown the magic! We are shown the real life proof that the problem which could not previously be solved, has actually been solved.  Our disbelief starts to show some cracks.  We try to hold it together.  Alas, at this point we’re shown not only how the problem has been solved, but how ridiculously simple they’ve made it, a far cry from the debacle that we knew previously. OMG! That’s incredible! Of course once we have been shown the magic, we now all want the magic. Please…please….give us some of the magic

#6 Hands On (an optional step):

This does not always happen at every launch event.  Here people are able to see and experience the magic first hand. Real life people.  It shows that the magic shown on the stage was not ‘smoke and mirrors’. Real people…yes real people…are able to use the products we were shown on stage. They can take photos and record snippets and do interviews. The magic really exists!

#7 Reward / Gratification:

After a little more anticipation, we too can have the magic. It’s available in stores. We can hold it in our hands. We can take it home. We can sit on the couch and experience it for ourselves. Because that is true magic after all…not something that is only for the magician, but which is there for anyone, man or woman, aged or infant.

Consistency:

When all is said an done, it is also important to establish consistency for launch events.  This isn’t really a stage we go through, but it is a promise made to customers by the most successful companies.

Consistency is the reason why the biggest tech companies in the world release over the September to October period.  It is the promise of consistency that creates a credible offering for brands, and gives customers a clear idea what they can expect and when (year after year after year).  Beyond customers, consistency has also become an important signal to investors, and its not unusual for share prices to jump before or after the news of a big event.

What do you think?  What other stages do you think make a successful launch event?  It would be great to share your view by leaving a comment.

The post 7 Stages We Go Through for History-Making Tech Launch Events appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

While news like this instantly shines the spotlight on Netflix, it is the historical decisions made by the company to continuously disrupt that have ensured its success where others have failed.

In this article we look at the role of digital disruption across industries.

While disruption is often spoken about as large scale change undertaken at a specific point in time, the most significant disruption occurs through continuous change. When companies are able to understand an industry’s value chain and then continuously reinvent it piece by piece through digital technologies, this is when large scale digital disruption is possible.

Digital Disruption Spreads Through Value Chains

Take the airline industry as an example.  Disruption took hold at one place in a value chain, and then spread to adjacent steps.

The game changed when customers began booking flights online.  This occurred at the start of the value chain, at the moment of Purchase.  Then came online check-in and self-serve kiosks at airports. Now digital disruption is happening in the flight cabin itself, with WIFI, on-demand tablet entertainment, in-seat connectivity, and exploration of virtual reality for travelers.²

Virgin America is recognised as a leader in the industry and has drawn upon its agility in digital to connect many of these innovations for customers.  Beyond digital, it has also tied digital innovation to support wider customer experiences, including great music when you board the flight and entertaining safety videos.  In this way digital is just one aspect of Virgin America’s personality.

Of course no one company is immune from change within a value chain.  And just as airlines have innovated, so too they have had to deal with disruption further up the value chain.  Now at the Pre-Purchasing step, customers use services like Expedia and Adioso to compare a wide variety of prices and offers across airlines – all enabled via digital technologies.

In isolation, many of these developments feel like incremental innovations.  But taken in totality, with the period of the last decade compressed, the entire experience of flying is dramatically different due to these changes.

Leverage and Evolution as the New Platforms for Competition

Netflix used leverage to grow its business.  Netflix had amassed 4.2 million subscribers to its online DVD ordering business in 2005, before it launched its movie streaming business in 2007. Later in 2011 it begin to acquire original content, with series like House of Cards.  In so doing it used its streaming business and subscriber base as leverage to evolve further up the value chain, from distribution into content creation.³

Netflix didn’t quit there.  It continued to spot opportunities to make the experience of watching content even better for customers.

Through continuous digital evolution it introduced innovations such as support for multiple viewing profiles, a sophisticated recommendation engine for subscribers (so that its film-picks have the best possible match-rate for viewer preferences) and new forms of application development to ensure Netflix will play smoothly over thousands of device types.⁴

Incredibly, Netflix’s 65 million members can all watch high quality content closely fitting their expectations, sourced and recommended by Netflix, at home or on the move, advertisement-free and for a fraction of the price of the competition. This is disruption of every step of the value chain.

Winning Brands Are Those That Tie Digital Innovation with an Ongoing Promise of Experience

When we read mission statement examples from the world’s leading companies, many of these are deeply connected to digital disruption.

Digital innovation is enough to capture the attention of customers, but is it enough to keep it?

We’ve seen hundreds of examples of companies that launch a new mobile app, or a new website. For a short time these innovations ignite imaginations and attract customers.

But why do some customers stay when others leave?

What makes customers stay connected is where the company can connect further digital innovation with a consistent experience.

When Uber launched its first service in San Francisco it was the new kid on the block.  And after a time it became a brand unto itself, with its own loyal base of fans.

Uber’s customers told the story of how easy it was to use the service, how incredible it was pinpoint the exact location of their driver. If Uber was not able to sustain this promise when it launched other products, it would have fractured its brand.

Source: Mark Warner “Uber…” www.flickr.com/photos/senatormarkwarner/19588717540/

UberX succeeded because it maintained Uber’s ‘experience promise’ with customers.  It brought all the convenience of the premium Uber service, less some of the frills, and fulfilled expectations at a lower price tag.  It did this in close rapport with the brand that Uber had become.

UberX didn’t feel like we were getting a completely new product, but rather the innovation of an existing product we had come to love.⁵

Even when Uber launched a completely different type of service in the form of UberRush, it preserved its brand. UberRush gives customers a simple way to order a courier service and full knowledge of when their parcel will be collected, just as Uber does for drivers.

What is interesting is that Uber has drawn on its unique competencies (in branding, mapping and moving people) to create services that jump across industries entirely, from providing competition for taxis to couriers.⁶

This is the next wave of digital disruption that will occur, where innovations hop between industries and value chains to bring new services to customers.

Some of these changes are captured in this slide.

References

1. http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/NFLX/454272674x0x839404/C3CE9EE2-C8F3-40A1-AC9A-FFE0AFA20B21/FINAL_Q2_15_Letter_to_Shareholders_With_Tables_.pdf
2. http://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-samsung-unveil-industry-first-virtual-reality-experience-for-travellers
3. https://pr.netflix.com/WebClient/loginPageSalesNetWorksAction.do?contentGroupId=10477
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix#Original_programming
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_(company)
6. http://blog.uber.com/RUSH

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At the time, companies like ODesk (now called Upwork) and eLance were leading the way for outsourcing services. These companies connected suppliers with companies and individuals, making it possible to outsource specific tasks through to entire website builds.

There is no question the digital economy has fueled the outsourcing revolution. What I’ve found surprising is the recent trend toward Personal Outsourcing (the concept of shifting discreet chunks of work that we would usually do as individuals, to others).

In this post we take a look at a few start-ups making headway in the Personal Outsourcing revolution.

Wonder

Wonder helps people get their questions answered through effective research. Using the service is simple….just pose a question via the site, and Wonder will assign a researcher to research and respond to the question.

Pricing for Wonder is based on the number of questions you want to be solved – $39.99 a month will get you 5 responses, $99.99 will get you 15, and the bulk package is $299.99 for 50 requests a month.

Wonder even has an option to ask a first question for free.  Give it a try here.

It looks like the service is receiving high demand, because it took me several days for me to receive a response to my trial question. I was very happy though with what I received!

Jarvis

Jarvis was founded in July 2013 as an “assistant to your virtual life”. Jarvis is a tech-enabled person that helps coordinate people’s lives through completing tasks and errands via SMS requests.

Jarvis will help you do everything from booking restaurants to finding a gift for your best friend’s b’day.

Jarvis runs on a subscription revenue model. The company offers a 7-day free trial. After that, it’s $99 per month for the starter package, $199 for the executive package and $599 for the jetsetter package.

Magic

Magic was founded in February, 2015. I first read about Magic and its co-founder Mike Chen (@mikechen) through Wired, and was impressed how a simple idea had suddenly gone so viral it was struggling to keep up with demand.

It is similar to Jarvis and has trained operators available day and night to answer customers’ requests, also via SMS. They order what you need when you want it, using ancillary services like Instacart and Postmates.

It’s free to chat with Magic, but users are charged per request. Their total price is confirmed and then billed and the tip is included.

Magic charges per transaction, making their revenue model a basic sales model.

Alfred

Alfred, founded in September, 2013, is a different concept than Jarvis and Magic. Alfred has raised $12m in capital and provides customers with a way to do weekly errands without lifting a finger. The company setup Hello Alfred this year, which is a portal that allows customers to access the company’s services on-demand.  The service pairs busy career people with personal assistants who will pick up dry cleaning, get groceries, do laundry and other household-related tasks. This is leaning towards a traditional personal assistant role, versus more of a virtual assistant.

Their pricing model is subscription-based, charging weekly. The Alfred Tidy-Up is $15 per week, Alfred Basics is $22 per week, and the Alfred Service is $42 per week. The company also offers ‘a la carte’ (per transaction) pricing.

A final note

What is so interesting about some of these services, is that they depart from the purely digital world, to the offline world also. This reflects just how much attitudes are changing.

A decade ago many of us shunned the concept of buying clothes online. It seemed to be a great risk compared to going in-store. But of course now online retailers are among the fasted growing eCommerce businesses of any industry.

Undoubtedly, many of us have similar reservations about booking help with ‘home duties’ through a service like Alfred. But one has to wonder – in this world of increasing automation and home connectivity – whether these concerns will one day be overcome in the same way they were for online retailing.

The post 4 Hot New Starts Ups In The Personal Outsourcing Revolution appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

But, if we look at isolated trends we miss most of their potential to help us disrupt the future.

You see we’re rarely taught how tease out the impacts of multiple trends interacting with each other over time.

In this post we look at a simple way to collaborate with teams to explore multiple trends and use them to create innovative products.

Step 1. Identify your trends

Bring a few colleagues into a room and ask them to spend 10 minutes writing their top trends on Post It notes. One trend per Post It is ideal.

For example, ‘changing customer behaviours’, ‘growing use of mobile phones’, ‘increased privacy concerns’….whatever the trend, put them all down.

At the end of the time, ask people to stick what they’ve written on the wall.

2. Select the highest impact trends

Then, ask your group to filter the trends on the dimensions of ‘potential impact’ and ‘uncertainty’.

When I do this with groups, I recommend they choose a timeframe of 2 to 5 years….in other words “What is the potential impact and likelihood of this trend to eventuate in the next 2 to 5 years.”

When this is done, ask people to nominate the top 3 trends they wish to think about more deeply. I find it most useful to select the most uncertain, highest impact trends.

If your group is not able to agree which ones to select, here’s a simple solution. Just ask three different people to select one trend. Remember, it’s just an exercise, so with luck people will be flexible.

3. Create and describe the future world

The intersection of the three trends you’ve selected represents your future world.

They key question for the group at this stage is:

• “What would happen in a world where all three trends were a dominant way of life.”

It can be helpful to provide people with additional prompting questions, such as….in this world:

• How would customers behave differently?
• What services and / or products would they expect?
• How would our business be different?
• What challenges and opportunities be available?
• How would the way we work be different?
• Which companies would be ideally positioned to capture the opportunities presented in this world?
• Which companies would struggle or not survive?

I’m sure your group will come up with other great questions as part of this activity.

The purpose of this task is to use the future world to reflect on your business today, and how it may need to change to accommodate possible change.

4. What Product would Win In This Future?

We can all imagine a time when Apple foresaw the intersection of ‘miniaturisation of computing and storage’, ‘the digitisation of music’ and ‘the growth of walkmans’.

When Apple executives saw this future they didn’t put their pens down.  Instead they kept going and defined a winning product – the iPod.

By this point you’ve fleshed out a future world in detail. So you also have a good idea of what will be successful and what will fail in this world.

You could stop here, but this is an excellent time to be creative.  Ask your team what products they would invest in to win customers in this future world.  In doing this, you’ll be able to define products that are several steps removed from what we experience today, some of which may not have been invented.

So often the way we plan products its based on ‘iteration’, and how we could create ‘the next extension’ of something. By breaking us away from today’s reality, and forcing us to live in a future that is several steps beyond our own, we have a greater chance of creating something new.

-End

Image: Jared Tarbell, laser cut geodesic test assemble. flickr.com/photos/generated/942343705

The post How to Mash Trends to Create Winning Products appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

Recently we’ve seen the early rumblings of a new market for health devices. And with the Apple announcement of Watch this market got a big injection of inspiration.

Wearables…this is just the beginning

A universe of human measures to choose from

What we stand to learn about ourselves and each other

The post Why Your Watch May Know You Better Than Your Best Friend appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

We are living in a time of accelerated change driven by digital advancements.

Right now this wave of change is creating new careers for managers, new niches for businesses, and new opportunities for families and friends to communicate.

For some time I’ve been thinking about how to best capture these opportunities, and perhaps you have too? Recently I discovered some facts that got me inspired to do more online.

You see I wanted to understand how fast the world is changing so I could assess whether I needed to up-skill in any new areas. So to satisfy my curiosity I researched how today’s communications have evolved.

Specifically, I looked at the question “how long has it taken different communications tools to reach 150m users#8221; I compared technologies that dominated the last century to those of the last 15 years. Here’s what I discovered…

Communications are being adopted 22 times faster

In today’s hyper-connected world, where ‘global citizens’ download tools to manage daily life, technologies traverse the globe at break-neck speeds.

Where the telephone took 89 years to reach 150m users, the iPhone took only 4 years to do the same. That’s a whopping 22 times faster!

And though I used the measure of ‘150m users’, I’m sure you and I agree many of these tools have gone way beyond the 150m threshold. Consider this….

■ Twitter announced it had topped 200m active users
■ Skype has 254 million monthly active users and recently reached 46m users online at the same time
■ Facebook surpassed 1 billion active users in Oct 2012
■ Google+ hit 235m active users in Dec 2012
■ The iPad reached 100m sales in just 2.5 years

And it looks like the pace of dramatic changes we’ve seen in the last ten years will only get faster.

Assessing how we’re positioned today

These trends provide big growth opportunities for us as individuals, as well as the communities and organisations where we work.

In reflecting on this research, I was inspired to participate more actively with online tools. I realised the first step I needed to take was to assess how I used these tools today, so I could setup a plan to succeed with these new possibilities in the future.

Here are the simple questions I used to assess my own position. I also extended these to organisations for use by leaders in any industry.

For leaders and individuals
■ Do I have a strong understanding of these new tools (even if I chose not to use all of these tools, it’s worth having an understanding of them)?
■ How many of these new tools do I use daily (if not weekly)?
■ What practicle actions am I taking to build skills in these new areas?
■ Who do I know that uses these tools extremely well and could coach me on their benefits and how to use them more effectively?

For organisations
■ How does our organisation use these tools as part of its daily practice (for example, if it’s devices such as tablets, the question might be ‘do managers use these devices at work#8217;)
■ Has our organisation established strategies for its leaders to proactively learn about these new tools? Do our leaders use these tools to position the organisation with customers?
■ Is my organisation setup to respond mainly to existing/traditional mechanisms (ie. phone), and is it equipped to handle new mechanisms (eg. Twitter/Facebook/etc)?
■ Are there any other organisations in our market that are using these tools particularly well? What benefits can we see they’re achieving (eg. more customers, more share of voice, great press, etc)?
■ Are our organisation’s investments setup to explore and grow knowledge in these new areas?

Question
What are some of your personal action plans to capture opportunities in the communication revolution? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

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Let’s think of it this way – the future is like a room we open the door to.

Sometimes we can see everything in that room. Other times, such as when it’s night, perhaps only the silhouettes of objects will be visible to us until we switch on a light.  If the future is the room, then ‘foresight’ is the way we shine light into it.

I’ve seen many workshops where participants began feeling the future was ‘unknowable’, and by the end they had a strong grasp of the fundamental shifts affecting their business and industry, as well as solid action plans to capture their future.

Moving beyond ‘trends’ alone

We all understand the concept of ‘trends’. But are ‘trends’ all there is? Often by the time a trend becomes mainstream, it’s too late to capture it as an opportunity (or deal with it as a threat!).

Consider the iPod. Apple was so successful with the iPod because it was able to spot the converging trends of ‘portable music’ and ‘digital storage’ far before these trends hit the mainstream.

So how can we shine a light on what’s happening out and recognise what will be the next big trend? For that we have to build some muscle into the distinctions we use to map the future.

Enlarging our distinctions of the future

Beyond trends there are many other distinctions we can use to understand the future.  Here’s a few I use regularly as well as some examples.

Give it a try

1. Write down the distinctions: On a piece of blank paper write down the distinctions above from left to right (ie. weak signals, emerging issues, etc)
2. Map the forces of change: Now one by one think of 10 forces of change affecting your business, and write each one below the distinction that best matches it.  For example, ‘increased use of mobile technology’ could be a heading placed under the ‘trend’ area.  Something like ‘reading the internet through eye glasses’ (see Google’s Project Glass) might be a ‘weak signal’ or an ’emerging issue’
3. Assess your map: When you’ve written everything down, assess your map.  Are most of your notes under the ‘trends’ heading? If so, see if you can think of any other forces which might fit the other columns. In doing this, I often find its useful to pick up a newspaper or industry magazine to stimulate ideas.
4. Consider the implications: When you’ve finished this consider the implications of these forces upon the future. For example, how would your business need to change if the ‘weak signals’ became ‘trends’?  Where would your business place it’s investment to grow knowledge and capability to prepare for the future?

The post How To Go Beyond Trends And Make The Future Knowable appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

The most common form of this is ‘what trends are most important to us’?

From small micro trends right through to megatrends, the way we think about trends is an important part of considering the future.

Although a generalisation, organisations vary in their capacity to watch trends by whether they have formal processes to track observations, as well as the sophistication of the systems they use to collect this data on a regular basis.  Using these two aspects as dimensions, we can create a simple 4 quadrant model for ‘trend watching’.

In this model Quadrant 1 is where ‘trend watching’ as a capacity is at an early stage of development, and Quadrant 4 is where it is at its most advanced.

1. Shooting Stars (Informal, Non-Collection)
Trends are shared informally, spontaneously.  They’re watched often with wonder or excitement, but quickly forgotten.  Often shared on email or in the corridor.

2. Trend Discussions (Formal, Non-Collection)
Organisations book specific sessions to discuss trends (ie. workshops, retreats).  Learning is achieved within the group, but not collected or reflected on beyond the event.

3. Trend Experts (Informal, Collection)
Individuals within the organisation gather trends – based on what they read, or meetings they attend – and maintain their own systems of tracking this information over time.  These individuals are sought out for their ‘forward-view’.

4. Scanning Functions (Formal, Collection)
The organisation has given responsibility to a group of individuals to scan the future, and these people have systems and mechanisms to input, store and track trends over time.

In recent history, when we worked in markets with little change, the capacity to watch and assess the external environment for shifts was not a necessity.  Today we live in a very different time.  Now markets open and close within short intervals, and industries can completely change within several years.  For this reason ‘trend watching’ – as a formal capacity that collects data about the future – is more important than ever.

Access a PDF of ‘4 Stages of Trend Watching’

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