Category: Podcast

In this episode I talk with Bob Moesta, a pioneer of Job To be Done research. We go over the theory and process of understanding what products are really hired to do and ask why this understanding is so hard to come by.

In a discussion rich with examples from multiple industries Bob illustrates how marketing, design and engineering are all dancing around the question of how product should be developed.

Could the universally accepted compartmentalization of corporate functions be a root cause of product failure?

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #19: The hiring and firing of milkshakes and candy bars.

You can follow up with Bob here: The Re-wired group.

Dan and Horace ponder why some companies are more mysterious than others. We ask whether transparency and simplicity of business models is a sign of strength or weakness. We compare the measurement, creation and capture of value and why we should celebrate the mortality of businesses.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #18: Who’s Paying for My Lunch?.

Notes:

• Helsinki
• GigaOM
• About Om
• There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch [Wikipedia]
• Letters of Note: The internet Tidal Wave

Horace interviews James Allworth, author, Fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business School, and a former Apple employee. James describes what it’s like working with Clayton Christensen and takes us on a journey through the latest academic and applied research being conducted on the theories of disruptive innovation.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #17: Working with Clay.

Horace interviews Dan Benjamin on the motivation, basis of competition and trajectory of the 5by5 network. By studying where podcasting came from and where it’s going we provide proof of existence of disruption in “big media”.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #16: The Existence Proof.

Turning the tables in more ways than one.

With this interview, we begin a journey into the world of entertainment and the forces that are re-shaping what most of the world hires daily for recreation. We will talk to actors, writers, producers, distributors, and media execs. We’ll get perspective on what I expect will be a big year for television in 2012 and prepare for the new era to follow.

In this episode I talk to actor Hoon Lee[1] about the challenges of disruption in the creative arts, and theater in particular.

5by5 | The Critical Path #15: The Theater of Disruption.

1. Soon to be the voice of Master Splinter on the to-be-re-released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series. More about Hoon here: IMDb.
2. Read more here: Building identity – Hoon Lee: a black sheep because he was artistically inclined

(Note this is not the Critical Path, but a guest appearance on the sister show Mac Power Users.)

Episode #65 • December 5, 2011

Katie and David are joined by Asymco publisher Horace Dediu, who talks about how he researches and publishes his analysis of the mobile marketspace and his thoughts on the future of presentation tools.

via 5by5 | Mac Power Users #65: Workflows with Horace Dediu.

The Critical Path show switches format for this week’s episode. I interview a guest.

5by5 | The Critical Path #14: The Super-platform ecosystem.

The idea is that rather than just telling stories and interpreting the world from my point of view, I should also ask others to teach from their experience.

In this case I discuss the disruptive potential of cloud computing with Randy Bias. Randy is the CTO of Cloudscaling, a designer of infrastructure cloud systems and a vast knowledge of the challenges and value of what we now call cloud systems. I’ve consulted for Randy in the past and I thought he could add a lot to the understanding of super-platforms. Super-platforms, you may recall, is a term I used to describe the coupling of Web Services and Devices in a mutually inter-dependent business model. I introduced the concept as a way to think about Siri and iCloud and potentially the Kindle and Amazon in general.

In this show I ask Randy to comment on the thesis that devices and cloud systems as a coupled system are a potential disruption to both the device-only model of computing and the cloud-only model of services. In other words, is the new ecosystem the coupling of devices with backend cloud APIs? We also touch on the scope of Apple’s data centers and the way we can calibrate the investment.

I think this is a ripe area of research and thinking about the future of computing. It will require learning a new way of measuring “performance” of solutions and the businesses built around it. It will take a multi-disciplinary approach to ferret out the key value propositions.

The Innovation Anomalies

Episode #13 • November 16, 2011 at 11:00am

Dan and Horace talk about innovations in emerging economies related to mobile service and how they might foreshadow changes in the developed world. We also discuss why some industries seem to be exempt from disruptive innovation and suggest that there are boundaries societies set to how value can be re-defined.

This show pushes beyond the boundaries of company and industry analysis and touches on the limits or “sound barrier” of innovation itself.

Episode #12 • November 2, 2011 at 5:00pm

Dan and Horace talk about the tension between relying on data and using intuition to make strategy decisions. We also apply this dual approach to think through the next evolution of user interaction and the jobs we might hire mobile computers to do for us.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #12: Back to the Future.

Dirk tweets an alternate description:

“The iPhone prepaid availability is not the key to emerging market. It’s Siri suiting high illiteracy rates.”

Regarding the title: Asymco in DeLorean | Flickr – Photo Sharing!

 

Episode #11 • October 26, 2011 at 12:00pm

Dan and Horace talk about patents and litigation as a means of defending innovation. We go way back to the beginning of the last century and talk how patent wars have played out in the past and how they affected the fortunes and fates of innovators.

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace and TinyLetter.

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IMPORTANT: I made an error in claiming that Mauser litigated for royalties during WWI. The litigation with Mauser preceded the war, but the bullet design used in the rifle was the subject of litigation before, during and after the war. The story of that patent fight is described here: The Tale of the Spitzer Bullet Patent Lawsuit | asymco

To read more about the Wright Brothers patent war see: The Wright brothers patent war – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia