experimentation | Esteve Almirall

February 22, 2015February 22, 2015 by Esteve Almirall

Innovation – We need better tools !

We all experienced this frustration, anybody familiar with the field knows it. We live in a hyperconnected world where form and function merges, interaction is key and the action is in ecosystems and networks.

However, we enter this world equipped with brainstorming techniques popularized by Osborn in the 50s, ethnographic journeys that we borrowed from anthropology, focus groups and user interviews that we stole from ethnography and marketing and yes, lots of post-its and crude prototypes that work well as a starting point for a conversation but probably not much more.

Tools thought for capturing user needs and user feedback on products and services already known by users or that users could easily imagine, and we try to apply them to develop radically new proposals. How many times in the midst of this process you remembered Henry’s Ford quote: if I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses ?

It just doesn’t work !

Todays’ proposals need to invent new business models, take advantage of network effects in on-line ecosystems, create virtual infrastructures … and the tools that we are using were aimed at developing physical products and services … they help little, face it.

Where is the future? We know is here,, although not evenly distributed. Then where is the future of innovation tools? If we look at the software industry we will see a very different scenario. Lots of experimentation but not with crude prototypes but real products in the real world using statistical tools such as A/B testing. Capturing user feedback with platforms such as Kickstart where people back their opinions with their money. Lot’s of co-creation, in open source, not with ideas, but writing code.Jim Barksdale the former CEO of Netscape summarized it pretty well: If we have data, let’s use data, if all we have are opinions will go with mine !

The software industry shows us the way: data, real data. However, this is only one half of the story. We need more than data certainly, but we also need frameworks where to fit it. Frameworks that could help us in understanding business models, growth models, networking effects in ecosystems and networks …

We need better tools !

December 17, 2014December 18, 2014 by Esteve Almirall

We need more experimentation and less dogmatism in policy

The need to become more competitive, or as expressed in other words “to grow”, has become an omnipresent topic in our society. Now, it is not only a topic of discussion in both the media and the public speeches but also a recurrent theme of debate in our companies, our professional life and even in our personal life. Spain is a country with 26% unemployment, with poor scores year after year on the Pisa assessment and who´s universities rank extremely low in world rankings. It could be said that the country has a major problem of compatibility.

It could be thought that in front of such dramatic panorama, the government would propose several new policies with the aim to flip the situation. However, it is clear that this is not the case, as a change has not been achieved. Even that it must be mentioned, that the desire to create change, nor the effort to diagnose and interpret the current problems, cannot be neglected from the existing implemented policies.

A few weeks ago, Risto Mejide (a well known publicist and public figure), interviewed Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos –a raising left wing party in Spain-. The second one mentioned his proposal to create a minimum basic rent for everyone in Spain. At a point were both the viability and the details of the proposal are still unclear, what surprises isn’t the proposal itself –which clearly is not a new policy- but the interpretation of the consequences that implementing such policy could have.

Risto Mejide, highlighted two main issues in regards to the proposal. First, he remarked that it would be an extremely challenging policy to implement in times of crisis because the economic burden that it carries with it. Second, he mentioned that it would create an indolent publicly paid class. Arguments to which Pablo Iglesias curiously did not respond with social terms but with compatibility terms as he arguments that if workers enjoy a minimum basic rent they will not be force to accept the first job that comes across because their basic necessities will be cover. And consequently, companies will have to re-invent their business model to compete in more aspects than price.

From this simple proposal, two interpretations can be drawn upon the effects that it could have to Spanish society. But, can we know which one is true? Are Spaniards going to become indolent citizens living out of public money? Will this policy further reduce the national entrepreneurship spirit? Or vice versa, having a minimum salary guaranteed for everyone will allow Spain to become some sort of Silicon Valley as the number tech startups grows because the workers have the capacity to accept only those jobs that offer them a just compensation?

in Policies on Innovation & Smart Cities 0 comments

December 13, 2014December 14, 2014 by Esteve Almirall

Open Innovation – new ways of reducing market risk

in the early days and still today Open Innovation focused in how to source new ideas, particularly the ones that were already half-baked pre-tested. Still most of what happens in Open Innovation revolves around scouting innovative products or projects that have a limited but significance acceptance in the market but that are not widely diffused and incorporate them into the innovation pipeline.

However, though important, sourcing ideas is probably not the biggest problem of a company. Most companies and startups try to clear what we call market risk: to elucidate which ideas will be successful in the market and which ones no.

If we take a look at the recent hits we will find plenty of ideas such as whatsapp which in the beginning their success was far from clear. How to reduce this uncertainty is probably the biggest problem in business, startups are at the end nothing else but a device for clearing this risk.