Apple Creates History with New iBooks Textbooks

"Apple announced iBooks 2 for iPad, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging, and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, full-screen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, and unrivaled navigation. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore, with most priced at $14.99 or less. And with the new iBooks Author, anyone with a Mac can create iBooks textbooks and publish them to Apple’s iBookstore. Starting today, iBooks 2 is available free from the App Store and iBooks Author is available free from the Mac App Store"

Textbooks they won’t want to put down. "A Multi-Touch textbook on iPad is a gorgeous, full-screen experience full of interactive diagrams, photos, and videos. No longer limited to static pictures to illustrate the text, now students can dive into an image with interactive captions, rotate a 3D object, or have the answer spring to life in a chapter review. They can flip through a book by simply sliding a finger along the bottom of the screen. Highlighting text, taking notes, searching for content, and finding definitions in the glossary are just as easy. And with all their books on a single iPad, students will have no problem carrying them wherever they go."

Bottomline:
The new iBooks Textbooks is an amazing innovation! I downloaded a couple of samples from the iBooks store, and also the awesome "Life on Earth". My kids and I were totally blown away by the quality of the textbooks, the interactivity and the overall experience! (about the only glitch was iBooks 2 hanging up when you launch the new textbook! But this problem seems to be intermittent.) Last year, when my son and I were driving to Los Angeles, I remember having a conversation with him in the car about how the next generation of eBooks should be interactive... when my son was in middle school, he was aspiring to be a writer (now he loves Physics). So, I was telling him that he should design eBooks that spring out from a reader, as if the story within becomes alive and real! For instance, while you are reading a paragraph, you can tap to make the whole story come to life! Wouldn't that be amazing! With the introduction of iBooks Textbooks, we are getting a whole lot closer!! These iBooks are interactive, intelligent and immersing! Would students learn more from these new iBooks? Would students gain more knowledge in a faster time? Would students with learning disability benefit further from these textbooks? Would teachers enjoy teaching through this new medium? Would iBooks textbooks fundamentally change how education is disseminated and consumed? Lots of intriguing questions will need to be answered in the coming year. Apple has the support of major education publishers. Apple iBooks Textbooks could become the new learning standard, and as history may note, usher in a new era of innovative education!

Reference

How Business Defines Innovation?

Which two aspects below most closely correspond to your personal definition of innovation?

• The implementation of new processes, products, organizational changes or marketing changes
• An environment/culture that embraces positive change, creativity and continuous improvement
• Research and development, new intellectual property (IP), and inventions
• Staying ahead in the market and being a market leader
• Solutions that benefit society and societal outcomes (including environmental outcomes)
• None of the aspects above is close to my personal definition of innovation

Selected references:

Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business

Creativity and Innovation Best Practices

Creativity and Innovation Case Studies

GE Innovation Barometer Survey Methodology
Conducted by StrategyOne, an independent research and consulting firm, between Oct 15 and Nov 15, 2011 in 22 markets
• Telephone survey of 2,800 senior business executives
• All respondents SVP-level or above, 30% c-suite level
• All respondents directly involved in the innovation strategy or process within their company
• Average company size is 1,500 employees, 20% of respondents belong to companies of more than 5,000 employees
• Average interview length: 16 minutes

Why Most Innovations Fail?

"Few businesses are any good at innovation. For all their brainstorming exercises and "open innovation" programs, they mostly just come up with reformulations of existing products, new pricing plans and basic updates--the same old things just a little cheaper, faster or better.

Businesses ask their "strategic customers" where to innovate and get little advice. Those customers are usually strategic only in that they are large, not because they have any particular market insight. They too just want more, better and cheaper, which are hardly recommendations for true innovation.

Why is failure the norm? Defending and extending the business is what we've trained our business leaders and managers to be good at. They know how to remain close to "core" by staying "focused." They work on improving "operational excellence" and seek the "low cost position" while striving for "customer intimacy" with the biggest customers." - Adam Hartung

"While it's probably impossible to compute the exact percentage of business initiatives that fail, it is widely acknowledged that most do. After years of research and observation, it is clear that the same reasons for any change initiative failure tend to be the same culprits that make innovation initiatives fail. Here are the top ten reasons for innovation failure:

1. Not creating a culture that supports innovation
2. Not getting buy-in and ownership from business unit managers
3. Not having a widely understood, system-wide process
4. Not allocating resources to the process
5. Not tying projects to company strategy
6. Not spending enough time and energy on the fuzzy front-end
7. Not building sufficient diversity into the process
8. Not developing criteria and metrics in advance
9. Not training and coaching innovation teams
10. Not having an idea management system" - Joyce Wycoff

"We believe that innovations fail in the marketplace based on one or more of four key issues:
a. Ideas don't solve an important problem for a customer
b. Ideas take too long to get to market/Shifts in needs
c. Ideas underfunded or poorly launched
d. Ideas require too much work to adopt" - Jeffrey Phillips

"On the other hand, FAILURE is not an easy concept to accept.  Failure conjures up sweaty palms, racing heartbeats, and above all, the human condition of disappointment.  Knowing that we, as human beings, have a distinct aversion to failure, how can product teams capitalize on early failures to ensure new product success?  In this paper, we investigate three common causes of innovation failure and offer suggestions to enhance the probability of success for the development effort.

1. Lack of Strategy,
2. Lack of Risk-Taking, and
3. Company Culture."

"One reason for the lack of successful innovation and growth is the reality of the lifecycle"
"A company’s own historical success can be a major hurdle to new revenue streams" - John Kotter

Bottomline:

Most innovations fail. Most ideas die. Failures can be starting points for new innovations. But an organization needs to avoid the innovation blockers. Many a great innovators forget that successful innovations require great ideas plus execution.  And execution involves many go-to-market steps... transforming an idea into an amazing product or service that everyone wants now, getting the marketing and sales team ready to promote and sell the product, creating an external buzz for the new product through launch events and trade shows, getting the customers to buy and adopt the new product, making customers brand ambassadors so that they share products and stories in the marketplace, and winning against the competition. Sometimes great products fail because of inadequate marketing. Sometimes average products win because of successful marketing. When a business combines great innovative products with great marketing (aka Apple), watch out!

Also see: Why Startups Fail?

Startup Failure – Product Looking for Market

[A] What’s the “product looking for market”? 

Well, it’s a product or product idea that is put together backwards. Rather than starting out with the question, “what do people want”, it starts with what the entrepreneur may think what people may want and then just goes about building it. Once he builds it, then he tries to go to the market and looks for people who may be able to use it. That’s putting a cart before the horse. It is even worse when such product idea has no basis or relevance to entrepreneur’s past experience. Then it’s a complete science fiction.  Read more

[B] Why such approach to product building is wrong?

There are very few examples like Amazon that started out as a business plan and were executed like a business plan. Most startup ideas started as one thing and ended up as something else. This is mostly because when you work with innovation, by definition, you are working with an unknown. It’s an experiment where you are trying to find out if your hypothesis is true or not. You know some parts and rest is a mystery that you are trying to uncover. You may know many parts but you are trying to find out how they should come together to create something meaningful. Most such hypothesis will fail and so you want to go very methodical about testing such hypothesis. You have your time, resources, cash and reputation at stake and you want to be wise about it. Read more

References:

Why start-ups fail?

Author:

Tarang Shah

Business Social Network

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Best Software Innovation of 2011 - Vote Now!

Which software made the biggest difference in 2011? We invite you to vote for the best software innovation of 2011!

Vote for the Best Software Innovation of 2011

Social Media Bootcamp - Orange County

What? Social Media Marketing Bootcamp workshop for small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups, owners and SMBs. Ogoing will help you become a social media expert, and share tools and best practices that will accelerate your sales. Ogoing, an exclusive small business social network, helps small businesses efficiently expand their local customer contacts through an easy to use social networking platform.

"I got solid answers to many of my social media questions and concerns. He truly is a master in his field. It was the best education I have ever received." - Christina Vendley, Affiliate Manager, Free Blog Factory

Why? While the social media market is exploding with dozens of websites, Ogoing remains focused on utilizing key tools that small businesses need in order to grow their social media presence. Business owners, entrepreneurs and startups do not always have the time, knowledge, resources and money to boost their brand and obtain new leads using social media. This is where Ogoing helps! Think of Ogoing as the business matchmaker.

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• Learn the importance of social media today in building your social presence
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* Ogoing CEO has presented at many business associations including Asian Business Association, SABAN, Irvine Chamber of Commerce, Indian-American Business Federation, UC Irvine, Rotary Club, Indian Medical Association, and many businesses.

Best Product Innovation of 2011 - Vote now!

What was the most innovative product of 2011? Which product made the most difference in our daily lives in 2011? We invite you to vote for the best product innovation of 2011!

Vote for the Best Product Innovation of 2011

You Voted! We had the voting open for 15 days! And the winner with 32% of the vote is:

Apple iPad 2 

Apple iPhone 4S was in 2nd place with 24% of the vote, and Amazon Kindle Fire rounded out the 3rd place with 11% of the vote!

Why start-ups fail?

Tarang Shah has created an amazing first-hand resource book for technology entrepreneurs that addresses three critical questions:
1. Why do most start-ups fail, and what you can learn from these failures?
2. Why do few start-ups succeed, and what is their secret sauce?
3. What do start-ups need to get funded, and what are VCs looking from start-ups?

Rather than present anecdotal study or sharing grapevine stories, Tarang went straight to the source: interviewing best venture capitalists that evaluate, fund and mentor these start-ups (many of whom have been entrepreneurs themselves), and founders of today's hot technology start-ups who are leading in a highly competitive marketplace. This is what sets this book apart. It is real information presented in an easy to comprehend question - answer interview format.

I recommend this book for every technology entrepreneur or investor looking to build or fund a successful start-up. It is a must read for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Some answers from Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs on why most start-ups fail:
Mike Maples of Floodgate Fund: "The most obvious answer is they run out of money! But I think it’s a little deeper than that. I have a little bit of a different view on start-ups. I basically believe most start-ups are not meant to be successful and the hightech business is a business of “exceptionalism” and winner-take-all. What happens is, there are very disruptive technology shifts that occur from time to time and a small number of companies ride the wave created by these shifts. And through a combination of luck and skill and timing, produce huge outcomes that were just meant to be."

George Zachary of Charles River Ventures: "I would say if there is one main answer, it is the real failure on the part of the founders to find the right product-market fit. And there is usually missing a relentless, robust process to find it. It is as much a science as it is an art.While getting to product-market fit is really important, I think something that is more important from a personality perspective is that if you are not relentless as an entrepreneur, you are probably going to fail. You are exposing yourself way more to luck. The relentless drive of founders is what allows them to get opportunities and not just be subject to luck."

Sean Dalton of Highland Capital Partners: "In my experience, there are two ways in which start-ups fail. The first one is when the board, despite very clear evidence to the contrary, continues to fund a losing proposition. This is really a variant of the definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. There is a second, less common but I think more honorable way that a startup company fails. That is when the VC and the CEO or management team sits down and basically says, “Look, we got into business to do X. It is not working. We have tried to make other things work and they too are just not working, so let’s call a spade a spade and figure out how to gracefully exit from this. Then we can find the next great opportunity to work on together.”"

Howard Morgan of Idealab: "two reasons why they fail … people do not buy their product, that’s number one. Number two is being undercapitalized. They do not have enough money to sell it after they have it built. I think much more rarely they cannot build it. In today’s world, that is less common, mainly because we usually do not see the product until they have built a pretty good prototype. Certainly in the software side of the world that is true. In the hardware side, it is a little tougher. Then of course, [there are] people issues."

Tim Draper of Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson: "The first one is that they run out of money and run out of energy. The great entrepreneurs, they go and go and go and run on fumes, and keep their company alive. So it really has to do with runway. The company has to be able to be in business long enough for people to start to notice them. So how you would fail, it would be that runway ends either sharply or too soon. The runway can end sharply like when a bank calls the loan, or an entrepreneur just gives up and quits, or a number of other ways. People don’t get along and don’t believe anymore. Those kinds of things can happen."

Michael Birch of Bebo:"It generally always comes down to execution. Most companies are not executing the business or product. I think the hardest thing to do is build great products. If you build great products, you generally do quite well."

Gus Tai of Trinity Ventures: "I believe the number-one reason start-ups fail is that the management team doesn’t take enough time to truly understand the customer. I will put this under “cherishing the customer. The number-two reason they fail is that they don’t put together the right team to do the right things. I will put this under “creating the right team to tackle the right problems.””

Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners: "To me, most start-ups that get off track are usually due to leadership. You are looking at people with families and people that you may have worked with forever. You are saying to the CEO, “You are not it.” You have to be very strict to do this. Adherence to the strict success metrics is really one of the big reasons for success. You have to be very tough about following key metrics."

Roger Lee of Battery Ventures: "There are three different axes against which you evaluate a start-up in the rear view mirror. One is the team, two is the market, and three is timing. You really need all three of those things to come together in order for a company to succeed."

Mike Hodges of ATA Ventures: "Start-ups fail for the following key reasons: 1) poor product specifications, 2) poor project management, 3) a product no one wants—and hence poor gross margins, and 4) general chaos caused by an undisciplined CEO."

What you will learn from this book:
1. Many more reasons why startups fail
2. Common entrepreneurial mistakes you can avoid
3. How to build an “A” team and a culture of success
4. Successful relationship dynamics between entrepreneur and investors
5. When to slow down, ramp up, and scale companies
6. Knowing when to sell a business, keep growing, or shut it down
7. How venture capitalists identify promising markets, entrepreneurs, and companies
8. What venture capitalists are looking for in entrepreneurs and business plans

Most helpful customer review (from Amazon.com):
Invaluable look at technology entrepreneurship and venture capital
By ASG

Tarang Shah has provided an insightful and expansive look at technology venture investing. Drawing upon his tenure at global venture firm SoftBank Capital and world-class network of entrepreneurs and investors, Shah presents 35 in-depth interviews with well-known investors such as Roelof Botha at Sequoia Capital, Mike Maples at Floodgate Fund and George Zachary at Charles River Ventures.

When reading Shah's book, it feels as if you're in the same room with Shah and his interviewees. While Shah rightly asks identical questions of each investor, the answers are fascinatingly diverse and thoughtful.

If you're a new or experienced entrepreneur, the advice and insights in Shah's book are priceless.

References:

Venture Capitalists at Work: How VCs Identify and Build Billion-Dollar Successes

By Tarang Shah, Sheetal Shah

Is Social Media a Giant Bubble?

What happened to Friendster, Myspace and Orkut? These social networks dominated their original markets for years, and were undisputed leaders. Until Facebook came along, and disrupted their leadership roles. Now, Facebook is the leader.

Are social media users fickle, and always looking for a better place to network and connect?  Would they *switch* to a better social network in the future? Would users belong to multiple social networks?  Or would there be one gateway that connects users to multiple social networks? What would that social gateway look like? Who will challenge Facebook?

People today have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Yelp, Picasa, Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, etc. Would these users continue to use all of these social, community and professional networks in the future? Or would they consolidate?

Either social media will become so ingrained in our personal, community and work lives that it will become second nature; Or, newer modalities and innovations in social connectivity will emerge that will change the way we consume social media.

According to Liz Gannes of All Things D: "Where in the past, tech industry watchers derided new start-ups for launching “yet another social network,” ever more users seem to be constructing multiple online presences that utilize the strengths of various platforms and networks. And this splintered approach is only going to increase." Do you agree with Liz?

Currently, social media is predominantly centered around people sharing with people, professionals sharing with professionals, and communities sharing within communities. Newer trends in social networking are forming, wherein people are sharing with business, professionals are sharing with business, businesses are sharing with businesses, and businesses are sharing with communities. It is interesting that people don't take the time to say hello to their neighbors; however, they enjoy using social media to share. In the future, social networks could become event, news or activities driven; segmented around industries, interests or markets; localized around neighborhoods, communities and causes; connected around geographies, regions or ethnicity; privatized around schools, colleges or workplaces. Everything could be inter-connected using social networks on computers, mobile phones, tablets, televisions and new devices.

No one social network can appeal to all the user and behavior segments. Large social networks will try to add features and functionality to appeal to a majority of segments... however, networks that try to build everything for everybody will become generalists and complex, and will get disrupted by new specialists. Which social networks will be around in five years, and which ones will emerge? Only time will tell. However, if history is a judge, some of the well known social networks of today will not be around tomorrow, or get consolidated.

One social network that is emerging, specialized and exclusive for the small business community is Ogoing. If you are a small business or entrepreneur that wants a great business profile, a place to promote deals and products, attract new customers, make local connections, and boost social brand, take a look at Ogoing. Ogoing is the leading social network for small business. Sign up on Ogoing for free, and turbo charge your business social media. Go here to get started on Ogoing!