Doing and Learning

Isn't it amazing how authors seem to have perfect vision when looking backward at innovations? The reason I mention this is because I recently read "Hidden in Plain Sight" by Erich Joachimsthaler. He implies that Apple spurred the iPod by activating the growth platform of “managing music” including its behavioral episodes: finding, evaluating, selecting, buying, listening to and storing music.

While I agree that understanding and playing into the behavioural episodes of customers can lead to innovative opportunities far beyond the product itself, my own research into the iPod shows none of the foresight attributed to this idea.

Steven Levy, in his book "The Perfect Thing", shows that there was a lot of serendipity in the iPod's rise to fame. In 2000 when Apple wanted a Mac-based music player they bought out Soundjam, one of the only two available on the Mac platform. iTunes was re-skinned to look like iMovie.

Then in 2001 realizing that there was dissatisfaction with the music devices of the day, Apple recruited Tony Fadell as a consultant to do an eight week feasibility study. Fadell coupled some commonly available parts together and the iPod was born. In presenting the results of the feasibility study to Jobs, Fadell and his team created two dummy products, knowing that Jobs routinely knocks the first ideas.

The marriage of iTunes, iPod and the deals that Steve Jobs did with the record industry to create the iTunes Store put an almost unbeatable ecosystem together. We can learn a lot from this, but we should not attribute any of this insight to the founders of iPod. They like most business executives (especially founders and entrepreneurs) simply play a game of survival and growth, ducking and diving, experimenting with new ideas, learning and responding.

This then is the ultimate paradox of business research; founders do amazing things because they are driven to do something special or know no better and business researchers find ways to understand why it was successful and then generalize this into techniques for others to follow.