Photo by gflinchEnjoy and please let me know what you think.
Market research firm iSuppli forecasts that total iPad sales will hit 12.9 million units by end of 2010, 36.5 million by 2011, and pop through 50 million by 2012. I have to take the whole iPad killer hypothesis with a grain of salt for two reasons.
Firstly, take nothing from the other e-readers but the iPad is truly a multi-function device. My personal usage behavior is such that I do a tremendous amount of reading on the device but most of it is email, RSS feeds (yes, I still rely on and like feeds), and PDFs. Its not that I prefer paper-based books its just that my life interests are more centered on communicating around business model innovation and business development subject matter. I don’t want to lose my point by having my content step in front of it. The heart of my thinking is that the value of the iPad to me is its communication interface and that a significant number of other view it the same. My social proof is that the iPad has been making a number a appearances in meetings and presentations.
Secondly, people especially tech adaptors have a habit (read burning itch) of leveraging the best devices for the task. How many people do you know that have an iPad with the Kindle software uploaded? People will be drawn to the platform that best fits their lifestyle for a certain activity.
Kassia Krozser takes a look at this besieged industry and lays out her prescription to realign the industry for the next 100 years. The elixir is to realize that what was once positions – editor, acquisition editors, marketing, … – now have to be skills. She puts forward case but in my opinion falls short in understanding that is the business will no longer about books: it will be driven by niche communities that will dictate the content, stories, and authors.
This is the first of two posts I highlight this week from Blogging Innovation.
One would think that it should be safe to say that all business leaders are positive that they have a strategy. Roy Luebke makes the point that many times, however, what passes for a strategy is actually a financial plan, or perhaps tactical marketing plans. Having dealt with several business leaders over the last few years I can testify that this is often the case. The result is that the business is not able to establish a sustainable competitive advantageor worse yet doesn’t have the competitive advantage that they thought they did. The key to avoiding this dilemma is to is to define your intent and put into place a structured innovation process can help inform the strategic thinking.
In this post Jeffrey Phillips asks the question “Do the great business thinkers of the past twenty or thirty years and their models and descriptions hold true, especially when we introduce innovation into the mix?” In the first of a multipart series he turns his eye towards Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model.
And lastly, for all of us who have or still are traveling sizable distances by plane, train, or car air with our young children you will appreciate the brilliance behind StarKid’s TrayKit. TrayKit is an all-in-one backpack can strap to train and plane tray tables or hang from the front seat in a car to provide an extendable play surface that keeps everything contained.
Send two this way.