The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

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  internetbest03/27/08 Report as spam
  1

  Renovate, don't innovate

  It rhymes. It's easy to remember. It'll save your job.

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  hershco03/27/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  Digital cameras. Don't get me wrong, I think all of the ??berbells and hyperwhistles are great...for someone who can figure all of them out. But for simple functionality, chewing through all the documentation just to find out how to go manual on f/stop and shutter speed is insane. I usually keep my super-everything camera dumbed down to auto-mode so I can grab it quick and just take a picture when I need it.

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  seansilverthorne@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  3

  Digital cameras

  Digital cameras absolutely. The problem I think came as analog camera makers tried to translate their old film-based models into the digital realm without much thought to the user interface. The Automatic setting helps -- if you can find it.

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  lbell@...03/27/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  "Creeping into the market", Try flooding the market instead. There are a million examples of technology overload on products. Most large companies maintain a design team who's responsibility it is to add gizmos to their products. Most 'serious' consumers would like better and cheaper service, greater durability of products, and user friendly ops. But then we wouldn't be 'Consumers', we would just be Customers. Shop with your wallet and your feet. We finally have recognized the unsafe use of cell phones in cars as a distraction. Now car companies are starting to offer the 'fuel efficiency' monitor promoted as a game. Talk about driver distraction. Lower prices and simplify operations! Larry Bell.

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  twanless@...03/27/08 Report as spam
  5

  too much innovation

  I have to take issue with the headline, and the entire concept. Adding a feature to something is not innovation -- it's simply product marketing.
  
  As an innovation consultant, analyst, and trainer, I have to point out that innovation, whether product or service or business model, makes users see something in a whole new light, do things in completely new ways, fill in unfilled spaces, address unsolvable problems and change the game completely. It can be done incrementally or disruptively, but it still creates fundamental change, not nominal change.
  
  The term has been completely denatured because it's become a buzzword for anything that's even slightly different. Painting a house a different color is not innovation; building it in a completely different way is.
  
  I'm very tired of marketers calling every new product feature an "innovation" when it is simply addition. And shooting at this trend to bolting on bells and whistles is just following the same path. Saying you're sick of innovation is just a cheap way of climbing on the same fake innovation bandwagon.
  
  True innovation is going to the core of that same old thing, improving it and changing it forever.
  
  Adding the 37th button or putting a couple of flashing lights on the same old thing is innovation ********.
  Tony Wanless
  
  
  
  
  IToo much innovation is not a bad thing.

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  seansilverthorne@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  6

  TiVo example

  Good point about the neutering of the term innovation. I would argue with you a bit though. Take TiVo. It's basically an extension of the VCR, with a computer hard drive thrown in, some simple, smart software and a smart network behind it. Yet it's an extremely innovative product in combing old things in a new way that delivers rich value (at least in my house!)
  
  Sean

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  twanless@...03/27/08 Report as spam
  7

  too much innovation

  I have to take issue with the headline, and the entire concept. Adding a feature to something is not innovation -- it's simply product marketing.
  
  As an innovation consultant, analyst, and trainer, I have to point out that innovation, whether product or service or business model, makes users see something in a whole new light, do things in completely new ways, fill in unfilled spaces, address unsolvable problems and change the game completely. It can be done incrementally or disruptively, but it still creates fundamental change, not nominal change.
  
  The term has been completely denatured because it's become a buzzword for anything that's even slightly different. Painting a house a different color is not innovation; building it in a completely different way is.
  
  I'm very tired of marketers calling every new product feature an "innovation" when it is simply addition. And shooting at this trend to bolting on bells and whistles is just following the same path. Saying you're sick of innovation is just a cheap way of climbing on the same fake innovation bandwagon.
  
  True innovation is going to the core of that same old thing, improving it and changing it forever.
  
  Adding the 37th button or putting a couple of flashing lights on the same old thing is innovation bull.
  Tony Wanless

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  neetajb03/27/08 Report as spam
  8

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  I fully agree that too much of innovation without check and balances not only leads to overshooting but also many a times - missing the target.
  
  It is more prevalent in the upcoming service industries like - tourism, banking or education.
  
  Customers or users need minimum sink-time or they would be confused and avoid the product or service which is always on the innovation trip.
  
  
  Dr. Neeta Baporikar

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  flyingtom16803/27/08 Report as spam
  9

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  I guess the companies that innovate too often don't have a loyal customer base.

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  SPelch03/28/08 Report as spam
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  loyalty

  Ha! Boy you said a mouthful in that sentence...you're right, how can customers be loyal to a company that makes the new hypergizmo you proudly bought a month ago..obsolete in another month?

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  namanisreenivas03/27/08 Report as spam
  11

  INNOVATION - ALL ABOUT VALUE ADDITION

  Innovation is about adding value. That too affordable value. Adding 37th button on remote is Innovation without purpose.The wider the user target better the Innovation worthiness.

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  harjono03/28/08 Report as spam
  12

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  Is it too much innovation is a bad thing?
  
  Yes, too much not good. Moderation and common sense will help.
  the real issues is why innovate?
  - add value?
  - simplify?
  - better products?
  - make it more affordable?
  - bigger impacts?
  - easier to use?
  
  harjono

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  ajm291203/28/08 Report as spam
  13

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  "Overshoot" is not confined to products but is equally applicable to Government services.The NHS stopped saturday GP surgeries 5 years ago to introduce another `initiative` and are now forcing GP to reintroduce it!

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  seansilverthorne@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  14

  Government overshooting

  Ha! One of the FEW examples of government over-reaching (except in regulation>). Usually, government solutions undershoot the mark, I fear.

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  chiron.sun@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  15

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  Couldn't agree more !!
  
  It is easy to pick on Microsoft, however I've never forgiven them for removing the "Search & Replace" function form Outlook email.
  
  \_w_/

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  Bebedo03/28/08 Report as spam
  16

  Over-design, a problem for centuries!

  Engineering: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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  Bebedo03/28/08 Report as spam
  17

  Info Overload

  In a world of too much accessible information, simple wins.
  When I search the internet, I much prefer the simple layout of Google, to the "media enriched experience" of Microsoft and other competitors.
  When I look at phones, I want it to be easy to use as a PHONE; the fact that it may have added features and abilities is fine, but I am buying a phone first, gadgets second.
  When I look at a TV remote, I do not need it to also hook into every appliance in the kitchen, brew coffee, and be able to link into NASA's satellite commands. I want an easy power button, channel select, volume, mute, and such.
  Simple design wins out even in furniture, think Ikea.
  My dollars follow this trend.

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  anders_syverson@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  18

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  No offense, but this sounds like my parents complaining about all the change in today's world. The realty is that in today's world, rapid "innovation" is needed to try to differentiate your product enough to capture a new market, capture additional market share, or just to keep up your existing market share. At best, you might get six months of success before your competition catches up. I agree, sometimes companies miss the mark and forget to listen to their customers, but overall I would rather have too much innovation then not enough.

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  seansilverthorne@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  19

  Too little innovation?

  Great observation. I would rather have too much innovation, too; I just don't think that the 37th button is doing anything innovative.
  
  Sean

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  rglabach03/28/08 Report as spam
  20

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  "But their mistake is your opportunity."
  
  Where is the opportunity - buying the older model?

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  seansilverthorne@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  21

  Where is the opportunity?

  The opportunity is to quit focusing on adding more buttons on the remote and to create a new way to change TV viewing completely.

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  laguilar@...03/28/08 Report as spam
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  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  Innovation is not adding features. Innovation is about making products better. Adding features only makes products look cheap.
  Most high end products may have use innovative technology but look simple. I believe the motto should be 'simplify'

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  misterrob@...03/28/08 Report as spam
  23

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  You're onto something here Sean. Ever heard of 'Blue Ocean Strategy'. It preaches value innovation... but ONLY when innovation leads to value for the market. Another function for the sake of the function is useless.
  
  We live in a world of bells and whistles. If they actually make my life better I'll pay for it. If they don't... then it's just clutter and I'll pay someone else who offers me something without clutter.

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  xeroidgrl03/31/08 Report as spam
  24

  what does the customer / consumer want?

  What happened to giving the cutomer / consumer what they want? OK there are plenty of ubergeeks that like all of the bells and whistles and have to have the latest technology for technology sake. But the majority of the world wants what has been mentioned earlier in this forum, a good solid product that works the majority of the time and the customer does not need to go to a learning class to find out how to use it. Think this will catch on?

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  trebohm07/11/08 Report as spam
  25

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  Here's the grand-daddy of all overshoots -- pick-up trucks and other utility vehicles are no longer available without carpet, without leather upholstery, without electric windows and expensive sound systems. I want a four-wheel-drive vehicle that I can hose off and hose out when it's time to clean up. If I wanted a luxury car, I would buy one.

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  tanyae08/14/08 Report as spam
  26

  RE: The 37th Button On Your Remote Control

  #1 - I have never forgiven my IT department for installing Vista on my new computer. Please, somebody save me from Microsoft hijacking the formatting on my documents! The menus are as non-intuitive as possible.
  
  #2 - Please give me a cellphone that is just a phone. Plain and simple. Just ring and take messages, and have large enough buttons to actually use. Okay, I may be a dinosaur, but I kept my old StarTac for 8 years before snapping off the antenna. And I mourned for it. It didn't take pictures, keep my calendar, get my email, download porn, tell me the time in Nairobi, or a dozen other things I've never figured out how to use but have definitely paid for. But I understood how it worked! And in my defense - it took my 26-year-old, techno-whiz assistant over 3 hours to figure out how to change the ringtone on my RazrPhone - because, of course, Verizon had installed their own software so the handbook was useless and their online tech support was stumped too! And it shouldn't take a half-dozen, non-intuitive steps to make it work with my headset every darn time I turn it on!