There’s an interesting article on Business Week about Smartphone Software and the way new developments are making inroads into gaining more and more adoption amongst users. The reality is that this is still an emerging market, but one that is expecting to grow enormously in the future. There are a couple of really interesting examples of the technology on the article; one centring about a shopping experience. It talks about a smartphone being used to track a person’s shopping – scanning her items as she picks them off the shelf. This information is used at checkout to bill the customer, but it also provides valuable information about shopping patterns and location in the store. The customer is rewarded with coupons that match her shopping patterns, whether it’s for cheese or weight loss pills, it all depends on her purchases. It’s an interesting model with both parties gaining from it, a synergy that produces some interesting result.

The technology that makes this possible is the inclusion of devices in phones that makes them context aware. My phone for example, has GPS, a compass, motion sensors and other sensors that tell the phone where it is and what it’s doing. However, the applications that can use this platform are still in their infancy. Every month, new applications are produced that take advantage of this technology and over the next few years, we’ll see some amazing innovations in this sphere.

I personally, just can’t wait to see what’s around the corner

• Constant re-examination of the status quo. Looking at the way you do things today and how how they can be improved may pave the way for a brighter tomorrow.
• Take time off. Taking a bunch of smart people out of their work environment and letting them engage with one another in a fun environment can yield interesting results
• Reinvent the wheel. Never assume you have the best way to do something. There’s always a better way to do something and if you assume you’re doing it the best way possible, then you might stifle innovation.

These ideas are valid, regardless of whether you the biggest search engine in the world, or simply trying to market a new brand of herbal weight loss pills; innovation is the lifeblood of an organisation and without initiatives to keep it flowing, companies will just fade into oblivion.

One of the key things I have learnt from Richard over the past 15 years or so is always challenge. Challenge your business to innovate by asking the unaskable, challenge industry norms and always ask, why? And then more importantly, why not?

I concur with Jayne-Anne, who wrote the post, about how innovation is sometimes lumped together into the same camp where technology lives; but in reality can apply to anything that disrupts the status quo. Anything that prevents a process from following the same linear motion that has been running for days, months or years has the potential to provide you with competitive advantage. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always risk attached to change. But without change, challenge or questions a business stagnates, ends up living in the past and is doomed to failure (The recent demise of Woolworths is a case in point here). You can read the whole post by Jayne-Anne Gadhia here.

So, the question is .. when was the last time you were disruptive?

Personally I don’t think the idea will go very far. I tend to agree with Om Malik who lists 5 reasons why the scheme will fail, and I think the biggest issue is that people just aren’t interested in physical media any longer. Streaming and downloading are just so much more convenient and in this case, available for free on the the same devices SlotMusic is trying to target: mobile phones (although they won’t work in an iPhone). It’s interesting to see attempts to extend the life cycle of physical media, but I believe this will go the same way as the cereal box record, a last-ditch attempt to revive an ailing industry that refuses to change it’s business model.

Image coutesy of Tutor2u.net