The Billion Dollar Innovation Lesson (hint: it's not the iPhone)
There seems to be a (more than desired) wide-spread misunderstanding of innovation, creativity and invention. These terms get thrown into conversations without much regard to the nuances that make each of these terms unique in its own right. I think a healthy dose of good old-fashioned history is just the cure that can put this misunderstanding to rest.
So here's a history lesson on innovation vs creativity vs invention.
A Decade Ago: The Mobile Status Quo Was Setup Against The Creatives (Developers)
First up - creativity. A decade ago I was working on some of the top mobile apps available on the market. Back then, if you were a creative developer, working on a cutting edge mobile app and you wanted it to succeed you had to attach it to a globally recognized brand name. It doesn't matter if your app or game was amazing. It would not make it out there if it did not get backed up by the heavy hitters. So the market was dominated by known brands like Pacman, Duke Nukem, Tetris and the like but what's more is that brands such as NHL or even Spongebob for example were being turned into mobile apps as well. I've worked on a few dozen of these apps back then for Java-enabled mobile phones - J2ME for all you mobile geeks out there. And if there was one rule that had to be obeyed in the industry was that you had no chance as an indie developer unless you were backed by a global brand.
That was the status quo. And it sucked for developers. So much for being creative in world that did not care too much about creatives nor about creativity.
The entire ecosystem was still a closed walled garden that was setup against developers. The creatives - the developers - were the biggest losers of the industry in that their work rarely did pay off. As a developer you had to partner up with a big brand name and then with a big publisher and one or more big carriers and by the end of it all, you, the developer, the real creator of the app, you'd be left with somewhere between 10% to 20% of the proceeds. If you were lucky. And those proceeds by the way were horrible. Why? Well because most people could not even download your app. I had tried downloading some of the apps I was working on. Straight from the carrier decks they were published on and after a few minutes of clicking through I usually would give up. It was horrible. The whole mobile eco-system was horrible.
2007: The Original iPhone - The (Sort Of) Invention That Sort Of Mattered
Now, here's where the story gets interesting. For me at least. One day, in 2007, this revolutionary mobile device gets released, the original iPhone, remember? Not the 3G model, that was a year later. No, in 2007, Apple introduced the original or the 2G model. The 1st generation iPhone. Now, looking back, as a society, we all celebrate that moment as one of the major reference points of modern technological progress. As so it is. That phone did something for the consumer that many did not before it. Namely, it made it easier to consume information.
Was the original iPhone - original? Yes and no. I mean, it wasn't the first smart device on the market. Obviously. Apple did back it up with tons of patents. And it did introduce some nice features to the market, especially the multi-touch interface. That in itself was worth it. Was the phone innovative? Well this is where we might disagree. We might say it was innovative in the sense that it introduced new value for consumers as I've already mentioned. But was it innovative for the entire ecosytem? That's a resounding "no". So I will argue that it wasn't revolutionary and ground breaking in the sense that it did not affect the entire mobile ecosystem but it was innovative for the end consumer who got new value out of a new way of experiencing mobile content.
Alright so that's nice. So what?
Well what if I told you that the 1st generation iPhone was not really the beginning of the real mobile revolution? What if I told you that 2007 was not the defining moment?
2008: The Real Deal - The Real Disruptive Innovation
And I don't mean the evolution from the iPhone 2G to the 3G model. No, no. Take your eyes away from the device for a minute. Stop looking at the iPhone. Look beyond the iPhone, way beyond it. Look at this: the App Store.
Oh yeah. The App Store.
Let me explain.
Back in 2007, when we had that new shiny device that people started buying and using, consumers were thrilled. Sure. But you know who didn't really care that much yet? Guess who? Me. And many of my friends. Yeah, the mobile developers. It's not that we didn't care that much.
It's just that we didn't see the Value Proposition for the developers.
For a consumer the iPhone was great. But for a developer, it didn't mean much.
And then comes the App Store.
Developers would get front row seats to this show and they would get 70% of the proceeds too. What? Are you kidding me? That's insane dude! Wow. Guess what? I learned Objective-C back in 2008 and so did a lot of my J2ME developer friends. The iPhone became our best friend but not because it was this awesome device - although it was - but because it was the only device you could access App Store apps with.
Think about that for 5 seconds.
It was the only device you could access the App Store apps with.
Now imagine this.
If you could've installed App Store apps with your regular Nokia or Motorola or Samsung J2ME phones, I'll tell you what, I probably would've never learned Objective-C and Cocoa. I mean, why would I? Why would any mobile developer do that back then? If we could've kept using our existing skills we would've, trust me. We would've. But we could not. Simply because there was no ecosystem that demanded our skills. It's just basic economics. And in this case the demand shifted.
The Billion Dollar Technology Innovation Lesson: Invention Is Great But Give Technology Creators (Developers) Some Love
And this brings me to RIM. Yeah, the BlackBerry giant. Man, oh man, they were huge. Back then, in a J2ME feature phone world the BlackBerry devices were dominating the high end consumer market. A year after the App Store went live, RIM launched their own version - the App World. Now, it's not that they were a year late - we developers could have easily forgiven them for that. We forgave Google who launched their original Android Store a few weeks before RIM - so about the same time. It wasn't that. It was the value proposition for the developers. In this case it wasn't even the money.
It was how difficult they made it for developers to work with their technology.
Back then, for those who aren't familiar with the BlackBerry SDK, just so you know, it could literally take days for you to make sure you got networking right for one of your apps. I won't get in the technical details now, but just trust me. As a matter of fact, we had developed a library that made the BlackBerry networking coding process less painful for ourselves and for our clients. In other words, RIM did not really care about their developers and let them fend for themselves.
So although the BlackBerry technology was based on J2ME and the devices themselves had huge market penetration, the J2ME mobile developers did not flock to the BlackBerry App World but to the App Store and to the Android Store. Both of which were just getting started.
Why, Oh Why?
Why? Because Apple and Google cared for their developers.
That's Why.
Ask any mobile developer of the pre 2008 era. Going from the J2ME and BlackBerry world to the iOS and Android world was the dream shift every mobile developer was secretly hoping for. The App Store era brought in a developer-centric mobile ecosystem vs a brand-centric ecosystem where anyone with a good idea and coding talent could rise to the top and compete head to head with the big boys.
Bottom line is that what Apple and Google did to developers by putting them at the heart of the industry - that is what brought Apple and Google where they are today. Hey, listen, I'm not trying to take away from their management and visionary genius. I'm merely pointing out the fact that Nokia - the J2ME device champion, and RIM, the BlackBerry device champion, the two pre 2008 giants, they simply did not put their developers at the center of the system. They put the carriers, the publishers, the brands, the enterprises, but not the developers.
And THAT was their ultimate demise.
Look around today. What company worth their salt ignores developers?
Ok. Don't answer that. Maybe that calls for its own post some day.
So look around in your industry. What is the industry-wide value proposition for developers. Is there one? Are developers even on the radar in your industry? Does your organization have a value proposition for developers?
There you go. Start with that and grow from there.
Then get ready for awesomeness.