Sequencing Apple's DNA (Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management)

This book aims to extract the "molecular genes" leading to craziness! Geniuses are the ones who are "crazy enough to think they can change the world" and boldly go where no one has gone before. Where no past habit and usage are available, there is no proof of viability, as nobody has done it yet, or even imagined it, and no roadmap for guidance or market study has come up with it. The authors call upon Leonardo Da Vinci, the Renaissance genius, who as strange as it seems, shared many traits of personality with that of Steve Jobs, in terms of the ways of performing. Da Vinci helps in understanding Jobs, and hence Apple, with his unique way of designing radically novel concepts, which were actually quite crazy for his time. In order to shed light on a special creative posture, the indomitable sense of specifying undecidable objects – a hallmark of the late Steve Jobs – is what led the authors to match it with a specific design innovation theory. A real theory, backed by solid mathematical proof, exists and can account for the business virtue of a prolific ability to move into unknown crazy fields! The authors postulate that, by bringing the power of C-K theory to crack open a number of previous observations made about Apple’s methods, it is possible to identify most of the genes of this company. The authors analyze how and why an Apple way of doing business is radically different from standard business practices and why it is so successful. Genes are a measure of the entity at hand and can encourage past business education routine approaches, then become transferable across the spectrum of the socio-economic world. Cover 1 Title Page 5 Copyright 6 Contents 7 Acknowledgments 13 Credits 14 Preface 15 Setting a new stage 15 Why is this book different? 17 Bridging an Apple capacity for craziness and design innovation 18 How to use this book 21 The power is in the DNA 22 How did the authors come up with it? 24 How is the book structured? 26 Introduction 29 PART 1: From Insanely Successful Episodes 33 Chapter 1: Sequencing the First Segments of Apple’s DNA 35 1.1. The gene, domain and cultural bias 35 1.2. Nine DNA segments of rare importance 36 Chapter 2: On Risk Taking 39 2.1 Where is the gap? 39 2.1.1 Business school 39 2.1.2. Apple 40 2.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 41 2.3. The genes 45 Chapter 3: Product Design 47 3.1. Where is the gap? 47 3.1.1. Business school 47 3.1.2. Apple 48 3.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 48 3.2.1. On packing with functionality 50 Chapter 4: Market studies 53 4.1. Where is the gap? 53 4.1.1. Business school 53 4.1.2. Apple 54 4.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 54 Chapter 5: Giving up Some Fights 57 5.1. The chasm 57 5.1.1. Business school 57 5.1.2. Apple 58 5.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 58 Chapter 6: Entering New Markets 61 6.1. The chasm 61 6.1.1. Business school 61 6.1.2. Apple 62 6.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 62 Chapter 7: Apple, the Learning Company 65 7.1. The chasm 65 7.1.1. Business school 66 7.1.2. Apple 66 7.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 67 Chapter 8: On Research and Development 71 8.1. The chasm 71 8.1.1. Business school 72 8.1.2. Apple 72 8.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 72 Chapter 9: On Company Acquisition 77 9.1. The chasm 77 9.1.1. Business school 77 9.1.2. Apple 78 9.2. Amplifying the gap 78 9.3. Progressing the gap 84 Chapter 10: The Manager, the Software and the process 87 10.1. The chasm 87 10.1.1. Business school way 87 10.1.2. Apple’s way 88 10.2. Developing the chasm 88 10.2.1. The case of Mister Hullot 89 10.2.2. Drawing lessons from software management 90 PART 2: Emergence of a Brand: From Failures to Everyday Situations (In Search of Exclusive Value) 93 Chapter 11: Failures Left Behind 95 11.1. Why failures? 95 11.1.1. Business school 95 11.1.2. Apple 95 11.2. Failure dissolves in time 96 11.3. A basket of historical failures 96 Chapter 12: A Cornucopia of Commerce Situations 103 12.1. Commercial policy 103 12.1.1. Business school 103 12.1.2. Apple 103 12.2. Asking customers 103 12.2.1. Business school 103 12.2.2. Apple 104 12.2.3. Development 104 12.3. Forecasting and strategy 105 12.3.1. Business school 105 12.3.2. Apple 105 12.3.3. Development 105 12.4. Grabbing a trend 105 12.4.1. Business school 105 12.4.2. Apple 105 12.4.3. Development 105 12.5. Communicating 106 12.5.1. Business school 106 12.5.2. Apple 106 12.5.3. Development 106 12.6. Getting incomparable value 106 12.6.1. Business school 106 12.6.2. Apple 106 12.6.3. Development 107 12.7. Making something profitable 107 12.7.1. Business school 107 12.7.2. Apple 107 12.7.3. Development 107 12.8. Going after the enterprise market 107 12.8.1. Business school 107 12.8.2. Apple 108 12.8.3. Development 108 12.9. Expenses versus returns 108 12.9.1. Business school 108 12.9.2. Apple 108 12.9.3. Development 108 12.10. Management to commitment to product 109 12.10.1. Business school 109 12.10.2. Apple 109 12.10.3. Development 109 Chapter 13: Emergence of a Brand 111 13.1. The chasm 111 13.1.1. Business school 111 13.1.2. Apple 112 13.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing 113 PART 3: Importing Apple's Genes into Transferable Knowledge (In Evidence of Deeper Gaps) 115 Chapter 14: On Structure and Contents 117 14.1. The chasm 117 14.1.1. Business school 117 14.1.2. Apple 118 14.2. Developing the chasm 118 Chapter 15: You Said Reality? Which Reality? 121 15.1. The chasm 121 15.1.1. Business school 122 15.1.2. Apple 122 15.2. Developing the chasm 124 15.3. It’s all about perception 127 Chapter 16: Combining the Genes 131 16.1. Taking stock of a flat list of genes 131 16.2. Setting the stage toward a combined dynamics 135 16.2.1. In search for dominant designs 135 16.2.2. Breaking the dominant designs 136 16.2.3. Blueprinting radical “crazy” concepts 137 Chapter 17: Evolving Competition 139 17.1. Cracking open the notion of “competition” 139 17.2. Designing an expanded understanding “competition” 141 Chapter 18: Evolving Innovation 143 18.1. Cracking open the notion of “innovation” 143 18.2. Designing an expanded understanding of “innovation” 144 Chapter 19: A Company Under (Dynamic) Tension 149 19.1. Tension is a co-evolving dynamic 149 19.2. Tension is a dynamic toward futures 151 19.3. Walking the way 152 Chapter 20: Overcoming Common Blocking Points 155 20.1. The need for an innovation molecule 155 20.2. A need to revisit risk-taking 157 Conclusion 161 APPENDICES 165 Appendix 1: Apple Genes List 167 Appendix 2: On the True Nature of Software 171 A2.1. Software role, software people role 171 A2.2. Software, an immaterial product 173 Software Project Tracking 173 Project planning 174 A2.3. Software development activities – the CMM model 176 The CMM model 176 “Initial” (maturity level 1) 177 “Managed” (maturity level 2) 177 “Defined” (maturity level 3) 177 “Quantitatively managed” (maturity level 4) 177 “Optimizing” (maturity level 5) 177 The mystery of the small, yet costly software fix 180 A2.4. Software people productivity 181 Appendix 3: On Purposefully Recalling Leonardo Da Vinci Design Innovation Codes 183 A3.1. Introduction 184 A3.2. Where a Leonardo inventor and designer shows the C-K way 184 C-K theory in a nutshell (or: a posthumous Da Vinci reference point) 185 Relevance to Da Vinci practice methodology 187 A3.3. Create by starting from an empty space, then connect the dots 187 How to start from an empty space? 187 What the C-K approach means 187 Representing dualistically (polarizing two spaces) and operating Arte (playing the C-K design square) 188 Elaborating solid bodies of knowledge (or cognitive processes ever) 190 Formulating root concepts (cognition – or plotting the undecidable) 191 The story behind the creation of Sunflower iMac: Jobs, Ive and the sunflower in the garden 192 A3.4. On the value of the analysis 194 On the process of emergence of design process (or embodying resulting concepts) 194 Assessing designs and field explorations (or assessment criteria) 195 Unceasingly mapping cross disciplinary (or ever in search for conjunctions) 196 Comparisons of forms/patterns 197 Interconnecting K domains 197 Counter analogies 198 Metaphors 198 A3.5. Wrapping up the key elements of relevance to Apple 198 Theory infused in “sperienza” (or an enduring Leonardo/C-K thread) 198 A basket of paradoxes? (or you need ecosystems) 200 Acknowledgments 202 Appendix 4: Further Tips in Designing Innovations with C-K Theory 203 A4.1. Tracking dominant designs above all 203 A4.2. Why they (still) exist 204 A4.3. Why they still work (less and less) 204 A4.4. What would an industry breaker do? 205 A4.5. Conclusion 206 Appendix 5: Tips on Deepening Understanding by Using Trialectics 209 A5.1. Introducing trialectics 209 A5.2. Using trialectics 210 A5.3. Operating trialectics on the concept of “Brand” 212 A5.4. Articulating trialectics with C-K theory 215 A5.5. Conclusion 216 Appendix 6: Selected Quotes from Steve Jobs 219 Bibliography 223 Books about Apple 223 Complementary references 225 Sites of interest 228 Further reading 228 References specific to Appendix 3 228 Other references 230 Index 231