But years of missteps for Yahoo! have led them astray and highlighted their internal identity crisis. Rather than “do you Yahoo!?”, these days it’s more like, “who are you Yahoo!?” For regular users of Yahoo! you’ve probably noticed a new feature called “status-casting.” Essentially it gives users the opportunity to say what they’re doing. It probably sounds familiar because it is years overdue…and remember, this is the Internet we’re talking about, where years can often equate the lifecycle of a company, a service, or trend. This follows Google Mail which has allowed users to set their own statuses, Facebook which does the same, and Twitter which basically only does this. The real kick in the gut is that AOL added this feature a month before Yahoo!. In the pecking order of Internet properties nobody wants to be following AOL.

We applaud the attempt to differentiate by creating a unique name – “status-casting.” But if you’re offering a new take on the name, how about a new take on the activity. For example, surely not all updates are created equal and a creative approach could take advantage of this. From our experience there’s a wide range of updates…some are rants, some are questions, some are jokes, some are urgent, and some certainly are not. What if there was a way to differentiate these updates so they can be categorized or get different placement on a user’s news feed? There’s no shortage of innovation possibilities…if only Yahoo! had taken the time to develop one instead of giving the world one loud, unfortunate status update “Do you still need Yahoo!?”

But then we caught on…some of our more dedicated readers appear to be interested only in peddling generic prescription drugs.  Luckily we get to approve, or in most cases disapprove, comments before they show up here but the sheer volume in recent weeks has made us sit back and wonder…is this form of marketing even slightly effective?  Does anyone click through?  And who is funding these incessant posters?

If this blog gets that much attention, the one or two (million) slightly larger blogs must be inundated.  Someone’s job must be simply to click “delete” on all the comments.  We’ve included screenshots of our favorites.  Just as we hope we’re successful in helping people come up with new ideas, at least they’ve succeeded in giving us a laugh.

We don't know what these comments mean but we love them!

So when we heard about McKinsey going through the entire portfolio of titles at Condé Nast we were impressed that the media giant was taking proactive steps to get a little leaner and ultimately save themselves from the fate of so many other magazines that have folded in the last few years. Afterall, even during the boom years, we question some of their bloated expense account choices. Imagine they’d been a little more frugal all this time? They probably wouldn’t need McKinsey to come in at all.

But rather than sound like a prudish grandmother, we applaud the choice, which according to an internal memo serves to help them “rethink” how to do business. What a smart choice. What a bold move. What a way to save yourself from the fire…

Hold on…except for one thing, the New Yorker isn’t being included in the makeover. The Observer reports not only David Remnick but the entire editorial staff will be excused from participating. This comes as a shock to us because by not participating, the New Yorker is missing out on a huge opportunity to change and grow. Perhaps Condé Nast thinks the magazine is perfect the way it is. But will it always be so perfect? Perhaps McKinsey is just in there to chop budgets and heads. But won’t there be opportunities to truly rethink business? When starting projects like this there’s always a period of discovery and who knows what might be found out about the New Yorker? The answer to that for now is, nobody.

While it may be painful, the other titles at Condé Nast have the chance to come out of the process as svelte, put-together models of media…the “after” picture that so many of the titles feature in their books. And by not participating, the New Yorker is confined to resembling the “before” picture, a little schlumpy, a little off, and if it just made a few changes it would be a star. So consider this an open call to action. If they aren’t going to bring in McKinsey for the New Yorker, then the people at the New Yorker should take a look at their operations on their own and try to evolve. Sure, running a thought-leading magazine like the New Yorker while always having an eye on the bottom line might be a scary prospect, but running a magazine without even being willing to have a conversation about change and innovation sounds a whole lot scarier.

BusinessWeek is faulted for coming out with a weekly by one source that says “They can’t compete as a weekly anymore because financial information is so time sensitive.” But we think this might have been said by someone who’s never read an issue of BusinessWeek. Ok, ok, neither have we. But we regularly go to the site for a wealth of information, and well, it’s certainly worth a dollar, particularly the Innovation section. Check it out while you still can for insights on how businesses and brands are growing and changing, as well as basics and updates on investing, starting a company, and real time updates of stock performances.

BusinessWeek isn’t going out of business yet, but it’s unclear what the future holds for the brand. With the shuttering of titles likely to continue, is there anything we can do? Audiences are shifting habits and getting their messages online. But does this shift in habits mean they have to kill the messenger? Right now people don’t seem to mind, but eventually when all the messengers are dead, what happens to the message?

So we’ll say it, in 30 years, there will be no newspapers or magazines, probably sooner. But people will still want content. Lest it become a tale of newstander beware, it’s time to proactively figure out how to protect these brands. It’s not that the content is irrelevant, just that the medium may be. In other words, people don’t buy magazines because they want paper, they buy them because they want content. The source still matters though and we’re wagering that people would trust information from BusinessWeek over JoeQBlog.

We’d love to see BusinessWeek tap into its brand strength and find a way through this. Perhaps there’s an issue with the name…is “Business” too vague? Is “Week” too long? Maybe they need to develop subbrands that can speak to everything they offer. Afterall, who would expect such a great Innovation section based on the name BusinessWeek? We know that people won’t be holding paper-based magazines soon and we also know that people will always want content they can trust. With that in mind, let’s hope BusinessWeek takes some insights from its own innovation section and finds a way to stick around a while longer.

The fall from grace of the big three auto makers is a shot in the gut for the American economy and has led to pontifications about the poor decisions made for decades and the dangers of becoming to big for your own good.  While dismantling the big three’s performance issues, the article makes several references to the growing dominance of Japanese rivals, timing issues like introducing hybrids priced $10,000 to $20,000 more than the competition, and a pervasive NIH (Not Invented Here) mentality.  These are all good points, but they don’t stem from the big three just being, well, too big.

Surely being successful can’t be the cause of ultimately being unsuccessful.  Wired calls large companies like Wal-Mart, AT&T, and the big three “dinosaurs,” who are finally marching into the tar pits.  The issue with these companies isn’t size though.  Afterall, a lot of small dinosaurs went extinct too.  The issue is a mindset that resulted in a corporate trouncing by smarter, braver, and yes, even bigger competitors.  While praising the performance of Toyota and Honda, Wired fails to acknowledge that these companies are HUGE themselves.  If being so big is the cause of failure and the age of giants is over, why are Toyota and Honda doing so well?  For that matter, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and others?  Sure, we’re all in a larger playing field with more players, but the biggest players are still winning.

An opportunity that automakers in the US missed is tapping into their own long tail, to borrow the term from Wired.  With being a large company comes having large workforces and the bigger the workforce, the better the brain power.  A firm with 3000 employees can almost always come up with bigger and better ideas than a firm with 3 employees.  In this age of open sourcing and a belief in the power of crowds, it would behoove the big three, and any other “dinosaur,” to tap into their own long tail to develop new products, ways of doing business, and making breakthroughs happen.

While unfortunately a lot of these big companies made decisions that ultimately led to their demise, we’re sticking with the theory that when it comes to business, bigger is better.

]]> http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=135 0 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=123 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=123#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:07:58 +0000 paul http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=123 It worked for other brands ‘gone wild’, so we at the I Open Lab want to encourage you to make your ideas go wild! While we do mean take the tops off the ideas, ahem…it’s only in the PG meaning of the term.

Recently we introduced a key idea-do: saying no to no. Another one is to go wild with your ideas. As long as we aren’t saying no to no, why don’t we also go a far as possible with our ideas? If you can make your ideas bigger than ever before, even if you come up with impossible ideas, this can help you make breakthroughs happen. It’s much easier to tame a wild idea and use pieces of it than to build up a smaller idea. This can also be used for making a wish list, which we’ve worked on in earlier posts. If you made a list of things you wish you were doing better, what if you bumped up those wishes and made them even bigger? Instead of wanting a promotion to make more money, maybe you really wish you were the boss and that you were opening your own company. Instead of saying you want to get your book published, what if you said you wanted to be the next JK Rowling? And if you’re starting a company and just trying to get by, what if you said you wanted to build a global brand and be number one?

Just as a lot of us might not have been taught the tools for brainstorming, some of us might also have trouble saying what we really want. Perhaps it sounds too arrogant, or perhaps you might be afraid of setting yourself up for failure, but if you look at your wishes and go wild with them, it might help you uncover some insights into what you’re truly trying to accomplish. And after all, until we have the right question in front of us, we’ll be hard-pressed to come up with the right answers.



So keep saying no to no, and go wild! They’re just ideas and there’s not harm in making them as big as possible!

]]> http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=123 0 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=114 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=114#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 19:38:20 +0000 paul http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=114 Recent attention has been paid to airlines launching wi-fi initiatives for domestic flights, with Airtran being the first to offer Internet service on all of its flights by this summer. Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are also entering the fray, but with the costs of necessary technical upgrades to the airplanes being passed on directly to the passengers, we’re wondering if this is going to fly with the general public.


According to one source, it costs $100,000 per plane to offer the wi-fi service and then passengers will be charged $9.95 for shorter flights or $12.95 for longer distances. While the executives quoted are spot-on in saying that this is something passengers will expect on all flights a few years from now, in 2009 are travelers, whether business or leisure, willing to pony up the cash? The days of hotels charging exorbitant fees for Internet service have been replaced with complimentary in room wi-fi hook ups. And as the price of technology goes down and many people subscribe high speed internet for as little as $30 per month, are they willing to pay such a premium to get online? Business travelers may be interested in sending and receiving emails, though the friendly skies is one of the few spaces they can unplug. And leisure travelers may want to update facebook, read the news, and of course check for the latest update from the I Open Lab blog, but on top of luggage fees, beverage fees, and fees connected to anything else the airlines can think of, will passengers want to spend even more on getting from A to B. Sure, life is about the journey, but for those excited about the destination, they may not want to spend so much on getting there.

There’s also the seemingly arbitrary price break for PDA’s and smartphones, which can access inflight wi-fi for $7.95. The price break is appreciated, but do these devices use less “Internet” than laptops? We’re sure that Internet service will be a part of all flights in the next few years, and eventually the costs will go down but perhaps the executives could consider some new options in pricing or the overall offering. What if the price was on a sliding scale based on how many people use it? If an entire plane is logged on, do they all need to pay the hefty fee, or should there be a break? Or perhaps if you just want to sign on to check for urgent emails, or you absolutely have to post the picture of your neighbor asleep on your shoulder to facebook, you can log on for a smaller increment of time and pay a smaller price accordingly. And it might be interesting to think about the purpose of wi-fi connectivity in the first place. Wi-fi is great for people on-the-go with mobile office lifestyles, but when you’re on a plane as a passenger you aren’t doing much moving. So what about getting rid of those phones that come on the back of many seats and offering USB cords to connect to a modem? These are just some thoughts and they may not be feasible, but in our opinion, neither is charging so much for a technology that while vital to our lives, is getting cheaper and cheaper and eventually will be free when we’re on solid ground.

]]> http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=114 0 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=109 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=109#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 17:18:34 +0000 paul http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=109 Previously we encouraged you to make wishes.  This could be anything you want to be doing better, more of, or maybe even at all.  For those of you who may be an unsure entrepreneur, this could involve something that you’re afraid of that we wanted you to put into the form of a wish.  Before we tackle these wishes, there’s still some work to do.  

When you’re trying to solve any challenge, it’s important to clearly know what that challenge is.  For example, perhaps you’ve come across situations where you’ve been asked for answers to questions that aren’t clear.  Maybe a boss has asked for something without being clear about what it is, or a coworker needs something from you, but they don’t know what that is themself.  In cases like this, it’s nearly impossible to give the right answers because no one has asked the right questions.  

So before ideating, let’s look at some Idea-Do’s…these are tips to keep in mind whenever you’re making lists. We say making lists because while brainstorming is called many things, what you’re really doing is coming up with great lists.  Once you have a great list, you can make the right choices.  And lists aren’t just for answers, they’re for questions too.  



The first Idea-Do is to “Say No to No.”  Anytime you’re coming up with a list of ideas, whether they’re fears, wishes, questions or answers, you don’t want to say no to anything that comes to mind.  All ideas are valuable, but please don’t confuse that with the polite saying that all ideas are good ideas.  Some ideas are actually quite bad. But all ideas are valuable because even the worst idea in the world might inspire you to think of a really great idea.  Also, if you’re constantly stopping yourself and judging each idea that comes up, you may lose momentum and instead of coming up with dozens of ideas to pick from, you may struggle just to get a handful of ideas down on paper.  So just say no, to no, and with that in mind look at your wishes again and come up with ten more.  It might sound hard, but it’s possible, and you might just be surprised with what you think of next.  

Coming up…more Idea-Do’s.  To discuss any wishes, feel free to leave comments or contact us at paul@iopenlab.com.

]]> http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=109 0 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=105 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=105#comments Sat, 09 May 2009 03:16:12 +0000 paul http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=105 As you head into this weekend, whether for some much needed sun and fun, a few more days of rain, or just some “you” time, we wanted to share some news and insights on exciting developments and trends. And in the classical brainstorming tradition of borrowing ideas, instead of coming up with a list of insights, we found a great newsletter did it for us!

Trendwatching.com just released their May 2009 newsletter, reviewing 15 of its top consumer trends and businesses that are tapping into them. Some of the ideas are particularly exciting…like a few that might just breathe life into newspapers and magazines. Mine is a new initiative that allows readers to create a magazine based on content from various publications, including Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, InStyle, Golf, and Travel + Leisure. The Local is an aggregation of local news that the New York Times is offering for specific neighborhoods and areas. As we become a global community, is the answer for newspapers and magazines to become hyperlocal?

Take a look at all the ideas presented here and maybe there’s a niche with your name on it. We’re particularly excited about Baker Tweet, which allows bakers to use Twitter for alerting tech savvy customers when a fresh batch of warm bread, cookies, and treats are available. Now that’s a tech trend we can sink our teeth into!

]]> http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=105 0 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=88 http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=88#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 23:17:54 +0000 paul http://www.iopenlab.com/blog/?p=88 An article in today’s New York Times reviews the latest hope for saving newspapers and magazines…an over-sized, unruly, black and white electronic reading tablet. Oh, and it’s also slow. Needless to say we’re somewhat dubious that this device will become the ailing publishing industry’s savior. As always, we look for the best in ideas, and portable electronic devices that are capable of displaying magazine and newspaper content are clearly the way of the future. However this device, by Plastic Logic, seems confined both by limitations of newspapers and magazines as well as available technology.



While the product is closer in size to newspapers and magazines than other readers out there is it the right size for today’s and tomorrow’s consumers? We’re concerned for a few reasons. First, how many devices are we going to carry around with us, especially when they offer similar features to users? Between blackberrys, PDAs and iPhones, we can access the web, read news, take pictures, listen to music, oh, and talk on the phone. Many can also be used as e-readers, muscling into Amazon’s Kindle’s and other readers’ territories. Is there any room or need in the market for plus-sized readers? Also, if you can’t easily put it in your pocket and even have to carry around a special bag for it we think it’s just too large. You can fold newspapers and magazines, and hey, if you need to you can toss them. You probably won’t want to toss the readers, at least not while we’re still in a recession.

It may be difficult to travel with the readers, but it also doesn’t seem likely people will read them at home or in the office. The technology is only capable of giving readers a black and white image, with no video or audio. When you have access to computers at home and in the office offering multimedia experiences, why would you turn to the reader? In the Times article, one executive is quoted as saying if the devices had come out five years ago there would probably be more excitement. Which makes us wonder if this is just like someone introducing a really really great VHS player.

So what should magazines and newspapers try to offer with a digital reading device? It needs to leverage the modern consumer lifestyle mixed with the equity of the newspaper/magazine experience. If consumers like “flipping through” magazines, maybe the devices can consist of two or four folds, allowing people to flip the page, instead of just scrolling down. And perhaps they can select a random function, allowing stories and features to show up in different orders, just like flipping through an actual magazine. Of course multimedia options, which aren’t available, would be great drivers of adoption. This could let a user listen to the headlines and full articles of favorite sections or key topics of interest while driving or riding to work.

Finally, magazines and newspapers should not forget about the badge value they offer readers. People give off a message when they’re reading The Financial Times versus The New York Post, and The New Yorker versus King…and this is something to leverage further rather than give up to a beige blank electronic reader.



These are just a few ideas, and clearly the publishing industry is putting a lot of time and effort into providing something new for readers. We just hope they catch up before the next headline is the shuttering of another big name paper or magazine.

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