Outside Innovation

Tikatok: Kids Create and Publish Books

Smart Customization and Customer Co-Creation in Action

“I was sitting in a bookstore in the children’s book section with my kids, and I realized that all kids’ books are written and illustrated by adults,” said Sharon Kan.

Sharon is the CEO and co-founder of Lexington, MA-based Tikatok. She described her company at the MIT Smart Customization Seminar on November 10, 2008.

Sharon described Tikatok as “the first online creativity platform for kids.” Tikatok helps kids write, illustrate, publish, and print their own books.

Tikatok is a great example of smart customization in action. Each child’s book is custom-created and printed on demand. The mass-customization platform and ecosystem are designed to enable children to produce high-quality picture books that they and others can buy. The books sell for about $15 to $20 (depending on the number of pages) for soft cover or hard cover. Tikatok can produce these individual or short run books at a 40 percent margin. The published kids’ books are available for viewing and for sale on the Tikatok.com site.

Are We Entering a Golden Age of IT?

How Pioneering Technology Architects View the Current Business Challenges and IT Opportunities

For over 10 years, our small band of technology architects (many of whom have now turned into business strategists) has been meeting twice a year. This is my “by invitation only” group known as Patty’s Pioneers. Each year, I learn an incredible amount from the rich sharing of problems and approaches these guys and gals are using to design and evolve their businesses’ technology architectures. The same patterns re-emerge over and over again, across industries as diverse as financial services, ocean shipping, energy management, retail, information services, manufacturing, supply chain logistics, and solving the world’s largest problems.

Each year, the patterns of our conversations form a semi-coherent picture in my head. I thought you might be interested in my non-Geek’s view of the way I see that these brilliant and persistent “big thinkers” think about the things they work on. (Pioneers: I have kept the quotes anonymous, but I am happy to attribute them! My apologies to any of you who may feel I’ve missed the point or over-simplified! Please chime in!)

E-Merchandising: Really Important in Tough Times!

Although consumer spending is down dramatically, and the coming holiday season is looking really bleak, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t invest in optimizing the e-merchandising on your e-storefront. In fact, the opposite is true. While peoples’ wallets may be less full, you still want your share of that smaller wallet. How do you do that? Make it really easy for people to find what they’re seeking AND make it really easy for them to make a purchasing decision. We spend a lot of time educating you about findability. But we’ve devoted less space to merchandising. This week, we’re revisiting the topic of e-merchandising by reminding you of the basics. My prediction is that online shopping as a percentage of total shopping will double this year. Why? Because people who aren’t in the mood to shop are more likely to hit their computers than the malls. So, take a look at our list of our Ten Fundamental E-Merchandising Practices and think about how many of these tried and true e-merchandising techniques you’re currently using on your own consumer or business Web sites. Which of them are paying off for you? Which of them are most important to you as an online shopper? Which important e-merchandising tips have we missed?

Excited about this week's Smart Customization Seminar at MIT!

I'll be attending Frank Piller's Smart Customization seminar Monday and Tuesday this week. I missed the event last year. Frank is one of the most "plugged in" people on the planet when it comes to mass-customization and user-led innovation.

Preparing for the event by catching up on Frank's blog, Mass-Customization and Open Innovation News, has me wondering whether "smart" or mass-customization isn't a good way to combat the global economic crunch.

How DO you differentiate your products at a time when people are spending less and cutting back?

You turn them into "my products"! or unique, eco-friendly products! Or both!!

A case in point: I ordered custom M&Ms for my grand daughter's birthday bash and ordered inexpensive one-of-a-kind designer jewelry from a designer in South Africa that I found on the Ponoko site.

If you're attending the conference, let me know, so we can meet up! I'll be blogging during the event.

Cloud Computing: Once Renegade, Now Sanctioned

My reaction to Microsoft’s announcement of its Azure cloud computing platform is: “Good, now it’s safe for corporate IT to embrace cloud computing.” You may be too young to remember when IBM announced its PC (1981). By doing so, IBM validated a customer-driven movement that was already well underway: PCs (of the Apple and TRS 80 and other varieties) were already being used as renegade computers by lead users. Business people were already bringing personal computers into the office or buying them with departmental budgets. They were doing spreadsheets, performing simple calculations, even typing their own memos.

In 1981, IBM ran around in front of this renegade customer parade, pulled together a “platform,” and declared it an industry standard. The PC revolution was legitimized. Cocktail party conversations among IT professionals and corporate execs shifted immediately from “we don’t take PCs seriously” to “we have a PC strategy.”

Microsoft’s Azure announcement will have the same effect. Corporate IT gate-keepers will now acknowledge that they need a “cloud computing strategy” for their applications and their data centers. Again, they’ll be running around in front of a parade that is already well in progress. Small business users, under-the-radar-renegades in enterprise departments, and IT project leads for fast track, low budget projects have been using cloud computing for two years. Microsoft’s validation will enable them to raise their heads, be smug, and show others how it’s done.