"Managing as Designing" (Stanford Business Books)

"Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean" (Roberto Verganti)

"Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation" (Tim Brown)

"Designing Design" (Kenya Hara)

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Right. I used the past tense. Anticipating Apple's move, Amazon opened its Kindle platform on Jan 20. Also, two days before Steve Jobs introduced iPad, New York Times announced that it is creating a new segment for "reader applications".

On Monday, The Times also announced that its media group division had created a new segment for “reader applications,” and named Yasmin Namini, the senior vice president for marketing and circulation, to head it. Executives said the timing was coincidental, prompted not by the Apple device specifically, but by the growing importance to The Times of electronic reading devices in general.

via www.nytimes.com

It seems to me that Apple is about to do what it did to mobile operators and handset manufacturers with iPhone to media publishing companies and e-book manufacturers with iPad. iPhone opened what used to be tightly vertically integrated mobile service market that was dominated by mobile operators on one hand and handset manufacturers on the other hand. It forces the separation of the "service" and the "device" in mobile industry, creating spaces for hundreds of thousands of applications. The arrival and success of iPhone prepared the way for Android which is even more open than iPhone. Before iPhone, mobile operators and handset manufacturers wanted to vertically control user experiences of mobile services, albeit from the opposite directions. Now, with iPhone and Android, the contents and services are liberated from the tyranny of limited hardware and the control of operators who used to control what users can and cannot do with their mobile phones.

Before iPad, Amazon and publishing companies (including news media) were trying to do the same thing. They have been engaged in a battle over the control of vertically integrated publishing market. What Amazon wanted to do with its Kindle was simply replacing one physical device (paper) with another (Kindle) with digital capability. Yet, its approach to the consumer experience is remarkably similar with that of old publishers in the sense that it wanted to integrate device, network, service and contents, all under its tight control. It is like changing one evil with another from a user's perspective. What iPad will do is to challenge this vertical thinking by introducing a horizontal thinking with loosely coupled layers of devices, networks, services and contents. iPad is in no way a perfect hardware. It does not have camera. It does not have GPS. It only supports AT&T network. And, it does not do multitasking. It is like a big iPod Touch. But, with all its hardware limitations, Apple's iPad is forcing others to move from vertical thinking to horizontal thinking. After all, iPhone was not and is not the best hardware either. iPhone however executes the horizontal approach beautifully, fundamentally challenging the strategies of both mobile operators and handset manufacturers whose strategies are based on vertical thinking. Apple is yet again approaching to the publication and media industry with the same horizontal approach.

The horizontal thinking does not respect industry boundaries, which is vertically formed around physical device which controls network (delivery mechanism), services (function) and contents. Instead, it see things through loosely coupled layers that cuts across different vertical stacks of what used to be different industries. At the end, perhaps, it will be Google who will introduce an Android-version of tablet device that will completely decouple these layers across several different industries.

Although both my son and I really enjoy Kindles, we had defective screen problems with them. My son's Kindle showed black mark on the screen twice. Each time, Amazon sent a replacement immediately as a warranty service. However, the person who processed the second replacement made a mistake and charged for it. I called Amazon to ask them to cancel the charge. Instead of cancelling the charge, the person that I spoke to process it as a refund. The problem, however, that he refunded a wrong Kindle -- my Kindle, not my son's, which was bought using my school's account. So, they charged to my personal card and refunded to my school. God knows why he did it, but eventually, we sorted out this mess. Another Amazon person apologized for the inconvenience and I thought all the problems have been resolved.

Fast forward to early November. This time, my Kindle 2 was broken with a similar screen issue -- 2/3 of the screen got blackened out. I called Amazon and they sent me a replacement. By this time, I became an expert on the Kindle replacement process! I sent back my broken Kindle 2 once I received the replacement. I thought all was well. Then, tonight (December 22), I found an e-mail from Amazon with the following message in my Spam folder:

"Hello,

I'm sorry for any misunderstanding. As we explained in our e-mail sent on Dec 11, your credit card will be charged the full amount for your original malfunctioning Kindle if you don't return it to us within 30 days of the date we created your replacement order.

It typically takes us 7-14 days to process returned packages, so if you returned the original order recently, it's possible that we haven't processed the return yet. If you sent us your return, please call us at 1-866-321-8851 or 1-206-266-0927 (from outside the U.S.) so that we can update your account. If you didn't use the prepaid return mailing label we provided, please have the tracking information for your return handy when you call.

I hope this explanation clarifies our policy. Thanks for choosing Kindle.

Did we answer your question?"

The problem is that (1) I never asked any question; (2) I never saw the e-mail sent on Dec 11 as it must have been sent to my spam folder which deletes messages each week; and (3) I returned the Kindle on November 24. But apparently, someone at Amazon was trying to charge for the replacement Kindle that was sent to me in November. So, I called Amazon to find out what's the deal. The person that I spoke to, Kyle W., was a very patient, sympathetic and smart customer service representative. In fact, my impression is that Amazon seems to use its best people to handle Kindle support. At any rate, it took a long time, in fact more than an hour, for us to figure out what was going on. The problem was that he could not find any trace of the returned Kindle. In fact, he could not even find a record of them sending me a return label. He and I were completely puzzled and went through the entire record of my various Kindle history.

Finally, after about an hour, we found the original order of my broken Kindle 2 that was made back in April. To my surprise, it says that the Kindle was returned already on May 14 and the money was refunded on the same day. The problem is that it was never returned until late November. Then, I realized that someone in May tried to cancel the erroneous charge, but mistakenly refunded the charge for a wrong Kindle (I told you it is complicated). And few months later, the system still says that the Kindle was returned on May 14. So, I figured when my Kindle was actually returned in late November, the person who is handling the returned product could not update the system as the system must have been indicating that it had been already returned. The person probably felt frustrated, or thought that someone else had already processed the return, and perhaps tossed away the Kindle. So, the Kindle was never properly returned and the hardware is still missing. Well, at least, that is my theory. So, Kyle duly update the system and hoped that it would take care of the problem. But, will it?

Why am I writing it here? First, I think it is interesting and shows how a company like Amazon runs its business relying on such complicated, yet fragile, business processes. We often take these things granted; but we should remember that behind every Amazon order, every airplane ticket you bought from Orbitz, and every Christmas gift you will return (and the refund that you may or may not receive), there are so many processes that are intricately interconnected. Third and most importantly, I am not sure at all if Amazon completely resolved my problem. Given how complicated the problem was, I needed to document what happened so that I can explain it to the next person that I need to talk. I just hope that I don't have to explain it. Again. I will keep you all posted.