Or, how to make your own Apple share price…

Trefis.com provides an analytical share price forecasting application. Their unique interface model, resembling a mind map, provides a user with a ‘glimpse’ into how a share price is constructed based on a company’s Divisional structure (revenue centers).

The application makes it easy to understand each company’s modus operandi, and even easier to edit the forecasts of each core revenue center that has been used to make up the share price to create your own version of the share price truth.

Semantic interface: objects interface to objects

For the everyday share investor, this interface opens up the semantic data used to build the share price, and subsequently makes the application a compelling way to learn more about the company’s Divisions (Products/Services) by clicking on each ‘object’.

So yes, just like in any hyperlinked world objects link to objects, but each object in this model is semantically linked so that the top level price ($243) is related to every branch and its sub-branches; therefore the interface is a semantic representation of a set of objects.

'Apple' Pricing Interface

Granularity of semantic data

Drilling down into a Division, for example “Macintosh”, provides the next level of granularity – i.e. what makes up the revenue behind the Macintosh Division.  At this level the application opens a new window to manipulate each Product/Service within the Division to modify the forecasted revenue and create your own share price.

The semantic data behind each Division.

Model Your Own Predictions

You may believe that the “Desktops” market will be in decline over the next few years, but “Software and Service” will continue to climb because you think Apple will get smart in the Cloud App Market by buying a string of companies like Aviary.com for their online tools.

By manipulating the trend line (as seen below) you can instantly view how the change in revenue would adjust the current Market Price to create Justin’s Price of $246.

Modify Revenue Model

Next Step

The next step would be to provide a feature to give the user the ability to add a Product or Service in a Division, and then I can be Jobs for a Day.

For example: I add a new Product called iView (aka. Tablet) as a new Division, and my expectations are that Apple will sell 2m iViews in Year 1 at a price point of $899; the Trefis system does the rest!

Launching into Social Media, in the form of Social Retailing, does not mean ‘must-having’ a FB page or Tweeting out continuous coupons and passcodes. The complexities associated with conducting a social media campaign that gets people together to ’socialize’ via apps on social networking platforms or mobile phones can make a foray into the social media world appear daunting and costly.

However, the reality can also be the absolute opposite; you can conduct social media (experiments) without all the hyperbole.

Commiting Social Suicide

The SocialSuicide.co.uk site makes social retailing very straightforward. They provide a dynamic discount to every current site visitor based on the (average) number of unique visitors that visit the site. And, as it states, “The more visitors we get the greater discount you get.”

I appreciate the simplicity of this model, it’s a sure-fire way to get ‘you’ to send out a quick Tweet or Wall Comment to get a few extra friends over to the site. This looks and feels like Social Media to me, and there is a distinct lack of (very expensive) third-party software embedded in their site to make this concept come to life.

Social Suicides' home page demonstrating unique visitors receiving a discount.

But, I am somewhat confused why the site does not make it easy for a visitor to quickly tweet or post the site’s link to your social network via embedded buttons on the Home Page. I still rank this as one of the better, and blindingly obvious, ideas I have seen to promote site visitation and increase conversions.

At some stage we all want to ‘redesign’ or ‘innovate’ something to make it better, but we are either too busy (lazy), or maybe, we just want to hold the idea close to our chest because it will make more money if we keep it a secret.

Well, instead of filing the idea next to “Idea #231″, publish the idea and create a following via Open Source Concepting (OSC). As a business model OSC will not protect your thinking from predators but if you want to get the concept into the real world – then go public sooner. The Open Source Concepting business model focuses on raising awareness about your concept, which can open up conversations with potential partners and in turn attract investors.

I think it’s important to distinguish that by ‘going public’ I don’t mean writing a sub-140-character-status-update about your innovation or a meagre couple of paragraphs on your blog. You need to inject enough energy into the idea to turn it into a Product Concept so that other people can visualize your thinking and further augment the concept with feedback and recommendations.

A real world example

Q. How would you approach an airline to innovate the ‘look’ of their boarding passes?

A. Open source the concept; and let a community of followers popularize the idea so that the airline comes to you with an offer.

Example: Tyler Thompson (Creative Director – SquareSpace), has open-sourced his vision for a ‘better’ airline boarding pass (see: http://passfail.squarespace.com/).

Instead of just 'hot air' – the idea needs to be demonstrated by creating a Product Concept.

Now, since he has a day job, Tyler may have no desire to ‘cash in’ on his Product Concept, but the potential of his idea becoming real has increased ten-fold. I would be surprised if designers in the Delta Airline design office are not all over the blog entry and maybe the Virgin Atlantic executives have already passed the link along to a VP for discussion. The point is; this idea could have faded away on a “Moleskin” notebook page.

But instead, Tyler designed a new Boarding Pass and decided to show everyone – whether the concept is translated into a working product is somewhat irrelevant. At the time of this post, Tyler’s Bit.ly click-thrus for the URL of his Boarding Pass site was at 12,279 clicks, which is relatively high traffic for a single blog page, and these are just the links from www.bit.ly. This highlights just one example of Tyler’s return on his (time) investment in open sourcing his idea.

Free your ideas… Open source your concepts…

See my post on the idea that I want to see open sourced for the Apple Tablet: http://creating.concepts.com.au/2010/01/syncing-your-tv-experience-with-the-apple-tablet/ … Now, am I too busy or too lazy?

Sidenote on Open Source Concepting: watch the video “RIP: A remix manifesto” – http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/rip , which discusses how the Copyright system has been subverted to the benefit of organisations that just covet revenue streams, and are not interested in innovating, redesigning, and being entrepreneurial. Every chapter of the video is available here: http://www.opensourcecinema.org/book/rip-remix-manifesto-1-meet-girl-talk.

And then, go and download Girl Talk’s mash up tracks: http://www.myspace.com/girltalk.

I’m a big believer in subscription-based business models. This could work incredibly well for food businesses that are located in populated urban regions.

Check out the local Ice Creamery doing exactly this, in NY: http://www.milkmadeicecream.com/

Why can’t I subscribe (pay in advance) to my local pizza bar, and get a discounted price if I guarantee ‘4, 6, or 8′ purchases a month ?

I have ‘cut and pasted’ a comment I posted on VentureBeat.com (http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/05/apple-tablet-2/) relating to the Apple Tablet – Article: “Contest: Your predictions for Apple’s tablet“.

— Post starts here —

It will be about one of the Apps that the Tablet comes with, which makes the device integrate into everyday life – therefore: The Tablet + New App + Real World Element = Cool, I need it!

Let’s call the New App: TV+

Scenario:
The Tablet will be location aware and time sync’ed to reflect the TV channels available in your current region. The New App, TV+ ‘knows’ what’s playing via an electronic program guide – making your Tablet a Smart TV device.

The Tablet + TV+ combination provides the functionality to display dynamic content on the Tablet that is sync’ed with the show being broadcast on TV. Allowing simultaneous Broadcasting on one device and Narrowcasting on a different device: whereby TV+ unifies the experience.

I can now augment my TV watching experience with rich interactive media, extra content, and live feeds (twitter or other communications). The content can be time-released to make the viewing experience more dynamic, entertaining, and educational – plus show sponsors (advertisers) can be displayed within TV+ and locally specific – right down to the hardware store in your zip (post) code region.

Take this a step further: a Garden TV Show with a National broadcast can discuss a particular flower type in general, but ask viewers to refer to the Tablet (and TV+) for the exact species of the flower that will grow better in your zip (post) code region.

The list will go on; and I would use TV+ !

— Post ends here —

Creating a product from concept (to completion)

Flik started as an interface design project and via the Concepting process became the genesis of Telstra’s BigBlog.

• Before Concepting: “Software that aims to enable broadband ISPs to offer superior video programming”
• During Concepting: Flik
• After Concepting:     Telstra BigBlog

Finding the opportunity gap

Flik was a project of the now defunct Telstra Broadband Fund (an Australian venture fund for multimedia development). Flik was a nameless project at the start, and it was touted as a broadband browser for sharing large video files. This was 2004. File-sharing (peer-to-peer) was a relatively new market space, Kazaa was just about to get completely ‘legalled’ for copyright infringement, and the consumerisation of blogging was still to come (Google purchased Blogger in 2003).

Concepting is a process to help people visualise a business strategy, and the first phase is Trend Research. This is often neglected because people are already sold on their original idea, or they have watched too many Nike commercials. But wonderful things are discovered in research. I would argue 80% of a medical lab’s work is research, and in this research phase they find the discoveries. Interestingly, the last 20% of their work is all about revenue.

It was during the earlier phases of Trend Research that a gap in the market was hit upon; a family–orientated P2P application for sharing videos, images, and stories. This supplanted the original plan to create an app that would distribute large video files.

Quickwin = build exaggerated models / prototypes / designs

In true agile fashion, the real thinking commenced with paper prototyping, which I find to be the ultimate method to envision the future state of a  new product. The paper prototyping phase is the key to creating a compelling concept. In my view, to get the most out of prototyping, it helps to forget about the brief (until the PM looks over your shoulder anyway). Keep it at the back of your mind, your ideation can always be ’stripped down’ in the next phase to fulfill a brief.

When prototyping, my approach is to capture ‘tens’ of ideas for each screen (home page / dashboard / desktop app). The result is an exaggerated model of the product. This is an opportunity to come up with ideas that are ‘not in scope’, and in a way, it’s your wish list.

Here is my first prototype sketch for Flik.

If you look at the above prototype example closely, you will notice there are numerous items (ideas) in the ‘interface’. Many of these items are not user interface devices or visual ‘niceties’ – they are Business Objects that highlight links to revenue models and business processes.

Concepting is not about wireframing the user experience and the GUI, it is the ‘productisation’ of your concept by embedding your business strategy into the screen.

Some elements on the prototyped page will be more important to you: I call these Idea Nodes.

Term: Idea Nodes are the kernel of a group of ideas, something that you can ‘break out’ into a new paper prototyping session. We can build more ideas around this single Idea Node.

Using my example, an Idea Node would be the ‘Marketplace’ or the ‘Create Tab’. The Marketplace is also a perfect example of a Business Object, it can be linked to revenue models, such as a section dedicated to selling published Flik content.

Now think; are you going to be working on this product for a few years?

If you answered ‘yes’ to the above…read on…if you answered ‘no’…read on.

You may never have the chance to repeat the prototyping phase again for this product. This is especially true if you are successful in launching your product / business, and your partners (the holders of the cheque book) have their way. They are not interested in product innovation. They want you to keep doing what ever it was you did to create Version 1.0; only better, bigger, and tied to more sales.

Therefore, concept hard in the early days – create lots of paper prototypes, and allow yourself that creative freedom and flexibility to develop your ideas. And then, when you wireframe, you can start to iterate down to the core concept to fulfill the brief or hopefully your new brief.

However, before you iterate too deep – create a visual roadmap of all your Idea Nodes based on your exaggerated model.

Visualise your roadmap early

Create a roadmap by transforming your Idea Nodes into ‘potential’ Product Nodes, and depict each Node as an item on a timeline of how the business / product will look over the next three years. This way if one of your original Idea Nodes is removed or backlogged during any stage of business development your ideas will still have representation.

The outcome of Concepting is to create two things: a current view of the opportunity; and a vision of the future state of your business model. Therefore, any ‘leftovers’ of the prototyping phase are useful in building the roadmap to support your future revenue modeling.

Term: Product Nodes are key Idea Node, which could take on a life of their own. I don’t necessarily mean ideas that are big enough to be spin-off ventures, it can be more subtle, such as product extensions and feature enhancements that augment the original v1.0 app; etc. However, there are no rules, if you desire a spin-off venture in your roadmap – do it. Just consider that most business people take these ‘ideas’ very seriously, so if a spin-off venture is unrealistic you don’t want to stall an investor meeting defending the unreal.

I will post another day about Visual Roadmapping using another project (SupporterZone) to highlight the making of a visual roadmap (versus technical roadmaps, which are lists of what features will be postponed after a specified date).

The ‘Ah-Ha Moment’

Fact: it was not until late into the Concepting process that the ‘Ah-Ha Moment’ was revealed. The investors were excited by one key Idea Node in the overall concept: Flik’s Channel Pages, which was a diary feature, or commonly referred to as Blogs.

The Telstra BigBlog was born, a blogging tool that is still operating today (2009).

The best part of Concepting is if you can pinpoint the ‘Ah-Ha Moment’. The single point where clients / partners / investors get it!

Download

For a document detailing aspects of the Flik application concept and design process, download the Concepting Flik PDF.

Concepting Summary:

• Title: Flik.
• Purpose: Create an online product for venture funding.
• Result: The Flik project resulted in the development of the Telstra BigBlog (in 2004).
• Moral: Be prepared to discard many ideas, even to distill down to one, to make the concept more compelling.

I create concepts all the time.

I don’t just have ideas that are singular and disconnected, I pull together abstract ideas and divergent trends into a marketable concept.

Finding the time to make all of these concepts spring to life is impossible. Inevitably, my thinking and Concepting is typically archived on a hard-drive or stored in manila folders.

So this site is an outlet for my Concepting; it is a channel to interact with people that want to develop and present compelling concepts. I will post content about the Concepting process, finished products, prototyped thinking, and sometimes sidetrack discussion with trends and links.

This site is for the entrepreneurially spirited. People that enjoy the start-up, and are inspired to connect ideas about markets, innovations, and opportunities.

I have always believed that people should think more in terms of ‘concepts’, and not ideas!

• Ideas are simple: I want to create a cool texting app to keep people updated about my status, and put it on the Facebook platform. Maybe even create an iPhone App (this is really a second idea).
• Concepts have meaning: Let’s brand a 140-character communication platform, and make it ubiquitous by progressively seeding specific communities – tech-geeks, wannabes, and celebrities – and then, embed it as the de-facto status channel at both the software and hardware layer. Then we’ll sell.

The ‘concept’ is a way of telling a story about an opportunity. If the concept is compelling it becomes the platform to sell a story.

Conceiving, designing, and realising concepts has been my primary role in business. It’s not an easy role, and there have been few mentors along the way because very few people play this role.

Consequently, the Creating.Concepts blog is a way to capture and share knowledge about the process of Concepting business and product opportunities.

In a way, it’s also just a new place to store my Concepting; ‘virtually’ next to the hard-drives and manila folders.

Enjoy.