Purpose – Platform – Price: 3Ps for an African Mobile App
The competition is increasingly about the customers, and what tasks they seek to complete on their devices. Simply building the right apps/content/service to meet that need won’t be enough: it will become a matter of getting the purpose, the platform and the price just right for each demographic. Market creation and customer education will drive […]
Bridging the mobile ~ PC gap for enterprise solutions
This news item about Mumias Sugar Company caught my attention recently because of their decision to shift all wage payments made to sugar cane cutters on to the mobile platform. Advancing Sh 2000 to those who didn’t already own a phone, they requested that all participants choose between mPesa and Zap to register for their […]
Strategy as a wicked problem by John Camillus: elements of the user centered design process in business
Although I’d written on John Camillus’ 2008 HBR article “Strategy as a Wicked Problem” (PDF) back when it was first published (primarily due to being excited to see it in print since John taught me Strategy, my MBA major back in B school almost a decade ago) I was reminded of it recently when I […]
On the challenge of merging Business with Design
Helen Walters recently published her complete speech from Design Thinkers 2010 online under various titles such as “The 7 Biggest Challenges in Merging Design and Business” as well as “Design: The bottom line” which provides much food for thought as a current day snapshot of the interstitial space where business meets design. After having sat […]
On Line and Off: an evolution of private versus public spaces
I don’t think I need to link to any of the hundreds of stories in the media almost daily on the concept of privacy online and on the net to set the scene for my little screed. A particular thought struck me today as I was attempting to explain the chasm between the online world […]
The changing flavour of the internet: the next billion come online
Yesterday Vanderbeeken posted a link to an article on the changing culture of the internet as the next billion come online. It reminded me of some thoughts I had on this aspect a few years ago when I contemplated what would happen when the next billion came online. Here’s a snippet of my thoughts from December 2007: They are […]
The maturing of the African mobile phone market Feb 2008 to Nov 2010
This post has been percolating through my mind for the last couple of days, its time to attempt setting it out in words for a stab in the dark at some clarity. The trigger was the recent hue and cry over Nokia’s percieved downfall as the calculated global market share for the device manufacturer dropped […]
The maturing of the African mobile phone market Feb 2008 to Nov 2010
This post has been percolating through my mind for the last couple of days, its time to attempt setting it out in words for a stab in the dark at some clarity. The trigger was the recent hue and cry over Nokia’s percieved downfall as the calculated global market share for the device manufacturer dropped […]
National design and innovation policies: a user centered perspective
I’ve been chewing over Tim Brown’s post on Design Nations since I came across it for the first time yesterday morning. He touches upon Aalto University and Finland in his musings viz., Finland is a great example of a country that has done many of the right things. It has an integrated design and innovation […]
Design ecosystem for new and emerging market opportunities
I recently had cause to discuss the design ecosystem as a holistic approach to entering a new market or addressing the needs of a customer demographic that was unfamiliar or very different. I’d touched upon this earlier this year in a post I wrote summarizing my learnings from the field when considering the markets at […]
