for technology companies
Helping you keep through the complexities of technology product management and marketing.
Technology companies know what life is like in the fast lane, their markets, competitors and technologies change at breakneck pace making it really hard to keep your eye on all the issues that have to be "just right" if you are going to be (or remain) successful.
We can help by pointing out the balls you may have taken your eye off, and stepping into the breach to pick them up for you.
We have a lot of experience of working with technology companies. We don't claim to be able to do your job better than you can, but to be able to step in and help out when you most need it.
In return we expect to receive an agreed flat fee when you are happy with the work we've done.
By Chris | January 29, 2010
You can take a feature too far.
Regular readers will know that I tend to rant until blue in the face about differentiating technology products, targeting user needs and not going overboard with your one key differentiating feature.
I’m also really keen on clear names and clear concepts about what a product does. In the film industry they talk about “high-concept pitches” for films. Legend has it that the high-concept pitch for Aliens was “Jaws in space”.
So I was gratified when I heard a high-concept pitch for the Apple iPad as “like and iPhone but bigger” – I got it (or at least some of it) immediately. Then I came across this picture and became a little worried that Steve may have over done it a tad and that he was destined to go the same was as the captain of the Vasa.
Behind you Steve!
Also posted in strategy | Tagged design, product |
By Chris | January 26, 2010
Will 3D TV take off like The Stewardesses?
I am a geek. Well, I was. But I’m starting to doubt it now. You see part of being a geek is adopting new technologies way ahead of the sensible majority of the population. Not only am I a geek, but I’m a geek who has spent 25 years in the film and television business creating and delivering the coolest new products to help put fantastic images on your screens, but now I feel like I’m losing my way. Why? 3D TV.
First out let’s just clear something up, because geekiness is also about pedantry. It’s not 3D. I’ve got to call it that because everyone else does and if I don’t you won’t know what I’m talking about. The point is that it is an optical illusion that gives us just two of the cues we use to perceive the 3D world in which we live to make us think that what we are looking at is (a bit) three dimensional.
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By Chris | January 22, 2010
How technologies, like special effects and small children, should hide their light under a bushel.
On one of my regular visits to our customer Industrial Light and Magic in the early ‘90s I was talking to one of the matte painters I love to watch users (whether artists or technical whiz kids) as they work. You learn so much from them. Only that way do you get a real understanding for their pains and needs. Sandy was drawing around the blue stockings on an actor, frame by frame, with amazing care and precision. She explained that they were going to have to remove the lower legs so that it looked as if the actor had had them amputated. The first stage was to isolate them.
Now usually you can hope to draw one frame and then move forward several frames, draw another, and then have the software generate the in-between shapes. If the motion is relatively simple, they match, or nearly match, the image, leaving the artist to do some simple fine-tuning. This is called “in-betweening” and we had written that functionality into Matador for just this purpose. Sandy knew all about this as she had helped us specify the functionality, so I asked her why she was not using it. In answer, she zoomed out so that I could see that the actor was sitting on a swing, hung from a mast, on a boat rocking on the ocean, shot by a camera on another boat. Simple the motion was not. In fact it was so complex that no amount of clever in-betweening was going to help her. I shook my head in disbelief at the skill and dedication required even to consider attempting this shot, never mind to bring it off convincingly.
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By Chris | December 16, 2009
A seasonal cautionary fairytale for technology companies in five lessons
By Chris | November 17, 2009
Is Apple about to breach its psychological customer contract?
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