Hello class!
The class today flowed very well and felt energized by the very attentive students, seriously taking notes as covered the topic. I hoped the students would be more engaging when I asked them to participate but I fully understand given that it is their first day. I could appear very intimidating but I do not mean to. I want them to know that I mean well and desire to get the best out of what I can offer. Several students come up after class and expressed their passion about topic we are covering and projects they are doing. I went away very happy with a great group of students I inherited this semester.
The majority of today’s content was centered around the Business Model Canvass and the eight interconnected components. We discussed the importance of listening to what the end consumer’s wants and needs are; then using that feedback to iterate on your product and find new or improved ways of monetizing it. Additionally, we discussed the differences between push vs. pull marketing and value creation vs. value capturing. These are important elements to your final presentation and deliverable. The importance of practical application and helping the consumer to see the value in your product was discussed. Examples of the transistor, iPod, and lightbulb were given to provide real life context into how important this is in shaping the product, and ultimately, the world.
For this week’s blog, we would like to hear from you (100 words or less, so no need for boilerplate) on what else you took away from the lecture and the things that resonated with you personally.
I am very excited about this course and hearing from each of your teams. This is an incredible opportunity to get real life experience and access to senior leaders in major companies. Before next class, you should be researching your respective company in depth; including (but not limited to): the industry, competition, and specific business model.
Looking forward to a great semester!
Professor Darwin
It was interesting to learn that when it comes to innovation the major factor to its overall success is its business model. After noting that there are 8 areas of innovation in a successful business model, I realized that not all established businesses emphasize each factor in the same manner. As a result, this is what differentiates companies in their marketplace. So while there is no one right way to utilize the model, the different uses do help determine the company’s consumers and longevity.
I think a valuable takeaway was the pull method, or how corporations adapt to changing consumer preferences and try to transform their value creation (or “following” the consumer as Professor Darwin noted). In my opinion, the most thought-provoking note was learning about the the inventors behind the lightbulb, and how Thomas Edison took the fame and credit for providing society with the total production process. Another example of this is the invention of the automobile. Although Karl Benz invented the first modern car, Henry Ford gets credit for providing both the vehicle and the process (assembly line) which turned a luxury commodity into an affordable necessity.
I have learned from today’s lecture that the basic eight segments about business model. I have previously learned that business model is the company’s way of making revenues, but today’s business model canvas completes my knowledge of business model. It makes sense as in entrepreneurship, the most important things are knowing your customers, which could be included in the relationship part, as a lot of company benefit a lot from communicating with their customers by feedback or customer service.
Today’s class got me very excited for the semester, and the great responsibility and opportunity that this class provides. The idea that our society has shifted from a push to a pull marketing style is very interesting and gave me a lot of insight into the mindset that large corporations have. I am very excited to continue learning as well as being able to take part in adding innovation to established companies.
Hello All,
I found Professor Darwin’s lecture to be very enlightening. The transistor, iPod, and light bulb examples really hit home for me. I learned that even the greatest products fail, until a better business model is established. I now cannot look at a businesses in the same way – I want to know their history and relationships with open innovation. After that lecture, Professor Darwin inspired me to keep a look out for great products with poor business models. It was refreshing to hear that you do not have to invent to be an inventor but instead bring inventions to life with open innovation business models.
Can’t wait to learn from everyone!
All the best,
Alexandra Mezouari (UnitedHealth Group)
It was fascinating to learn about value creation and all the areas of innovation in business models. What stood out to me in particular was the importance of helping the consumer SEE the value in a product or offering. Initially, it seems rather simple, but today I realized the need to be constantly mindful – you really have to evaluate your idea from all angles to create a “total product experience” like Edison. This plays directly into feedback and iteration, elements I’ve come to realize are necessary for innovation in all areas of life. From business models to the entrees I cook for my apartment-mates, one can only benefit from collaborating and hearing the perspective of others.
Hey Class!
It was fantastic to realize I was sitting in a class where our professor believes in our ability as students to use our knowledge and grow our skills while tackling real world challenges. It is an honor to be trusted and held in such high regard by highly successful adults, and empowered me to be motivated to tackle our respective challenges knowing our efforts are for more than just a grade and actually have the potential to make an impact in the world. It was very refreshing to hear the opportunity to apply innovation to every aspect of the business model, knowing it is always appropriate to say “what is going on… how can it be better,” and challenge existing patterns with new ideas. As the professor said I also hope as a class we become more comfortable contributing our ideas and opinions to the class because I would love to learn from the rest of you as well!
I thought it was very interesting to see how to create value through innovation. Digital bridge seems like the main trigger towards a pull versus push model. With the invention of the internet, we provide customers with the opportunity to access and seek out information on their own. This new generation has also changed the dynamics of innovation in that alot of the innovation falls within increasing intangible assets such as IT and Patents and knowledge. Personally, I resonated with the warning that you shouldn’t do business and be partners with family. In India, this is a very common scenario and this has resulted in multiple conflicts and failed businesses.
Within the first minutes of class I went from overwhelmed and intimidated to instantaneously intrigued and excited. My perception of the class was way off but I realized that this is going to be an amazing class. A class where creativity will be unleashed and possibly taken into consideration by some of the biggest executives today. I had a conceptual thought of a business plan, but within today’s class I learned the definitive layout of a business plan. There are 8 aspects of a business plan where Value Creation is the center of the model but cannot be successful without Value Capture. You can always create value but without a profitable business plan, businesses will overlook it.
As a person interested in marketing, I really resonate with the push and pull marketing. We are now in a world where the distribution of products and information is a lot easier and faster than before. Therefore, the focus of marketing has shifted to how to deliver the value (in other words, the right information) to the right customers and make them come to you when they have the needs. I think this is also why social media has become one of the key areas of competition nowadays since it provides great platforms for companies to deliver their values and create communities.
Today’s class was extremely interesting! It was definitely a different introduction to innovation and business models in comparison to my experience so far with understanding what these concepts mean both theoretically and practically. I’m very excited for this course particularly because of the approach it takes towards business, a much more practical stance regarding what I would consider to be ‘hands on’ learning. In turn, I am looking forward to working with my teammates in analyzing Fujitsu, using what we touched on today in class: the eight components of innovation in business models.
I think what resonated with me the most was how innovation by itself is not enough to make a difference in the world. The story of Edison and the light bulb really demonstrated the importance of capturing the business value of an innovation. One example I remember is the Post-it notes. The inventor of the Post-it note in 3M was originally trying to create an ultra strong glue, but instead created a weak adhesive. It took 3M many years before it figured out the value that the weak glue can provide to the customers (as sticky notes), and to come up with a viable business model for it (used in offices). So it is very interesting to see how sometimes a good Business Model can even turn mistakes into something groundbreaking as well.
I really enjoyed today´s class.I think that the approach of the subject is very refreshing .Especially the concept of having new ideas without using our previous knowledge . I also consider that analyzing real companies is really interesting and useful, it is a way to connect the student world with the professional outlook. The thing that also resonated with me was the notion of business created with two components ,the easy one ,value creature and the difficult one value capture.And the conclusion that it is the union of both factors what makes a enterprise to succeed .
I had never really formally thought about the nuances of business models and having this subject broken down into eight different segments really highlighted the amount of thought that must go into a successful model. I had realized that most of the parts Professor Darwin covered were integral to great companies, but there was one part that I had overlooked. I originally saw businesses as more as standalone corporations, so when Professor Darwin talked about the importance of partners, it got me thinking of how interconnected today’s businesses actually are. It was fascinating learning about how vital mutual cooperation actually is and this really opened my eyes to all the areas of innovation in business models.
After from learning about the 8 segments of innovation in a business model, I found it very interesting to learn how critical developing a business model is to complement a technological advancement (especially finding out that many people have “invented the light bulb” – Edison was most successful because he created a comprehensive product experience). Moving forward, I want to explore how to capitalize on creating business models for unexplored technologies as I move forward in this class.
I found the distinction between value creation and value capture to be very insightful. In today’s tech environment, it seems like every new innovative idea could be the “next big thing”. Professor Darwin’s comments really highlighted the differentiating factor for a lot of these new products and companies. It is always important to put new technology in the context of a scalable business model. After all, investors are always interested in one main question: how will this make money?
As part of my internship this summer, I really got to delve in the process of identifying customer pain points aspect of businesses and developing those pain points into an actual minimum viable product for the customer.
Today’s lecture really helped me understand the bigger picture of a business through the 8 areas of innovation in terms of how a business model evolves from that pain point of a customer.
I am extremely excited to really learn the business model development aspect and apply it in a very real world situation pitching to actual executives. I can’t wait to get started this semester!
It is so good to see that the majority of you responded before midnight.
I am glad that you are tracking with me and understanding the material.
I really enjoyed the class today and I believe that I can learn much insights about innovation throughout the semester. One thing that really strikes me was the end note that Professor Darwin mentioned: Better Business Model vs Better Technology. I am definitely eager to learn more about how to obtain value creation and value capture through building a thorough and solid business model. I anticipate the things that we will learn throughout the semester will be really applicable and useful in a real business world setting. I hope that we can apply our knowledge later on to enhance innovative solutions to whatever business challenges we may have to face in life. Cannot wait for a great semester ahead!
I really enjoyed this lecture and found it exciting learning about the eight areas of innovation in a business model. Up till now, I thought that innovation was only a part of the technology or actual product a business sells. One of the topics that resonated was about the importance of having partners and collaboratively working together with those who have strengths that I may not have. You talked about together creating a three way win-win-win situation for ourselves, your partner, and your customer. This touched me the most because I think many times we find ourselves only thinking about our competition. However, when we just focus about ourselves and staying in the lead, some value creation can be lost.
The part of Thursday’s class that resonated the most with me was this idea that we study a company’s failures and shortcomings in order to succeed. I’ve always approached situations by studying what others did right in order to accomplish more in my own life. However this notion of focusing on one’s mistakes is a very clever because it allows you to take your competitors’ errors to drive your own success.
The other takeaway was the definition of the terms ‘incremental innovation’ and ‘disruptive innovation.’ Being personally more comfortable with incremental innovation, I look forward to challenging myself and thinking outside the box.
Thanks for this comment Cassie!
I think that it is not just about looking at the shortcomings and failures of a company, but also examining the many layers in which that company functions. Imagine an onion and all its layers. There is the world which is the biggest layer and looking at the holes and shortcomings, then there is the Industry, company, department, and product. All important and good steps to take when thinking about innovation.
I also think it is important to look at what has worked. Seeing both sides allows for more perspectives, creativity bandwidth, and you will be able to be more agile.
I appreciate how the professor is challenging us to look outside of our typical way of seeing things. Looking forward to the semester together.
I understood the main point which was that it takes a lot more than a good idea to make an idea successful. In fact, the business model is more important than the idea itself in most cases. I just finished marketing with Prof. Robinson and am interested to learn more about pull marketing. I’m still on the waitlist right now and hope that I can enroll in the class soon and choose a group.
This class is a testament to doing over talking, unlike so many others at Berkeley, and I’m so excited to be a part of it! My key takeaway from today’s class was it is not enough to create value – you need to capture some of that value you create. I did more research about this, and since you can create a lot of value without becoming valuable yourself, even very big businesses can be bad businesses. For example, US airline companies serve millions of passengers and create hundreds of billions of dollars of value each year. But in 2012, when the average airfare each way was $178, the airlines only made 37 cents per passenger trip. Compare them to Google, which creates less value but captures far more. Google brought in $50 billion in 2012 (versus $195 billion for the airlines) but it kept 21% of those revenues. I would’ve liked to hear more about what market conditions lead to value capture – for example, these airlines all compete with each other but Google stands alone.
I originally enrolled in 190T at the last minute out of curiosity about what open innovation was. The first lecture of the course really captured my attention and drew me in. What I found most interesting was Professor Darwin’s emphasis on looking at business models in a completely new way to disrupt what we’re already doing. The examples of companies and ideas failing without the right business model made it apparent that you can’t just have a good idea, but you need the right way of looking at it to make it a success.