How do millennials view leadership? Do they agree with the results of IBM’s CEO study that creativity should be the primary leadership attribute? How do they differ in their views? When you consider that in a few short years Generation Y will make up half the workforce, then it becomes very important to understand how they view leadership.

IBM conducted a Global Student Study of 3,600 students in college and graduate schools in conjunction with the Global CEO Study.

Gen Y grew up in a global, flat, digital and interconnected world. Most were born after 1980, and they grew up with digital games, music, mail and data. They did not do their homework in libraries with the help of a reference librarian. Instead they surfed the internet and clicked on links to fulfill their homework assignments. They stay connected with their friends on Facebook.

They rated creativity as one of the top three leadership qualities. This is in alignment with CEOs. The themes of globalization and sustainability differentiated them from the CEOs. When asked to select the most important force likely to impact organization over the next five years, twice as many students saw globalization and environmental issues as relevant in sharp contrast to the CEOs. The students showed a high level of concern around the scarcity of resources and global competition for these resources.

Millennials tend to view themselves as global citizens and they see the need to redefine value and the terms of success. They grew up in a flat and globalized world where everyone is interconnected by technology. Generation Y wants to create new relationships between societies, business, economies and governments since we all live on a shared planet.

These are the rankings of the nine leadership qualities by Generation Y: creativity (63%), global thinking (51%), integrity (37%), sustainability (35%), openness (29%), dedication (27%), influence (22%), fairness (15%), and humility (14%). Students and CEOs placed creativity in the top position as the leadership attribute needed to develop new strategies and business models.

What leadership qualities do you see as important for our future leaders?

I listened to a webinar sponsored by Harvard Business Review.  IBM’s Saul Berman and Peter J. Korsten shared some insights on standout companies in today’s ambiguous environment. 

As we come out of the worst recession in 50 years, the new economic environment is viewed as structurally different, with more complexity, more uncertainty, and more volatility.  However, standout companies (the top 25% ) are turning complexity to their advantage with creative leadership.

There are three different ways that standout companies achieve success and capitalize on complexity.  They embody creative leadership, they reinvent customer relationships, and they build operating dexterity. 

A speedy decision is valued over a correct decision.   There is a philosophy of correcting things as they move forward.

Creativity is the leading indicator of leadership quality.  Creative leadership drives the change needed in the organization to stay ahead of the market.  Creative leaders use different communication styles and tools.  

They are more open to experimentation with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media.  Standout companies break with the status quo of industry, enterprise, and revenue models.

Chief executives believe that to navigate an increasingly complex world will require creativity.  They will co-create with their clients.  They will globalize what is possible due to standardization and localize what is necessary and whatever needs local tuning.  Think “glocal.”

When creativity is implemented within an organization, then it is better prepared to deal with some of the massive shifts taking place such as new government regulations, changes in global economic power centers, accelerated industry transformation, growing volumes of data, and rapidly evolving customer preferences.

Clearly creativity is the new leadership differentiator for standout companies.   You must ask yourself, what tools are you providing to your organization to unleash the creativity of your employees?

Permission to use graphic granted by IBM.

When I first began blogging I had no idea that my journey would take me to Amsterdam within six months as a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe 2010, an event sponsored by the (IIR) International Institute of Research.

Although I had vast experience selling emerging technologies and I represented internationally renowned thought leaders in the world of creative thinking and innovation, I was a novice at blogging. 

I had signed up for a social networking class with Sabrina Gibson.  We received our first assignment and we created a blogging strategy plan.

Now six months later, I responded to a bid to be a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe.  Imagine my delight and surprise when I was selected.  I was notified of my acceptance five days before the event would begin in Amsterdam. 

My assignment is to blog LIVE and post during the sessions while the speaker is actually speaking.  I also had to produce ten tweets each day of the conference and post on two websites, the website of Front End of Innovation Europe 2010 and my own website, Develop Your Creative Thinking.  I am up for the challenge.

Over the next three days, I worked 15 hours per day and generated 22 blogs within that time frame.  When I first arrived, I was asked if I had brought my camera.  I was taken by surprise.  I do not travel with my camera because I typically do not take photos.  Fortunately, I did have my iPhone with me and it has the ability to take photos.  Now, I realize not only am I to blog but I have to hop up and take photos as well.

When I returned home, I redid all of my blog posts.  Now they read much better and make more sense.  Despite many challenges, I am incredibly pleased with myself.  

Remember, it was only six months ago that I began blogging.  I am quite proud of what I have accomplished.  I assure you if I can learn to be this productive with social media and social networking due to the superb training from my incredible teacher, Sabrina Gibson, than you can also learn these same skills.  

I just want to express my deep gratitude to Sabrina Gibson for giving me the necessary skill set to prepare me to blog at a major international design thinking and innovation conference.  Thank you, Sabrina Gibson!

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic: Portfolio Planning Dos and Don’t: How to Launch a Successful Product

Speaker: Anthony Reese: Former Director, Mobile & Entertainment Portfolio Planning, PLANTRONICS

Launching a successful product depends on the way you structure your portfolio. Anthony Reese managed Plantronics with a framework and applied it to the development of Blue Tooth.

There are four portfolio elements:

1.) Customer Needs
2.) Organizational capabilities
3.) Channel and market cadence
4.) Organizational capacity

You add value by balancing each of these against the other. The way to choose to launch a product or not is by balancing these four elements.

Think about your customer needs:

1.) The core problem to see.
a. What the customer wants
b. Future needs
c. The 2 – 4 X factor list size
d. Mix of excites us or the WOW factor
2.) Identify and focus on the top priority.

Organizational Capabilities include:

• Strategize the vision
• Brand history
• Organizational structure
• Special knowledge and skills
-Core competencies vs. Differentiated competencies

Know your market channel and cadence.

• Identify the major players
• Number of channels
• Reset /Planning Windows
• Competitive presence and movement
• Breadth of offering

Here is an example. Every two years is the renewal term of phone plans in the U.S. Bluetooth headsets are replaced every year because customers lose them. This determines when to enter the market with a new product.

What is the cadence for Apple? Each year new products are unveiled at MAC world. This sets the timing for the portfolio.

Breadth of offering means that their distribution channels only want to limit the number of headsets that they offer to their customers.

For organizational capacity, these are the areas to keep in mind:

• Development Methodology
• Development Capacity
• Development Cycle Time
• Functional Equivalence

You need to build alignments between the company and the customer. Sort the problems you want to solve. Find efficient solutions; look for the 80/20.

Synch the pace both in the development area and in the market area. Evaluate customer and channel cycles, development cycles, and their established cadence between capacity and the market. Ask yourself, “At what speed do we need to be running?”

Your must strike a balance between all four portfolio elements.

Anthony then presented us with a case study for the Voyager Pro headset. First they had to figure out the core problem to solve. What does the customer want now? They could only do 2 or 3 programs, but the roadmap showed too much and they needed to resize their portfolio. How do they select the 2 or 3 that they can only do?

They asked themselves, “What makes headsets successful?” One product sells lots of units. Perhaps they could suggest improvements to the best seller? Do they need to throw everything out and start from scratch?

They made their decision based on organizational capacity. A premium high performance headset makes sense. They bought the precursor. Now who are the heavy users of headsets? Heavy users are truck drivers, taxi drivers, and professionals who are on the phone over three hours per day.

In terms of market and channel cadence, it is a challenge to be in a consumer space with competitors such as: AT&T, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and Sprint.

AT&T almost killed the headset, said they did not like it. However, Plantronics still moved forward with the headset because they had alignment. AT&T said they would not buy the headset. Plantronics had to ask themselves, should we do this, even without AT&T? There was a 50:50 chance they would change their minds.

However, some carriers asked, “Can you deliver these three months earlier? Their reasoning was so it would fit their reset cycle/planning window

Now it is time to evaluate their organizational capacity. They can only do 2 or 3 development projects. They considered how well it fit and the balancing requirements among all four portfolio elements:

1.) Customer Needs
2.) Organizational capabilities
3.) Channel and market cadence
4.) Organizational capacity

The project stayed in the portfolio. There are lots of ways to fail, but they used these four elements for alignment and balancing. You must strike a balance.

Success was achieved and they received many awards.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Idea: A Framework for Driving Innovation Throughout Your Organization

Speaker:
Daryl Dunbar: SVP of Innovation, REED ELSEVIER

Daryl Dunbar built out an innovation team and created an IDEA methodology. His background includes experiences at British Telecom.

IDEA means: Inspire, Discover, Evaluate, and Act.

We need a common language. Innovation is about ideas that result in value creation. Value may not always be about economics. Value occurs at the intersection of capability, viability, and desirability.

Innovation can be of different types:

1.) Products/services
2.) Process
3.) Business models
4.) Management practices

Innovation comes in degrees:

1.) Sustain and grow.
2.) Build new revenue streams.
3.) Build new business.
4.) Creating strategic alternatives.

IDEA Framework was developed, not as a process, not as a procedure nor as a workshop. It is a loose framework.

There are 4 modules:

1.) From infinite possibilities to finite action.
2.) Need to frame the challenge.
3.) Pick your leaping off point
4.) Set boundaries, set goals.

Think about what you are trying to achieve. Assemble many different types of stimulus such as stakeholder interviews. In a cross-functional sharing session, you can ask “What are we doing now?”

Obtain agreement on the type of stimulus to be used. How can you inspire people to innovate, to think differently, and to engage the world in a different way.

For example he used IDEA to develop these customer propositions.

• Inspire: uncover themes, pain points, what people doing, follow customers around, themes generate trends, then pull out insights.
• Discover: divergent thinking wide leads to convergent thinking, develop blue print and road map, and see what execution could looks like.
• Evaluate: engage customers, get compelling business case, understanding of where it fits and how use it.
• Act: Launch a pilot. Oftentimes what happens in organizations is that there are plenty of ideation sessions, and then the ideas are cataloged, rolled up, and stuck in a cabinet and forgotten. You need to act on it.

Target 100 logged ideas. Combine ideas and stretch them, look at trends and themes and build things out to draw out large opportunities.

When you evaluate, build compelling propositions and business cases. It is very important to engage with customers and potential partners at this time.

Then Act to pilot, refine, and launch successful propositions. Be careful with measurement systems because you will get the behavior you incent. Stay away from ROI, it kills innovation. A payback in 12 months is unrealistic. Do a pain-gain matrix and consider the value of the opportunity to the degree of difficulty to execute. Create an opportunity map with timeframes labeled 3-5 years in the future.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Speaker: Dr. Andreas Bong, Senior Vice President, HILTI

Topic: Customer Orientation Throughout the Innovation Process

The focus is on the front end of innovation.

Agenda:

• HILTI
• Innovation management
• Customer integration
o Fuzzy front end
o Development

You cannot duplicate what they have done at HILTI. They use a direct sales model with only 30 people selling to their customers. HILTI is about cultural diversity and this fosters creativity and the outcome of innovation. Their employees include more than 50 nationalities.

HILTI has a worldwide presence for construction professionals worldwide, they increase productivity, and provide the benefits from innovation to generate significant added value. They are known for system solutions for professionals.

Sales development doubled the company in the last ten years. They invest 4% in R&D, 10% is done in applied research.

In the HILTI business model they have a common purpose and values. HILTI passionately creates enthusiastic customers to build a better future! The foundation of their culture is integrity, courage, teamwork and commitment. They put people first.

Business improvement, customer competence concentration, customer needs versus requirements, innovative and value adding solutions, management and support creates higher customer satisfaction and better bottom line results.

Innovation management at HILTI is integrated with a holistic view. They have normative innovation management, strategic innovation management, and operational innovation management.

The focus is on outside-in innovation. This is a contradiction as innovation. Horizon 2020 is the identification of future key technologies. They look in the crystal ball to determine global trends and predict construction trends. They generate various scenarios using “Construction 2020” to forecast HILTI relevant applications in 2020, and to create a HILTI relevant global technology roadmap.

They are driven by sustainability. HILTI identified trends by interviewing customers to come up with scenarios. This led to the creation of roadmaps. They learn to survive in each scenario, so they are prepared regardless of which trends or applications occur.

It is important to understand applications and customer needs. What is their value chain? What is their application chain? How do they operate?

HILTI uses science methodologies, work methods, work flow and task durations. There is cooperation and communication to review problems, errors, and identify opportunities for improvement.

By observing their customers at work, HILTI learns what their customers really need. They do this by using video. The customers who are observed forget they are being videotaped. They then behave normally in a brief amount of time. Think about this, 10% of total construction costs are caused by job site injuries. Return on sales of the average construction company is only 2-3%.

Dr. Bong then shows us several examples of innovation at HILTI. One involves the installation of cable trays. It is a solution that is low tech, with low competition, and with a high improvement potential that saves 15-20% of the total time needed. Another example is to replace a yardstick with a laser measurement.

Once you have an idea and a business plan, then go out to customers and ask for their acceptance of that solution.

Enthusiasm creates innovation! Innovation creates enthusiasm!

Key Points are:

1.) Employee satisfaction is the key driver for customer satisfaction.
2.) Understand your customer’s needs.
3.) Idea of scenarios, learn to survive in each scenario.
4.) Creating enthusiastic users is a very steep one.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Part 2: Innovation Think Tank – Develop a Vision for the year 2050

Led by: Per Sandberg, Managing Director, WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

After listening to Part 1: Using WBCSD’s Vision2050 of a Sustainable World to Drive Corporate Innovation, attendees at the Front End of Innovation 2010 conference were invited to generate ideas for Vision 2050.

These are their ideas:

• With open innovation you lose control.
• The biggest challenges are the names: the toothbrush example, protecting the market brand and existing business structure. It is hard to create partnerships.
• The big companies and brands have resources and money.
• How can we convince them to abandon existing business challenges?
• Here is a different opinion. How could the future look like? Make it transparent; current business models are an inhibitor. Business models are preventing new types of partnerships.
• Low hanging fruit represents a large win referring to the McKinsey chart in Vision 2050.
• Recognize that in IT and the building industry, the way you purchase influences things.
• There is a lot of stuff you can do now; it does not take fancy things.
• In large organizations, there is a lot of inertia.
• Different viewpoint is that scale increases consumption in oil energy, 1% change. They used the same data set from McKinsey.
• Trying to stimulate grassroots for sustainability, the way forward is to do public-private funding.
• Needs to be focused and fast.
• Large corporations think long term very well. P&G began with candles.
• How do we finance, if the speed is too slow?
• It is unrealistic to rely on big corporations.
• Must have the politics of public-private partnerships.
• The average person will not be making the decisions.
• Create fast change by industry solutions.
• The internal organization is not conducive to innovation. Usually innovation occurs in R&D, or specialized departments.
• Innovation leads to financial performance.
• In bakeries the unsold buns are thrown away. This is not public knowledge. Public image was the driver that led to these results:

1.) Reduce by half in 10 years.
2.) Increase the value of the bread left.
3.) New products developed in 2 month, is multiplier by 100.
4.) Use bread as fuel.
5.) Lot of packaging is needed, use in biochemical or bio plastics.

• Smaller scale needed for innovation, important to parcel out the problem to small issues that can be solved. It is better to work in small teams.
• Megatrends: Intra entrepreneurship will play a big role.
• Can be accelerated, entrepreneurs can be glue for systemic change to occur. We need to incentivize entrepreneurs. Embrace entrepreneurs from all angles. They are driving change.
• We not want to waste bread but want to make money.
• Companies should not pretend to be something and do something else.
• FEI conference focuses on sustainable innovation with cases, etc.
• With a background in a chemical company, the challenge in the fashion or cosmetic industry is that as a supplier we have difficulties communicating with R&D, marketing, and not being able to talk to the right people. We need to remove the walls between different organizations.
• From organizational development, if you do not have a leader like Richard Branson, then your organization needs urgency. She had a prior experience in Shell. They had to work on composition on their oil. You can create a sense of urgency from the outside.
• In the U.S. nothing was learned from the banking crisis.
• Need a burning platform; this is needed to drive change. Ask yourself, what if tomorrow there is no more water? As a company we must question ourselves, and then we will innovate. What as a person what would you do?
• In the brewery industry, cans are recycled. They learned:

1.) Be on consumer top of mind. You need meaningful communication with the consumer.
2. ) Renovation reuses the bottle. Now label bottle, “Hello this is the 4th, 5th time you have seen me.” This changed the consumer mindset.

• Will not get big companies to agree at high altitude. Small companies are good at speed and entrepreneurial. Bring together small companies with funding provided by large companies. Use the leverage of both small and big companies.
• Lots of large companies have huge foundations, like the United Nation’s foundation. Address them and can make big changes occur.

• Summary of key points :

1.) Create sense of urgency
2.) Small bits of a problem
3.) Tools
4.) Project oriented approach, small teams
5.) Create Partnerships

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Part 1: Using WBCSD’s Vision2050 of a Sustainable World to Drive Corporate Innovation

Speaker:
Per Sandberg: Managing Director, WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Per Sandberg posed this question, “What innovation does the world need?” Vision 2025 was just launched in India.

Agenda:
• Argue that sustainability is the key driver for innovation.
• Describe what sustainable innovation needed to deliver.
• Dialogue how best to do sustainable innovation.

Based on the vision 2050 platform, gaps are identified to develop a pathway and identify areas of action. The idea is to clarify the business perspective, quantify market potential, and then agree on action points and next steps. Vision 2050 was run by 29 companies within 20 months.

They evaluated the sustainability status to see how are we doing? We plotted the quality of life and the ecological footprint. This identifies a sustainable quadrant for different nations. Countries such as Africa and the South American countries are using fewer resources than available but with a lower quality of life.

We only know one way of developing. How can we keep the quality of life with fewer resources, without overusing the resources? The status is that we are not doing well.

We are borrowing from the future. Over the next 40 years, we will see fantastic growth, more people, and more wealth. Growth means wealth and spending power. The global middle class is expanding. There is growth in the emerging markets. Global economic power is shifting. The top ten economies will change.

We are experiencing inertia with an accompanying inadequate policy response. There is degradation of water and degradation of resources such as oil.

To summarize, we will consume 2.3 Earths in 2050!

In Vision 2050, nine billion people will live well, and within the limits of the planet. Vision 2050 proposes using one planet.

This means that business as usual is not an option. Neither is policy as usual, financing as usual, nor consuming as usual. Innovation as usual is not an option either! We must build an attractive path.

Please read HBR: Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation

“…sustainability is now the key driver for innovation. In the future only companies that make sustainability a goal will achieve competitive advantage”

How do we close the gap?

1.) Resources and carbon: halving CO2 emissions while doubling agricultural output.
2.) Costs: internalize cost of carbon, water and other ecosystem services.
3.) Consumption: change consumption patterns in favor of more sustainable lifestyles.
4.) Areas of activity: people’s values, human development, economy, agriculture, forests, energy and power, building, mobility, materials, etc.

What does it mean? It is all about resource efficiency around labor, productivity, and financial. We have a rising cost of capital with fluctuating prices. There is availability of raw materials, increasing complexity of risk, changing consumer behaviors, and evolving framework conditions. This creates significant business opportunities.

Key insights are:

1.) Global challenges will become key strategic drivers for business and innovation.
2.) There will be tremendous change.
3.) Opportunities abound for those who turn sustainability into strategy.
4.) Business must work closer with government and society worldwide to transform markets, prices and competition.

The needed radical resource efficiency improvement will require sustainable innovation by all means. Sustainable innovation is waiting to happen. We can begin by harvesting the low-hanging carbon fruit.

It takes 30 years for new energy technology to have market penetration. It is very possible to triple Africa’s agricultural yield. We can make IT work for sustainability. Systemic, integrated innovation is needed and attractive. We can form complex coalitions, do co-innovation with customers and competitive, suppliers. We can forge public-private partnerships.

How do we make it happen? How can we make systemic, integrated “sustainable innovation by all means” happen at a radical scale, with speed and performance?

Per Sandberg then invited the Front End of Innovation attendees to form an Innovation Think Tank to generate additional ideas for Vision 2050. Please go to blog post, Part 2: Innovation Think Tank to see the results.

Topic: The Invention Environment and its Difficulties

Speaker: Peter Hilfinger: Inventor of the Powered Toothbrush & former R&D Director, BRAUN/ORAL B

Peter Hilfinger invented the electric toothbrush; he was the leader of the team. He outlined the conditions for innovation as exemplified by the development of a revolutionary electric toothbrush. Braun/Oral B will now be a part of Procter and Gamble.

They were searching for a new product to fit into their portfolio. There was a big potential in the worldwide market, but there was an existing electric toothbrush that had not done well. It had no special benefits and the price was very high. It was a conventional electric toothbrush that had the same thing as a manual toothbrush.

There was a need to offer benefits that the manual toothbrush did not offer. Therefore, they tried to find out why people did not like existing electric toothbrushes. There were few consumers who are willing to pay for same benefits as a manual toothbrush.

Recommended time for brushing of 3 minutes was perceived as 3 minutes. Consumers use their toothbrush less than one minute; this is still true today.

Desired Benefits:
1. Is more convenient to use and creates pleasant sensation when being used: leaves you with a good mouth feel.
2. Does a better job at cleaning, compared with common manual cleaning practices.
3. Does it in less time than the recommended three minutes.
4. A brush head motion which was seen as not reproducible manually. So everybody understands that an electric device is necessary.

You cannot innovate by asking people what they want. This is useless and not productive. If you use nonfunctioning mockups, consumers do not understand the concept. This is due to psychology.

Consumers like mirror images of themselves versus pictures of themselves. They have strong preferences to old established ways. You have to make the decisions. Recommend strongly, otherwise remain in the mainstream. They were not committed to a final business plan. They only had a rough idea of what they wanted to do.

If a final business plan is approved then any new idea is reviewed against the business plan.

The electric toothbrush was considered as the most unneeded product. One of the features of the new electric tooth brush is that the brush head is circular.

Conditions for innovation include:

1. Top management understands and supports that final project plan has to be flexible while in progress.
2. R&D management has the freedom to set interim targets.

Each team member is aware of the entire project, including the financial targets and the desired contribution to the success of the company. The R&D team agrees with the project targets set up by the management! Meanwhile the team develops a sense of responsibility for the whole project Team members enjoy periods of creative rest.

Their initial tries resulted in bleeding gums. Eventually a working sample was built. The prototype outperformed the manual toothbrush with a better interdental plaque index, it was more convenient, it had a better feel of clean, and the teeth felt more polished.

They had some difficulties with production of the product. They were given more time to fix these issues and resolved them by using different materials to produce the bevel gears. Top management decided to go into the market.

Peter Hilfinger summarizes by saying that innovation needs freedom and creative rest, do not press innovation work into timeframes and financial constraints too early, and rely on your own strength.

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic: Inventor’s Forum
The MP3 Story: From Basic Research to Changing the World of Music

Speaker:
Prof Karlheinz Brandenburg: Inventor, MP3 Format, Director, Franhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology

The MP3 story involves basic research standardization. Internet marketing works. Lessons learned are to try to do the impossible.

Today there is decoding functionality on every PC. There is playback on mobile phones, DVD players, and alarm clocks. Name a device category such as MP3 players. This stands for the move from physical media to the internet economy. It earns money.

Prof Brandenburg took us on a historical journey:

It began with only some dreams in 1982. We should use ISDN to transmit music. There was coding of pictures, video, and speech. However it was not of high quality audio signals. Digital audio broadcasts needed high quality with a low bit rate audio.

Work started at Erlangen University and Frauhofer IIS and other places at the same time. What they wanted was the transmission of music at 1/10th data rate. The basic idea was perceptual coding. The signal sink was to be our ears.

1983: The philosophy is we have CD; so who needs this anyway?

1986: Now they are saying that this will never work well enough for the “golden ears” in the industry.

1988: MPEG starts soliciting proposals for video.

1989-1991: Fierce competition emerges.

1992: MPEG-1 audio gets three modes
1. DCC
2. DAB,DVB, CD-I
3. Feeding audio over ISDN

Conquering the market means understanding what do with it? They used the internet as a marketing tool due to a lack of funds. They used shareware as a tool to get their coder to people. Everybody should have access to good software. The first plans were to do PC based decoding.

1994: There are nearly no licensees for their technology.

1995: World space decides to use MP3; this is the first CE application.

1995: Ricky Adar wants to start the internet music distribution business, he asks us, “Do you know that you will destroy the music industry?”

1995: Harald Popp and Dagfinn Bach visit the offices of a major record label in Munich.

1995: First software is running on Windows.

1996: Students write other decoders.
First license issued to Microsoft.

1997: MP3 encoder is stolen and now the technology can be found widely.
Mp3.com starts. This is freeware. This helped because it gave many people the ability to use the technology. This leads to Internet pirates in the music industry.

The first MP3 websites began at the end of 1996 / early 1997.

Summer 1997: Legal actions are taken and are documented in USA Today. This publicity leads to more pirates.

Music is the first to get away from physical media. You must ask yourself why? Innovation is driven by inventions. Inventions are driven by curiosity. Children are curious; we need to stay that way.

The key factors for success are vision, overtime effort, and stubbornness. You also need luck. Ideas from many people helped MP3 to become the best system by its time. There is no single inventor of the MP3. One of the strengths in Europe is the ability to build teams and work together. They set the joint success over the individual. Listen to the market and do not give up.

The age of digital media has just arrived.

Here’s a short clip from his presentation below: