My wife, Eveline, is a good cook (some say a brilliant...). She's a recipe creator and writer. If someone offers a great food product, say, spices, oils, fish, organic vegetables…and wants to publish its transformation into compelling dishes she creates, cooks and photographs it…write a little story…examples can be found here.
Since we started up Exner GmbH, we run independent units. But the intersection set between cooking and innovation is not empty. BTW, I am a lousy cook but a talented eater.
When we go out for dinner we observe now and then that even celebrated chefs seem to be overwhelmed by their enthusiasm on "exotic" ingredients and their deep knowledge how to compose (configure?) them into dishes. And if its only one thing…it can ruin the whole course when not the meal. The extra scallop, or shrimp on top…the asparagus…the Alba truffle!...an exotic spice… Some even misunderstand tasty from complex, luxurious, exquisite…
And then we talk about innovation...it's the same principle…the eager seller's trap. Doing the extra thing that confuses the users, like treating rare, when not pathologic, cases…in order to emphasize on a wide coverage…let users turn a lot of screws, like precision vs performance parameters, giving a false comfort about the flexibility of a system…
Simplify. Impute. Focus
Apple's keys to success has many factors, but there's one thing I am quite sure about: they do not offer features that experienced computer tamers find indispensable.
If you have a few "uncooked" technological ingredients left, think twice to put them into the "pan" additionally. They may ruin your great product.
Simplification is the real sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci (paraphrased). It enables you to take responsibility "end to end" - to focus on users and not become a slave to focus groups.
It's not easy to not do it.
