Consumer Products Innovation Panel at Ryan Says…

I attended a panel tonight at Stanford hosted by the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB). It was titled “Consumer Products Innovation 2007″ and featured the following speakers:

Martin Eberhard, CEO & Founder, Tesla Motors
Robert Acker, SVP of Marketing, Dash Navigation
Dave Blakely, Director of Technology Strategy, IDEO
Dave Mathews, Director of Product Innovation, Sling Media
Robert Scoble, Blogger & VP of Media Development, PodTech (moderator)

Panel Photo

I thought I’d share a few interesting tid-bits from each of the panel members. The initial part of the talk was focused around Tesla Motors’ innovations in the electric vehicle space (I’ve wanted a Tesla Roadster since I first heard it announced :) For me the most interesting message in Martin’s talk was the capitalism angle. He discussed how California’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate in the 90s lead to the introduction of electric vehicles from several motor companies (they were required by the mandate that a certain percentage of their vehicles be zero-emissions by 1998, and a greater percentage by 2003). However, once this mandate was effectively removed (the requirements were drastically softened) all of these electric vehicles disappeared from the market (the motor companies did not believe there was a market for electric vehicles and did not want to produce them). Indeed there probably wasn’t market for the substandard electric vehicles of the time.

Tesla Motors, however, has shown that there is indeed a market for electric vehicles (its 2007 model which is not yet in production has already sold out, and orders are being taken for the 2008 model) by producing a superior technology that meets a clear consumer demand - capitalism at its best. The free market will always out-perform any attempt by the government to control or regulate a market for goods or services.

Along similar lines and in response to an audience question on designing for sustainability, Martin said that in the end sustainability must be driven by the consumer. If demand is there, companies will produce products to meet those demands. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the American consumer does not seem to have a strong demand for products that promote sustainability. Martin cited the example of Toyota, whose company average fuel efficiency (across all of its cars) has actually decreased despite the introduction and success of the Prius (due to the strong demand for SUVs and other ‘gas guzzlers’).

Moving on to some other speakers, I’ll highlight something interesting from each one.

Dave from IDEO, when asked about predicting what products or technologies we will see in the next few years, gave the insightful answer that it is basically impossible to predict which products will be successful and which will fail. However, we do know very well that human traits will persist, traits such as the need for community, the need for entertainment, the need for security. So It is best to think along these lines when imagining what products and technologies will emerge and evolve over time.

Robert from Dash had an interesting little conversation with Scoble on the potential convergence of social media and Dash’s in-car internet connected navigation device. It is clear there are tremendous possibilities here - imagine driving along and being notified of a cool landmark nearby as voted by X users, or by Y user whose opinion you really value, or perhaps asking for restaurants in the near vicinity and being directed to the ones that have the highest community rating.

Dave from Sling Media shared his vision for the future of slingbox technology, essentially building a platform for gaining access to your ‘media inbox’ (i.e. recorded programs on your DVR and even your home movie collection). He envisages a platform where users can create clips from recorded network programs and share these online with just a few clicks. The original content producers would be given full credit for the clips, and indeed such a system would help the content producers discover which clips are most popular and use this for future production planning.

One final interesting insight from the panel, when the issue of people resisting the electric car because it doesn’t have the traditional ‘engine sound’ that we are used to and expect in a performance vehicle was raised. Both Martin and Dave from IDEO gave the advice that one should never design a product based on legacy perceptions - this will artificially cripple your product. Don’t underestimate human ability to adapt. Martin claims that once someone has a ride in his Telsa Roadster the ‘engine noise’ issue disappears, and people very quickly realize it is a performance vehicle and start to appreciate its own beauty and uniqueness.