Mark Raskino

Yesterday I read about yet another cool twitter application happening here in London. A bakery in Shoreditch is tweeting a message every time some fresh loaves or cakes come out of the oven and go on sale. Apparently this is helping drive demand – because people love their dough products fresh and warm.  The first thought I had about this was – err, won’t the keyboard get very messy?  The second thought was – how does a small bakery get a smart innovation like this going with a new technology, ahead of most corporates?

It turns out that, as usual, the work was done by a dynamic creative marketing agency, in this case Poke. But they didn’t just help the bakery learn to use twitter, they built a hardware device to make the process effective within that working environment. Specifically, they used the Arduino open source prototyping platform to create a wall mounted device with a single large knob which can be turned by the baker to send out an appropriate tweet, as they hold a tray of warm loaves in the other hand. You can see a video of this in action here

So let’s think about this for a moment. It involves two high-value technology areas that many modern corporate IT departments seem to almost fear and avoid directing: new media and purpose-designed hardware. Yet it creates an enormously powerful real-time information and marketing tool that will, in all probability, have a material impact on the company’s profits.

Could your IT department do this – or even organise and contract for someone else to do it? Would they have the skills and creativity?  If not, why not?  If yes – I wonder how long do you think it would take to do and how much bureaucracy would impede the idea.

I really think IT departments need to move on from thinking of themselves only as specialists in ageing big back office admin applications and then getting upset when ‘the business’ doesn’t seem to love what they do.  A recession is a great time to make change happen. Perhaps it’s the right time to shift ground and move more squarely into the new value creation business. If the technologies that matter are not the technologies you do – move. If the competencies that make a difference are not the ones you hold or can access – develop.

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Category: Innovation     Tags: Innovation, Twitter

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