Nvidia ECS: Where Real Innovation AND Execution Are on Display

 

 One of the questions I've been getting regularly, both because little companies like WhatsApp are in the news and because large firms are struggling to find early stage innovative firms, is "Where do you go to see a lot of small innovative companies?" Firms like this get lost at shows like CES. They just don't have the budget to stand out against the bigger firm's announcements and footprint.

 You can go to shows like Demo, and I do, but those shows generally focus more on a specific product and not on the firm creating it. Kickstarter is another interesting place to look for innovation -- but there is so much activity, and the ideas are so young, that it is nearly impossible to find the few good ideas in the mass of really bad ones.

 One place that many don't think to look is Nvidia's Emerging Companies Summit. Granted, these are firms that use Nvidia's graphics engine in new and creative ways -- but when it comes to anything that is processor-intensive, that would include anything from virtual reality and design, to artificial intelligence and analytics, which is a pretty broad swath.

 I'll close with my product of the week: a book by my buddy Carmine Gallo on how to Talk Like TED, which could transform the way companies hold events and make my life far more interesting (in a good way, for once).

                                Inovation VS. Execution

 Companies from Apple to Microsoft are pounded for failing to innovate. The reality is, most of these companies aren't famous for innovation at all, really, but for execution instead. Apple was hardly the first company to make MP3 players (Sony, S3, and Creative Labs beat it to market), or smartphones (IBM was in market around a decade earlier), or tablets (Microsoft and a host of other firms offered tablets long before the iPad appeared). However, Apple's execution resulted in it taking each of those markets and owning the space.

 Microsoft's top products were Windows 95, which followed Apple and borrowed from Xerox; Office, which copied Lotus 1-2-3 and was made up largely of products the company bought; the Xbox, which followed Sony, Nintendo, Atari and others; and Windows Server, which followed Unix -- though likely should have emulated it better to avoid the Linux competitive result.

 Apple's most innovative product arguably was the Newton, which failed but became the foundation for Palm. Microsoft's most innovative product was AutoPC, which did many of the things Siri does but not nearly as well. It's generally not the company that innovates -- Google was hardly the first with search or Facebook with social networking -- but the company that executes well first that wins in the market.

 With Windows and Android, Microsoft and Google didn't out-innovate Apple -- they out-executed the company, which is why both were more successful, if you measure success by volume sold. Google did this when Apple was at the top of its game, which would be more impressive had not Google's chairman been on Apple's board at the time (suggesting foul play, but it still speaks to execution).

                        Nvidia's Emerging company summit

 So this is what makes the Emerging Company Summit different: It focuses more on the teams behind new creative ideas than on the ideas themselves. It does cover the product, but it has a great deal of focus on the execution process that surrounds it. That way, you can better determine whether the result will be successful.

 More importantly -- particularly for large company attendees -- it showcases why these small companies can do what the big companies cannot, and it opens doors to future acquisitions or partnerships that could result in the next Walkman, Facebook or iPod-like offering. Granted, there's a performance edge, given this is Nvidia, but with so much focus on cloud services, that performance edge -- which increasingly is delivered from the cloud -- will likely define the next decade of amazing technology products.

 I'm actually hosting a round table of some of the company CEOs at the summit, and I am looking forward to that again this year. However, I want to leave you with this: It wasn't Steve Jobs' innovative skills that made him a great CEO -- it was that he ensured the product from cradle to grave.

 Other firms actually did have better ideas, but he made sure Apple had the superior go-to-market customer experience and marketing. He had the vision to see what something could be, and the drive and focus to make sure that vision became a reality.

 That's what defines a winner. It isn't the idea; it is the execution around that idea that makes the difference. At Nvidia's Emerging Company Summit, you may not see the next iPod -- but you may meet the next Steve Jobs, and it's the importance of understanding that difference that is the point of this column.

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source:TechNewsWorld