Five lessons on Innovation from Nike.

The July 2009 issue of Wired ran a very interesting piece about the genesis and success of Nike+, a piece of hardware and software so simple yet revolutionary it has changed the way people think about exercise. Like all Wired articles, the piece is well-written and makes a good read. But, if you don’t have time for or access to the full article, here are five lessons that an innovative firm can take from the Nike+ experience.

1. Think about the context in which a product will be used. Nike+ is fantastically successful not just because it is great technology. Rather their success comes from the fact that they created, and then met, a psychological need: they created simple device that can gather data about a runner’s speed and distance and coupled it with an easy to use, ubiquitous interface, the iPod. This little piece of technology they extended their products (shoes) far beyond the quotidian physical use.

2. Focus efforts on a narrow data set then make it simple to collect, use and share. For example, Nike focused on two simple yet desirable and useful data sets, speed and distance, eschewing more complicated data such as heart rate and route.

3. Provide and easy to use, streamlined user experience. Here Nike benefitted from Apple’s category-killing usability found in the iPod. By reducing the burden of implementation to almost zero, getting customers to actually use the technology was ano-brainer.

4. Create a positive feedback loop. Track progress, compare against goals (or benchmarks) and modify. In the case of Nike+, web-enabling the user base created a powerful, community-based support and motivation system. The community feature also has important gaming motivation and competition aspects.

5. Focus on leveraging core value well and use open-sourcing and standard formats to let others develop apps that expand product use and solidify the products stance as the default platform.