Around March 2008, I had a Dell Laptop in my shopping cart and I decided to look for a few customer reviews.  It was still the time of the Vista plague and I couldn't find one positive personal review of a Vista based laptop.  So after watching some of the well produced Leopard videos and reading the unadulterated praises from the Mac faithful, I bought a 15" MacBook Pro.

I am happy with my MacBook Pro, I am glad I made the switch from a MS Windows laptop.  As they say "the Mac hardware is built for the software and the software is built for the user experience."  

Actually most of my work is done with MS Office (Mac Version) and Firefox; and when I need to use a PC only application (MS Money, a site that requires IE), I bring up VMWare Fusion.  However in general, everything is more intuitive and I feel cooler since I now own a Mac (thank you Apple marketing).  Finder is great and my Mac has only crashed on my once (when running MS Office.)  There are no drivers to go find, there are no viruses to worry about, and things just work as you think they should. Good design isn't an accident it is because Apple takes responsibility for the whole experience not just the OS or just the hardware (like Wintel).


Still, there are four things that bug me about my MacBook Pro.

1)  The latch stinks.  I have to hold hoist my laptop to a vertical position so I can push down (hard) on the latch to open it up.  Occasionally I can dig my finger hard enough into it to open it up when it is horizontal.  I have read that there are ways to try to clean the latch mechanism, but on this version of the MacBook Pro it is certainly a frequent source of complaints. The latch on the new MacBook Pro is suppose to be better because it is magnetic (although it has those new keys which I am sure would drive me nuts.)

2) It's hot.  The MacBook Pro has notorious heat problems.  Put it on your lap during the summer and you'll see what I mean.

3) The menu bar is in the wrong place.  The menu bar lives on the upper left hand corner of the screen, not the top of the application's window.  When you have multiple applications open at a time, only the menu of the active window is visible.  If you are in one application and need to access the menu of another application, you need to move the cursor to highlight the pertinent window and then move your cursor to the upper left hand corner of the screen.  It means more cursor movement and for such an intuitive multi-window system, it just doesn't make sense.  There are certainly keystrokes that would get you there as well, but like many of the secrets of my Mac I am not fluent in them  - good interface design shouldn't be like this.

4) The screen doesn't tilt back enough.  You can't tilt the screen back past about about 110 degrees.  There are times when my laptop is on a table or on a podium and I want the screen to be tilted farther back to make it easier to view the screen.


OK so maybe I am not one of the Mac faithful since I pointed out a few warts, but I still like my MacBook Pro.

It isn't the job of your customer to translate their needs into your product offerings. Of course, everyone says you just need to listen to your customer, but no one says how.  In "Innovation Games" Luke Hohmann describes 12 games you can play to help you better understand your customers' needs and help you discover great products.

In part I, Luke first provides an overview for understanding and implementing innovation games.  He then discusses the process from selecting the game to interpreting the results.  

In part 2, twelve separate games are described which can help you understand one or more of the following:
    - Unmet and/or idealized market needs
    - Products and services usage and relationships
    - Product and service functionality
    - How to shape your product for the future

Finally, in part 3 tools and templates are provided to help you quickly start playing innovation games with your customers.

In a world where the mantras of "innovate" and "listen to your customer" prevail, Luke Hohmann gives you usable tools to help you do just that.

(Besides this book, also check out the innovation game entry in Wikipedia and the www.innovationgames.com, although at this moment the site seems to be down.)