By Jeff Lindsay
At Innovationedge, we enjoy spotting incipient innovation success. We work hard to coach our clients on how to turn their products and services into more powerful innovations. In our experience, many innovation failures can be traced to clever people looking for problems to solve with their cool technology. On the other hand, some of the best innovation success stories center on an entrepreneur who identifies a need for a new workplace solution and proceeds to develop that solution. The essence of disruptive innovation success often comes when these solutions are more convenient, less expensive, and more accessible than existing solutions in the marketplace. Based on what I can see as a new user, I believe that the Pixetell screen recording and sharing system is an example of an early stage disruptive innovation in progress.
For quite some time I’ve struggled to find a convenient way to make videos of PowerPoint presentations. I tried a popular commercial screen recording system and found it to be expensive, difficult to use, and so resource intensive that I removed it from my computer. I tried several lower cost screen recording systems but found they had too many limitations.
Then I discovered Pixetell, made by Ontier Inc. This product surprised me—pleasantly—as a communications tool. Perhaps as important, I’ve also been impressed with the level of support provided by the start-up company. They’ve won me over.
Pixetell is something I think could be a great example of disruptive innovation. Pixetell represents a leap ahead of the competition. It’s swift, easy, and convenient. I can quickly set up a recording, make it, and share it. You can capture your screen as well as what your webcam sees. A compact recording is easily uploaded to a server and is then ready to be shared via hyperlink with others. Compare this to my experience in using movie-editing software to record a simple presentation. Saving a 20-minute presentation in a movie format can take over 20 minutes, and then you have a massive file that needs to be converted to YouTube or uploaded to a server.
Pixetell takes away that pain. In moments, I can answer an email with a recording showing someone how to do something such as a patent search and send it right to them. Or I can record a PowerPoint presentation with very little time from the end of the presentation to the time that it is up for others to see. Part of the convenience and flexibility of Pixetell is that the recording can be shared via email or embedded directly on a webpage or blog. Pixetell is a tool that stays active and ready to use whenever you want to make a recording – no lengthy waits for bulky software packages to load.
I’m predicting this will be a winner that forces some big companies to flee upstream by focusing on advanced features while Pixetell gets a foothold. I foresee many new uses for Pixetell, especially on the collaboration front. What could Pixetell do to help health care workers, customer service providers, retailers and eBay merchants, or primary and secondary educators? What will Amazon reviews look like when reviewers start adding Pixetells to their work? What synergies could be found with Skype, eBay, Flickr, Hollrr, Google Earth, and the hottest social networking tools? How will Pixetell interact with smart phones? So many possibilities–and rich opportunities for the right minds with the right business models.
(Note: I have no financial interest in Pixetell and offer these comments purely out of interest and enthusiasm for the product.)
