Bringing Tech to Market: The Rules of Innovation

Everyone knows that best-quality plus first-to-market doesn't always equal success. A Harvard prof who specializes in this stuff has a great article in Technology Review that digs a lot deeper, called The Rules of Innovation. It's a look at why some technologies are marketplace success stories and some are forgotten failures -- and more, an attempt at rules which predict which will be which. There are lessons here for the entrenched companies (e.g. Sony) as well as for the disruptive upstarts (e.g. Sony 50 years ago). You have to understand the battlefield to win the war.

Comments

Innovator's Dilemma

[geoffsmith]

This is the concept Christensen is famous for (and there is a book titled after it which you should all read) Here's my 10 second synopsis of Innovator's Dilemma:

Your old customers are demanding you spend all your resources on your old technology (eg. 5 1/4 inch disk drives) But there are new potential customers who want to buy new technology you haven't developed yet (eg. 3 1/2 inch disk drives) There are more potential new customers than old customers, and thus more profits in devoting your resources to new technology. But you already have your old customers, and you're supposed to *listen to your customers* So there's the dilemma.

Solution to the dilemma? Sometimes it doesn't pay to listen to your customers. And that's a tough pill for an established company to swallow, since that's how they made money in the first place.

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Sound like ... Punctuated Equilibrium

[AsOldAsFortran]

One element of this article sounds just like Stephen Jay Gould's evolutionary theory of Punctuated Equilibrium.

IANAET (evolutionary theorist) so take these comments with care.

One element of the theory of punctuated evolution says that new species arise not by direct competition against their parent species, but by finding an isolated and protected niche where they can develop.

Say a new species of horse is to develop. A subpopulation becomes isolated and has a chance to develop new characteristics and to become reproductively distinct (no longer interbreeds with the parent species).

Then, when the geographical isolation ends, the new and parent species come into contact and competition. The new species spreads rapidly, having had a chance to strengthen in isolation.

This theory is designed in part to explain gaps in the fossil record. The small, original populaiton of the new species leaves few fossils - we only see them after explosive growth - so some intermediate forms are lost.

That sounds like the article's model of innovation succeeding by finding a niche market before improving the product to compete head on head in the general marketplace.

Wonder what other analogies exist with evolutionary theory and this article.

C's rule #4

[wytcld]

He says to disrupt your competitors, not your customers. If we consider this gem against the wisdom of Douglas Adams, we can guess that Christensen believes your customers are over 35:

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things. (The Salmon of Doubt)

Isn't it safe to say, and to bet your business, that some people (ever over 35) want to be disrupted? And does Christensen actually know any of the students at MIT?
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Relation to open source - in particular Ant.

[ajm]

Previously I've attempted a description of the success of an Open Source product, Ant, in terms of the Innovator's Dilemma. I think the fit is very good, provided you recognize how the rewards and costs should be measured in the OSS environment. If you are interested it can be found at Ant as an Example of the Innovator's Dilemma. Now I'll have to go back and see how Ant matches against the guidelines in the article, so far it's looking pretty good.