September 9, 2007
Focusing on crossing the chasm with a disruptive innovation into a tornado...
Many of the "classic" 1990s business books say the same stuff:
- focus narrowly on specific customers and specific product attributes
- worry about having too much stuff going on (if you are a big guy)
- worry that your existing business will make it hard for you to see the new wave that will crush you
This is true in Focus by Ries, The Power of Simplicity by Trout, Crossing the Chasm by Moore, and The Innovator's Dilemma by Christensen.
One guy who doesn't get enough credit is Utterback who wrote Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation and essentially compiled a terrific research library of chapters chronicling how electric lights beat gas lights, refrigeration beat cut ice, and so on. The inexorable conclusion is what Christensen writes -- that the new technology often has advantages of ease and cost that gain initial traction in the low end, where the dominant players ignore it as a cheap alternative. It gains steam, it blows the top, and the dominant players die.
Watch out for it in your business. I am trying to do it in mine...
Posted by amol at September 9, 2007 10:07 PM
