It kind of hit a nerve when I learned that the office where I spent the best years of my career has been broken up into functional "pods" (for lack of a better term). That's on the heels of a shake-up that saw a spike in my LinkedIn social circle. Zo wellz--the silver lining is that it spares me the risk of nostalgia. I mean, yeah, I can be nostalgic about the days when 20 or so of us were proudly referred to by the boss as "The Island of Misfit Toys." But we were also working on a scrappy new bet-the-branch-office product then. That takes a particular alchemy--not mere chemistry, which is far too predictable--of personalities to pull off.
And then at some point, you wake up and find youself and your product find yourself in a more mature market--which is a whole 'nuther game. That's what Dealing With Darwin is about. And probably why it's overlooked on most business reading lists. After all, Moore (and his colleagues) are known for the consulting work that preceded and spun out of Crossing the Chasm. The latter focuses entirely on growing a product market from the adventurous early adopters to the more sceptical mainstream (by bridging the gap between their very divergent needs).
That early stage company bringing something brand-new to a market with no mental map for what they're making/selling is what (nearly) everyone associates with "innovation," right?
Darwin, however, hammers home the much-neglected truth that there are more species of innovation than the brand-new product. Things like the following require "innovation":
- Adding new features to an existing product (e.g., a camera to a phone)
- Making an existing product do more with fewer resources (e.g., lower-power computer chips)
- Tapping a new (unexpected) market for an existing product (e.g., Viagra was originally a failed treatment for high blood pressure)
- Up-scaling an existing product/market for higher profit-margins (Starbucks, Apple Computer, Whole Foods)
- Streamlining and standardising supply chains and work-flow (e.g., Ford Motor Company, McDonald's, Dell Computer, etc.)
- Re-tooling work-flows and supply-chains to emphasise quality and reduce the cost of mistakes (e.g. Toyota Motor Corporation)
- Reducing transaction friction/overhead with the end-consumer (e.g., Zipcar, Netflix)
- Abdicating responsibility for labour and safety laws by declaring your employees "contractors" and yourself a "technology platform" (e.g. Uber, TaskRabbit)
- Itemising core services and adding surcharges for them (e.g., airlines, banks)
The point is that established companies can't rest on their proverbial laurels. Any good idea will have copycats--some better and faster than others--and the "first to market" advantage has a limited shelf life. After that, it takes management discipline (and probably no small amount of luck) to stay ahead. Which will yield higher returns--investing R&D dollars into making a better product, or into reducing costs? Or maybe (just maybe) is it time to start exiting the race to the bottom and bring that skunkworks project into the light of day?
Those are not easy questions to tackle, particularly with all the baggage and politics of an established money-making track-record. While individuals may too often throw away tangible good in pursuit of phantoms, organisations are not so often guilty. Maybe it would easier if we'd more readily recognise innovation when it wears business casual in Toronto instead of just a Red Bull-stained hoodie in Silicon Valley.
