Tag Archives: technology

Few people buy something ‘like you’ve never seen before’.

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patselfonbackA moment of self-indulgent back patting here:

This article in the New York Times does a nice job pointing out something I have mentioned in this posting and more recently in this one.  This has everything to do with Now Not New.

While it’s geek chic to talk about paradigm shifts and technological revolutions, the reality is, people like the comfort of a frame of reference.

If something is truly ‘like nothing you’ve ever seen before’disorientation comes alongside curiosity. Without a sense of how a new technology fits into their lives, people may be momentarily curious but will soon move on.

It’s worth noting, this also holds true for all the jibberish industry jargon that circulates around the Internet space. People will listen, initially, but if it’s too hard to decipher or sounds like SAT-wordwashing they’ll move on.

When is a tech investment prePosterous?

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PosterousWith all the technology that pops up between Techcrunch, Mashable, Twitter, and the other frequencies in the deluge of data that comes across my screen, I usually wait for something to show up a few times before I consider fiddling with it.

Tonight I started noodling with Posterous. I’ve seen a few people adopt it and I thought I’d have a look. It’s a nice idea –  the big feature being that I can post to Posterous by emailing and also synch those posts to all my digital assets (which seem to have accumulated quickly). Cool right?

So I hooked it up easily enough. It’s a nice U.I. They did a good job with it.

Anyhow, shortly after testing Posterous’upload with my other outposts I started looking around my WordPress admin panel for this blog and guess what I found? WordPress allows me to update by email. So, while it doesn’t allow some of the synching, I can enjoy the main feature (ironically not being used as I type this) without having to add yet another site and invest yet more time toward my list of maintainable digital assets (which as I’ve noted in the past, has a downside).

But my personal qualms aside, the point here is simple: Short of a killer patent (and even that’s not a sure thing) any technological point of difference a company has is going to be copied, and possibly improved upon, very quickly by someone else. This is especially true of technologies that enhance platforms that are already well established (like Posterous to blogs).

There’s also the chance that the technology, without a reasoned business strategy, might turn out to be an enabling technology (like, say, email or IM) that gains huge use but make no one any money.

So while that company might get funded and even grab a lot of headlines, without the ‘monetization’built in from the start (and ‘ad revenue’doesn’t count anymore) that business plan is overvalued if its being valued at all.

We don’t need to go through the household names in the tech sector that are both well known and also well known for not making any money. Big corporations with the resources for deep due diligence have bought some of these and watched them show up as redlines in their annual reports – for years.There’s a long history of irrational exuberence when it comes to investing in ‘innovative technologies’where the ‘money making part will be figured later’(i.e. is not in the business plan).

It may be a business trend (or even in some instances a perverted selfish business model from the founders’standpoints) to get investors to continually pump cash into these tech businesses in the hopes that they make money. But if your technology becomes the next email, or IM, you’ve not done any service to your investors.

I realize sweating the money side bucks the ‘change the world one data packet at a time’ethos of the new digital world order, but the bottom line is, without proper funding ideas remain ideas and no one benefits. The big money is the catalyst to the big changes.

Inventions

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I’ve been picking away at Guns Germs & Steel since the holidays. Last night I happened to be reading it again after some time. The author was discussing how successful inventions often have nothing to do with the gifts of a single inventor but are rather the accumulation of prior inventiveness which is improved upon and finally ‘tips’at a point when the culture is ready to accept the innovation. To quote:

“My two main conclusions are that technology develops cumulatively, rather than in isolated heroic acts, and that it finds most of its users after it has been invented, rather than being invented to meet a forseen need.”

This is particularly interesting in light Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the other darlings of the social media revolution.

It seems clear that none of them was invented with the intention of becoming global platforms. After all, none of them had a revenue model baked in. In that sense, they were invented first and found their audience after (and in my opinion quite by accident).

In Jared Diamond’s book he details how the dominant use of many technologies isn’t what the inventor intended. This seems as relevant to Facebook or YouTube as in this historical example,

“A good example is the history of Thomas Edison’s phonograph, the most original invention of the great inventor of modern times. When Edison built his first photograph in 1877, he published an article proposing ten uses to which his invention might be put. They included preserving the last words of dying people, recording books for blind people to hear, announcing clock time and teaching spelling.”

Edison never saw Elvis coming. In fact, resent was his initial reaction to the phonograph being used for liesure enjoyment of music,

“A few years later Edison told his assistant that his invention had no commercial value. Within a few years he changed his mind and did enter business to sell phonographs – but for use as office dictating machines. When other entrepreneurs created jukeboxes by arranging for a phonograph to play popular music at the drop of a coin, Edison objected to this debasement, which apparently detracted from serious office use of his invention.”

In the same way, a website for garagebands to post music (MySpace) or college kids to see who else was at their school (Facebook) quickly morphed from its original intention into something else. And, as is well documented, the first colonists on those sites moved on once the masses arrived. Twitter’s original users are beginning to grumble now as well.

More interesting, though, is the idea that social networks, micro blogging and media sharing may not have yet found their true calling. Right now  most of the big name sites are purely recreational plays. And because revenue was not a part of the pact in at the beginning, it’s proving very hard to get users to start paying now. (Heck, the entire Internet has that problem on a macro level. Advertisers try to force their way in, but the only real advertising success story – unless you consider fractions of one percent click through success – is paid search which looks and feels less like advertising and more like ballot stuffing.)

What if the utility of social media is also (or better) suited for something else besides ‘social’use? No one seems to be talking about that. What if all these technologies find their greatest utility in R&D? Operations? Human Resources? Governance? Compliance?

What if these inventions are not businesses unto themselves but enablers of business? TechCrunch and Mashable are full of small companies spending a lot of venture money trying to make widgets that are all conceptually banking on ‘social’being the business need (and of course that people will suddenly decide to pay for it!). It might be. But what if it isn’t? What if the social applications of this technology are just the table stakes? What if, like email, instant messaging and web browsing, everyone will have it, but no one will pay for it? It sure seems to be trending that way.

Email and instant messaging technology don’t make money for many people. But they enable a lot of people to do interesting things within their existing businesses. Microblogging might be the same – destined not to make much money per se, but rather to enable businesses to make money (Zappos’recent acclaim for masterful Twittering being an example).

In terms of finding a blue ocean in this crowded market, one place to focus might be a step or two back from the bleeding edge. It’s not as popular and you might not find yourself being invited to speak alongside the Biz Stones, Mark Zuckerbergs and Chad Hurleys of the world, but it’s an under-served market right now.

It took Edison twenty years to concede that his phonograph was well suited for listening to music. Today our cultural A.D.D. has us all moving on to the next thing within months, if not days. What opportunities are being missed?

My bet is, there’s plenty of money to be made finding out how to use technologies that exist today to solve problems now.

Now not new.

You heard it here first.

Technodispositions.

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For a client I’m working with, we recruited an anthropologist to help us segment prospective target constituencies for a business that deals with world cultures. In the course of discussions with this anthropologist I was introduced to the term ‘technodispositions’. As I understood it, this is an assessment of a group’s/culture’s likelihood to use technology. It combines three avenues of inquiry:

Do they have the means? – That is the availability of the technology and the means (access, distribution, financial wherewithal, etc.) to engage with the technology?

Do they see/value the utility? – That is, do they understand and place value in the use of the technology and the solution/service it provides?

Do they demonstrate willingness? – That is, have they proven by actions that they engage with technologies when warranted. In short, that they are adopters of technology.

This idea had me wondering how often those concerned with building businesses around social media consider the technodispositions of their targeted constituencies. Sure, the plays for Millennials might be a little easier to guess at because they are known to have the means, see the utility and demonstrate the willingness. But what about soccer moms or retirees? Should their social media experiences have the same functionality, navigational structures and architecture as Millennials? Should it be assumed that soccer moms want to meet new people? Does enlarging the font on every page customize an experience to Seniors? Are contextual maps understood and appreciated by Joe The Plumber in Dubuque?

Numerous studies point out the vast disparities in how different socio-economic groups or ethnic communities engage with family, relationships, community, etc. It only stands to reason that social media would be impacted by this. Yet so many niche communites online share very similar functionality or imply significant assumptions in how they present navigation, informational hierarchy etc. Related, often times something new that works for one community is ported in whole to another and thrust upon them without much thought as to whether it is relevant, warranted or welcomes.

In the discussions I have, blogs I read and articles I find, it seems to me a lot of time is spent on the ‘technology’half of social technologies and not enough is spent on the ‘social’part. My suspicion is that the study of socialization (including technodispositions) probably far more enlightening as a predictor of which businesses will win out in the end.

By my observation, a lot of social media’s success stories have been happy accidents. Wouldn’t it be nice to plan for success rather than putting a new application out there and hoping something cares enough to use it?