I thought how the authors compared the biological and technological in chapter 3, Technology Speciation, was interesting. The theme of a shift in the domain of an already existing application that yields an emerging technology runs throughout the chapter. The example of wireless technology and the Internet are given. The authors then go on to discuss other biological comparisons such as resource abundance, selection criteria and creative destruction. This is followed by some thoughts on technological convergence with the example of the CAT scan being given. The book then returns to the shifting application domain's with a discussion on patterns for technology evolution. The chapter ends with a discussion on how all of this can (and should) impact a company's strategic thinking. Of particular interest to me was the first bullet point, focus on the intersection of markets and applications. More on this later.
Chapter 4 is entitled Identification and Assessment of Emerging Technologies. I don't think that the importance of this process should be underestimated, as the AquaPharm example given throughout the chapter goes on to show. The assessment process is iterative and has 4 main parts; scoping, searching, evaluating and committing. Scoping gives you a target. It is the goal you are trying to achieve or the niche you are trying to fill and you must recognize what you are capable of and set goals accordingly. If scoping is the what then searching is the how. How are you going to find new technologies to meet your goals? Examples are given on looking within the firm and and reading trade literature. We learn to look for strong and weak signals and that knowledge information capture is important. The evaluation process is the next part of the assessment process. We learn that risk profiling and assessing the financial and organization impacts are important. The last part of the assessment process is committing. We learn that there are 4 strategic profiles you can take when committing; watch and wait, position and learn, sense and follow, and believe and lead. They are listed in order of least committed to most committed. As we learn at the end of the chapter, AquaPharm did not fare well.
I think that chapter three's theme of shifting domain applications for already existing technologies is an important one. The evolution of wireless technology and the Internet are given in the book but while I was reading that I thought of another example of a product that found a market by shifting it's application domain. During World War II Japan controlled a great deal of the world's rubber producing capacity. There was a big push early in the war to find a synthetic substitute (back then rubber came from trees) for rubber. During the search for a synthetic rubber someone (who seems up for debate) mixed boric acid and silicone and came up with a substance that was gooey and bouncy and had a few other novel properties but it would not work as a substitute for rubber. No one could think of a good use for this new product even though samples were sent to scientists all over the world. Eventually, after many years, a sample found it's way to a toy store owner who thought it could sell as a toy and Silly Putty was born.
I forgot to add my link last night:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_putty
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While I was researching information for a comment about Silly Putty (I think you covered everything important though), I found some interesting information about Tupperware. It, like Silly Putty, was discovered during research by accident. During WWII, Earl Tupper, worked at DuPont Chemical Company an was interested in working with polyethylene, which was a fairly new product. His supervisor gave him a piece of polyethylene slag, which is a waste of the oil refining process. He then made the infamous Tupperware brand. At first the product didn't take off in store, so he finally yanked it from the stores and sold it exclusively through direct home sales (think Mary Kay, Avon, etc,). Ever since then, it has been wildly successful.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wwwk.co.uk/culture/inventions/40s/tupperware.htm
Interestingly enough, so was pyrex. I read Eric's blog and remembered that I had heard somewhere that pyrex was not orginally used for cookware. When I looked it up I found out that it was originally used for light fixtures on trains. It ended up that it was TOO efficient and that the company that made it was losing money. A wife of a worker at the company was tired of using her usual baking pans and used a couple of the fixtures to bake a cake. Viola, the pyrex as we know it was brought about. I suppose this would be an example of a technology moving to a new domain and penetrating a different market. It also shows how the technolgy slowly became less expensive and more expansive.
ReplyDeleteList of serendipitous discoveries in Wikipedia
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity