Rethinking Buzzwords in Innovation
What is important to realize is that we do not live in a one size fits all world, and not all models need to be freemium or disruptive to succeed.
Learning from the Past: The Xerox PARC Exchange
In 1979 Steve Jobs gave away options to buy 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock to Xerox, as part of a strategy to take the company forward. In return for this Apple got three days full access to the Xerox PARC technology research lab.
Chief technologist Dr. Mark Weiser the secretive technologist who ran it, was considered by many to be the smartest man in the world, and the innovation coming out of PARC was years ahead of contemporary tech.
Even though those shares are worth $.5bn + at today’s values, it is widely considered that Steve Jobs got the better deal, increasing the overall value of Apple by 100’s of billions of dollars with what he learnt.
Most of what happened after that open house is written in history, so rather than look at the details, let’s look as Weiser and what his approach to innovation was.
Invisible Innovation: Weaving Technology into Everyday Life
Weiser said...
"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it."
Think about this carefully and see the truth in it. Technology that becomes part of the way that we live to the extent we no longer see it. This is not disruptive, it is constructive and we integrate it into our very existence.
Some of the very best technology built was/is built to solve a problem faced on a daily basis by the creators (rather than a perceived gap in the market spotted by a product development team). These are the sort of products that work out of the gate, because frequently if we solve a problem for one person we can use the same solution to solve the same problem for others.
If disruptive technology advancements are revolution then progressive technological enhancements are frequently evolution. So in principle whilst I have nothing against the latest fashion of disruption, I also want to pay homage to the concept of invisibility, and technology that weaves itself essentially into the fabric of our day to day lives.