Don’t pay attention to technology adoption cycles

Posted by Martin Koser on 11. October 2007; This entry is filed under Business Models et al., English posts, Innovation et al..
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Ran through some reports from the Forrester Consumer Internet Conference 2007 tagged FCF07, and this one catched my eye: David Dalka blogs on a session with Charlene Li where she finished off a technology adoption cycle slide (ya know what I mean …) with a red x and said: “don’t pay attention to that”.

I think David is right, when he holds that

[this] means that benchmarking is starting to die due to the increased cycle times and shorter shelf life of information. I’ve long felt that you can’t benchmark your way to the top. You have to lead and take risks. To lead and take risks you must have the top generalist thought leaders of our times on your team. People who understand things like search engine optimization as a strategic tool, social media, bottom up communities and cultures, defining a defensible data model from the start and who practice customer listening for their innovation.

This is even more true when thinking about leveraging social software in the enterprise, something I am consulting and specializing in – watching for benchmarks, trying to minimize risks, pondering adoption cycles etc. won’t carry you far … but thought leadership will.

Update: Jeremiah Owyang collects a ton of other FCF07-coverage here and here.

  1. David Dalka October 11th, 2007 at 23:20

    Hi Martin!

    Wow! Thanks for noticing this entry and appreciating my extrapolation of what it means in my view in the long run.

    It is my belief that the change management that the corporate world is about to embark on (even if they don’t know it yet) is like nothing the world has seen since the industrial revolution.

    Drop me a note and we’ll schedule a Skype call, you look like someone I should know.

  2. Martin Koser October 12th, 2007 at 08:00

    David, I think this is a valid extrapolation – and one of the consequences we’ll see in these accelerated times.

    While we won’t see Benchmarking disappearing from the strategic agendas soon, it’s importance will decline. Hopefully we’ll see a renewed focus on adaptivity, taking the place of efficiency orientedness.

    So yes, why not discuss this further – like e.g. via Skype.