As many engineers-to-be, I grew up believing that there was a mathematical solution to everything. What I didn’t know then was that getting the math right was just the beginning. That getting any solution, idea, or product in the hands of people who can benefit from it requires a carefully constructed and often complex process of communication.
Making this process work is what I enjoy doing and it has consumed the majority of my professional life. As a strategy consultant I found that the key to meaningful success was how new strategy was communicated and implemented. Today I’m in the midst of helping develop a new market for an innovative software product. Included on these pages are a few things I’ve learned along the way. Hopefully my work will accelerate your understanding and together we can make the world a better place by helping great innovations thrive.
My watershed moment:
There are many examples of superior products that are defeated in the marketplace. The one that got my attention was the Zip v. SparQ high capacity disk battle of the late nineties. Never heard of it? Not surprising, you probably didn’t own either one. They were both killed by inexpensive writeable CDs, but that is another story. My story is that I needed a portable solution to back up my laptop. The SparQ disks had a higher capacity and cost much less per MB of capacity than the Zip drive. I bought the mathmatically superior SparQ and then watched Zip disks dominated the market and SparQ’s maker file for bankruptcy. While there were some claims of technical problems with the SparQ, mine worked perfectly for years. The bigger difference was superior marketing of the Zip. Zip had a better name, a better looking form factor, and better distribution. Most importantly, their message was clear, “this is just like the disk you already use, it just holds more stuff.” SparQ looked more like a tape drive which made it less accessible. Instead of “disk” they called it a “cartridge” which sounded foreign and complicated. Quality problems or not, SparQ was doomed by bad marketing. Don’t let this happen to an innovation you care about.