Steve Neiderhauser had a great query in the comments section of my post asking Seth Godin about the book Survival Is Not Enough:
I was curious if anyone had any thoughts about how soft innovations and edgecraft can be used to overcome or even take advantage of changing business conditions. It seems that uncertainty and change are still one of management's biggest headaches. My thoughts? By using soft innovations you can create conditions that your competition must respond to.
Steve, thank you! As usual, a great thought/question!
From the book Survival is Not Enough:
In 'Through the Looking-Glass', Lewis Carroll wrote about the Red Queen, caught on a chessboard in which every move changed the make-up of the entire board. Carroll's name for a character in an ever-changing competitive environment has been appropriated by evolutionary biologists to describe the coevolution that goes on between species and their competitors and parasites. The minute one species gets a head start, the landscape changes again, forcing other species to respond.
The analogy that I really love for this is sports. Think about the fluidity of a sporting event. Two teams on the field constantly changing and adapting to the other teams tactics. Hockey & Soccer are two of my favorites, Soccer especially, because there is no stoppage of play - you don't get to call a time out - just like business.
Jon,
You have made some great posts recently. Unfortunately, the comments function does not work except on this most recent post.
*sigh* I'll just have to use trackbacks then.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: David St Lawrence | May 19, 2004 at 07:08 PM