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When an executive is faced with
continuing two projects past exploration
phase and into development, each
of which could result in a solution,
it is best to commit to just one
rather than fund both at starving
levels. When an engineer picks
a job, usually it is committed
to only one technology or product
group. Flipping a coin might be
best if you were trying to outwit
someone else, but if we are planners
instead of gamblers, we will seek
out more information on which to
base that decision. If one team
or one product is better than another,
we must find the information that
shows which is best. If we assume
that all the teams are equally
likely to succeed, than we must
find an external reason to choose
one over the other.
When consolidation occurs in
our industry, as is happening in
the US today with reintegration
of telecom in massive companies
like at&t and Verizon, competing
projects will come under scrutiny.
Some are best eliminated and the
resources given to other groups,
increasing their likelihood of
success completion of that project.
But will this result in an overall
win?
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Returning to my original example
question, IP or ATM or some mix;
of course IP came to dominate and
ATM became an edge technology. One
dominates but both continue on.
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innovation is to travel with
a crowd. If you strike out on
your own you will likely succeed
only if your choice is overwhelming
correct (Like discovering a brand
new valley to colonize). But
if you want to succeed with innovation
when the relative rewards are
smaller (like the similar relative
outcomes in the growth model
of the Insight Research report)
and the chances of failure are
pretty even among all the paths
to get there, than it is best
to team up. In this case, you
are not so much “following
the crowd” as “traveling
with the crowd” or worst
case “dragging the crowd
with you”.
IP and the IETF “won” over
ATM not just because the technology
was superior, but because enough
of us joined the IETF and worked
at overcoming the architectural
disadvantages IP had against
ATM. While in the end, ATM just
could not function in the speeds
needed in backbones, the IETF
won because the invention of
MPLS provided a simple way of
organizing IP backbones.
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A bad choice is to use the relative
power of various management groups/executives
to decide which projects are kept
and which die. Unfortunately, in
the absence of strong strategic planning,
and good marketing information, this
will usually be the way resources
are allocated. If we can eliminate
relative corporate power of management
as a factor in decision making, then
another method of choosing must be
selected.
Collaborative solutions
In an earlier article, I
argued that in evolutionary game
theory, we learn that following the
crowd is best when times are stable.
When competition is high, when times
are complex or chaotic, like today,
innovation is best. But here we increase
the refinement of our analysis. Often
the way to reach
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Muddied
waters
Insight Research acknowledges
that the world will likely
have a mixed solution and not
become just one of the three
scenarios they investigate.
They see these as just ways
of showing relative value of
each to the industry. I argue,
that seeing that one scenario
has more value than another,
mandates a strategic decision
to commit resources to reaching
that scenario. In the case
of the three choices inherent
in the scenarios of the Insight
Research report, “All
Networks” evolving together
has the most revenue for the
industry; winning out over
All Wireless or All Internet.
But ultimately this scenario
building and modeling is just
a trending solution. Trending
solutions are notoriously bad
at predicting the future -
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