I’m taking a look at the FOWA presentation of Simon Wardley (link to his blog) and can’t help to think about some of the general experiences that I’ve had with commodities and innovation. In this space that we’re playing in (technology – not really “the web” or “mobile” or “digitial”) it’s very difficult to make an accurate predicition of what will be successful.
Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has mentioned that academic activity has a low ROI – by the time that a book has been published the knowledge that the text conveys is already old news – what Wardley would term a commodity, so it makes less sense to go study as opposed to working for a year. The logic is that e.g. it takes a student 1 year to complete a research paper, then it takes another 3-6 months for that research paper to be taken up in the class room, and by the time that it is being studied, it’s already old news (and commodified knowledge).
In an industry setup, CMS’s are a dime a dozen – they have become commodities. When I see people building a new CMS for a small microsite I often ask “why on earth?” In this case, spending time and effort on being innovative is useless when the software you are trying to create has already been commoditized. Why not rather use an existing CMS like Wordpress or Joomla?
Some tools however give you a better understanding for adapting quickly and being able to forecast better. Being able to analyse your business landscape and idenitify future impacts early equips you with better tools to make proper decisions. Take a look at the presentation and see which part of your business you are still “re-inventing the wheel”.
Here’s the link: Future Of Web Apps – London 2008.