Chasms sketched

I mentioned the several chasms in an earlier post.  Here, built on the rubric of Geoffrey Moore's work at the tail end of "Dealing with Darwin," are two drawings that 'say a lot' in my view

This first one is adapted from Moore's book (which, by the way, is one of his better ones, built on a case study of Cisco from about 1995-2003)

We've mentioned before, both in this blog and in my INTRAPRENEURING INNOVATION blog, that this difference between Intrapreneurs and Entrepreneurs has been mostly ignored or misunderstood

And now, to the "CHASMS" in addition to the classic MARKETING CHASM that Moore so aptly described in "Crossing the Chasm"

I used these slides in a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business last week, part of one of their "get smart" workshops commissioned with key companies.  The talk built on the historic success of HP and some of their transformations -- including the difficulty of some of those transitions.  For that, they distributed copies of THE HP PHENOMENON, which is now close to being out of print since the first run is sold out, and the hue and cry hasn't been fully electric.  Yes, it was Stanford's third best selling Biz Book ever when it hit the streets, but that is not a high bar.  It would have been 719th or so at Harvard Biz Press.    You can still get 'em at Amazon or thru Stanford Press if you hurry.

The more interesting -- i.e. more timely -- slides had to do with Apple's performance from 1997-2010, for which Professor Haim Mendelson has two great essays, and I have a 1 hour workshop that shows clearly that Jobs would NEVER have made it to the iPhone 5 if he'd had a normal Board of Directors.  They'd have fired him certainly by the tenth year, if not a lot sooner.  It is a dramatic example of these principles, exactly as no Business School in America would teach.

I wrapped up with this slide, which is key for the last sentence, that applies to Steve and Apple even more than to HP history

CHASMS

We've been concerned lately about CHASMS or ABYSSES -- places that innovation 'gets stuck' for whatever reason.

Many are familiar with the Technology Adoption curve, built around Everett Rogers' famous S-curve.  Geoffrey Moore, in Crossing the Chasm, popularized the notion that there is a large chasm between the Early Adopters and the Main-Line users -- a chasm that needs to be crossed in order to develop a large customer base for any new innovation.

Think Cisco with routers, vs. 3Com and bridges.   Bridges connected users to a Local-Area-Network (LAN), and routers counnected LANs to each other to build a Wide-Area Network (WAN).  Many companies emerged in the early 1980s to build LAN technology; very few emerged building WANs.  Until the world had enough LANs, there was 'no need' for WANs.

Said differently, Cisco spent four years looking for commercial customers to little avail; academic institutions on the other hand loved their technology.  Once enough LANs were built, the WAN became an essential link, but it took quite a while.

Analogously, the IBM PC didn't exactly ignite a firestorm at Intel; after three years of sales and a vote of "Man of the Year" for the PC by Time Magazine, IBM still did not make Intel's TOP FIFTY list.

What concerns me today though is the fact that this CHASM that Moore describes is but one of several that get 'in the way' of corporate transformation from fundamental innovation.

Moore's CHASM is a MARKETING or CUSTOMER CHASM.  This one can be impacted by companies, to speed it up, or to ameliorate the issues, but it is seldom within full control of your company.

There are three others that could be titled:

1. A FUNDING CHASM
2. AN IMAGINATIVE CHASM
3. A CANNIBALISM CHASM

Each of these, by contrast with the CUSTOMER CHASM, are largely under your own control.  We will elaborate on each of these in succeeding posts