A Blind Spot - Reflections on technology and obsolescence

For my friends the young tech-preneurs that follow this blog, I decided to share my 40 years perspective on the growth and decline of new technologies.  It is a personal experience that I hope may help understanding the process at work and may prevent them from repeating some of the blunders I made from incorrect assumptions.

Background
I am 61, grew up in Europe in a family of several generations of entrepreneurs. Went to university in the US ad got a BA in Psychology and MBA in International Business, Finance and Accounting.  From those experiences I developed a curiosity for technology - perhaps I am lazy and I valued technology's leverage to let me do more for less effort. I was blessed to grow up in the dawn of computer technology - I remember at age 9, my father, an engineer, tell me of his wonder at his first encounter with IBM computers and punched cards, etc. in 1960; it was a glimpse of the future and I was sold.  My MBA thesis, 14 years later, would be a FORTRAN program for financial analysis, a box of punched cards (three months of work in 1973 that I replicated in 1983 with Lotus 123 in three hours).
My career as a banker and later as serial entrepreneur was always leveraged by using computing technology from HP calculators to punched cards, to Apple II, to CPM microprocessors to DOS and Windows. I tinkered with these tools sooner and more than most people I knew. I saw the future coming and I wanted to usher it in.

Possible insights
My fascination with digital technology led me to always overestimate how quickly the "computing future" would come, how fast the masses would adopt and how fast "older stuff" would be abandoned. The reality is that except for early adopters, the masses are slow to abandon old habits and do so only when the process of change is easy.  The change that to me was challenging, fun and satisfied my curiosity, to most others was hard work, so broad based technology acceptance was always late.

This blind spot probably was the root of all business failures or slower-than-hoped successes I had. It was really unjustified since I was privileged to insight to the contrary. Shame on me; here is one example:

In 1983 I worked for a company in Seattle, DP Enterprises, that had two existing product lines: 1. selling IBM minicomputers and 2. maintaining the left-over key punch machines still needed to run the first generation mainframes. I was product manager of the minicomputers line, I disdained the old junk keypunches, and longed to transfer to a new upcoming initiative to sell the new-on-the-market IBM PCs (floppy disk only, XTs would come later).  Ed Benshoof, the owner, was making money faster than he could count it and built one of the biggest and nicest office buildings in town, overlooking Lake Union and with his penthouse on top of it . I heard that the profits were coming disproportionately from the "junk dealer business" of scavenging parts, refurbishing and reselling keypunches to companies with very old mainframes that could not afford the conversion costs to migrate to "my" newer minicomputers.
Duh! Even my seven year old son could have drawn the right conclusion. Not me. I was smitten with the future, only too soon.

Countless other ventures followed with too-soon-technologies that would eventually be applauded when I had moved on to.  Some of the ideas I followed paid off well enough, but I could have saved myself a lot of troubles if that blind spot had not been there.

Lessons learned

• Do not bet on fast mass adoption of anything that requires learning, work or effort. It's not that people are dumb, they just have better things to do with their time.
• Fast adoption happens only with super-intuitive products that require virtually no learning (all benefits no costs), like smart phones of the iPhone and Android generation (not the earlier Palm Pilots), or like the iPad and Android tablets (not the Windows tablets of 2002-3)
• Particularly for small businesses (cash strapped) and very large enterprises (logistically bound), obsolescence does not mean that the obsolete product goes into the garbage can.  It will continue in use if no effort or cost is involved in its continued use. It may be re-purposed if the required effort is minimal (e.g. a PC passed down to children, secretaries, assistants, warehouse staff, kiosk, etc.)
• Where complex or critical systems are involved the cost of changeover will be accepted only when the benefit is substantial. The more complex, mission critical the system the slower the changeover
• For most products, changes in User Interface (UI) are very risky as they require users to learn something different: 1. unlearn the familiar and 2. relearn the unfamiliar. If it is hugely beneficial they will do it, else they will resist.  That is why 30% of PCs still run XP after 10 years that sales stopped, that is why it took years for Windows 7 to get market penetration equal to Vista (the epitome of a dog failed product), and why Windows 8 is getting no traction.  It is also the reason why all cars still have steering wheels, sticks to put in gear automatic transmissions !?, keys to start, knobs to control A/C, radio, etc.

Marco Messina

Apple - The Great Innovator Or a Bully And a Con?

Check the below article reprinted from ReadWrite.com.  
Apple's glorious "pinch and zoom" patent just got invalidated.  Only a company with the deep pockets of Samsung could pursue the fight all the way to "invalidation", and even after paying Apple about $1 billion awarded by an incompetent jury.Something is profoundly wrong.  Ask yourself how many smaller companies have been put out of business by similar Apple tactics? The irony is that consumers have been bamboozled into believing that Apple is the great innovator on account of these cons.  Was Jobs brilliant at seeing value in other people's ideas and make something of it with brilliant repackaging? Yes absolutely, all the way back to the mid 80's when he ripped off Xerox PARC's mouse, icons and windows UI (Gates and others that saw exactly the same stuff, could also have done the same, but did not "get it" for a few years longer than Jobs).  Unfortunately Apple's deep pockets also allowed it to become a destructive IP bully for which all consumers pay a price.  Small startup innovators cannot defend, they just get put out of business.  The optimist in me likes to think "all cons come to an end", to wit some companies like GM sold junk and lost shareholders value for years but eventually came to their deserved end (unfortunately we also bailed it out and now taxpayers are losing 1/2 their investment thanks to Treasury's decision to unload the stock - but that's another story).

Next time you hear that Apple is king of innovation, remember the story below and ask how many true innovators have been squashed by their con.

Another Apple Patent Gets Smacked Down, And Its 'Thermonuclear War' Becomes Even More Of A Farce

Dan Lyons yesterday

             Share…             on Facebook             on Twitter             on Google+             on Linkedin             by Email         

This time it's the so-called "pinch and zoom" patent getting rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and this is a big deal since that patent was one that Apple used to achieve that huge $1 billion verdict against Samsung in a California kangaroo court last summer.

Now what happens? Does the court in California go back and subtract all the damages that the jury awarded to Apple based on this patent that Apple should never have been granted?

Apple took a big victory lap after that ruling but it's looking like maybe it popped the champagne too early.

The ruling by the USPTO is not final, and no doubt Apple will appeal the decision, but suddenly Apple isn't looking so powerful. In fact, it is looking a bit, well, ridiculous. (And  that's the kind word for it.)

The patent was struck down because the USPTO found prior art. Meaning Apple didn't actually invent the stuff it claimed to have invented. It copied it from others, then went and got a patent on it anyway, and then used that bogus patent to sue rivals.

Worse yet for Apple, this new ruling from the USPTO comes just two weeks after the USPTO smacked down another of Apple's patents, one that related to multitouch and was known as the "Steve Jobs" patent.

I wrote at the time that Apple's "thermonuclear patent war" was a farce. Now that farce seems even sillier.

These Ideas Were Around Long Before Apple 'Invented' Them

Belief is the key

As a serial entrepreneur I have experienced many times the thrill of following my own path to success, however I  defined it at that time of my life: change the world, make a fortune, make an insight into reality, whatever.  Eventually all ventures evolved into a state of mind best explained by this picture.  The only way to go forward was to "press on" no matter what, believing that the top of the mountain was not far and then it would be, oh so sweet, downhill all the way.  My mother often asked "how far do you still have to go?".  The answer, always, "I am below the rock, I cannot see, I cannot stop, but I am an optimist, it is not far".  And so the rock slowly got pushed up the mountain with minor "strategic" directional adjustments to suit the landscape, but moved primarily by total commitment powered by belief.

Belief (not stubbornness) is the root of achievement, that internal voice that makes us persist in the game.
Toady we see one such game playing in front of our eyes, on Jeopardy.  It is the latest chapter of IBM's pitting  the machine against the human.  The last match was in 1997 and Garry Kasparov was our knight.  He had belief to spare.  He lost to Deep Blue and went into a deep depression as a result - some mountains are too tall and rocks too big, but letting go is always tough.
How would you like to be the Humans' knight in shining armor: Brad Rutter or Ken Jennings?  It takes true grit and great belief.  In the other corner, despite appearances, it is not Watson, it is the IBM team behind that multicolor-cyberface-cum-mawhawk, with seven years and $1-2 billion worth of dreams and persistence on the line.
 
It is a quixotic battle: like that against Deep Blue before. Watson will eventually win for no other reason that IBM will find the Rutter and Jennings of artificial intelligence and put them to work pushing that rock to the mountain top. In this sense defeat of the Humans is inevitable. It may happen tonight or tomorrow or by an average of three nights (BTW Deep Blue won not all matches, only 3.5 to 2.5 over 7 matches). Perhaps we'll have to wait longer yet, but it will come. Our brightest Humans can make machines "smarter" over time but we have not yet found a repeatable and fast way to make ourselves smarter.

Regardless of who wins Jeopardy, the human ability to imagine, belief and commitment will have won again.  And now go back to pushing your rock, you don't have far to go.

Marco Messina

The Multiparty Line (over and again)

Suddenly more and more of my friends and family of the "not-early-adopter" personality type are signing up for Facebook.  They think I am a digital technology early adopter, so I am flooded with "how to" and "why" questions. 

We must have reached the tipping point in social media. In most of he country it is now presumed that you can read and write, watch plenty of TV, own a personal computer and a cell phone AND that you "are on Facebook". If not, you'll feel that you have to explain why not: After all, if you want to hear from your children or get photos of your grandchildren you better be on Facebook.  Furthermore, many of your friends probably have given up email and switched to Facebook, social gatherings will announced there - be there or be square.  The more hip only "do Twitter" and text from smart phones.

As I look at how most people use Facebook and Twitter I see a similarity with past chapters in the evolution of telecommunications: The tolerance for multiparty line communications and loss of privacy swung as follows:

Telephones between 1930 to 1960's and even beyond for outlaying rural communities: Seniors still remember that in those years, presuming to have private telephone conversation in a small town was a joke.  Either your neighbor(s) or a bored switchboard operator was presumed to be listening on. 

Automatic switchboards and sufficient telephone lines brought privacy back.

CB radios became popular, not only with long distance truckers, but also with aunt Mae and cousin George from 1972 (because of the First OPEC Oil Embargo and resultant gasoline shortage) until the early 80's.  With some planning (for a trip in convoy) you might manage to talk to someone you knew, but by en large it was the "first Twitter" where you told strangers what was on your mind or "in the road" - listeners "followed you" and you were "Buddies" only because you had in common the same piece of interstate highway at the same time:  10-4 Good Buddy...

Cell phones eventually brought an end to CB radios and brought privacy back.

Computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) created the first multiparty communications for computer users around 1975, their use exploded with personal computers in the early 80's until supplanted by the internet in the early 90's.  Again you could "talk" (type) on an open line to all those that had a similar interest: computer software,  computer games (text-based, before-video), dating services (professionals or lonely hearts), etc. 

The first user friendly Internet Browser (Netscape) in 1990 opened the Internet to the masses and with email, privacy was back. By 1999 you had better be ready to explain under what rock you lived if you did not have an email address. 

Web2.0 Social Media Arrives

Social Media  could be said to go as far back back to the PLATO system (1973) at University of Illinois, but in its current Web2.0 form it started with Friendster in 2003, followed by the explosion of  MySpace (driven by the high school crowd), Linkedin (the professional crowd), Facebook (the college grads crowd) and Twitter (the short comments crowd). 

All provide a choice of communication channels that vary from open-line to private-line telephone emulation. In Linkedin and Facebook anyone known or unknown can be friends by invitation and mutual agreement. Friends of friends can be more or less shared depending on user choice and the fee paid for one's account. In Twitter anyone can be anyone's friend, just because they are there.  With something valuable to say and consistent effort nurturing the audience one can garner 200,000 followers or more. In Facebook, with a "poke" you can be "friends for 3 days" and show a little tease (A "poke" is intended to get someone's attention allowing them to see your Facebook page for 3 days, so they can know who you are, and hopefully add you as a friend).  

Those who bother to manage their privacy can hide their Facebook friends, but most users are pretty open, by accident or by design.  Some do not know any better (instructions for adding friends are jammed down your throat while those to manage privacy are far from clear), so they have all their friends visible to all friends of friends. Then they write on one friend's wall a private message (trivial or important) only to discover they were shouting on the town's party line.  

We are back to telephone privacy circa 1945, but this time the technology is not to blame. 

The psychology and sociology of multiparty lines

At this point you can go on to something more productive than reading the remainder. Following are my speculations and opinions on the subject, and you know what they say about opinions.

I always interpreted the user's tolerance of a multiparty line as the price to be paid in the early stages of a new technology introduction: When the resource is limited, the price of privacy is high and beyond the budget of most, but eventually mass adoption scales the system to where privacy is affordable to all.  

Today, however I see the commonplace use of open communication channels for private matters, seemingly with little concern, when means to achieve privacy exist.  Why?

Is there a group psychology in play here, similar to that found in American high schools or colleges: The dynamics of wanting to belong, wanting to be heard, wanting to be included, wanting to be popular?  It would surely explain why the first big successes by social media sites were with students in high school  (MySpace) and college (Facebook), whereas the membership process and the chatter in Linkedin (business leads and job hunting professionals) have been far more private and resulted in slower growth.  

Is this why some feel compelled to announce to the world "I at the airport waiting for a flight to London" (as if we would care) or "Stranded in Paris on the way to Moscow" (it happens to everyone that changes planes in Paris), or "traveling from A to B stopping at C to walk the dog" (as if we all were waiting for them), or "standing in line to buy my iPhone tomorrow morning" (so you are one of a million)?

It's easy to say - just stop following them, drop them from your friends lists, etc. But that is not the point. 

First, those same people at times make public announcements of value ("iPhone proven to lose call" - Good to hear, I am not crazy, "X just released a multitasking xPad" - Good to hear, now I can skip the iPad). 

Secondly, the riddle I wish to unravel is why private comments aimed at a single person find instead their way into the chatter of the public town square. Has the need for privacy been abandoned?  If it is evolving we better understand why and how, because the public town square is changing and we cannot stay away from it - it is the new language we must learn to use correctly.

Please, comment with whatever insight or guesses you care to share (BTW, not just with me but with all my followers!).

Marco Messina

User Interfaces, Arrogance and Opportunity

Disclosure
In the interest of full disclosure I'll admit to some personal and painful experience with User Interfaces (UI).  They probably colored my perspective to this day.
The first UI we learn as humans is language which allows us to interface with mom and other humans. In the US in particular, most people learn the "language UI" only once - English.  As an immigrant from Italy in 1970 (before English had became the world's global language) I suffered the cost of confronting my UI (Italian) abruptly obsoleted and I had to waste a whole semester studying English as second language before I could start full speed with my real courses (not an inconsiderable penalty considering that I still completed a BA and MBA in 4 years).

Looking back, then I chose to almost completely abandon using Italian in favor of English (the former I would not forget while the latter is still a work in progress). I distinctly remember that bargain: Pay a price to get something valuable for the rest of my life.  The alternatives were to go back to Italy or to limit my future to an Italian language neighborhood: both were easier, neither had ROI.

The cost of UI changes
I think all UI changes reflect the same ROI calculation I did back then. The fact that, despite all the push for Vista and Win7, XP still has a 70+ % market share, in my view, reflects that same calculus:  Why invest effort and incur the cost of disruption (personal or organizational or both) to change to a UI that does not have a compelling, demonstrable unquestionable advantage?  70% so far say NO.

Furthermore, to follow Microsoft into the promised land we'd have to trash perfectly viable PCs that just happen to have an engine insufficient for the new OS.  It is like GM offering you a car that carries no more people, goes no faster, saves no money and requires you to learn to drive with a joystick sitting backwards and looking at the road through a mirror - eventually you'll like it.

Arrogance as a strategy
Todays' announcement that the miraculously uncluttered, minimalist new-design Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) will not run on XP is the reflection of an arrogance we would not tolerate from automakers.  It's tantamount to GM announcing cars wider than the lanes in our roads, for awesome benefits to be sure, like improved cornering stability, or all passengers sitting in first raw, and replying to our objections with "build new roads" (a "let them eat cake" attitude comes to mind).

In the days when most (low power) cell phones can sport an effective web browser, one has to wonder the necessity of dumping viable PCs just because they cannot run Win7 and IE9 - has anyone heard we are in a recession?  Yet the me-too desire for IE9 will prompt many to "eat cake": buy new expensive hardware with a new OS and IE9 to do no more than an iPhone or Android phone would do.  Arrogance may pay off after all.

Opportunities abound
Arrogance however always carries a price to be paid when the American public abruptly switches to alternate suppliers more responsive to their needs: see the experiences of GM and Toyota, Internet Explorer and Firefox/Chrome, Motorola and HTC/Nokia/et al., United/USAir and Sothwest/JetBlue, and so on.

One would be tempted to add to the above list Microsoft and Linux/Ubuntu, but we cannot.  It may be a sea change in the making with Android (an Ubuntu skin), but is not yet here.  Why after 10 years of Linux has it not happened?  It's not the economy, stupid; it's the UI.  Yes, the UI.

Linux in all its incarnations can run better than XP on old PCs (as on new cell phones) and can deliver equivalent or the exact same applications (through WINE) but pigheadedly keeps coming out requiring the user to adapt to a  new UI. If there were a benefit to that UI change users would do it, but since there isn't they just don't change - 70% market shares says so.

Geeks and Linux fans spend much effort touting the greater elegance and whatever many other strengths, but seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that Toyota can pull customers away from GM and Ford ONLY BECAUSE THE UI IS THE SAME and the technical improvements/advantages require NO learning curve.

In the business parlance of the day the saying goes: OUR (business/product) value proposition is...  That's great because it means we understand that a value proposition is key, but we should strive to phrase it in terms of THE BUYER, not in our terms.  Perhaps: FOR CUSTOMERS THAT WANT X we offer Y that does..  It would set the right frame of mind for OUR mind.

So, in closing here is a thought for all of you innovators out there looking for ideas: Produce a Linux that looks and feels (the UI) identical to XP, so that "XP migrants" have NOTHING to learn, make it run like Ubuntu on old PCs (those obsoleted by Win7), with a minimalist looking IE9-style web browser that requires no new PC and OS (Firefox/Chrome?).

Beware - The window of opportunity is closing fast. Android, a garden open to all, will soon deliver a uniform UI from cellphone-to-tablet and eventually to PCs (as Apple promises from pad-to-phone).  If a new option with an XP-UI appears, it can still capture the transition moment, and you can capture a market, else the UI consistency from phone-to-PC promised by Android will be the David's stone that slays the arrogant Goliath.

Either way it will be the UI, not the power, not the features, not the economy, the UI.

P.S. I loved my birth language UI, I changed it because of the ROI, but cannot forget the price I paid
Ciao
Marco Messina