Breakthrough Thinking

There is something very appealing about inventions, innovations and breakthrough thinking.  An idea that leads to a product, or a way of being that changes a paradigm.

Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” to describe the way an idea spreads “virally” through a population.

A meme could be related to a cultural or technical innovation that changes the way we think and behave.

With the affluence of today’s society and ubiquitous information availability, adoption of innovations is much, much faster than ever before. 

Think about the adoption speed of past inventions, over a period of decades, and the resistance they faced in the early days.

When trains first came on the scene there was a common belief that traveling at such speed would be fatal.  This belief was repeated with the car.  In England the law required a man (not a woman!) to walk in front of cars carrying a red flag.

Equally in their time electricity, telephone, radio and television all took time to become accepted norms of every day life.

Mass adoption of mobile phones and the internet were much faster.  In spite of the overwhelming competition for our attention, there is an acceleration going on.  Memes travel faster today than they did 50 years ago.

The overall adoption curve is similar, starting with innovators, then early adopters, early majority, late majority and finally laggards, but the whole process is much faster.

Think about the speed of acceptance of the climate change meme. Over the last 5 years we have gone from early adopters to early majority. 

The same is true for technical innovations.  Today a new technology routinely transforms an industry in under a decade.  A tipping point is reached when convenience, reliability, availability and price come close enough to the previous model.  Over a very short period of time whole business models can be replaced.  

Think about the music and advertising markets for example - last week the UK became the first country in the world where more was spent on internet advertising than TV.

Think also about the fact that the incumbent market leader rarely remains the market leader after a paradigm shift.  ITV is not the market leader in internet advertising in the UK, for example - even their name gives it away.

If we put these four concepts together: meme acceleration, climate change, technical paradigm shift and replacement of incumbents, we have a fascinating mix.

There are a number of established industries that are ripe for replacement by younger, more innovative and greener newcomers.  

The fascinating questions are who will come up with the breakthrough products and when?

Remember - when you can see a bandwagon it is already too late.

The same also applies to the authentic business meme.  I have been working on this full time now since 2002. During that time we have moved from the innovator phase to the early adopter phase.  I am very excited about the early majority phase and how the business world will look when authenticity becomes the normal approach.

The real challenge for organisations, to benefit from innovations rather than be diminished by them, is the internal cultural transformation of the organisation itself.  

Back in the internet boom I was responsible for the strategy offering of internet consultancy Razorfish.  What became clear was that adding .com to the name, a web site, e-mail, e-commerce and an intranet were easy.     Adjusting the culture and mind set to make the most of them is much harder.

As a reader of this blog you are among the cultural innovators of our time.  If we believe in the benefits of a more authentic approach to life and business, we all need to collaborate to inspire and empower others to have the confidence to commit to their authenticity.