Categories

The Critical Path #139: The Great Gap

Jan 26, ’15 2:56 PM
Author Categories Podcast

Horace and Anders discuss the current uncertainty in the commodities markets and take a look at the logical segments of the adoption curve. Could the conventional wisdom between invention and product in the market be wrong?

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #139: The Great Gap.

  • Mark

    As someone who helps with organizational and related processes and system changes the discussion on adoption patterns is intriguing. Accepting that this is about a pattern of adoption and less about causality I am considering the followings:

    1. Who should we target initially for exploring the changes? Are they explorers at heart and do they have “informal” leadership credentials?

    2. Who are early followers, they enjoy being in the forefront of new ideas and approaches? What support do we provide them so they can take the time and make the effort to learn new things?

    3. Having late adopters can be very helpful. While change is happening we often have operational and customer commitments that necessitate dual processes in place. These late adopters help us sustain our “regular” business while undergoing change.

    I am often struck by the notion that we need late adopters because of the “time ro change and convert” considerations, yet I find little acknowledgement of this in change management discussions. I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on this implication.

    • so I’m late to the party. Today I listened to the podcast and nor on http://5by5.tv/criticalpath or here are showlinks to be found. I’m interested in the scientific article that debunks peak oil myth (as I and others know but the public to a lesser extent).

      I’m liking the Critical Path very much, it’s a treasure trove for people who’re bent to historical facts and laced with current issues pondering future models

  • Olivier

    By the way there is quite a lot of now classic academic research on industry evolution and dynamics from inception to shake out that is worth checking out (Gort and Klepper, 1982, Klepper and Graddy, 1990, for instance.

  • neutrino23

    As to why companies didn’t jump straight to electric, it is that batteries are so poor vis-a-vis gasoline. Gasoline is a miracle substance. It has a higher energy density than anything short of uranium, you transport it with a bucket and take advantage of it by lighting a match to it.

    Batteries require that the chemical reaction be reversible at least a thousand times which is a high bar. Batteries generally don’t work well when you charge/discharge them quickly. I think this is the reason Toyota has refused to join the market for electric cars.

    In short, if batteries were as good at storing energy as gas tanks then we would have had a substantial electric car market long ago.