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The Change Function: Why some technology ventures fail?

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mouser:

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The attractively simple thesis of The Change Function is that most tech-nology ventures fail because tech-nologists manage them. Technologists think their business is the creation of cool technologies loaded with wonderful new features. They think this because they are engineers who thrill to the idea of change. By contrast, Coburn says, "technology is widely hated by its users," because ordinary folk loathe change. Therefore, any new artifact, no matter how much its various features might appeal to technologists, will always be rejected by its intended customers unless "the pain in moving to a new technology is lower than the pain of staying in the status quo."
Or in Pip's geeky formulation:
The Change Function = f (perceived crisis vs. total perceived pain of adoption).
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http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16816&ch=infotech




from digg.com

app103:
Like my dad said...
Necessity is the mother of invention...
and laziness is it's father.

If you can come up with something lazy people need in order to be more lazy (and yes, we are ALL lazy at heart), and it doesn't require work to use it to be lazier than they already are (it would defeat the purpose if it required work), then it will be successful.

Or if the laziness payoff GREATLY exceeds the work it takes to use it or learn to use it.

laziness payoff - work = new technology's odds of success

And don't forget the cost factor...every $ represents work, too....you had to work to earn it.

Consider the automobile...much less work than walking and carrying your stuff from point A to point B...and much less work than caring for a horse. It was destined to become a success.  :Thmbsup:


The only other way past the above rule would be to sell your idea to big business and convince them that they need it and that it will save or earn them money, and then rely upon them to force the rest of the world to learn it and use it.

Considering the cost of a computer and what it takes to become computer literate, do you think the majority of us would own one, or even know how to use one, had we not been forced to at some point either by our jobs or by schools? (I said 'majority' because I know there are some real sickos out there that would have done it any way just for fun. :P)

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