Today, I wrote this entry on my other blog:
| . | 11:14 . . | Strategy as Tires: Explanations change. When you add a deeper layer, explanations become deeper long before that depth shows up in the classroom. | . |
Computing is done in layers. We usually program in a higher-level language. We might program in the assembly language for a specific microprocessor. The code in that higher-level language was translated into assembly language at the microprocessor-level. A program called a compiler takes care of that. Or, you wrote your program at the assembly level yourself.
Some engineers that design microprocessors work at the bit-slice level. This is where you define the components of the microprocessor. This level is still code. The next layer is physical or silicon.
This is historic. I have not worked at the silicon level. I have not worked at the firmware level. But, one of my bosses programmed at the bit-slice level. I programmed in various assembly and higher-level languages. I’ve written an SQL-based application. If I need it, it happens. But, do we still do bit-slice work? Probably not.
Technology moves on. It leaves layers behind. It leaves explanations, aka theories behind. And, all those cords and boxes, that hardware that piles up in our closets, the newest new, most amazing stuff back then, fades away.
As marketers, our role is to contextualize some new theory, some discontinuous innovation into a category, a company, a product, a market, an industry, and some economic wealth. Swap out some words like service and product, and eliminate the things that continuous innovation does not do, and you have arrived at where were we are today. We talk about our expectations of economic gains from innovations in its past discontinuous innovation days. But, we only do continuous innovation. And, we only do it for cash, not economic wealth.
We are working as marketers at a layer less deep.
Those layers of computing in my example turn up in other places as well. It turns up in math. I’m reading Elliptic Tales. I’ve watched some videos on pre-calculus algebra. Graphing has changed. If the numerator and the denominator of an equation have a common factor, you don’t just cross them out. You do the substitution and solve for the y-value. Then, you put a hole at that point at (x,y). Then you cross those two factors out.
That is working at the equation level. There is a group level under the equation. Then, there is the set level under the group. It is set-theoretic topology moves that hole from the set into the torus representing the equation. Layers. Deeper. Lateral.
Each of those layers started with the founding new theory, a discontinuous innovation. The old-new rhetorical approach works with continuous innovation, but the new-old rhetoric starts from scratch and builds a new ontology from scratch without regard to the existing ontology. Eventually, the new is rewritten so it makes sense to those being left behind by the new theory. That new theory is much older by that point.
Each layer had its own technology adoption lifecycle (TALC). Once a layer reaches the late mainstreet phase of its TALC, it enters the K-12 classroom. School mathematics is about 100 years behind university mathematics. Statistic is similar.
We like to think about the TALC as moving left to right over time. Maybe we should try turning it on its side so the B2B early adopter are just above the technical enthusiasts.
Here I have illustrated the layers as being adopted. One complication is that each carrier has its own zero layer. In the device phase, the telcos have their own zeros for their level of task sublimation, while their customers have a much simpler level of task sublimation. Each layer defines its own level of task sublimation’
I’ve divided the cloud phase into vertical application and horizontal applications. The cloud providers did that. Vertical applications were easier to migrate to the cloud, while the horizontal applications were much harder, or impossible to migrate. Those horizontal applications are being rewritten by the product-led growth companies to fit the SaaS paradigm.
The large black arrow is about the cannibalization of the IT horizontal phase resulting from the migration of the money from early mainstreet to the horizontal cloud. The white area in the early mainstret phase is the money lost to the cannibalization. This migration is also shown by the small black arrow. The TALC is changing shape. But, be warned here, the cloud is where the category goes to die. Quantum computing will have its own TALC. It will not be a continuous innovation.
The TALC, as shown in grey, represents the total addressable market. Growth means that you move across the TALC faster, but you only have so many prospects. Growth is short-term thinking.
I didn’t show was how task sublimation moves us down the market and how each layer defines its own place in the market. Task sublimation reduces the revenues, while increasing market size, but does not by itself, constitute a down market move. You are forced to go there. Sublimating the tasks delivered in an application means rewriting the application significantly.
While I drew this figure, the chasm problem presented itself. So I wanted to make the cham clear. There are the B2B early adopters. Their applications sell into their vertical. That is where Geoffrey Moore’s chasm happens. There are also B2C early adopters. That is where Malcom Gladwell’s chasm happens. In the former, you capture three degrees of separation from the early adopter, and engage in personal selling to the first two degrees. Sales reps hate the third degree. In the latter, it is just a matter of doing the typical product marketing approach. The latter prospects use media to learn their new technologies. These are apples and oranges. When marketers fail, it’s always the chasm. Discontinuous innovations face the chasm. Continuous innovations do not face the chasm.
Vertical markets have media so like Gladwell’s late mainstreeters, they are accessible via standard marketing approaches. But the market for the early adopter’s product visualization is limited to their competitors doing exactly same jobs to be done. They are on the same branch of the same subtree of the industry classification scheme. They do not have trade journals.
I have used the standard TALC here. The software mediated model might show the carrier and carried content layers more clearly. I left that to the two columns of numbers on the left. Every layer has is crossing the TALC at its own pace. VC’s want immediate returns, so we can hardly innovate these days. Billions might take twenty-five years. Yeah, VCs say no to that.
Taking a new layer to market, the discontinuous innovation involved will replace the underlying technology of existing jobs to be done. Still, it does the same jobs to be done that we are already doing. We were already doing SEM before the internet took over those jobs to be done. The new underlying constraints will have to be discovered for many years to come.
Enjoy!
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Product Strategist 