New tech must consider tolerance for change

Michael is posting his reactions to Pip Coburn’s book, The Change Function on LibraryCrunch.

He posts that:

Successful companies must look to their users and find out what they want. But the current technology industry, Coburn argues, is supplier-centric. They don’t look to their users and try to find incremental improvements that users are willing to adopt on a large scale. Instead, most technology companies look for the big kill, the huge product that will “revolutionize” they way people do something. Unfortunately, as Coburn points out, users don’t always want a revolutionary new do-everything satellite-enabled-PDA-talking-phone, sometimes they just want an easier to use mobile phone.

I agree that too many developers and tech start ups are looking for the "next big thing" — after all that is where fame and fortune lies!

However, the develpers are not the only ones looking for the "next big thing". Their financial backers may also have this short sighted view.

On the other side of the table are the organizational purchasers who are not always aware of what their users need. This is true, whether they call their users staff, employees, patrons, clients, or customers. Too many organizations do not know their end users well enough and instead get what they think will be "cutting edge", assuming that is better. There are quite a few business articles that try to warn the business executives away from buying the "shiny new toy" that is really a solution looking for a problem. Thus, to be fair, perhaps the tech companies are responding to the market.