Early Innovators / Pre-Emptive Laggards

What do you call someone for whom it's possible to be such an early innovator that they no longer are attracted to early ship-cycle products because their purchase simply defeats the motivation of innovation or traditional early adoption?

As an innovator / early adopter (actually, I was one of the very first ever people to be classified in this category) in the age of accelerated frequency tech product lifecycles, the terms are arguably no longer valid since current periods of early adoption are so short (or non existent), that what was the early majority phase has now shifted closer to product launch and now occupies what was the early adopter phase, pushing traditional early adopters backwards to the innovation phase and the poor old innovators are pushed even further back beyond to period prior to actual product release. Which kinda makes us either redundant or, at best, beta testers.

Which is fine when you're beta testing free things like Flickr. But it's a bitch when you have to pay for the priviledge of owning a piece of tech that's obslolete inside of four months. With bell curve frequencies going off the scale, gone are the days when tech lifecyle bell curves could guarantee early adoption cycles in months or even years.

For example, PDA's slowly evolved through the innovator adopter period for about 15 years before they finally hit the early adopter market.

Which is probably why I'm resisting my pangs to purchase an nice big LCD TV, and instead I'm happily tolerating the 32" widescreen conventional CRT TV I've had for 8 years now. I'd like an LCD TV but realise that it's such a volatile stage in the development of these products that tomorrow's (literally, tomorrow) models will be five times better and three times cheaper than today's.

So, the real LCD TV I really want to buy hasn't been invented yet, and until it does, I'm staying put.

So, I suppose that makes me such an early innovator that I've looped right around back on myself and I'm now conciously motivated to be in the laggard category. But in this context I'm clearly not a real laggard in the original Geoffrey Moore - Crossing The Chasm adoption cycle sense of the meaning. You could argue, I concede, that I'm not a true innovator and just more of a money minded early adopter.

But whichever category I'm now in, I ain't buying anything. Yet.

He Is Reason

I'm sure I've blogged about this many times, but perhaps not so much recently.

The book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, fundamentally inspired, alerted, awoke, challenged, awed, taught and elegantly dragged me by the earlobe to a simple but profound appreciation of the chronic dysfunction that had infected (and largely still does) much of what passed for enterprise in the age of today's emerging web connected markets. The book was born in the middle of the ill fated dotcom but much of it still resonates 5 years later.

I'm sometimes uneasy about heaping such voluminous praise, as I have heaped on the individuals behind the book in the past, for fear of characterising the kind of fanaticism associated with cult followings.

But so all encompassing is the subject matter of the book - for this writer anyway - it is hard for me to ignore the extent of its expansive applicability, whether to me as a consumer or as a businessperson. Basically, for me it ticked multiple boxes under the heading of Personal Relevance.

During my own dotcom dysfunctional episode (the company I'm now (safely) running was taken over by a lunatic dotcom business in early 2000) and during some very dark days, I sought refuge in the basic fundamental common sense that can be found scrawled over the essence of its 95 theses. At the time I sent the text of Chapter 1 to several colleagues under the heading, Salvation Lies Within. And still today, the tone, manner and basic human voice which is now evident in my 'all staff emails', my meetings and discussions with collegaues and customers, and anyone else for that matter, owes a great deal to my reading Cluetrain.

After reading the book, I duly signed up to the email discussion list and over the course of 2000 and 2001, I took part - mostly lurking, sometimes sticking my head above water - in some fascinating discussions. The now dead Cluetrain list provided a useful pre-blog era medium to discuss the implications of both what the book covered and the many follow-on debates it inspired.

--In a probably futile attempt to cut an already long rambling story short...

Chris Locke, co-author and pre-eminent bedfellow (in the Morecambe & Wise sense) of RageBoy, his altar-ego (no, really) - for various reasons, not least the violent allergic reaction experienced by the global business community immediately post 9/11 which, fatefully for Chris, also co-incided with the release of his Cluetrain follow-up, magnum opus (not P.I.) Gonzo Marketing - Winning Through Worst Practices and failing personal relationships to name but two) found himself cut adrift just when he could (or, indeed, should) have been kicking assess and taking names.

****Hi Chris?, Mr FUBAR is here for your eleven o'clock and is waiting for you in reception.***

It was around that time, as subscriber to his EGR e-zine, I followed the chance to meet up with him back in 2002 when he was in London on a business trip. We had an albeit foreshortened blast. Plus some expensive steak sandwiches courtesy of the BBC.

...See, I said it would be futile--

Fast forward to today and just as the post dotcom drying-out period is drawing to a close and people are beginning to get their senses back - to paraphrase Tom Peters! who approximately said something like "...I believe that there was a problem with the hype surrounding the internet. And I believe that the problem with the hype surrounding the internet is that IT DIDN'T GO ANYWHERE NEAR FAR ENOUGH.", or thereabouts - Mr Locke with RageBoy in tow, displays such stupendous timing as to show his face round these parts once more. (he never really actually completely entirely disappeared, mostly managing to keep the home fires burning through his darkest days on his EGR blog)

OK, enough of the structured grouped random letter evoking meaning things.

Basically, what I'm saying is; Locke is 'back on the blocke. Please subscribe to EGR and C.B.O. and slice off a slither of your precious attention and pass it his way. You absolutely won't regret it.

And if you stay awake and pay attention at the back of the class, neither will your bank manager. Plus you might get some hot chick action.

The Karaoke Economy

The McDonalds corporation doesn't sell pre-prepared Big Mac's in the chest freezers of Walmart, Tesco and other big superstores. A home prepared, microwaved Big Mac just wouldn't be a Big Mac, they'd argue. And if they could capture the true Big Mac experience at home, then people would stop going to the restaurants. Or so they fear.

But why don't they sell the raw materials and ingredients of their fast food products in superstores, together with preparation instructions? Probably for the same reason, but in the same vein as my earlier post about faking markets, the notion of a karaoke brand and economy seems to work pretty well when it comes to music.

And just because poor old Frank Sinatra gets murdered a thousand times a night in pubs and clubs all over the world, doesn't seem to do his brand or his music sales any harm. The same could be said for baaad performances of Romeo & Juliet in some backwater theatre in Townsville, population 415. Or book club readings.

So, why does this apply to music, stage plays and other performing arts, but not to traditional commodity items like food. Or clothing?

If someone released a supermarket frozen fast food line as a homage to (OK, blatant rip-off) McDonalds, perhaps called McRonalds and complete with the Mini-Mac (as an aside, I guess that's why Apple went for Mac Mini?), Chicken McNuglets and other too close for comfort tweaks of McD's trademarks, they'd get a home visit from a large curly, red haired lawyer in the early hours of the morning, with a painted on scowl instead of a smile.

Perhaps one day we will see McDonalds, Coke and other big brands reluctantly issuing home consumer licenses which carry heavy FBI warnings about NOT FOR RESALE and for personal consumption only.

Maybe it's only a matter of time before the 'secret recipie' for Coke is leaked into the public domain, cracked like DVD copy protection for all to emulate in the comfort of their own kitchens, with home-made Coke results indistinguishable from the Real Thing.