

Who Says Innovation Belongs to the Small? - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/business/24unboxed.html?hpw

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jamiequint
This article is full of fallacies. First, it would help if the author had
actually read "The Innovators Dilemma" If he had, he would have understood
that Christensen never says that innovation is limited to small players, but
only that disruptive innovation is best tackled by small players, whereas
continuous innovation is a strength of large companies. (Disruptive innovation
is characterized by Christensen as an initially small market with a different
customer base than is satisfied by the mainstream players.)

All the infrastructure changes mentioned by the author of this article should
be categorized as continuous innovation, improvements to existing systems,
upgrades that serve the same customer base. (e.g. Improving existing energy
and healthcare infrastructure)

Then of course is the ridiculous quote

"To be competitive in Internet search and some other Web services, which cater
to hundreds of millions of users worldwide, a company must build data centers
of gargantuan size, and only a handful of companies can design and afford
them"

However, the winning search company did not start out of Microsoft or any
other gargantuan company, it started as a startup then grew into Google.

~~~
rfreytag
I came here to also disagree with the article. You -just- beat me to it and
for similar reasons.

One key mistake the author of this article made is how vast is an economy of
potential collaborators versus the limited number of people extant within one
company. And being in the same company is no guarantee that you will be
motivated or -allowed- to be motivated to work to a shared goal. That last
point is particularly addressed in "The Innovator's Dilemma." Large businesses
got large by being very good at focusing on an established goal. A new goal is
particularly unwelcome.

I wonder what Clayton Christensen would make of Apple (Apple II->Mac, MacOS <6
-> System X OS, iPod [where did that come from to become a huge share of
revenues?], iPhone). Steve Jobs seems to have been innovating despite what
Clayton writes. I still think Clayton is right but how does Steve Jobs do it
over and over?

~~~
mediaman
I don't think Christensen claims that big companies _can't_ generate
disruptive innovation, only that there are immense organizational forces that
gear it toward incremental improvements rather than disruptive improvements.

The exceptions seem to occur with exceptionally headstrong CEOs who can see
beyond who the existing customer is, and create products for markets that
don't yet exist (or are at least immature). Jobs is an example of that. The
problem is that headstrong CEOs with a fantastic ear for future markets are
not a systemic business solution, or else there would be many more examples.

And there's a more specific problem here. That Apple currently has a CEO like
it does is due to a historical artifact. Had Jobs not been a co-founder of
Apple, would he have been brought in as CEO? If not, would Apple's board have
brought someone in similar to him? It's unlikely -- usually the top candidate
is the "safe" hire who has demonstrated immense leadership in incremental
business domination, not the rough radical. Eventually, Jobs will retire or
pass away, and that historical artifact will no longer be relevant -- and the
immense organizational forces Christensen describes will begin their work on
Apple.

~~~
gruseom
_I don't think Christensen claims that big companies can't generate disruptive
innovation_

In fact, he expresses the hope that his book will make it possible for them to
do so. I distinctly remember going "What?!" when I read that. Who, besides a
few big companies who would then monopolize the world, would want that?
Luckily it's a fantasy.

------
gruseom
How's this for a one-sentence conflict-of-interest?

 _"These days, more than ever, size matters in the innovation game," said John
Kao, a former professor at the Harvard business school and an innovation
consultant to governments and corporations._

