

Stifling Innovation - johnl
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_04/b4164080555772.htm?chan=magazine+channel_business+views

======
elblanco
One of the examples of innovation here was in banking -- I'll get back to this
in a second.

The problem with innovating is that it's a very Darwinian process, more
attempts to innovate fail than succeed -- the risk level is thus very high. An
animal is more likely to ensure survival doing what it knows than trying
something new. Similarly, an organization will generally tend to continue
plodding along as-is instead of innovating -- unless there are sufficient
external pressures to force it to want to try.

Apple is an interesting case study in this. They compete as a single company
against an enormous competitor, Wintel PCs. In order to survive they've had to
keep innovating...the status quo would not ensure survival any more than a
gazelle continuing to stand around (status quo) while being attacked by a lion
would survive. Instead it runs off and tries to make a go of it doing
something different.

In banking, it's all different. The risk to innovate is _much_ higher, and the
attacker is much slower. It's more like the gazelle is being attacked by a
giant sloth. It can stand around longer, doing gazelle stuff, and when the
sloth gets close enough to take a swipe, it simply walks a few steps away and
goes back to doing gazelle stuff. If the gazelle were to just run off as soon
as it spied the sloth, it would uselessly consume calories and eventually just
die of a heart attack...thus, it mostly just stands around.

So innovation in banking is _not_ the same as innovation in computing. It has
to be more conservative because it'll die of a heart attack. More importantly,
the analogy is only complete when we consider that the gazelle is also driving
_my_ brand new car. And if it peeled out every time it saw sloth it might end
up wrapped around a telephone pole. Sure it might die if it screws up my car,
it might survive, but most important to me is that the gazelle, in a fit of
innovational panic, broke my new car.

In other words, I really really don't want a bank screwing around and
innovating with _my_ money.

