Why is it that most changes are marginal, but a few, like the Great Oxidation Event, are deeply disruptive? The answer is in asymmetry.When we think of competition, we usually picture symmetric competition. Trees compete on height for sunlight, businesses on price for customers. But you can only grow so tall, or lower prices so much. Competition... See more
Disruptive innovations don’t compete against incumbents, they compete with nonconsumption. They start where there is no competition, at the low-end of a market, or in a completely new market. What they offer is not better. It is different. It shifts the basis of competition.
In this age of digital cacophony dominated by these platforms, no one is looking out for you… but you. It makes perfect sense, then, when individuals tell me they want their website to do the job of “setting the record straight” on who they are and what they do.
The irony here is that to be technological is to be profoundly human. Humanity controls its fate by using tools and materials to survive and to self-realize. The human species developed by gradually accumulating complex, adaptive technologies passed on through cultural transmission, giving us essential tools. Not only does human life and survival... See more
To the extent that the web has been difficult to kill, it is because it is evolvable. The web started as a way for scientists to share papers, and then evolved into new niches, including e-commerce, wikis, flash games, blogs, web apps, streaming video, social media, office suites, chat apps, design tools... It keeps finding new fits, and changing... See more
I think that’s what’s required to build great websites and teach the next generation of web folk. Ultimately we need to unthink of these things as tools for developers and see them for what they really are; a playground, a wellspring, for making websites.