Analog Man: Technology Squared

 

Old technology: Marketing posted the focus-group questions on the corkboard. "What do you look for when you are buying a new wheel: innovation, design, safety, traction? What brands of wheel have you tried? If you could change one thing about your present wheel, what would it be?"

A saleswoman typed an anonymous note: "We tried the square wheel five years ago. A disaster. Ninety percent were returned because they wouldn't roll." Case closed.

New technology: As above, except the focus-group questions are posted as a workgroup document. Marketing sends an E-mail to MIS: "Do we still have the names of the nonreturners on the square-wheel campaign of five years ago? We could use them as beta testers for the new square wheel."

On the internal electronic bulletin board, marketing posts a draft of talking points for the venture capitalists: "We have sold rollers, and we have sold wheels on axles. Now we are leapfrogging our competition with the third-generation wheel." The brand-new head of R&D adds, "We have to remember that we aren't in the wheel business; we are in the business of solutions."

A young woman on the 800 line posts a comment: "I used to work for a company that switched to selling solutions about a year before it went bankrupt. Maybe we should stick with the wheel business." Unfortunately, a network crash removes the part of memory carrying her comment. Dave and Christine are certain they can retrieve the lost stuff by next week. Of course, reposting the note will only produce filename conflicts when they do.

Common sense thus bypassed, the focus groups are conducted using wheel owners under 7 in Cincinnati ("a very typical area for the youth wheel market") and non-wheel owners over 70 in Florida ("the most rapidly growing segment of the nonowner market").

Old technology: The head of marketing took home a set of prototype square wheels, installed them on her car, and couldn't get to the office ever again. Case closed.

New technology: All employees get an E-mail from the president, informing them that they are alpha testers for the new, third-generation square wheel. Dave and Christine take a day away from the help desk to install the alpha-test wheels on every bicycle and car in the parking lot.

No one can go anywhere, not even to call on customers. But that's OK with top management because all existing business has been put into maintenance mode so everyone can dedicate his or her time to the square-wheel project. Code name: "George."

Engineering is working round the clock on the noise problem, the wear problem, and the excess-traction problem.

The head of marketing logs onto the network from home and reports on a joint announcement with highway-safety groups. The financial officer has been faxing furiously back and forth to Japanese investors who want to develop conveyor belts made of square wheels -- but only for the U.S. market. Still, a great lead.

Dave and Christine drive slowly home on sets of octagonal wheels they hacked out over the weekend.

Old technology: There was a final fail-safe mechanism: if, somehow, the square wheel went to market, the few that were sold would have led to large liability suits. The company would have gone out of business, and not one person who'd worked there would ever have gotten another job unless he or she claimed to have been in federal prison during the years spent working at our company. The square-wheel story would have been written up in business magazines and discussed in business schools. It would have become proverbial. Case closed.

New technology: Rumors that we are working on something big spread via the Internet. The network modems haven't worked in months, so none of us notices the rumors. A multinational telecommunications company acquires our little wheel works. The press release notes that with our technology and its distribution system, dial-up interactive square wheels will be in half the homes in the United States in 10 years.

A year passes. New bosses from the telecommunications company hope to reinvent the roller because people want to move 100-ton pagan idols again, focus groups suggest. But suddenly our division is closed in a downsizing move. Within six months, every one of us is working at double our old salary for International Pyramid, which wanted our roller expertise. It even brings in our old head of marketing (now a consultant with a best-selling book called, of course, Reinventing the Wheel) to run a very inspirational workshop, after which someone suggests that a squared-off roller would be safer than a round one for moving 100-ton pagan idols and other large loads.

Fortunately, all internal communication here is done on carved stone tablets, so people have to think twice before they pick up hammer and chisel. The circle, note the analog types, is unbroken.

* * *

Moe Meyerson is a manager in a company that serves a market so immature, it won't listen to a word he says.

 PREV  1 | 2 

Read more:

  • 9 Most Common Start-up Mistakes
  • Accelerator vs. Incubator: What's the Difference?
  • How Pinterest Really Makes Money

    • Sign-up for our Technology Newsletter