Hmm... I see a loop forming here.
I've always been concerned that standardization promotes technological stagnation, yet markets can't exist without a certain amount (usually a large amount) of standardization going on. Anybody remember the dot com boom? Extreme innovation. But markets always shake out and part of that shaking out process is that innovation suffers as consolidation takes place and major players emerge. Fortunately, I'm involved in pure and applied research. As I wrote earlier, I get paid to be imaginative now (lucky me!), and imagination is where innovation both exists and thrives.
And this brings us back to The Long Tail.
I think marketing's Long Tail is a little different than what most people recognize. Right now the major players (Google and Microsoft, for example) watch for innovation outside their own doors because it's the innovators that'll point the way to tomorrow's markets. The tip of marketing's long tail is innovation, what happens outside the bounds of standardization and existing markets. It's the rattle on the snake and marketers need to listen. A wrong step and you're a memory, but if you pay attention you can catch that snake and make it your friend.
» Quorum Sensing from BizMediaScience
Smart Mobs and Quorum Sensing: The same phenomenon at two ends of the scale? [Read More]
Tracked on: January 14, 2007 8:15 AM | Permalink to Trackback