Liberal media sites often highlight the positive trend of solar and wind power. In contrast, Mr. Jenkins, a Wall Street Journal opinion columnist, concentrates his energy-related columns on the well-known flaw of solar and wind energy not being as reliable as fossil fuels. He suggests wind and solar will be niche energy sources. Jenkins is wrong. He has fallen into a trap called mistaken (and sometimes hidden) assumptions. Jenkins assumes the intermittency flaw is a constant. But battery technology is continually improving, and its use in power storage to solve the intermittency problem is spreading in many countries. Battery technology is advancing so quickly and effectively for automobiles that one can now reliably predict when petroleum-powered cars will become more costly to produce and run. No wonder Tesla is worth more than Toyota. There are always naysayers to change. The Kodak Board was…
4 Trends Reshaping Business Models as Everything Computes
“Today everything computes. Intelligence has been infused into things no one would recognize as computers: appliances, cars, roadways, clothes, even rivers and cornfields.” So begins an IBM Smarter Planet ad in the Wall Street Journal arguing that computing must get smarter to manage today’s wealth of data. This data is not your father’s data of computer bits and bites. It now includes tweets, visual images, videos, machine output, etc. In this new world, IBM argues, computing must be: Designed for new data streams Optimized and fine-tuned to specific user tasks Managed in cloud-based solutions that offer security and flexibility Major computer models don’t change often, IBM states. But when they do change they “unleash enormous productivity, innovation and economic growth,” capturing the conclusion of economists who study Kondratiev long economic cycles. Does your business model capitalize on a rising sea of data from…
A sad “Kodak moment” business model failure
Louis Pasteur — “Chance favors the prepared mind.” This quote motivated Bill Welter to co-author The Prepared Mind of a Leader: Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make Decisions, and Solve Problems (Jossey-Bass, 2006), a thoughtful leadership book. Bill’s also principal of Adaptive Strategies, a small business that specializes in the application of critical and strategic thinking for business through workshops, strategic thinking behavior programs and one-on-one coaching. And, as I write on the day after Steve Jobs’ sad passing, I am sure Bill would agree that Jobs modeled the attributes Bill wrote about. (See below.) From The Prepared Mind of the Leader Observing. Seeing beyond the obvious Reasoning. Moving from the known to the undetermined Imagining. Envisioning the future before it arrives Challenging. Pushing for higher and deeper thinking Deciding. Choosing with consequences in mind Learning. Keeping a developmental mindset Enabling. Exercising…
Market disruptions demand business model innovation
The 2008-2009 economic recession changed customer and business behaviors, not unlike how a hurricane reshapes the built and natural environment. If you are not incorporating recession-induced changes into your business model strategy, your market position will weaken. The Recession Has Changed Consumer Behavior – Forever A recent in-depth study of consumer attitudes and behaviors by Context-Based Research Group, an ethnographic research and consulting firm, adds to the growing evidence that consumers have changed for good. (Listen up B2B company leaders, because your customers will change along with these consumer changes.) Consumers, after living through needed financial downsizing or, for the wealthy, downplaying of wealth, have discovered there’s magic in less. According to the authors: “Our studies portray a society moving into an era where we measure the quality of our lives in social terms before economic ones. Forty-three percent of Americans believe the…