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"Build it and they will come." Only for Kevin Costner, according to Pip Coburn, former Global Technology Strategist for investment house UBS. Dubbing all consumers "earthlings," Coburn reasons that most people will not adopt a new technology until the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived pain of trying to learn something new. Coburn has taken years of research notes and created a series of case studies about individual technologies to prove his theories of failure. Using quotes from Aristotle to Einstein, plus dozens from columnists of now defunct technology magazines, Coburn makes some interesting points about technologies that consumers, oops, sorry, "earthlings" care about, such as Internet phones, HDTV, and the iPod. But most readers will not know what an ASP is (application service provider) much less why they should care. Alpha chips, early interactive TV, picture phones from the 1960s, tablet PCs, and companies like Iridium and Webvan were probably of significant interest to Coburn's investors back in the day, but they do little now to engage any earthling's interest in why these technologies failed. Gail Whitcomb
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
The ultimate guide to predicting winners and losers in high technology
Pip Coburn became famous for writing some of the liveliest reports on Wall Street. He quoted everyone from Machiavelli to HAL, Anaïs Nin to Yoda, Einstein to Gandhi. But along with the quirky writing, he consistently delivered sharp insights into technology trends and helped investors pick stocks with long-term potential.
After years of studying countless winners and losers, Coburn has come up with a simple idea that explains why some technologies become huge hits (iPods, DVD players, Netflix), but others never reach more than a tiny audience (Segways, video phones, tablet PCs). He says that people are only willing to change when the pain of their current situation outweighs the perceived pain of trying something new.
In other words, technology demands a change in habits, and that’s the leading cause of failure for countless cool inventions. Too many tech companies believe in “build it and they will come”— build something better and people will beat a path to your door. But, as Coburn shows, most potential users are afraid of new technologies, and they need a really great reason to change.
The Change Function is an irreverent look at how this pattern plays out in countless sectors, from computers to cell phones to digital TV recorders. It will be an invaluable book for people who create and invest in new technologies.
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