The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "We've all heard it before: "Build it and they will come..." (more)
Key Phrases: user crisis, tech ecosystem, technology ecosystem, Moore's Law, New York, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

"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
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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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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; illustrated edition edition (June 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841321
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841326
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #502,182 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comparing the level of Crisis of need versus the Total Perceived Pain of Adoption that your customer feels, July 7, 2006

By	Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

I didn't think I would like this book much. If the author really had the secret truth behind success and failure of technologies he should be a billionaire rather than an analyst or an author. However, after I started reading I realized that the author was really providing a kind of primer for those considering the actual market viability of making a product / service using technology and a way for people considering investments in technology a tool for measuring the possibilities for success.

He begins by describing the traditional view of technology products using Moore's Law and Grove's law. They are traditional and well understood. With Moore's law the secret is increasing power while lowering cost and you get to a tipping point of acceptance. Grove's law is that if you provide an order of magnitude in improvement (10x) you can replace in incumbent technology. While these are good yardsticks, they can lead to technologies used in products with no markets. You know, the old mousetrap being sold in a world with no mice.

Instead, to get the focus shifted to market place realities, the author, Pip Coburn, offers what he calls the Change Function. Basically, you have to look at the Crisis the product / service addresses for the customer versus the Total Perceived Pain of Adoption. Until the Total Perceived Pain of Adoption (TPPA) becomes significantly less than the Crisis, you will not be adopted in the marketplace and cannot succeed. I think this is a good way to look at thinks. However, I would do that in addition to Grove's law. I still think it is a fundamental measure of the kind of difference their needs to be between the Crisis and TPPA.

The author takes us through a variety of winners and losers and even makes some predictions (i.e. he likes Satellite Radio and hates RFID as just two examples). And he provides a chapter with many sets of questions that should be asked of any technology product thinking about entering the marketplace before gobs of money are wasted. I like this section a lot. Even if you only find a couple of questions you hadn't explicitly answered for yourself, it can help you avoid fuzzy thinking about where that last land mine could be that will blow your feet off after you start your journey into market competition. That is a good thing!

So, if you are a technology buff and thinking about a business for your technology, this is a great book to help you take the blinders off and see the actual market possibilities rather than the gee-whiz-this-is-cool-stuff attitude that can sink your business before it ever goes anywhere.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that transcends its title, July 3, 2006

By	Michael P. Maslanka (dallas, texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Don't let the title fool you: this is a book all who persuade for a living need to read and embrace. The Big Idea: it's not the service that matters but whether the customer or client is ready to adopt what you're selling. The status quo bias will prevail until a crisis driven client needs the service you are selling and the pain of adoption is lowered to the point where the bias does not block the change. A simple but elegant idea that he talks about with lots of examples.The last three chapters help you integrate his ideas with a case study, questions to ask to see if someone is customer centric or self centered, and a To Do list to become the first and not the second. The writing is direct("earthlings do not want to learn, nor do they enjoy learning"), peppered with interesting quotes and charts, and ends at 213 pages. Let me stress the 213---so many books are really fattened up articles, and this one is not. As Coburn might say, the crisis of not knowing his message is high(we need to know why people do what they do), and the perceived pain of adoption is low(a weeekend spent reading the book).

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very one sided hype, July 22, 2006

By	E. Berta - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book felt like hype for Pip Coburn's investments. It contradicts itself in numerous places and its examples are sketchy on details and facts. For instance, cost is rarely even a factor and that's the magic of the "change function", but in chapter 4 it seems to be a significant factor in the failure of Iridium/Globalstar. His hyping of satellite radio was very one sided. He mentioned none of the reasons many investors already consider it a failure- if you want customized music just buy an ipod, the most important 20-30 year old demographic can't afford brand new cars with XM and have a "free music" mentality, and the infrastructure costs with satellites combined with still needing ground antennas makes it uncompetitively expensive. Intel did not give up on MHz increases because customers did not care. They gave up because they are hitting technology limitations as silicon approaches the limits that physics will allow. Salesforce.com is mentioned practically in every chapter as a godsend example of a great company, yet I can easily apply Coburn style methods to counter this enthusiasm. My biggest disappointment was this one sided analysis throughout the whole book.