Broadband and Me

Echoing

Seth's Blog: One more thought about the echo chamber

If you're defining yourself and your business in terms of your competition, you're living in the echo chamber. Companies and organizations don't grow fast at the expense of existing competitors. They grow fast for reasons that have nothing whatever to do with whether your service is 5% better or your product is a little more convenient.

You don't beat McKinsey with better consulting advice, you don't raise more money than the United Way by spending it more efficiently, and you don't sell more widgets with a slightly longer guarantee.

Seth putting the case for innovation and (I think) against the pervidious benchmarking. Unfortunately, it seems, that benchmarking or 'defining your business in terms of your competitors' is what a large part of the corporate world seems to do and seems to expect.

" I've just come up with this great innovation" says Em ployee. "Ah.. but what are our competitors doing? Do they have one?", Mr Boss asks. "Well... No, its a brand new idea we've developed.", Em replies. "Then 'no takers' here I'm afraid. Need to benchmark against the competition, let them make the first move..."

Sound familiar?