Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo, WAS: Re: [tlug] Embedded linux dev wanting to find work in Tokyo.. Seeking advice.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:

 > I think the point is not really even about the failure of products per
 > se, but rather disruptive innovations making products effectively
 > obsolete.

No.  All successful innovations make other products obsolete.

Christensen's point is to distinguish between the *sustaining*
innovations which allow you to serve your best customers better as you
obsolete their current favorite products, and *disruptive*
innovations, which require allocating resources *away* from your best
customers' needs while obsoleting their favorite products.  Note that
those are the *definitions* of "sustaining" and "disruptive".  A
sustaining innovation may require accepting great risk of failure
along with a large investment.  A disruptive innovation may be
relatively cheap and straightforward.  Doesn't matter.  All that
matters is whether the innovation serves your best customers: yes,
implying it's sustaining, or no, which means it's disruptive.

Incumbents, even if late comers, normally win the markets where
sustaining innovations occur.  Incumbents, even if they invented the
new technology, normally lose the markets where disruptive innovations
occur.

 > So it is a failure of planning and business models, not of engineering.

True.

 > Now if you have a firm that is constantly working on potentially
 > disruptive innovations like Google,

Google's engineers claim to be in a company with effectively no first-
level managers, only engineers.  That organization may be able to
manage disruptive innovation, but only by not managing it.  Leave
Google out of it.

 > I hope that other big tech companies have figured that out. *ahem*

Nobody really has a handle on it yet.  Andy Carnegie may have had it
right, but he's dead.  Hewlett-Packard is doing some interesting
things, as is IBM, but we don't know what the pudding tastes like yet.