What We Can Learn from Competing Platforms

January 1 wasn't just the start of 2014. It was also the official death blow to Thomas Edison's legacy: On that day, U.S. federal energy efficiency rules barred to manufacture and import of traditional 40- and 60-watt incandescent bulbs.



We can all learn innovation and career lessons if we go back to the beginning: The Chicago World's Fair of 1893, dubbed The White City for its amazing architecture and its extensive use of street lights, signage and building lighting.



Page from my 1894 book:
The Magic City, Photographic Views of the 1893 Great World's Fair



The Battle of Direct vs. Alternating Current. General Electric, backed by Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan, proposed to power The White City with its direct current at a cost of $1.8 million. Westinghouse ultimately won the job for $339,000 with its alternating current technology, which we still use today. 

Lessons Learned: 1. Cost is usually (although not always) crucial to the adoption of new technologies. He who brings new stuff to market cheaper may not always win, but certainly has a better shot at viral growth. 2. While GE, as a company, won over the long-haul, they lost the war electric-current platform war in Chicago that year. This is why so many startups are shooting more for immediate customer adoption and less on profits. There is a long history of winning product wars by fighting for platform adoption.



Geeks Rule. Crucial to Westinghouse's winning bid was Reginald Fessenden, who was personally recruited by George Westinghouse and who would later become the Father of Radio Broadcasting — the first person to transmit voice by radio as part of his work for the U.S. Weather Bureau. His modifications to Edison's lightbulb design not only sidestepped Edison's patents, but also greatly reduced costs and increased lamp life. 

Lesson Learned: As Steve Jobs knew in the 1970s, first to invent may not matter. First to make things better is often most crucial. Edison invented the first long-lasting light-bulb. Fessenden just made it cheaper and last longer. Xerox PARC invented many of the technologies that went into to the first Macs, Jobs put them together in ways that no one ever had before.



Learning from History

1. The first few years of platform battles are always messy. The best technologies don't always win. The fight is always for fastest adoption.

2. First to make it better is often more important than first to invent.



The Big 'So What' for You:

1. The disruptions coming at you ain't gonna go away! Deal. Cope. Learn. Adapt. It's only gonna get messier and more crazy!

2. You don't have to be first or the best. But you do have to continuously take what others and have done, and make it better.