Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

by Geoffrey A. Moore

To leave the chasm behind, there is a molting process that must occur, a change of company self, wherein we grow away from celebrating familial feelings and dashing individual performances and step toward rewarding predictable, orchestrated group dynamics. It is not a time to cease innovation or to sacrifice creativity. But there is a call to redirect that energy toward the concerns of a pragmatist’s value system instead of a visionary’s. It is not a time to forgo friendships and implement an authoritarian management regime. Indeed, management style is one of the few things that can remain constant during this period of transition. But there is a call to review and revalue the skills and instincts and talents that helped to build up a leadership in the early market in light of the new challenge of building leadership in the mainstream. And that call can and will test friendships and egos throughout the firm.