"Gourville’s rule of thumb states that one will underestimate the advantages of a new technology by a factor of 3 while simultaneously overestimating the disadvantages of giving up old technology by a factor of 3. This means that unless a new technology is ten times better at doing something it is unlikely to get accepted."
This, from the Wikinomics playbook, is an insight about barriers to change which I think broadly applies not just to technology but to change in any system or even model. And that includes media, advertising and marketing. We focus on the physical or financial costs of change, forgetting that it is often the emotional or psychological costs which are the most difficult to overcome but frequently overlooked. Loss aversion can mean that the sacrifice of losing the old feels more real, and is more visible, than the apparent benefit of the new. So the latter has to be both obvious and significant.
Networked models are disrupting existing models all over the place. The trouble with this new environment is that the changes required are significant (sometimes transformational) but the benefits are often not immediately obvious. All of which means that understanding this is one thing, but acting on it requires vision, courage, willingness to experiment, a singleminded but collaborative approach. In short, entrepreneurialism.
Related links:
John Gourville
Andy Groves 10x
Switching barriers
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