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neilperkin

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Innovation Inertia

Why do some businesses just seem to stop innovating? Or at least open themselves up to being out-innovated by smart, agile competitors who are still hungry and foolish (in a good way) enough to prioritise new ideas highly?

I'm not one for Lazy End-ism, but this proclamation of the demise of Flickr makes some good points about an ongoing lack of product innovation and external focus at the site. Launched in 2004 and bought by Yahoo in 2005, the site now has over 5 billion photos on it but thinking about it, I find hard to remember the last big Flickr innovation I heard about. In fact I'm finding it hard to remember any big Flickr innovation.

Meanwhile, Facebook has overtaken it to become the world's biggest photo site, photo-sharing apps like Instagram are bringing new dimensions (and a lot of people in a short space of time) to photo-sharing, Google+ is rapidly becoming a serious potential competitor (the author draws a startling comparison between the look and feel of one his albums on Flickr (ostensibly unchanged since 2004), and a similar one on G+ which is already implementing new tools), and more questions seem to be focused around how to migrate photos to Picasa than the latest new Flickr feature.

The author points at an interesting scientific study (ironically tweeted out by Blake Irving who is in charge of Flickr at Yahoo) which concluded that when just 10% of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. If the most resolved 10% have already moved on, he says, then Flickr is already dead.

It's a little early to be calling the undertakers IMO, but we've all been witness to the rapid declines of once pioneering services acquired by larger corporates (MySpace, FriendsReunited, Bebo, Dopplr). It's easy for them to get caught up the system. A system that can stifle the kind of inventive culture they need to keep innovating and stay ahead. A system that, with a short-term focus on hitting the right quarterly number, can often lead to reactive rather than smart planning. Perhaps it's right that more businesses should be run by product-driven executives.

I like Flickr. I really hope they sort it out. But there is a lesson here about innovation inertia, and the need to stay hungry, and to stay foolish.

Thanks to Paloma for the original link.

10 responses to “Innovation Inertia”

  1. John Dodds Avatar
    John Dodds

    I’m not sure users crave constant innovation. That way lies backward incompatibility and featuritis.
    What they do want is the type of mind-set you rightly advocate, but one that is devoted to constant improvement and the user-centric confidence to eschew innovation for its own sake.
    ps A photo-sharing site was a very big innovation at the time. It still is. ;O)

    Reply
  2. John Dodds Avatar
    John Dodds

    I’m not sure users crave constant innovation. That way lies backward incompatibility and featuritis.
    What they do want is the type of mind-set you rightly advocate, but one that is devoted to constant improvement and the user-centric confidence to eschew innovation for its own sake.
    ps A photo-sharing site was a very big innovation at the time. It still is. ;O)

    Reply
  3. Ramzi Yakob Avatar
    Ramzi Yakob

    A business doesn’t innovate. People do.
    When Flickr was sold to Yahoo!, the people who cared about the product previously, stopped caring. They got rich, lost totalitarian control of the product and had little incentive to keep caring.
    Yahoo! couldn’t innovate its way out of a paper bag.
    Where would the innovation come from? Yahoo! engineers who are constantly in fear of getting fired or are simply just getting better jobs elsewhere?
    Flickr is a victim of its own early success, just like MySpace and countless other tech startups.
    Build product – get audience – sell – live on a beach for the rest of your life / go work on a new tech startup.
    Few businesses have the culture needed to maintain innovation in the same building for long periods of time. Those cultures tend to be spearheaded by single minded & dedicated leaders – and any business that has one we already know by name. Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry, Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh are names synonymous with innovation.
    What stops them selling and keeps them focused? Personal characteristics that can’t be traded like a commodity. Good on them too. I’d probably opt for the ‘live on a beach’ alternative if I was in that position.

    Reply
  4. Ramzi Yakob Avatar
    Ramzi Yakob

    A business doesn’t innovate. People do.
    When Flickr was sold to Yahoo!, the people who cared about the product previously, stopped caring. They got rich, lost totalitarian control of the product and had little incentive to keep caring.
    Yahoo! couldn’t innovate its way out of a paper bag.
    Where would the innovation come from? Yahoo! engineers who are constantly in fear of getting fired or are simply just getting better jobs elsewhere?
    Flickr is a victim of its own early success, just like MySpace and countless other tech startups.
    Build product – get audience – sell – live on a beach for the rest of your life / go work on a new tech startup.
    Few businesses have the culture needed to maintain innovation in the same building for long periods of time. Those cultures tend to be spearheaded by single minded & dedicated leaders – and any business that has one we already know by name. Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry, Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh are names synonymous with innovation.
    What stops them selling and keeps them focused? Personal characteristics that can’t be traded like a commodity. Good on them too. I’d probably opt for the ‘live on a beach’ alternative if I was in that position.

    Reply
  5. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    There are some good points, but the article is tainted by the (valid)comment that the article is based on speaking to Google employees at a Google event.
    Picasa is still a way off of Flickr (collections, creative commons labelling, search etc) but the momentum does appear to be with them.

    Reply
  6. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    There are some good points, but the article is tainted by the (valid)comment that the article is based on speaking to Google employees at a Google event.
    Picasa is still a way off of Flickr (collections, creative commons labelling, search etc) but the momentum does appear to be with them.

    Reply
  7. neilperkin Avatar
    neilperkin

    @John agreed, innovation for innovation’s sake makes no sense
    @Simon trust a researcher to point that out ;-). Thinks it makes some valid points though – really hoping, like I say, that Flickr doesn’t go the way of MySpace et al

    Reply
  8. neilperkin Avatar
    neilperkin

    @John agreed, innovation for innovation’s sake makes no sense
    @Simon trust a researcher to point that out ;-). Thinks it makes some valid points though – really hoping, like I say, that Flickr doesn’t go the way of MySpace et al

    Reply
  9. gemma Avatar
    gemma

    It’s not just flickr – in the UK smile (bank) is probably worse. I’ve banked with them for 10+ years and I swear what I see when I log in hasn’t changed / improved in all that time.
    On the other hand, I’m not sure exactly how hungry or foolish I want my bank to be…

    Reply
  10. gemma Avatar
    gemma

    It’s not just flickr – in the UK smile (bank) is probably worse. I’ve banked with them for 10+ years and I swear what I see when I log in hasn’t changed / improved in all that time.
    On the other hand, I’m not sure exactly how hungry or foolish I want *my bank* to be…

    Reply

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