Next Generation Growth

I'm here at the Harvard Business School Publishing Next Generation Growth Conference. Lucky for you, Dan Gillmor is immediately to my left working his usual magic. Kevin Marks is right next door, and Robert Scoble is to my right, and Dave Winer is one table over. Clay Christensen is up, talking about voice recognition, and how it was such a huge step backward when these products were released, for people who already were great typists. Theme is innovation and competing against consumption vs. competing against nonconsumption. Example:

Digital cameras: In order to make them attracitive, they have to be so feature rich they're only affordable to people who already have cameras. Ergo, no more film sales. And he's not impressed with the options provided by photo editing; red eye fixing and online photo albums. Business plan is predicated on customers doing something differently in the future than they do it now; bad idea. The "killer app" makes it easier for customers to do things they already do.

Question from audience asks about offering a financial upside and stock options to the work force. Not necessarily a must because of the strong pull of working in innovative areas.

Please see my colleagues' pages re the rest of Clay Christensen; I've been spacing and getting settled. Next up, Randy Komisar, Chris Zook, Scott Cook and Dick Foster.