OS/2 Shareware BBS: 8 Other/08-Other.zip/week_1.zip/momentum.txt

Text File | 1996-01-01 | 2KB | 45 lines

#: 69305 S20/Marketing OS/2 Apps
    24-Dec-95  14:50:22
Sb: #momentum
Fm: Jon Duringer[IdeaFa 71732,3361
To: Esther Schindler 72241,1417 (X)

Engineering events proceed in geologic time from a marketing perspective.  It
reminds me of an old TV show, "It Takes A Thief", where the main character
could swallow a pill that would dilate his experience of time.  In the typical
sequence, the thief would swallow the pill.  Then he would calmly walk into a
famous museum, break into a display case, and calmly walk out with the worlds
biggest diamond (you get the idea).  All of this would occur in what, for the
guards, was a split second.

How can a company maintain momentum when customer involvement is critical to
product development while the latter takes place in geologic time?

There is 1 Reply.


#: 69318 S20/Marketing OS/2 Apps
    24-Dec-95  20:06:30
Sb: #69305-momentum
Fm: Esther Schindler [EXEC] 72241,1417
To: Jon Duringer[IdeaFa 71732,3361 (X)

Ah, but you see, marketing does *not* take place in geologic time. It never
really did, but online services (where you'll find the majority of early
adopters for computer software) speed it up considerably. Can you say, "Intel
Pentium bug?" Sure you can.

Marketing doesn't happen at the same speed of a compile, though. Nor should
it. You have to be in tune with the rhythms of your market in order to
communicate with them... less like the It Takes A Thief pill than the old Star
Trek episode in which Kirk is zoomed up to live at 100 times the normal rate.
To the crew, it sounded like a mosquito buzzing; to Kirk and the aliens who
grabbed him, everyone else was frozen in time. Yet both were proceeding at a
normal pace -- normal for THEM.

You have to learn to change your own sense of timing depending on what you're
doing.

--Esther