What Happens When the Second Innovation Wave Hits You?

by

Kodak_Kodakchrom_64_KB
Among the classic business stories of failures to innovate is the story of Kodak.  This excellent video about the fall of Kodak is fascinating.  We all know the story of the end of the once-glorious film company: they were too late to the digital game and they lost out, badly.  Frankly, until I watched the video, I didn’t even know they still existed.  It’s a cautionary tale about the inability to do something new.  In the intro, a voice-over clip plays saying, “What if somebody else would have been a little bit more innovative, or what if the board would have thought, ‘Let’s think a little bit farther out.’?”  You can hear the longing in his voice for an alternate outcome for Kodak.

Today, Kodak manufactures a small amount of high end film, but that isn’t the bulk of its business.  Now, it is more landlord than it is film manufacturer.  Various companies use the old film production buildings in Eastman Park to house their machinery . . . particularly for food packaging.  Today, in a place that once made camera bodies, they now package pasta sauce.

The overall tone of the video is a bit nostalgic and more than a little sad, but the saddest part is at the end—and it’s unintentional.  One of the bedraggled executives explains why he’s glad he jumped ship and went to the food and beverage facility where they pack food.  In the final quote of the video he says, “People gotta eat. It won’t be replaced by digital technology and that I like.”  He seems to say, “Thank God, now we don’t have to worry about innovating because people will always eat.”  Its hard to argue with.

But, people don’t have to buy jarred pasta sauce packed in Eastman Park.

In fact, it isn’t that hard to imagine the end of this kind of food packaging . . . At least of the kind that is currently happening in Eastman.  They may be hit again by something like this:  http://www.naturalmachines.com or this one:  http://www.cnet.com/products/xyzprinting-food-printer/

This wounded company is like so many others . . . They barely survived a first wave of technology innovation and are trying to get their footing.  But, innovation is relentless.  The next wave is coming.  People have to eat, but they don’t have to do it your way.

 

READ MORE

The Magic of Mortals

The Magic of Mortals

Daily we wake up to new developments in automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). Across sectors and industries, automated solutions prove highly successful in surpassing the capacity of the human brain for certain tasks, improving...

read more
Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leaders have been trying to crack the code on talent development for years. Recent studies have shown, however, that strength-focused leadership [read: intentionally elevating the qualities that already come naturally to us] is the clear winner for developing talent...

read more
Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

  Listen to any earnings call or executive presentation and you will likely hear the terms “top line” and “bottom line.” These are words used to describe a business’s performance. According to Investopedia, the words are defined as follows: Top line refers to the...

read more
Your Personality Is Showing

Your Personality Is Showing

There I was, minding my own business one evening, digging into my organization's SEO performance (as one does), when I came across something interesting. Search terms related to "MBTI" — or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel...

read more
Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Hello. My name is Monique, and I’m a change manager who hates change.   After years of receiving “consulting therapy” from various mentors, I am now able to say these words out loud and proudly. But for a long time, it felt more like an admission of guilt. I mean, who...

read more
Creativity as a Cure

Creativity as a Cure

The topic of creative solutioning has been front and center these days as we talk more and more about organizational adaptability in the face of dynamic and uncertain times. For example, I recently read about a project that got me thinking about specific priorities...

read more
Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Big news over here as we close out the year - we have been acquired by Pariveda, a 750-person consulting firm in 12 markets across North America! We are now “Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company” and I’ll be serving as the Managing Vice President continuing to lead...

read more
Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Dallas, December 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pariveda, a leader specializing in solving complex technology and business problems, announces the acquisition of Thought Ensemble. With the addition of Thought Ensemble, Pariveda now provides holistic business strategy,...

read more
Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

It was about a year ago that we first started hearing about Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB19-085) and I knew it was going to be national news. We’d just gotten past the “Rocky Mountain High” jokes, and our lovely state was trying to break new ground...

read more