From: Tom Sweetnam (savamutt@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Sep 10 2000 - 13:45:34 PDT
"If you don't understand why it is better, it must be worse."
>Another great leap of logic that doesn't lead to wisdom.
>
>....Roy
The problem with great technology in a free market world, is that it must
run the gauntlet of Madison Avenue before it means much of anything to a
broader customer base. Too many engineers still live by the maxim that
building a better mouse trap invites the world to beat a path to one's door.
Well surprise, surprise. The world doesn't. As a matter of fact, in spite
our disposable consumer-culture ethos, when you get right down to it, people
are very reluctant to accept any kind of change to their material comfort
zones, technological or otherwise, and that mindset applies as much to
American business as to the American consumer.
Products or innovations generally succeed in our society because some
marketing guru's hyperbole was successful in creating a NEED in the minds of
a target audience. Whether that need is legitimate or nebulous matters not,
just so long as the need is established. Unfortunately however, engineers
and marketing executives are losing ground to corporate legal departments as
final arbiter in what technology goes to market and what technology doesn't.
Potential litigation has become the determining dynamic in the application
of technological innovation today. Don't blame the trial lawyers for this
development. Corporate America created a very legitimate need in this
particular venue, and our law schools couldn't churn out product fast
enough.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Sep 10 2000 - 13:50:20 PDT