Smashing Paradigms - are you in, or out:
Thomas S. Kuhn, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, wrote of how scientists and researchers approach a problem from a specific paradigm, how they deal with information that doesn't fit that paradigm, and the impact their ability to change their paradigm based on new information has on breakthroughs in the scientific community. The reaction of many to new information that doesn't fit their paradigm, Kuhn found, is to ignore it. Others try to force new information to fit their paradigm, even if it doesn't fit. A minority let new information re-define their paradigms, and its usually that minority that achieve the breakthroughs in scientific research.
Read into this what you would like, but (IMHO) what Iomega is doing is not putting a new twist on an old paradigm for storing information, they are smashing the paradigm for how people have been trained to deal with all their computing stuff -- they were obviously in the minority. That is what optical manufacturers, SyQuest, flopticide followers, and even Seagate may choose to never understand as they develop their products. They're focus is product centric, delivering leapfrog speeds and feeds products but not really being customer centric (To qoute KE - "Giving the customers what they want, when they want it, at a price they can afford") - they are delivering on an old model or trying to fit information into their paradigms, even when it didn't fit (i.e. EZ135). To play in Iomega's game and achieve the success that Iomega has and will continue to have, they are going to need to shift their models for delivering products that the customer truly finds useful. Case in point, Novell in 1983 smashed a paradigm that lasted until the early 1990's when Netscape and now Microsoft (after two or three failures) came in and smashed Novell's paradigm model.
So, we can choose to listen to all the squawk talk that is based on the old paradigm, or we can choose to realize how fundamentally sound Iomega is and proceed with them during the smashing of this paradigm. How long it will last, who really knows -- but it's sure to provoke a response that in the near-term will only benefit Iomega and the ultimate customer.
Again this is my humble opinion, and I warn that I am an Iomega Idiot.
Long or short, you can decide how you want to deal with this new paradigm that Iomega has established.
trakker |
