Strategy as Tires: Strategy as Tires: I started this morning reading a bit more of Barbara Oakley’s A Mind for Numbers. In endnote 8 of chapter 2, she cites Terrence Deacon’sThe Symbolic Species in a discussion of what Oakley is calling the encryption/decryption problem of mathematics. .
8:08 . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Terrence Deacon shocked me with his “Differentiation is effectively recursive division, and integration is effectively recursive multiplication ….” Yes, shocked. No calculus teacher ever said that. .
8:11 . . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Deacon continues with “… carried out indefinitely, i.e. to infinitesimal values (which is possible because they depend on convergent series, ….” Yes, still getting over the shock, I will now and forever see convergence as the end of a parse, a recursive parse, or the boundary, the constraint, on the recursion. .
8:13 . . .
Strategy as Tires: In yesterday’s post on the Product Strategist blog, Intersection, I wrote about encryption before I read Oakley’s endnote. .
8:15 . . . . . . . . . . .
All of mathematics is a matter of parsing, parsing a realization from some particular point of view while looking at a particular representation. Parsing is based on a taxonomy. That taxonomy is based on the realization of an ontology. That taxonomy is only possible after the discontinuous innovation that gave rise to a new onton, or added that new onton to the tree that is that ontology. That taxonomy is the basis for the parser of the realization of that ontology’s point of view. The new onton, or sortable is realized in a new taxon in the taxonomy’s tree. .
8:16 . . . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: I remember my recursive COBOL, my professor was all structured programming, so she hated it. My program had a logic error in it. It was easily corrected. In an ordinary loop, you do n iterations and knowing the n you want to stop at, you do so. In a recursive loop, you don’t use an n, instead you stop when you hit the loop invariant—very old news for a lisp programer. .
8:18 . . . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Our corporation is built on Moore’s parse of the technology adoption lifecycle (TALC). We are a recursion. Our addressable markets have fixed sizes, some n0, n1, n2, …. They are finite. Never lose sight of your n. Growth can be such a dust storm. When you sell too far, or too fast, you get lost in that dust storm. The TALC is an asynchronous clock. Beware. Missed quarters, dead companies, an antitrust violations happen when the n is ignored.
Strategy as Tires: Last night, some consultants sent me a definition of innovation. “Innovation is the process of discovering customers’ unmet needs.” No, it is not! Not here. You cannot sell a discontinuous innovation if that innovation does not serve the current jobs to be done. .
7:33 .
Strategy as Tires: I sound so NIMBY. .
7:34 . . . . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Kuhn’s normal science explores the parameter spaces in the dimensions defined by the theories defining the current ontology. That’s continuous innovation. That’s at the first level of finding more constraint space, but that’s Goldratt. At another level, the investigator bumps into new unknowns. At some point, those unknowns become new constraints consistent with the old constraints, or not. .
7:35 . . .
Strategy as Tires: The constraints contain the generative until the generative creates a new origin to explode from. .
7:36 . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Kuhn’s radical science is about finding and exploiting new dimensions and new parameter spaces, aka discontinuous innovation. Parameter spaces are moduli spaces. Discontinuous innovations are those that are based on new theories that are defined in new moduli spaces. .
7:37 . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: The new dimension, the discontinuous innovation, always involves a new onton, or sortable. Once you have implemented that onto, you have something that you can sort, then you can define the associated taxons. .
7:38 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: I will thank that consultant if we ever cross paths. We won’t cross paths. He attends different conferences than I do. So much innovation talk is noise. My employees know better. .
7:39 . . .
Strategy as Tires: There is so much innovation noise. Many people have gotten on board the innovation noise program. .
7:41 . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Once you have scienced your way to something previously undiscovered, a discontinuous innovation, then you go find a customer. That customer has needs. The customer’s need does not come first. .
7:42 . .
Strategy as Tires: Once someone gets involved with some innovation noise, they stop innovating. .
7:43 . . .
Strategy as Tires: Innovation noise is like security theater at the airports. You have to take off your shoes and wade into it. .
7:45 .
Strategy as Tires: The more innovation noise you hear, the less innovation is happening. Management works hard to distract.
Strategy as Tires: Code is codified knowledge. Code is supposed to be the delivery of acquired knowledge in a functional form. How much knowledge did you acquire? .
17:40 . .
Strategy as Tires: So the knowledge you acquired was from the first user you ran across? .
17:49 . . . .
Strategy as Tires: Who among your users can teach the domain? Is that according to the brand new theory or is that according to the theory being replaced by the new theory? .
17:51 . . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: How does the new theory differ from the known theory? You cannot explain the new theory in terms of the known theory? That’s great! You’ve got a new ontology. You’ve got a discontinuous innovation on your hands. So explain it. .
14:55 . .
Strategy as Tires: You told me how it cannot be explained. You could have skipped that. Explain it. .
14:58 . . . . .
Strategy as Tires: What constraints do we get to ignore with the new theory? What constraints do we face with the new theory? Does the new theory give us some new area to monetize? So we have some new value propositions that we can enable? .
15:00 . .
Strategy as Tires: Well, that’s great, but you threw in another distraction. I still don’t know how the new theory works?
Strategy As Tires 