Introduction

No-one is destined to be a me-too player. We can be game changers.

The second in a series of posts about how businesses can own their future.

In part one of this series I introduced the idea of the future being chunky.  That much of the future is knowable.  The paradox is that the part of the future that is knowable, is knowable by all.  So there’s no real advantage.

This next post explores how to reach into the unknowable future and pull something into the present that you can exploit before others in your marketplace.  I call that Sensing and Adapting.

Sensing and Adapting

Last April I posted here about how a solar powered lens would disrupt our business lives.  In the post, 10 predictions were made for how it might be used to disrupt existing markets.  You may well ask “if it was published in Fast Company magazine why doesn’t this piece of the future reside in the Knowable Now?”  (Knowable Now was defined defined in the first post of this series with the Apple iPad as an example of a technology that was knowable.)

To explain the difference let’s compare the iPad as a potential disruptive technology with the Solar powered contact lens.

Sensing

You’d have to be living in a cave not to be aware of the launch of the iPad in January 2010.  Big marketing campaign prior to the launch as only Apple can run.  Steven Jobs performing on stage followed by massive press coverage since then.

A simple question to ask ourselves is. . . How many people in our company did NOT know about the iPad? Was there even one?

Which means that everyone sensed the iPad.  They knew about it, and to a greater or lessor extent evaluated it.

Consequently:

• We have no inherent advantage over our competitors
• it will be exceedingly difficult to game change using the iPad
• and sustain that difference.

It’s too knowable.

Compare that to the Solar powered contact lens by Professor Babak Parviz at the University of Washington.  It was published in 2009 in a journal and picked up later by Fast Company.  No fanfare.  No glitz.

So how many people in our company DID know about the Solar powered contact lens? Was there even one?

Which means that no one sensed this nascent technology.  It is not broadly known.  Even now.

However, if our company had sensed this technology then we could have an inherent advantage over our competitors.  It’s possible.

Adapting

When it comes to using the iPad for competitive advantage, the path and processes are well understood and published. Technical specifications and developers kits are readily available.  Even the fee structure is published.  Everything we need to build apps for the iPad is right there, for us. . . . and everyone else.  It’s doable now.  It’s knowable now.

Which means, while we may not know how we would, or could use the iPad to enhance our offering that’s not important.  The day we start the project we’re simply in a race against our competitors.

The Solar powered lens is a different story.  It has not been commercialized.  As of September 2009 there was not even a fully functioning prototype.  Given that, we can only talk about the possible applications to a business, not the certainty of them.

So, working with the professor to develop a working prototype that our company could use would give us a leap ahead of competition.  In addition we’d create barriers to entry.  Working with something in the early stages means we run across technical, legal and other issues that need to be resolved.  The resolution of those issues, that only we know, become the barrier to entry for competitors.  That creates the potential for game changing offerings with sustainability.

It could start with a simple phone call to the professor to enquire about development and partnership opportunities.

Summary

Not all data we sense about the future are equal.  Some of it is eminently knowable and resides in our Knowable Now.  Some of it is shrouded in uncertainty and lies in our Possible Future.

How we deal with these different future states determines in large part our ability to differentiate, and whether we ever have the chance to game change.

Working exclusively in the knowable now means we can certainly better our offerings.  However it comes at the price of a high probability that any advantage we gain is short lived.  We are in a constant never-ending race.

But, working as well in the possible future means we have the possibility of a game changing offering with barriers to entry behind us.

Questions to consider

Here are some questions to consider about the leadership behaviors in your company.

1. Beyond, industry journals and regular mainstream media what is your organization sensing in aggregate?
2. Do you know the answer to question one?
3. Do you have an organizational sensing strategy?
4. Supposing people in your organization read about a technology that could  possibly disrupt the market, would they recognize it for what it is?  In other words, could they interpret it correctly?
5. Is there someone in the organization to whom they could send it to who could correctly interpret it?  Do they know who that is?
6. Is it part of that person’s responsibility to explore the possibilities this nascent technology might represent?
7. Does the leadership team include in their strategic portfolio resources to explore the possible as well as the knowable?

Shouldn’t the possible future be in your lexicon and plans?  Future posts will explore the region of the future past the Possible Future.

The good news is that there are organizations that offer sensing.  So it’s easy to get started.

Here are a some good ones.

• Institute for the Future
• Fast Company
• Trend Watching
• Ted

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