Be different, but remember the past

One of the difficult things about managing innovation is that you have to, at the same time, seek out new ways of doing things and respect the old theories of business. The old rules of creating value for customers profitably still apply in 2007. And no, it probably won't be different this time.

Basic stuff for innovation: the function of money is a store of value.

So what of all these "Web 2.0" firms that we hear so much about in the media? Are they creating value that users will be willing to pay for? There's a huge difference between using stuff in the online space for free and valuing it enough to crack open your wallet to pay for it. Let's face it, YouTube.com did/does not have a profitable business: it was lucky to have been "saved" by the Google purchase. Will YouTube ever make money from standing on its own two feet? Who knows. The fast followers that came after YouTube's apparent success like bees to honey (or lemmings) may not be so lucky.

Will we see a repitition of the carnage we saw after the bursting of the first dotcom bubble? You just have to look back at the first dotcom bubble for some historical guidance: today, it's not Pets.com that endures, but the old bricks-and-mortars supermarkets, like Tesco.

Disruptive: the most over-used word in innovation.