Read/WriteWeb has a list of 10 Micro Trends for your next startup. Many seem plausible or likely, and Read/WriteWeb folk are usually spot on, but a few seem off-base to me. Let’s talk about those, since that’s more fun than cheering the wins.
4. Micro-trend Slopes replace Chasms. Seems to me this mistakes what is happening in startups with what is happening in the world. In the world large organizations matter (5!), large organizations are slow to move, and large organizations try to make decisions hierarchically (6!). Crossing the chasm is tough enough even if you aren’t pretending it’s not there!
5. Small is the new big (my cutesie phrase). The problem is that there are economies of scale, and accumulations of power that are only easy in large organizations. There are lots of benefits to an economy to having lots of small organizations be where the action is — but lots of benefits to the organizations to be large. Until there’s more pressure put in place to prefer small, the dinosaurs are going to continue to roam.
6. Self-organizing networks beat command and control structures. Hard for a scientist not to like the “evolution beats intelligent design” argument … but I think this technique works best when you have time to make millions of mistakes on the way. Designed structures with lots of flexibility for cross-pollination seem the more likely winners in the short term.
John
