In Part I (024) of this series, I introduced Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm framework. In Part II (025), the goal is to apply it to a contemporary example of a high-tech company selling to legal departments. Part II then finishes the chasm framework and discusses some of the special challenges of applying
Diffusion Theory
“Crossing the Chasm” and the “Hype Cycle”, Part I (024)
The two figures above reflect frameworks that are widely used within the technology industry to grapple with the treacherous nature of high-tech product development.
Figure 1 is the 2017 Hype Cycle, which is published by Gartner, a large international research company that helps CIOs and other IT professionals understand and evaluate emerging technologies.…
Change Agents and Opinion Leaders (020)
The chart above, drawn from Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations Fig. 7-1 (5th ed. 2003), shows the adoption of hybrid seed corn by farmers in two Iowa communities. The dashed line on the bottom shows the number of adoptions by year. The solid line on top shows adoption on a cumulative basis. The first farmer…
Innovation in Organizations, Part III (017)
The graphic above reflects three different types of innovation “outcomes”:
- Initiation of an innovation adoption process that results in an organization making a decision to adopt an innovation. See Post 015
- Implementation of the adoption decision, which entails planning, change management, and redefining/restructuring and clarifying the innovation in the field so that it delivers its
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Innovation in Organizations, Part II (016)
The graphic above, adapted from Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed. 2013), shows the distribution of innovativeness among 324 German banks. The innovativeness scale is a count of innovation adoptions from a universe of 12 interactive telecom innovations that were diffusing through the German banking sector during the early 1990s. To help distinguish the early…
Innovation in Organizations, Part I (015)
Every legal innovator, early adopter and change agent shares a common, unifying desire: To speed up the pace of innovation within their organization.
This statement is true whether the context is a law firm, legal department, government agency, bar association, or law school. Over the years, I have commiserated with them all. Although they…
Example of Automating Private Placement Documentation (014)
The global law firm Gowling WLG has just launched a platform that automates document production for a private placement offering. The video above does a remarkably good job of explaining how the product (called Smart Raise) works. Far from scary and technical, the innovation comes across as simple and inviting. Quite an accomplishment in…
Fast versus Slow Innovations (011)
Are rapidly adopted innovations more valuable and important than innovations that take a long time to take hold? Not necessarily.
Post 011 is part of LE’s foundational series on diffusion theory. Here’s the key point: Speed of adoption is not a reliable guide for an innovation’s importance. In fact, competitive advantage is much more likely to lie among slower ideas where innovators focus on several key factors to accelerate the rate of adoption.
It is difficult to accept an insight this counterintuitive. Thus, we need an illustration.
Continue Reading Fast versus Slow Innovations (011)
World Class Innovation and Efficiency, Billed by the Hour (010)
Below are two beliefs I carried with me for many years.
- In all human endeavors, incentives exert a powerful effect on behavior
- Within the legal industry, the billable hour is the primary impediment to innovation and efficiency
Belief 1 still stands. But belief 2, which I viewed as a corollary of 1, recently fell like…
Variables Determining the Rate of Adoption of Innovations (008)
If you have been readings the foundational posts for Legal Evolution, this installment (Post 008) will reward you with something of clear, practical value: An empirically grounded model that identifies specific factors that influence the rate of adoption of an innovation.
What is the specific practical value?
- If you are an innovator, this model
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