If you want to stay relevant, you need to become more like a Bay Area start-up, not less.
In his Disruptions column for the The New York Times, Nick Bilton criticized Silicon Valley start-ups for creating tech products that lack mass market appeal.
In essence, he argued that the high concentration of engineers in the Valley has resulted in an “echo chamber” of ideas geared toward solving “mundane problems” that don’t exist for the rest of world. Bilton called out a couple of companies as examples, including BlackJet, an “affordable private jet” provider.
His main gripe seems to be that the services offered by these start-ups aren’t scalable or sustainable business models.
While it’s hard to argue that private planes will ever be a viable form of transportation for anyone but the wealthy, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this echo chamber of ideas is a bad thing either—especially for industries that exist outside the San Francisco Bay Area start-up scene.
In my Kontagent Konnect 2013 keynote, I examined the future of technology as it relates to business and consumers. And one thing is certain: mobile and data will be what drives the customer experience. For everything from banks and retailers to travel companies and even the health care industry, mobile will become essential to doing business.
So what does all of this have to do with this so-called “echo chamber”? Continue Reading…
