> Why do we tend to worship technology and content innovators more than
market
> innovators?  Is that a western phenomenon, a left-brain, right-brain
thing?

Let me answer in two parts.  First, I do think that marketing and sales can
have a positive effect on the ecconomy.  It is important to match
technological innovations to the needs of people.  It doesn't help the
ecconomy if one's innovations are gee wiz things in the lab that really
don't apply.  I've seen a number of scientists do poorly in industry
becasue they are not interested in what the customer really wants.

Having said that, market winners are often not really innovators.  Let me
go back to the example of my friends who are technology innovators.  Their
companies biggest competitors were great at playing the market.  They
invested in patent attornies who's specialty was working the limits of the
examiners and the legal system.  Thus, they were able to patent things that
had been in the literature for years, and were able to work around my
friend's patents by bluster and main force.  So, they didn't need to
innovate, they just needed to copy because they knew how to play the
marketplace.

Other aspects of market innovators comes from the Gilded age.  In my old
back yard, we have the Mesebi brothers who had to sell to US Steel for
pennies on the dollar when Morgan got their bankers to call their notes in
when their railroad from their mines to the port of Duluth were just miles
from being finished.

Originally, Gate's position was a market innovation.  He did indeed
determine what people were willing to pay for and produced it.  Now, I'd
argue, Microsoft is more like the trees in a climax forest.  They foster an
environment where competitors cannot grow.  Thus, innovation is stifled.

When a company is an economic success because it finds a practical way to
use technological innovations, then it is a worthwhile innovation and
should be recognized. When a company doesn't just competing in a market
environment that is controlled by forces outside of all competitors and
starts competing by exerting control over the market, then damage instead
of benefit is done.  Further, when a company wins because it just has
better smoke and mirrors, then harm is still done, although it is far less
than if it controlled the market place.

In short, marketing can do one of three things

1) It can perform its legitimate function, matching technological
possibilities to needs.  When it does this it improves productivity and,
thus, the true wealth of the world.

2) It can sell sizzle instead of steak.  It adds nothing when it does this,
but it can divert resources from those that can.

3) If you include the largest sense of market innovation, it can manipulate
the marketplace to remove opportunities for productivity improvement.  This
is quite harmful.

Dan M.
Selling the sizzle instead of the steak can be profitable, but it does not
add to pr



Dan M.


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