Chapter 2

There are four traps that companies fall into when dealing with Emerging Technology. In chapter 2 there are solutions suggested for companies to deal with emerging technology and to help them avoid the traps.
1. Delayed Participation
2. Sticking with the Familiar
3. Reluctance to Fully Commit
4. Lack of Persistence
The solutions suggested in the chapter are listed by what they can focus on. Each of the four pitfalls can be addressed with each proposed solution. There is not one solution for each pitfall or trap.
1. Widening Peripheral Vision
2. Creating a Learning Culture
3. Staying Flexible in Strategic Ways
4. Providing Organizational Autonomy

Each of the solutions is almost a new strategy in itself. There are suggestions to address each trap contained in each solution. When a company decides to provide more organizational autonomy they are many times breaking from their main strategy to develop new ideas for development. This particular solution would include a widening of vision, creating a culture of learning (albeit in a new company or branch), and most indeed, staying flexible.

What I have been investigating and wondering about is how a company can decide what technologies to work on. There are many different types of strategies and all companies will have a different strategy to work on. Some companies will struggle to find a way to truly allow spin-offs or new companies to work freely and independent from the main company. They will always run the risk of creating a competitor that could be difficult for the larger company to deal with.

Does creating spin-offs or start-up companies under the umbrella of a larger company create more problems than solutions?

The Twitter article in the Idhao Statesman this week was interesting because it mentioned how companies use Twitter to help their business. The company that owns Twitter may not have the support to continue in business, but at this point, it seems likely they will continue, but with changes. I have spent some time looking at what current businesses are using Twitter. Not many, but there are some. According to the latest investors in Twitter, there will be more and the company is well positioned to continue growth. Southwest Airlines uses twitter. Some resorts use Twitter, like in Las Vegas and some in Mexico and such. I found that many people on Twitter try to gain insight for their upcoming travel by soliciting assistance from any of their followers.
I was not able to get into the competitors listed in the article due to time constraints. As I move through this class it may be of value to look up some of the other sites like Twitter to see how they are moving through this new technology.

Will there be an increase in the use of Twitter to the point where you could purchase Twitter IDs much like there are companies that register and sell web addresses?

– I actually found some evidence of this in the form of TweetTornado.com. This company is an advertising company that uses the Twitter tool to reach customers. Many of the comments on the site itself were not exactly positive. The service appears to be very expensive, $99 start-up with $99 monthly fees to maintain. It seems to take advantage of Twitter because Twitter does not validate e-mail addresses to start an account. This is all relatively new and it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks with TweetTornado.

I have included many of the web-sites I went to from updates posted on Twitter to a variety of users. Twitter, Obama, resorts and many other searches. I just mainly wanted to see what was happening on Twitter. It is not that I think it is THE emerging technology, but I wanted to see what use it could be to a new company, or even a company like Idaho Power. Not sure that I even answered my own questions, but found lots of other information.

Resources:
http://financialstability.gov/
http://www.recovery.gov/
http://www.ombwatch.org/
http://tweettornado.com/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2477
http://www.benchmark.com/http://www.ivp.com/

Preface and Chapter 1

“In a sense, companies also need to develop new forms of organizations that are ambidextrous.”

Idaho Power Company falls into the category of an “established organization” discussed in this opening chapter and the Preface. I have been looking at many of the resources that were cited in the opening chapter to see what was discussed about the Emerging Technologies in 1995, for example and finding many similar things to articles that were written today. Idaho Power Company is challenged by the ‘established org’ syndrome and emerging technologies must be relatively stable, tried and true before they become adopted and put into place. Time and time again with a new development, if there are problems, the consequences are significant and are right in front of the public to see, analyze and deal with. Right now today we are rolling out an IT improvement that is nearly a year behind schedule and full of daily problems that were not considered, or not identified as the project was developed.

I work with another major IT project that will provide many enhancements to the IT aspect of the company’s structure. The AMI project is relatively small and growing each day. Many of the problems and delays have been foreseen, but there are others that are not expected and create problems as we move forward from day to day. The new technology is really not ‘emerging’, the basic fundamentals of the project have been around for decades, but the technology used is relatively new and emerging. That being said, there are many different types of technologies available that were not so attractive 5 years ago when this AMI project was developed and forecast. Since it is a regulated company and there are recommendations from many customers and legislators, Idaho Power Company can rely on tested and reliable technologies far easier than new and un-tested technologies.

I am looking forward to the rest of this book, I think there will be many new and interesting things that companies do to react to ‘emerging technologies’. Near the end of the first chapter it reads, “An important part of managing emerging technologies is the ability to live with paradox, and its associated ambiguities. Simple, absolute answers are few and far between.” I tend to agree with the paradoxes that were listed and how they can affect companies, either cutting edge and new or established as is Idaho Power. Idaho Power relies on the “Simple, absolute answers” and will be left behind emerging technologies most of the time. I will be interested to see how some of the paradoxes are explained and apply to Idaho Power.

Will Idaho Power Company always be subject to technologies after they become main-stream?

Will the organization begin to adapt more readily with a newer workforce as some of the older generation retire?

I think this book and some more research will be helpful to answer some of these questions. Someone else may have thoughts on this??


Resources:
http://www.io.com/~gibbonsb/mencken.html
Academy of Management Executive; Aug95, Vol. 9 Issue 3, p7-18, 12p, 1 chart, 3 diagrams found at http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/