Breaking What's Already Broken: Unlocking New Opportunity through Clear Business Understanding

In today's fast-paced business landscape, it's easy to get caught up in trying to protect what we know and love about our current systems, processes, and even products. However, this mindset can lead to stagnation and prevent us from unlocking new opportunity. The key to unlocking new opportunity lies in understanding what's broken or not serving us well, and then asking ourselves how we can break free from those limitations.

One area where this can play out is in the business of memory-keeping, which includes photography and social media platforms like Facebook. The idea that Kodak was killed by the rise of digital cameras is a common narrative, but Hamza Mudassir, a disruption expert at Cambridge, suggests that there's another way to look at it. According to Mudassir, Facebook, not digital cameras, ultimately killed Kodak.

Mudassir argues that the digital camera did not kill Kodak because it didn't offer a compelling reason for people to switch from traditional film cameras. In fact, early digital cameras were often grainy, expensive, and had limited storage capacity. They simply couldn't compete with the quality and convenience of film cameras, which required printing out physical photos or storing them in albums.

So why did Facebook's role in preserving memories lead to Kodak's demise? It all comes down to understanding your business and its purpose. When Kodak thought it was in the camera film business, it saw its competitors as producers of similar products. As a result, it focused on making its own camera film cheaper and better than the competition.

However, when Facebook emerged with its social network concept, which also revolved around preserving memories, Kodak realized that it was operating in a different market altogether. The rules of the game changed, and Kodak's traditional approach to business no longer applied. By understanding its true purpose – preserving memories – Kodak could have potentially adapted to this new landscape.

This insight highlights an essential lesson for business leaders today: technology is changing the way we serve our customers, but only if we understand what it means to do that in the first place. If you're not clear about your purpose and the value proposition you offer to your customers, it's unlikely that new technologies will help you achieve those goals.

In short, breaking what's already broken requires a deep understanding of your business and its underlying principles. By asking ourselves what we can break free from and what limitations are holding us back, we can unlock new opportunities and thrive in an ever-changing landscape.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthere's a fine line between what's practical and what's like chasing things because of a perceived obligation and I think that right now everybody is on one or other side of that line and it's worth being very mindful of what it is that you need to do for your business right now I couldn't agree more especially on this temptation here of you know wanting to chase that shiny new object here in this case it was AI I think then years ago is data science for example right or machine learning um so maybe what what advice would you give leaders here to cut through the noise and try to ascertain how to best ascertain what would be the best outcome for their business in this in this situation well I I think a good starting point is to go back to that idea that I introduced about breaking what's already broken you know it's worth asking what are the things that you are doing in your your business either internally or for your customers that is not perfect that people don't maybe like maybe at all or maybe not as much as you wish they did and are you protecting out of a fear of change are you protecting systems that aren't actually maximizing your opportunity and if so then the next question has to be how do I unlock new opportunity and I I'll tell you a quick um a quick story that's that's fascinated me since the moment that it was told to me which is not exactly an AI story but it's a technology disruption story and that is I was talking to this guy whose name is Hamza mudasir is's A disruption expert at Cambridge and he tells me about this interesting Theory which is that that you know what killed Kodak you know everyone always says what killed Kodak is I mean tell me it's very obvious the digital camera right everyone says the the Kodak was killed by the digital camera um and there's plenty of reason to say that Kodak was involved in the development of the digital camera didn't take it seriously and was flat-footed when the digital camera exploded in popularity but there's another way of thinking about it and the other way of thinking about it is this the digital camera did not kill Kodak Facebook killed Kodak now how do you get there it goes like this the first digital camera sucked they did I had one it was not good it was it was right it was expensive do you remember I mean it was expensive it was the photos yeah the photos were grainy uh it could barely store uh you know photos and it's like small little right it was nothing it was nothing and then what then what were you going to do with it what were you supposed to to do with it because because you could take these grainy photos and put them on your computer but like why for what purpose whereas you were living in a world in which people took more high quality photos with camera film and then printed them out and put them on refrigerators or mailed them somewhere put them in a book like that was what we did with it and the just the use case for the digital camera wasn't clear and then Facebook came along and Facebook was the first real Mass use case for storing and sharing digital photos now people understood how to organize photos and give people access to photos there was a place to put photos that made sense I mean do you remember at the very beginning of Facebook you would like treat Facebook like your just personal storage device you just like you know you take a bunch of photos you just like upload them all to Facebook yeah they'd have albums right right albums that you could browse yourself like you know it was a totally different way of thinking of it and that that the theory goes was the thing that helped people recognize the value of the digital camera over camera film and that is what killed Kodak and the lesson here for Kodak or for the Kodak of the future is not oh take the new technology seriously because look there's a lot of new technologies and you know which ones do you take seriously the lesson is you better understand what business you're in because Kodak thought that it was in the camera film business and as a result it thought of it competitors as producers of camera film and therefore if you understand your competitors you understand how to compete against your competitors which is in a traditional linear way I better make my camera film cheaper and better than my competition and that's how to beat them but when your competition is something totally different because it turns out that you're in a totally different kind of business the rules of the game change what would have happened if Kodak had thought of itself as being not in the camera film business but rather being in the memory business we are in the business of preserving your memories well now these nent social networks because Facebook didn't invent it Myspace had been around fster was around they saw this stuff they could have invested in that they could have said oh this is also in the business of memories just like we are we should get into that that would have led to a completely different way of thinking about your business and how you serve your customers and that think is what Business Leaders today need to be thinking about technology is changing the way in which you're going to serve your consumer is going to change you better have a really clear idea before you even think about the technology generative AI or anything else you better have a really clear idea about what it is that you do what is your purpose in the world why do people turn to you and once you understand that in a very clear way you can better understand how and whether new technologies help you do thatthere's a fine line between what's practical and what's like chasing things because of a perceived obligation and I think that right now everybody is on one or other side of that line and it's worth being very mindful of what it is that you need to do for your business right now I couldn't agree more especially on this temptation here of you know wanting to chase that shiny new object here in this case it was AI I think then years ago is data science for example right or machine learning um so maybe what what advice would you give leaders here to cut through the noise and try to ascertain how to best ascertain what would be the best outcome for their business in this in this situation well I I think a good starting point is to go back to that idea that I introduced about breaking what's already broken you know it's worth asking what are the things that you are doing in your your business either internally or for your customers that is not perfect that people don't maybe like maybe at all or maybe not as much as you wish they did and are you protecting out of a fear of change are you protecting systems that aren't actually maximizing your opportunity and if so then the next question has to be how do I unlock new opportunity and I I'll tell you a quick um a quick story that's that's fascinated me since the moment that it was told to me which is not exactly an AI story but it's a technology disruption story and that is I was talking to this guy whose name is Hamza mudasir is's A disruption expert at Cambridge and he tells me about this interesting Theory which is that that you know what killed Kodak you know everyone always says what killed Kodak is I mean tell me it's very obvious the digital camera right everyone says the the Kodak was killed by the digital camera um and there's plenty of reason to say that Kodak was involved in the development of the digital camera didn't take it seriously and was flat-footed when the digital camera exploded in popularity but there's another way of thinking about it and the other way of thinking about it is this the digital camera did not kill Kodak Facebook killed Kodak now how do you get there it goes like this the first digital camera sucked they did I had one it was not good it was it was right it was expensive do you remember I mean it was expensive it was the photos yeah the photos were grainy uh it could barely store uh you know photos and it's like small little right it was nothing it was nothing and then what then what were you going to do with it what were you supposed to to do with it because because you could take these grainy photos and put them on your computer but like why for what purpose whereas you were living in a world in which people took more high quality photos with camera film and then printed them out and put them on refrigerators or mailed them somewhere put them in a book like that was what we did with it and the just the use case for the digital camera wasn't clear and then Facebook came along and Facebook was the first real Mass use case for storing and sharing digital photos now people understood how to organize photos and give people access to photos there was a place to put photos that made sense I mean do you remember at the very beginning of Facebook you would like treat Facebook like your just personal storage device you just like you know you take a bunch of photos you just like upload them all to Facebook yeah they'd have albums right right albums that you could browse yourself like you know it was a totally different way of thinking of it and that that the theory goes was the thing that helped people recognize the value of the digital camera over camera film and that is what killed Kodak and the lesson here for Kodak or for the Kodak of the future is not oh take the new technology seriously because look there's a lot of new technologies and you know which ones do you take seriously the lesson is you better understand what business you're in because Kodak thought that it was in the camera film business and as a result it thought of it competitors as producers of camera film and therefore if you understand your competitors you understand how to compete against your competitors which is in a traditional linear way I better make my camera film cheaper and better than my competition and that's how to beat them but when your competition is something totally different because it turns out that you're in a totally different kind of business the rules of the game change what would have happened if Kodak had thought of itself as being not in the camera film business but rather being in the memory business we are in the business of preserving your memories well now these nent social networks because Facebook didn't invent it Myspace had been around fster was around they saw this stuff they could have invested in that they could have said oh this is also in the business of memories just like we are we should get into that that would have led to a completely different way of thinking about your business and how you serve your customers and that think is what Business Leaders today need to be thinking about technology is changing the way in which you're going to serve your consumer is going to change you better have a really clear idea before you even think about the technology generative AI or anything else you better have a really clear idea about what it is that you do what is your purpose in the world why do people turn to you and once you understand that in a very clear way you can better understand how and whether new technologies help you do that\n"