Those Guys In The Garage

Traditionally, ad guys have seen the garage as somewhere to stick the Aston and send the valet off to.  However, recently Martin Sorrell (WPP's plus grand fromage), when asked about future threats, has started talking about, "software engineers working in a garage".  This type of garage-anxiety is normally reserved for software chiefs such as Messers Brin and Page, who can probably still - just about - remember what it's like to spend time in one and quite how productive they can be.  However, Sorrell's concern can be neatly summed up by the Innovator's Dilemma (Clayton Christensen,1997).  The idea is that (my words) big, smart, successful companies can know that their market is changing, want to adapt and still fail because they can't bear to stop servicing their lovely, profitable, mass market customers for a single second.  And even if they do tear themselves away to try a little innovation they don't want to be too successful in case they come up with something their existing customers actually want - instead of the lovely suite of products they buy now! This allows the garage guys space to rejig some of the stuff they've already got knocking about, flog it to a few early-adopting geeks and later on become gazillionaires.  So now you know.  Next time you're in that meeting wondering why everyone is agreeing that something needs to be done, but not doing anything about it, it's because you're in the wrong place.  Kick back that boardroom chair and dig out your overalls.