Ever wonder what makes companies like Disney, Wal-Mart, and Virgin cool and successful? In The Second Curve, Ian Morrison says it's because they're riding the "second curve" while laggards like Sony, K-Mart, and Air France are still stuck on the Þrst.
Forget Alvin Tofþer's waves. Morrison's curves aren't about society, but phases in a company, industry, or technology life cycle. Most follow a classic bell curve. This is the fat, comfortable space where most income and proÞt come from now. By Þnding a second curve, you're in position to ride it up as the Þrst one peters out. The second curve is where business and the marketplace are going. It can be a new line or way of doing business that will propel your company on a growth plan to the stars. Managing this change is the only way not to become a dinosaur.
Ian Morrison is president of the Institute for the Future, a Menlo Park, California-based think tank. Big companies pay him to think about the future and how it could affect their businesses. His book draws on that experience to plot a course for jumping on the next big thing. Along the way, he looks at why some products (like videophones and personal helicopters) are always the next big thing and never seem to become the current big thing.
There's no crystal ball in Morrison's bag of tricks. He writes more about current trends than the future. His technique is to look at emerging changes and extrapolate them, leaving plenty of room for the unexpected.
For example, consumers are getting picky, demanding, and smart. So retailers had better plan their new ventures accordingly. Personal Þnance is moving toward nonbank "banks" like Visa, Charles Schwab, and Intuit. Therefore, real banks had better change or Þgure out a way to die gracefully on that Þrst curve.
Morrison occasionally writes like someone who's been with a think tank too long: "Air France Š has experienced a decelerating rate of growth and negative increase in net income." I think he means that growth has slowed and income has dropped. This kind of circumlocution is the exception, however. Most of the case studies are cogently expressed and illustrate his points well.
There's no guarantee that reading this book will keep your company from being relegated to the dustbin of history, but if it is, at least you'll understand why.
Jeffrey Mann
The Second Curve: Managing the Velocity of Change, by Ian Morrison: US$25. Ballantine Books/Random House: (800) 733 3000, +1 (410) 848 1900, on the Web at www.randomhouse.com/.
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