Chapter Thirteen
Getting Started, Finishing Touches

How to Start

If you have a problem in hand and want a solution, here’s how to get started. Even if you don’t have a burning problem to solve, I recommend that you pick one anyway and apply disaggregation to solve it by following the steps in this chapter. (I’m a big believer in practical work to make certain that I understand what I’ve studied.) In the rest of this section, I’ll describe the steps to take to turn a problem into a solution.

Ask the Right Question

Chapter 4 presents the basic framework of how to use disaggregation to solve problems. We’ll start with the steps outlined in Chapter

4 (devise, interface, accept, and evaluate) and add material from other chapters as we go along.144

The first step is to see whether you find a solution to your problem immediately. A plain, uncomplicated solution may just leap out at you, especially after practice with the material in this book. If nothing is immediately obvious, here are three methods for generating an innovation:

• Restate the problem in terms of disaggregation or the benefits of disaggregation. Chapter 3 introduces the benefits of disaggregation, and the case studies in Part II discuss the benefits of particular innovations in great detail.
• Think about how the problem relates to the five categories of dis-aggregation. Chapter 2 explains the categories.
• Brainstorm by taking each and every piece of the existing infrastructure apart—the “smash and grab” method. Once you’ve formulated an innovation that solves your problem, record your ideas and continue to the next step.

Assess and Extend the Proposal

In Chapter 2, we saw how the most powerful avalanches start: when the innovation disaggregates in multiple categories, when it has many disaggregations even in a single category, or when the innovation fulfills a basic human desire in a particularly effective way. Can you improve your innovation to make it—potentially at least—more powerful?

Start by assessing your innovation. It’s a disaggregation—what categories does it disaggregate? What basic human desires does it fulfill? Go through each category—they’re all listed in the worksheet shown in Table 13.1—and write down what, if anything, your innovation does in that category. Sometimes an innovation will fall completely into one single category; sometimes it will hit a few categories. Don’t forget that an innovation can have several entries in a single category, as we saw with the automobile in Chapter 6.

Next, go through each of the benefits in the worksheet and decide whether your innovation will deliver that benefit. Again, don’t be surprised to see multiple entries under a single benefit or no entries at all under a different one.

Table 13.1 Innovation Worksheet

Once you’ve filled out the worksheet (Table 13.1), it’s time to think about ways to fill in any remaining blank spaces. Are there ways to extend your innovation?145

• If it does not disaggregate in one of the categories, is there a way to reformulate the innovation to include that category?
• Is some benefit missing? If so, can you provide that benefit if you modify your innovation?
• Can the innovation extend into other, related areas? This isn’t filling in the blanks as much as it is extending the scope—the more disaggregations, the merrier (and the more powerful).

Although you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew, aim as high as you can—see how far your innovation can stretch. You can’t go wrong if you’re as ambitious as possible and then cut back your proposal to something manageable. That’s because revolutions tend to generate new revolutions, as we see throughout this book; it pays to push your idea to its limits to help you understand the big picture and where your innovation may lead someday. You need a clear idea of what you can accomplish in practice, but a roadmap of future developments is also useful.146

Create Interfaces

Disaggregation takes things apart—things that work and provide useful functions. The pieces that you create through disaggregation need interfaces to work together afterward; otherwise the useful function you started with may be lost.

Depending on the innovation, the interfaces can be public or private. Chapter 4 discusses public and private interfaces and when it’s appropriate to use one or the other.

Generate Acceptance

Unless you’re a one-person business and no one else will ever see your innovation, you must market your innovation. Your target audience consists of members of your own company; your business partners; your industry peers; and, finally, your customers, who ultimately decide whether an innovation thrives. If your industry peers can’t figure out how to cooperate, everyone will suffer; Chapter 4 provides examples of disastrous industry turf wars.

Standards are often a good way to gain trust. Check the criteria in Chapter 4 to the determine the role of standards for your innovation. Here are some possibilities:

• Standards might make your innovation more acceptable to your company, your business partners, industry peers, and customers.
• You may find that your innovation would be most acceptable if it became an official standard.
• You may find that standards are irrelevant to your innovation, especially if your interfaces are completely private.

As we saw in Chapter 8, without standards much of modern civilization just wouldn’t function—in some industries you simply must standardize your interfaces if you want anyone to take your innovation seriously.

Consider how companies who don’t accept your innovation will react. Companies may simply reject your initiative or they may actively oppose it. Chapter 10 includes counterrevolutionary tactics that, thankfully, aren’t very common. Chapter 11 discusses the role of government; if your innovation disturbs established companies with comfortable political connections, your battle may spill over into legislative chambers and courtrooms.147

Execute

Although I’ve recorded all these steps—generating the innovation, creating interfaces, selling your innovation—one after the other, in practice they proceed in parallel. As you generate your innovation, you’ll want to look forward to the interfaces you’ll need; as you discuss the innovation with potential partners, you’ll find yourself modifying your original proposal. When you mix these steps together, it’s not a symptom of confusion—instead, taking the steps in parallel lets you apply feedback to improve your innovation.

If you’re just doing a pen-and-paper exercise, at this point you’ve gone about as far as you can go. The next step is to actually build the innovation. Building the innovation usually happens somewhat in parallel with the previous steps.

Evaluate

Once your innovation is real and your product is rolling out the door, certainly it’s time to celebrate and enjoy your victory. The next step, as outlined in Chapter 4, is to roll up your sleeves and evaluate what happened. Did you see the benefits you projected? What unexpected benefits did you see? What did your competitors do?

Most of all, what new innovations can you incorporate into your next round of products? You’ve triggered an avalanche, and now’s the time to enjoy the ride.

Finishing Touches: The Thoughts That Got Away

A great deal of material never made it into the final version of this book. The principles in this book apply to charitable organizations—innovation is just as crucial in volunteer work as it is anywhere else—but since the principles are the same, they aren’t discussed separately. A friend who works in medicine explained how disaggregation helped advance basic areas of medical research; that was wandering too far afield. In Western civilizations, the power of the monarchy disaggregated into separate judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government, with church outside the government entirely. That idea and other broad philosophical questions about society provide interesting topics to explore and understand in terms of disaggregation; again, they’re off the main topics of business and technology.148

Every day my newspaper brings me at least one new thought—another innovation to think about. Innovations that are likely to trigger a sweeping avalanche are somewhat rare, but innovations based on revolutionary technology pop up all the time—innovations that I instantly recognize as benefits of disaggregation.

To keep track of new innovations, to present some of the information that didn’t make it into the book, and to foster new ideas, I’ve decided to conduct a continuing conversation, and this is your invitation to join in. This book’s Web site is at http://www.PebbleAndAvalanche.com, and there you’ll find news, articles, a mailing list, and further information. You will also find a larger version of the worksheet I included in this chapter.

True to the principles of this book, I’ve disaggregated the function of managing the Web site—that’s my job—from the function of writing the material that appears there. You can contribute material to the site if you like. Visitors will be able expand, expound, and explain the issues. I look forward to seeing you there.