Irrational ExuberanceV2.0 – Now You can take Irrationality with You!!

Irrational ExuberanceV2.0 – Irrationality goes Mobile!

Does anyone remember 1999-2000?  At least the super-bowl ads….at least one of them….I’m sure you do.

It was the “modern day space race” to the internet.  But it wasn’t just mission critical payloads being rocketed into cyberspace; it was anything and everything that could be launched into orbit, until we became personally haloed, like the rings of Saturn, with Billions of dollars of Cyberspace junk.  Until one day, like a hailstorm of Skylab like crashes, all of the junk that proved unable to self-sustain orbit, flamed-out into oblivion and was gone forever…except in the minds of those who lived through this Digital manifestation of  Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest( or Extinction of the Dumbest, depending on what view you choose to take).  But this consumer-driven culling was a highly selective process:  If it belonged in cyberspace, it persisted in cyberspace, and all that which did not, disappeared like so many ill-spent Super Bowl ad dollars.

So what remained?  Faster, Better, Cheaper, and the “things you couldn’t do in any other way”, e.g..

1.       EBay – an auction Site for everything, not viable in brick & mortar

2.       Amazon – a department store for everything, not viable in brick & mortar

3.       E*TRADE – Faster, better, cheaper – No explanation needed

But despite the ubiquity of failure and the swift and sudden violent death of so many “Web2.0 whiz-kid built models of brilliance”*, an inexplicable phenomena was occurring at the time.  This phenomena has sometimes been referred to as “Irrationally Arrogant Persistence”(AIP), some people, some very intelligent people, faced with the daunting task of spending a never-ending stream of VC dollars, really did try their best to maintain  their arrogance-driven Disassociation with Consumer Reality(DCR) and forge ahead into a swirling, all consuming, war of cyber-attrition, which was powerful enough, and so densely packed with enough enigmatic magnetism, that like moths to a flame, these “legions of brilliance” continued their drive towards almost certain death.  

With MIT and Cal Tech Diplomas clenched in white-knuckled fists, they smugly fought, from deep within the trenches provided by enablers like Starbucks, to maintain a loosely-coupled front line of cyber-stores founded on key theses drawn from the most contemporary theories of “Fundamental Principals in Futility” (FPF).  Like a neon clothed Ninja, so absurd it yields a pervasive disregard for relevance or malignancy, we saw ever newer manifests of stupidity appearing in a fast and furious barrage of panic, which appeared on our monitors in the form of “cyber-tents”, encouraging a temporarily, “deer in the headlights”, blinded consumer base to succumb to overfilled shopping carts, top-heavy and wobbly under the unwieldy and strangely-strange loads of things like 50lb bags of dog food, bought over the internet, with total disregard for such mundane things like proportionally outrageous shipping costs. 

But the Latte-Fueled Soothsayers of the cyber-future, were clever in their strategic underpinnings for this pure manifestation of nonsensical business modeling…..they were armed to-the-teeth with “weapons of mass consumption”, loaded with extremely powerful munitions such as funny little sock puppets that created massive and desirable impact, but, also fundamental flaws that did not take long to begin showing themselves through simple algorithmic Functions derived in the consideration of Impact, conversion, and longevity .  Put simply, and with the obvious benefit of hindsight, we recognize the inescapable draw (“sucking sound”) that induces otherwise bright people to co-sign business plans and Forecasts such as:

Mail order bags of dog food + sock puppets = IPO*

*And of course the assumed obviousness of becoming an overnight billionaire….

            Now you tell me.  Where do you buy your dog food?...

“We forgot to remember just how important it is to remember”

Now, more than a dozen years after the (nearly unnoticed) disappearance of “all that was bad” (unless maybe you have you been looking for the sock puppet?), we see the next iteration of the “Cycle of Irrationality”(COI) rotating itself into something; poised and ready, for, something else…. but unlike other rotationally spiraled constructs like a spring-coil on a car, current COI does not it many cases contain the design genetics enabling them to operate with the potential of the coil spring, which is very much a “kinetically loadable system”.  And “the ability to do work”( assumed in this case as necessary) is why the understanding of “Kinetic Systems Federations”(KSF) are not just important, but are critical to understand as we seek to be successful in meeting our business objectives.   KSF’s define our relevant context, from Technical Architecture, Business Processes, Psychology, Sociology, and obviously Cognitive Innovations.  

IEV2.0 – “Remembering what to Remember”

With IEV2.0, Technology Innovation has produced “advanced weaponry” with potential impacts that are far more dangerous than IEV1.0.  With Irrational ExuberanceV1.0 ( IEV1), the space race was fueled by ignorance, which is quite often less capable of inflicting the same magnitude of damage that “assumed subject matter experts” are capable of. 

During IEV1, like lemmings, we followed the amusing commercials on TV straight to the internet because we didn’t know any better.  But now, in the midst of IEV2, we are “educated consumers” and we feign to understand the “battle proven” legions of techies who are now telling us that if we are not “mobile”, then we are outdated, stale, and “legacy”, certain to die a quick and humiliating death.  But the malignant beauty of time, especially when measured in decades, is that we have plenty of time to forget, become bored, and wonder “what’s next”. 

Time also grows new crops of techies who, to their limited credit, tighten up their arguments, and make citations to past failures and successes, and for all intents and purposes, appear to be a generation wiser in the ways of technology and sociology.  But let’s not forget what I said about forgetting:  the problem with being a little educated, and being wooed by techies who sound like the next positive harbingers of tech revolution insight, is that we forget not to become irrational.  And this is why we get to say catchy things like: “
History repeats itself”, but with little tweaks each time around that often are effective in disguising the repetition.

So I will state my thesis very simply: Just because a piece of functionality CAN be placed on a mobile device, has nothing to do with justifying or otherwise validating the business case for “mobilizing” the functionality.

Another catchy phrase which I think is relevant here is that “things that have been true in the past often remain true in the future”…..

Now because you are still irrational and still exuberant (don’t worry, I will cure you within the next few pages), I will say this next part also as simply as I can:

Mobilization, like other “new” tools of communication is ONLY validated by the time-tested litmus test of: Faster, Better, Cheaper, and “things you can’t do in any other way”.

Conclusion of Part I

Further, we must create a mindset within ourselves, and then also become evangelical educators set on the task of ensuring that we help others understand the clear and explicit distinction between:

1.       Mobile device constructs that establish the majority of their value from the single fact that they are mobile (as opposed to a PC).

a.       E.g. GPS Software

 

2.       Mobile device constructs that establish the majority of their value because the new construct is being designed primarily for a cultural demographic that has never adopted fixed-position compute devices (PC’s) to any degree of ubiquity.

a.       E.g. Japan

3.       There is a hardware or software feature on the mobile device that is essential for enabling critical functionality within the new construct.

a.       E.g. Accelerometer

 
It is extremely common to encounter the “me too” argument when the topic of mobilizing functionality arises.  Which is fine and it can make for interesting conversation. But, if you want to ensure that you are right, and can demonstrate via evidence that you are right, then deviate from the 3 rules stated above at your own peril.  And sometimes this is healthy IF your ONLY intent is to validate the 3 rules stated above.

Period. That’s it.  Resistance is futile, and you will lose if you decide to close your mind at this stage.

Stay tuned for Part II….