A common theme has been running through several of my conversations lately. Whether talking about tribe mentalities, financial bubbles or strategy, the conversation is always about the grand ideals of innovation against the grubby details of imitation. The trouble is when those two things are seen as extremes and polar opposites.
Perhaps one of the most dangerous to happen to these concepts was our inclination to put them as points on a line. You are either innovating or imitating. In reality, all innovating involves imitation and all imitation is necessary for innovation. Innovators being pissed about imitators in the marketplace then have an ironic frustration.
Strategic folks often talk about the first mover advantage. What happens in large effect is the first movers disadvantage. They took a lot of time and effort to explore what didn’t work, what wasn’t viable and wasn’t a good marketplace product. Then they priced it high because there was no comparison product or anchor. So high in fact, that it allowed a competitor to swoop in and scoop up market share as a fast imitator. As the early innovators hand ideas off to early competitors (whether they like it or not), older markets, customers and products are pushed down the daisy chain of an industry. Eventually, it pushes everything down to where it is a commodity, which blows the doors wide open for creating value in ways that no one ever expected.
For a new read on this, check out copycats, the new book by Oded Shenkar. For older reads, check out Crossing the Chasm by Geoffery Moore. You may also appreciate the TED talk by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame. He does a great job of describing the beauty of imitation in the work life.
For real innovations to work, they have to be innovating on a bedrock of imitation – in the mind of their customers, their investors and their industries. Until you find the imitation bedrock for your innovation and learn to talk about it as a direct improvement, it will likely be a difficult thing to sell to your adoring and waiting customers.