Bhaskar Chakravorti peels back the many factors that govern an innovation's penetration into interconnected markets-and offers a game plan for successfully steering innovations from the lab to the living room. Chakravorti explains the vagaries of market adoption by highlighting a paradox in the widely celebrated concept of network effects: While everyone loves a great idea, individuals will embrace it only if they believe others will too. In markets with strong interconnections among participants, this "equilibrium" slows adoption and protects the status quo-despite the innovation's clear superiority.
To win, innovators must unravel this status quo equilibrium and replace it with one built around their own innovations. The key is to imagine a desired plausible endgame, and work backward to orchestrate the network of individual choices to create conditions that make this outcome happen.
Drawing on Chakravorti's hands-on experience with many of the best-known innovating companies and insights gleaned from his expertise in the practical applications of game theory.
Preface
One A Beautiful Bind
Two Of Pause and Progress
Three A Framework for Connected Choice
Four Beginning at the Endgame
Five Tunneling to the Vision
Six Dividing Up the Middlegame
Seven Dealing with Uncertainty
Eight Beware of Loud Noises
Notes
Index
About the Author