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

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