The fact that Eric and Bill put this forum up testifies to their insight into the nature of "winning" and "losing". I don't think they're worried about what's happened on this forum, but perhaps I shouldn't speak for them.
Revolutions happen because the energy to propel them to their conclusion is already present and does not have to evolve. The January craziness on this forum provided an example of that. A lot of what got published was stuff that's been around for a while looking for a route into the light of day, and when it all got thrown together, the sudden and unexpected mixup caused to evolve things that no one had expected. The energy available for the January craziness is now pretty much used up, but you can bet that it's building up again and it will become possible to repeat the whole process.
Everywhere you look in the world, you see things fractalized on a wide variety of scales. Spirals? got 'em all the way from the subatomic scale to galaxies; and who knows maybe galaxy clusters. When a delivery system (public water works, city street networks, the postal system) is inadequately or improperly fractalized, it creates distribution bottlenecks. These bottlenecks provide an opportunity for improved efficiency.
If you look at the organization of the metal detector industry, there is fractalization all the way from hobbyist freelancers on up to companies the size of White's, Minelab, Garrett, Fisher and Bounty Hunter. The next higher level of organization does not exist, indicating that there is probably a latent efficiency in the industry which is presently being untapped. In the past, international barriers precluded efficiencies on the next level up, but the recent globalization of trade and the internet have changed the shape of the playing field, making possible what was previously impossible.
Untapped efficiency exists in the political organizational structures themselves, in the physical distribution of product, in the distribution of engineering knowledge, in the production of printed materials-- everywhere you look. Some people will see and act on the potential this presents, and it will improve the entire industry by unblocking the bottleneck. By seeing that, they see other things too, for instance new kinds of efficiencies. The co-evolution of pollinating insects and flowers created efficiencies that would have otherwise remained untapped, or eventually been exploited some other way. So-- with that undeniably functional business model right in front of us in the flower garden, how can we apply that to human enterprise?
This forum became a demonstration on how to unblock engineering knowledge bottlenecks. I hope this forum, or something like it, can be used for a demonstration how unblock mindsets on business models.
It will happen, and I hope the people I know personally will be participants.
--Dave J.
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