While the post lays out USV’s investment strategy, it also provides a general framework for how to think of the change being ushered in by the web.

• the economy is defined by scarcity in resources, production, and distribution
• the web is fundamentally transformative, with a raw material (data) that costs little to produce, replicate, and distribute
• the first markets to fall are those with fewer gatekeepers who have a vested interest in the current market’s structure

“The best internet based businesses radically restructure markets. … It makes perfect sense that information markets will be the first to be disrupted by the web, but media is not the only market where services can be delivered as bits over the web. Banking, education, healthcare, and government will also be fundamentally changed.”

If you are a player within one of the markets Brad lists above, I would be thinking deeply about how to embrace the transformative power of the web. Because, as Google’s Eric Schmidt famously wrote, “Don’t bet against the internet.”

There are three pieces to the session: web 2.0 trends that have impacted technology adoption; the impact of those trends; and finally, ways to adapt and succeed in this new world.

Here’s some exploratory thoughts on the impact of web 2.0 trends on technology adoption. I’ll post ways to adapt and succeed in this new world following the conference.

photo by thudfactor

The trends of recent years are well known by those interested in the web space:

• Open source software + commoditization of hardware = rise of capital efficient start-ups
• APIs, Cloud Computing, etc. = ability to leverage great amounts of existing innovation
• Tech blogs and aggregators =increased velocity of information
• Rise of read/write web and social features = engaged and networked user base

These trends have fueled a significant rise in the number of web start-ups, catalyzed web innovation, and have driven rapid growth for firms that found product/market fit first.

Great things, all of them. But these trends have also had a negative impact on technology adoption. In order to examine the impact it’s important to understand the system that’s changing.

The Traditional Technology Adoption Strategy:

In his seminal book, Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore outlined a strategy for commercializing new technologies based on the technology adoption lifecycle model. According to Moore, the phase where most new technologies die is in the chasm between early adopters and the early majority.

Moore’s strategy involves focusing on the current customer group and leveraging success in order to penetrate into the adjacent, larger market. Specific focus and investment must be made during the early adopter phase to mature both the product and the pitch in order to traverse the chasm.

This strategy, with its emphasis on investment into the early adopter community, has been utilized by entrepreneurs as a commercialization playbook for over a decade. However, given the recent trends in web 2.0, the strategy is starting to fall short.

How Recent Trends Impact Technology Adoption Strategy:

The same trends that have fueled web innovation in the past few years have also had a negative impact on both technology adoption and the effectiveness of Moore’s strategy. Let’s examine each trend in turn:

• Rise of capital efficient start-ups: the falling cost of starting a business has resulted in an explosion of start-up activity. More signal. More noise. And it’s increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.
• Ability to leverage existing innovation: tapping into third party innovation has created giant shoulders to stand on. It has also created a bevy of single-feature, copy-cat companies that lower the signal to noise ratio.
• Increased velocity of information: information flows across the early-adopter community at a previously unheard of speed and frequency. Rising above the noise and getting noticed is an ever increasing challenge.
• Engaged and networked user base: user generated content and network effects introduce switching costs and lock-in effects that are unrelated to – and are often not impacted by – technology advancement.

The increasing number of web companies, the velocity and frequency of start-up information, and the cost of switching from existing services have made it difficult to acquire the attention of the early adopter.

The increase in the number of copy-cat companies and single-feature technologies that exhibit minimal innovation have made it difficult to retain the attention of the early adopter.

And, in what I call the web 2.0 adoption paradox, the simplicity required to maintain the attention of the early adopter is often the barrier to acquiring their attention while the innovation required to acquire their attention is often the barrier to retaining their attention.

The chasm has moved down the adoption curve.

Like everyone that day we were glued to the television, watching the news in disbelief. It was the second day of second year and I’ll never forget the confusion that was emanating from everyone.

7 years later I stepped out of my apartment on the evening of Sept 10th and snapped this photo:

I’ve always been aware of how quickly the world changes. But in the past two years I’ve learned to deeply appreciate that life unfolds. It’s important that we welcome and accept the evolving nature of our lives.

Change is one common element that we all share.

And in the evening there’s nothing better than relaxing on a patio while sipping a beer as the sun dips over the horizon.

I’ve tried to enjoy all that the city offers in the summer but I’ve also had a busy travel schedule (work and pleasure). There have been multiple trips to SF, a trip to Chicago, Ottawa, and Australia. It’s been a remarkable few months.

The past few months have also been remarkable with respect to building the business. There are a bunch of things to share, not all of them here, not all of them now.

I’m immensely proud of what we’re building. If you want to participate in the alpha, just drop me a note.

There are also a few posts (and excellent discussions) on our site that may be of interest to you:

• What We Can Learn From Beckett Baseball Card Monthly
• Thinking About Context
• Incrementalism
• What We Can All Learn From Summize

PS, I now have my life savings invested into kiva

On Thursday, May 29th in Chicago some of the biggest brains in technology are congregating at the first TechCocktail Conference to teach, learn, and converse.

Eric Olson and Frank Gruber have organized what’s going to be an incredible event. Take a look at the speakers list: successful entrepreneurs, well-known VCs, and more. Brilliant minds all of them.

There’s a diverse number of topics covered. If you’re interested in the web, tech, and entrepreneurship it’s bound to be an incredible day. And it’s inexpensive. It would be hard to find a better value for the insight that you’ll gain. That’s a testament to Eric and Frank’s vision for the conference and the respect they have in the industry.

I’m honoured to share that I’ll be speaking at the conference.

The topic is Understanding the Semantic Web and I’ll be providing insight and knowledge on the topic and covering what you need to know about the emerging market.

Register now and enter the following promo code to save 10%: techcocktailer.

If you’re heading to the conference drop me a note, I’ll buy you a beer.

And it’s one that’s definitely worth coming back for.

In April of 07 the Arctic Monkeys – clearly my favourite band of the past few years – released their new album. While great, I became infatuated with a b-side from the album’s lead single.

Feature Dizzee Rascal the song continues to energize me with every listen. The hard driving guitar that is now a trademark of the band, the clever lyrics of Alex Turner, and Dizzee’s verse all add up to create an awesome song.

Had I not had a love affair with Jamie T and his entire album, this song would have been the best of 07 for me.

Check it out and let me know what you think – better than anything else on the new Monkey’s album?

Currently I’m in Austin. It was a long trip. Last Week I was in San Diego with Alex at ETech. It was a trip. The week before I was in San Francisco. Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge at night, towards SF, is something that everyone should experience.

If you’re in Austin let’s get together over a beer to discuss commercializing emerging web technologies. Drop me a note or stop by booth #228 to lock down time/place/beer type

And if you want to track my adventures in a more granular way, follow me on twitter. Ta-ta!

- my dad, in response to hearing I wanted to be an entrepreneur

Eight years later the gravity of my dad’s statement is greater than ever. The impact that a product’s usability has on its ultimate market performance continues to grow.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending my entire career commercializing new technology across companies in diverse industries. The usability (or lack-thereof) has always factored significantly into the technology’s ultimate success.

If you’re not thinking about usability, deeply, and practicing user-centric design practices, actively, then, well, good luck to you!

It’s something that’s always on my mind. And so during a recent trip to Palo Alto I picked up a book on the topic, Pip Coburn’s The Change Function.

In it Coburn presents a change function to explain the adoption of new technology:

f (user crises, total perceived pane of adoption)

Where adoption occurs when user crisis > total perceived pane of adoption.

Coburn chastises a tech world for its arrogant, supplier-side approach to product development. The “build it and they will come” mentality has far too often resulted in overly complex technology being developed that ultimately fails.

Ideally, Coburn argues, companies should leverage user-centric approaches to product design. Working collaboratively with users, through quick, iterative designs, companies can transition data into information and ultimately into insight.

There are a number of interesting case studies and worthwhile questions that can help guide user-centric design. The most valuable message that the book delivers is how important ease-of-use is to a product’s success and how focusing on the user keeps the focus true.

At 200 pages the book could use some editing. It would make a good 150-page book. The message is excellent at 100 pages. However, if you don’t practice user-centric design I highly recommend this. If the message is lost on you, read it again. The lesson’s that important.

The genre that has consumed my rca-cord for the past three years has been brit pop. A cool post would be explaining how I got there, but that’s not the focus of this post.

The focus of this post is my # 1 song of the year for 2007. A song that is surely brit pop, yet exhibits traits and elements of a different sound. A sound that, I can already tell, will lead me to a new genre. In that sense the song is significant not only because it was my most loved (and played!) song of the year, but additionally because it marks the beginning of the end.

The beginning of the end of my love affair with brit pop. The start of the long-walk away from the genre that has given me the Arctic Monkeys, Hard-Fi, and countless other favourite groups.

I love to connect songs to single moments in time that are rich, visual, memories. This song captures many moments, capturing a period. Like the genre shifting impact the song is having on my musical tastes, the period is best described as transitory.

Late summer, early fall. A time of transition for 25-year old Fraser.

My song of 2007 is Jamie T – Operation.

My theme and focus for 2008? To unclutter my life in as many respects as possible.

The thought originated as as I packed in anticipation of the move to the US. I was forced to realize just how much stuff I had. Stuff I had no need for. Stuff that created stress.

So I set out to focus on only bringing the things that really mattered. Two suitcases made the move with me. I’ve been here for two months and haven’t needed anything. In fact, it’s been stress reducing.

From there I focused on uncluttering the rest of my life. Stripping away things and embracing constraints in a diverse area.

Focus on what’s important.

I’ve been trying to really focus on loved ones, family and friends, because there’s nothing more critical. In our connected age it’s easy to form connections with many but it’s important to invest into those that matter most.

Goodbye stuff. I’ve embraced and learned to love simplistic living. It’s rewarding.

Google Reader used to bring me piles of information. That I skimmed. I fell into the bad habit of RSS overload, too many unread items would pile up and I would put aside interesting and thought provoking pieces to “read when I had time.” I would focus on body-count: plowing through uninteresting articles to lessen the stress-creating number of unreads. I’ve paired down 100 subscriptions to 10. I’m about to give up on the reader altogether. I’m now reading more, thinking deeper, and enjoying the returns.

Inbox? I’m clearing it out before I end each day.

Focusing on the moment. Friends know that my mind is generally in multiple places, racing from concept to concept. I’m working on focusing – and enjoying – the moment. The price was dear, a costly lack of focus and heightened anxiety. This is a hard one to work on, but I’m investing into it heavily.

I’m bringing the ‘uncluttered’ theme to every aspect of my life. So far it’s been a wonderful experience.

What can you focus less on in order to focus more?

Anyway, this is my third favourite song of 2007: Kings of Leon – On Call.

Appropriate title considering the cause of my frustration.

The song is good. The band is even better. Everybody (and this is not an exaggeration) can benefit from more rock in their life.

Dave, my brother, asked me the following question the other day: what’s the biggest difference between entrepreneurs you’ve met in Canada and entrepreneurs you’ve met in the States?

My intial response – “one’s the majors the other’s the minors” – left me unsatisfied. That explanation covers entrepreneurship but fails to explain entrepreneurs.

The biggest difference in entrepreneurs?

The answer lies with Barack.

Recently I was talking to an old friend. The US election, a favourite topic of mine, came up. I asked her how the US could put its faith in a man who’s running predominantly on a platform of hope and change for the future. The answer, so simple and clear, is still ringing my head: “only when a nation shares a collective hope can real change occur.”

Which brings us back to the biggest difference between entrepreneurs in Canada and the US:

Entrepreneurs in the States have a level of hope that’s unmatched in Canada. They dream bigger. Visions and ideas are bolder.

When your aspirations are on an entirely different level, so too are the things that you realize.

This is, of course, a product of the constraints imposed by the differing start-up ecosystems in the two countries and not a comment about entrepreneurs themselves (ask my friend Leigh for her story of dreaming beyond the Canadian start-up ecosystem; talk to David about the challenges that exist in simply getting the deal done).

There are great entrepreneurs in both countries. The difference in the magnitude of their dreams is explained by turning to The Stockdale Paradox, which is outlined in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The US start-up ecosystem supports bolder dreams and faced with this fact US entrepreneurs dream bigger than their Canadian counterparts.

When your aspirations are on an entirely different level, so too are the things that you realize.

I played their album,  In Our Bedroom After the War, constantly during the late fall. It’s a bit more poppy than their previous release. That’s not a bad thing. Although I did miss the raw emotion that was felt in some of their earlier work.

As a groomsman’s present my best buddy Greg got me tickets to see them in Toronto. The two of us had a memorable evening and the band – originally from Toronto – put on an incredible show in front of their hometown fans.

My favourite song on the new album is The Ghost of Genova Heights. It’s fitting that the most memorable moment of a memorable evening came when Torquil drunkenly reappeared on stage during this song wearing a suit of lights.

The Ghost of Genova Heights by Stars is my fourth favourite song of 2007.

He’s also the first entrepreneur in a developing country that will benefit from my new incentive program.

Regular readers know of my love for Kiva and how they’re reshaping the world of philanthropy and helping to change the world by creating an “online lending platform” that connects lenders to entrepreneurs in developing countries. The service aggregates small amounts of money from individuals in the developed world and distributes micro-loans to individuals in developing nations, allowing them to find a path out of poverty. A remarkable thing.

Mkama, I’m glad to help you out. Looking forward to following your progress over the months.

There’s always a tradition I follow that first night: plug in receiver, hook up speakers, and listen to the song of the moment on repeat while I dance around the place.

Al can attest to this. When I showed up in T.O. I celebrated my arrival by taking out a street lamp with my UHaul and then toasted the moment by listening to Mr. Brightside about a hundred times.

Last June I closed on my house, an old little two bedroom near the heart of Westdale. I moved two things over the first night: my bed and my stereo. It was hot. I was sweaty. Forever I will remember blasting my 5th favourite song of 2007 over and over while I ran around the place, blown away that it was ‘mine.’

My 5th favourite song of 2007 is of Montreal – suffer for fashion.