Developing a "winner" of a product can be one of the worst fates that can befall a high-flying company. While success is certainly sweet, a blockbuster product can become all consuming, and a safe harbor that causes a company do all it can to preserve that product, including shelving any and all innovation and efforts to discover the next big thing.

The corporate landscape is littered with companies that stuck with their formerly successful product, effectively whistling their way into the grave. Blockbuster video comes to mind as a recent example, the US-based video rental company that ignored the trend of DVDs by mail and streaming video until it was far too late and recently filed for bankruptcy.

While it is tempting to rest on your laurels, especially after building the infrastructure, market mass, and talent for your prize product, once one of your offerings achieves that status, the best move you can make is to begin searching for the next winner. 

I find most aspects of the "green" movement overblown, and wonder if all the hot air generated by this movement could be harnessed, if all the Earth's energy problems would be solved. Despite my skepticism of many aspects of "Green", some of the core principles of general conservation and enjoyment of the planet's resources can hardly be anything but a good thing. I've marveled at sunrises and spent evenings in the forest under the canopy of a thousand stars, and hope these resources will be just as beautiful and accessible for my children and my children's children.

What is particularly irksome about the various elements of the Green movement is their inability to recognize they support these core principles, and work together with others that share the same concerns. For example, when it comes to recreational land usage, there seems to be a stratified and parochial hierarchy. The hikers hate the horseback riders, who in turn hate the mountain bikers and hunters, who all hate the off-road motorcyclists. Atop this entire pecking order is yet another group who thinks no one should actually use the outdoors-that this resource is too precious for humans to enjoy.

Interestingly, I've seen the most savvy backpacker outclassed in outdoor experience by a lowly hunter, or a dirt-biker who spends far more time in the woods and leaves little trace of his or her activities than the armchair environmentalists who would rather lock that person out of the forest altogether. There are certainly a raft of threats to these areas, and one would think far more could be accomplished by the various users of these lands working together rather than attempting to exclude one another from what they claim to love and want to preserve for others. 

On a recent evening while travelling in Pittsburgh, I walked past an urban school occupying a former retail storefront. Instead of clothing, electronics, or home goods, there was colorful children's artwork adorning the large windows, and a couple of impressive-looking government plaques that caught my eye. They proudly noted that the school had achieved "adequate advancement" over the past two years, perhaps one of the most hollow endorsements I've seen since "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

I can only wonder how often we in the corporate world celebrate mere "adequately", showering fancy trappings and even compensation on the merely adequate rather than encouraging and demanding superior performance.  

In case you missed them, my regular column on CBS' Tech Republic contained the following articles in the month of August:

Outsourcing and offshoring, revisited
IT as an economic indicator
Building the next 'geek generation'
Test it like you mean it!

Attention Podcast Fans! The Foresight Newsletter is now available in Podcast format on www.itbswatch.com as well as via iTunes . I make no warranties about the quality of the host however!  

The Long Trail

I've subjected my wife to all manner of shenanigans, and most recently went on a nice "walk" in the woods. My parents own a house in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a picturesque part of the state with abundant outdoor activities, and excellent hiking. I've made a number of trips up the State's highest peak, Mount Washington, and was looking forward to going up there again with Meghan.

In the past we had climbed the mountain, which has a road to the summit offering an easy exit should the weather turn nasty or one's legs run out of steam for the decent. We've both been running for a couple of years, and I cavalierly suggested we take an approximately 10 mile hike up the back of the mountain, and then descend on the opposite side.

One of the interesting aspects of Mount Washington is its rugged topography, and we spent a good portion of the hike scrambling on all fours, eventually reaching the summit around 2PM. After a hearty lunch, I glibly strode past the ticket window for a van ride down, and we started our long and lonely descent, apparently the only two people venturing down this late in the afternoon and not witnessing another soul for the entire 5 mile descent. Clouds rolled over the mountain, and the trail continued to resemble more of a boulder field than a rustic path.

Despite deteriorating weather conditions that had me worried, and leg muscles screaming for respite, my wife hung in there, admonishing me to never subject her to this again, but otherwise keeping to the path and soldiering on. When we finally reached our pickup point after a grueling descent, she gave me a well-deserved look of "don't ever do that again", returned the smile to her face and demanded I source the evening's beer as penance.