Innovations are like athletes. Their life consists of 3 stages: growth, peak, and decline. Peak is the main event in the life of the innovation. It is the moment when innovation has the biggest market share. Growth is the increase in market share and decline is loss of market share.
It is hard to determine what is actually peak for an innovation. Looking at history it is clear that we have passed peak TV, peak radio, peak print newspapers, and we are in decline phase of those innovations. These innovations will never reach the market share and influence they had before. We are also close to peaks or have passed peaks in oil, coal, and internal combustion cars. We are far from peaks in digitalization, video games, and Internet, and very very far from a peak in space exploration. It is much harder to say when will VR, kitchen furniture, and industrial cinema peak. Hardest for me is to guess what is the peak of porcelain.
Companies must choose which innovation to invest in. In this decision it is important to understand how close is the innovation to its peak.
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