Every Company Needs a Good Map

One of my fellow Know More Media blog authors, Alex Ion, has a brief post about the new Verizon Voyager phone. He believes that it will eat into iPhone sales and several of the comments left disagree. Since I was wrong about how successful the iPhone would be (here, here, and here) I will not attempt any guess at this issue.

What I would like to cover is the issue of Innovation or Invention versus Imitation. If you have ever created a new product you know how frustrating it is to create public awareness. It is even more frustrating to spend a lot of time and effort and then have someone just copy it, with minor modifications, and then claim originality. Some do not even bother to claim originality.

• Do people care who came first?
• Do customers reward innovation over improved imitation?
• Is there a way to protect or reward true innovators? 

I think people do appreciate who came first if that person or company works very hard to make the item known. This is no small task and so more often than not people just don't know who came first. A patent used to be a pretty good document to reference but as it appears the law will be changing and so that first to file becomes the objective, not first to invent. Attempts to glorify being first rarely produce significant reward if the product is significantly flawed.

I think people reward innovators indirectly. They may not buy the product initially but they do increase their respect for the company or person. Look at the HP printer ads that were so creative (until lately). My opinion of HP was modified and we even bought an HP laptop. It may be hard to quantify the response directly but it can be seen in the over all opinion of customers.

There is not much one can do to stop imitators and copycats. The best defense is a good offense. Know there will be imitations and be prepared to release new and improved versions as soon as possible. A company cannot simply be first or fast. There will always be someone faster or bigger. Be best at product quality, customer support, design, technology, or price. (Sounds like the 5-Fold Way...)

Seth Godin loves to say "Ideas that spread win" and he's right. The key to getting people to talk about your product over other options is to be best at one of those 5 areas. That is what matters to people more than who was first, second, or where they are.

Another of my favorite bloggers, Lewis Green has a great post that is relevant to this discussion: What Are You Doing to Get Noticed This Week? There he lists some great activities that help a company to draw attention to its activities, accomplishments, or offerings. You can be the best, and know one will know it if you don't make the aware of it.

So, are you going to buy a Voyager, an iPhone, or wait for round 3?