| Knowing what is unknown sounds like a Zen koan, and | | | | many times what these experts had predicted. |
| perhaps it is. We admit that competitive technologies | | | | Interestingly, Tetlock found no differential advantage |
| strategic blindness may be a difficult concept to grasp, | | | | between those experts holding graduate degrees |
| but solving this riddle may mean the difference | | | | versus those with undergraduate degrees. |
| between success and failure for your company. | | | | Taleb also offers studies by Albert and Raiffa to |
| Blindness, in the sense of not knowing what we don't | | | | further open our minds to the blindness conundrum. |
| know, is a root cause of serious defects in the | | | | The experts they studied said they had scoped their |
| strategic competitive intelligence gathering process: | | | | datasets to have 98% confidence of completeness, |
| defects such as not choosing a broad enough set of | | | | This means they their intended error rate to be |
| search strategies, not selecting the relevant cross-over | | | | bounded at 2%. However, it turned out they were off |
| subject areas, or missing the extreme ends. | | | | by 15-30%. |
| The costs of under-sampling, overlooking or | | | | Albert and Raiffa then tested their Harvard MBA |
| misinterpreting key competitive technological intelligence | | | | students. These non-experts under-estimated sufficient |
| can be huge. | | | | dataset scope by a whopping 45%. Taleb frames |
| Consider the fact that only about 75 companies from | | | | these percentages as |
| the 1960's S&P 500 are still in existence. What | | | | "the difference between what people actually know |
| happened to the other 425? Could competitive | | | | and how much they think they know." |
| intelligence blindness have played a part? | | | | The belief that data scoping encompasses 98% of the |
| One problem is that "blindness" costs are often hidden. | | | | relevant set, when it is more likely embraces only |
| It is difficult to measure revenues that are not earned | | | | 70-85%, has a serious impact on the range of |
| because a product lacks certain competitive features, | | | | possibilities considered at the very beginning of the |
| key features that might have been added had the | | | | entire intelligence gathering process. It potentially leaves |
| technologies intelligence gathering phase been more | | | | too many possibilities unconsidered - and also confers |
| wide ranging. | | | | a degree of confidence in the risk profile of the final |
| However, the competitive "blindness" costs of patent | | | | product commercialization strategy that is |
| infringement penalty payments, and cease and desist | | | | unwarranted. |
| orders are more visible. These can be measured as | | | | How big might this under-scoping error be in your |
| huge, often in hundreds of millions of dollars. | | | | organization? What are the implications of this |
| In many such IP infringement cases, the losing party will | | | | "blindness" if your business strategy is centered around |
| claim surprise that the competitor is bringing a claim. | | | | "disruptive technologies" or "blue oceans" or predicting |
| This may or may not be a courtroom tactic. | | | | revenues from the execution of "open innovation" |
| It has been our experience in working with many | | | | technology transfer? |
| technologies companies that often the organization's | | | | To formulate a winning technology innovation strategy, |
| technology landscape scenarios are too narrowly | | | | a sufficiently broad competitive intelligence scan of |
| scoped, and they are truly dumbfounded to find that | | | | technology options is essential to illuminate potential |
| they were transgressing. This is particularly the case | | | | breakthrough opportunities, as well as to expose |
| when the intellectual property in question was | | | | potentially devastating "hidden" risks. |
| developed in an industry different from their own. | | | | Leading companies have processes and visualization |
| If we wanted to make it simple, we could say that the | | | | tools in place to mitigate this proven "expert blindness" |
| fixable causes of competitive technology strategy | | | | problem. |
| blindness might be due to lack of attention, or might | | | | They do this by increasing the scope of their global |
| result from time and money saving decisions made at | | | | technologies landscape search process massively in |
| some point. | | | | the first instance, followed by including varied insights |
| But if we delve a little more deeply into the Zen-like | | | | gained through cross-functional collaborative validation |
| nature of strategic technologies blindness, we learn | | | | of the data. This collaborative vetting of broadly open |
| that it can often be caused by "too much knowing." | | | | options and possibilities happens at the very beginning, |
| It turns out that blindness is largely built in to any | | | | and continuously throughout, the product strategy |
| "expert" scoping process -- due to inherent | | | | development process. |
| under-scoping biases of the human mind. In other | | | | Understanding the expert bias toward blindness is key |
| words, the "experts" think they have a good sense of | | | | to adequately scoping and validating competitive |
| what sufficiently broad sampling boundaries are | | | | technologies intelligence, and questioning other's |
| needed to draw conclusions with a 98% degree of | | | | assumptions. Going out of bounds to look for |
| confidence. | | | | cross-over ideas that will surprise competitors is a |
| The experts are wrong, says Nassim Taleb in "The | | | | worthwhile ongoing strategic business pursuit. |
| Black Swan." | | | | Knowing more of what is unknown is becoming a |
| Taleb cites Philip Tetlock's study of twenty seven | | | | continuously improving core competency within |
| thousand predictions by experts, experts who believed | | | | organizations that are focused on sustaining significant |
| their predictions were narrowly bounded. The results | | | | competitive success in the marketplace. |
| of the study didn't back them up; the error rates were | | | | |