No, I didn’t misspell it. What I’m remembering the mainframe – and IBM’s marketing decision that misjudged the market for desktop units.
Sop and I unknowingly read the same comments on the ALL board and he connected the dots in his excellent post on Merlin and McKinsey. The story of the Mac on my mind is told in one of my favorite books, Organizing Genius – relevant to insurance issues because it describes the development of an alternative that became a new standard when the big blue blinked.
Systems are built to resist change. A strong system will assimilate change to the point that over time what was intended to change the system simply becomes a part of the system – the National Flood Insurance Program a case in point.
Real system change occurs when external events pressure the system to the point that it has to change to survive. In that sense, Hurricane Katrina will prove to be the wind of change for an insurance system exempt from federal anti-trust law – an exemption that created reserves so large only 4.2% was lost from the largest insured event in history, according to the White Paper linked below.
Remember the main, read or re-read Robert Hunter’s White Paper, take another look at Sop’s post – then, run out and buy yourself a copy of Organizing Genius.