Paul Saffo - Mapping the Cone of Uncertainty

I started this week attending a small event at the Institute for the Future (IFTF) where Dr.Bob Johansen presented the themes from his just released book Get There Early(1)

And today John Maloney of Colabria emailed a post on Johansen's colleague Paul Saffo's HBR article(2) which provides this map of The Cone of Uncertainty that the FTF folks use to provide foresight and gain insight as the basis for their strategy consulting practice. Here's Paul's map:
Reading Bob Johansen's book and seeing Paul's map led me to thinking about the 3rd element of the IFTF mantra of Foresight-Insight-Action, and about the significant role innovators and venture investors play in Crossing the Chasm from early adoption of innovations to the promised land of mainstream markets.( The Action step)

So I mashed up the Chasm map by Geoff Moore's Chasm Group (below)

with the Cone of Uncertainty by shifting the Chasm on the Time baseline to start where the Cone begins to open up and where the process of early adoption shifts gears and launches itself across the chasm.


Shifting the Chasm further to the right or widening the chasm as the timeline progresses signals danger for the innovator trying to move his concept from idea to mass market adoption. Many innovations fail to cross the chasm - and thus bring the certainty of failure to the forecaster's cone of uncertainty. Forecasting the adoption of innovations depends significantly on what happens as the innovator and venture investors try to bring innovative products across the chasm from early adoption to mainstream markets. The Action Step!

(1)Amazon.com: Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Co

(2) Six Rules for Effective Forecasting.

Death and Taxes - a visual guide to the Federal Budget

Edward Tufte would be proud. From a link at Death and Taxes 2008 Poster - $24.95 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce

Probably worth the price to get this poster - but the interactive version is much more valuable as a spatial data management map.

got this from Pistachio on twitter. Maybe i can begin to see the value of this weirdo IM flow after all.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid713271701/bclid713073346/bctid709364416

Logic+Emotion: Lifestreaming - a way to manage CPA

David Armano really "gets" the flow of social networking. Lifestreaming is his vision of the way to "manage" the dilemma of continuous partial attention (CPA). Lifestreaming Consultants? take a look......


Logic Emotion: Lifestreams

Topic Map presentation

Go to slide 125.

Twitter ROA? a continuing inquiry into the value of Social Networking tools

Introductory comment: I find that posting links within my writing interrupts the flow of the post. If readers are interested in the link references they will be footnoted at the end of the post.


I have recently been nagged by my colleagues to sign up for Twitter - a microblogging sensation that is sweeping the social network world. You will see a boring segment of my recent twitters on the sidebar of this blog.

In a conversation with Adam Green of Grazr, I asked the question : "what is the Return on Attention(ROA) on the use of twitter?". He hasn't yet given me a sufficient answer.

This led me to inquire of Jerry Michalski whether Twitter could be filtered and connected to his now famous online Brain. (1). where I found this blog post on Breakthrough by Terry Frazer (2) describing the work of Lisa Haneberg. This 2x2 is Lisa's, and provides a good way to think about ROA.

Here is Lisa's comment on Breakthrough:

"My point it that breakthroughs generally happen in conversation.

To generate breakthroughs, introverts - or extroverts - or anyone needs to be in conversation about their goals and ideas.

Even if we look at science, the individual work we do is important, but it is the sharing and collaboration that usually catalyzes bigger advancements.

I am a proud introvert myself. I have learned that to generate more breakthroughs, I need to engage others in my work, listen more, and share more."

Here is how I position Twitter on Lisa's chart:


I currently position Twitter in the "unfocused" side of the chart. A peak performer ( upper right hand corner of the chart) generates a high ROA from his or her activities in social networking and I have not yet found the ROA in Twitter. It may be a useful "engagement" tool, but for me, I need some way to manage the Twitter flow in order to move it toward the upper right hand corner of the chart where peak performers can integrate into their daily practice. Until that occurs - I won't be happy with Twitter.

(1) Welcome to Sociate - Jerry Michalski's home on the Web .

(2) Breakthroughs Happen in a Social Context:

Slidshare + Audio - Now you're talking!

Here is a test presentation of a new slideshare feature I have been waiting for. Combine your slideshare presentations with an audio track and Voila! an audiographic presentation. Voice over PPT - Very effective for rehearsal or for cleaning up and redubbing a previous audio recording of your presentations. Also useful as soundbite creator for selected segments of a presentation. And, all nicely microformatted by Slideshare to support remixing. Could be a new style of podcasting.

Click on the central Listen button to the embedded slideshow below to hear and see the audiographic demo - I can't wait to test it on some of my Slideshare presentations.

Thanks for the Test to Garr Reynolds - otherwise found at Presentation Zen