(2008-12-01) Stogdill Enterprise Vs Web Culture

Jim Stogdill on the Two Cultures gap between the Enterprise and the Net-Head (web) guys.

Thomas Lord's comment is quite interesting, and one piece of it looks at Venture Capital's role in Innovation much differently than Umair Haque's 2009-01-15-HaqueVentureFailure post. The key (three part) concept needed is that of a basis set of capabilities, it's combinators, and its span... The only thing that can make either the enterprise or the web "exciting" again is a breakthrough in either or both the basis set and combinators (Generative). The question isn't "what's the next hot web site" but "what's the next big step after LAMP"? Similarly, in enterprise management, the way to achieve new agility is not to work on it directly but rather indirectly: work to tend the "basis set" and "span" of the firm... The problem as I see it for VC-s is that work on improving the basis set and combinators is driven mainly by a mix of government R And D investment and R And D investment by large, established firms (BigCo). If you find someone working on basis set improvements then the odds are almost certain that that person is being paid more or less directly by the government or by a very large, established firm. VCs mostly chase the outcome of that investment process.