5 ms·

The final stage of the creative process is dissemination, and this is what failed Xerox Parc. This is also what failed Kodak, when they failed to capitalise on

by Daub 4y ago

The final stage of the creative process is dissemination, and this is what failed Xerox Parc. This is also what failed Kodak, when they failed to capitalise on the digital camera, which they had invented. The core issue is twofold: 1. Entrenched interests within the company. When Microsoft tried to develop their mobile strategy, the head of the Excel division deliberately made the mobile Excel experience a crappy one as he had no faith in Mobile to begin with. 2. Framing the new product within old paradigms. Kodak had it all: a head start on digital image capture, a partnership with Apply (with the QuickTake 100) and shot tons of money. But despite developing a web-based dissemination platform for digital photos, they could not foresee the rise of social sharing. This was a tragedy, as their Box Brownie (released 1900) had the same effect on the photo industry of the time as social sharing would have on the photo industry. But Kodak was fixated on the mistaken notion that consumers would want to print their 'Kodak moment'.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
If Parc had failed at dissemination we'd all still be using the command line. The windows/icons/mouse/menus paradigm disseminated just fine. It wasn't necessarily completely original - see also, Mother of All Demos - but they showed it could be implemented in real systems with real usability benefits. Laser printers and networking also disseminated just fine. What didn't disseminate was the development environment. That's not necessarily a surprise, because an environment that delights creative people with PhDs isn't going to translate well to the general public. Ultimately Smalltalk, MESA, etc were like concept cars. You could admire them and learn from them, but they were never going to be viable as mainstream products. Windows and Mac filled the gap by producing dumbed-down and overcomplicated versions of the original vision, which - most importantly - happened to be much cheaper. Xerox get a lot of criticism for missing the potential, but it's easy to forget that in the 70s word processors typically cost five figures, and minicomputers equivalent to the Dorado cost six figures. Maybe the future would have been different if someone had said "We need to take these ideas and work out how to build them as cheaply as possible." But realistically commodified computing in the 70s ran on Z80s and still cost five figures for a business system with a hard drive. The technology to make a cheaper version didn't exist until the 80s. The problem since Parc is more that there has been no equivalent concentration of smart, creative, playful people. Technology culture changed from playful exploration to hustle and "engagement", there's less greenfield space to explore, and - IMO - there are very few people in the industry who have the raw IQ and the creativity to create a modern equivalent. It's pretty much the opposite problem. Instead of exploring tech without obvious business goals, business goals are so tightly enforced it's very hard to imagine what would happen if completely open exploration was allowed again.
- Daub 4y ago
  > If Parc had failed at dissemination we'd all still be using the command line. Yes, it was disseminated, but not by Xerox. It was the startups of the time that took the baton. > The problem since Parc is more that there has been no equivalent concentration of smart, creative, playful people. Could not agree more. Play is a very underestimated component of productive thought. But what is play? I would say that it is production without responsibility. It is notable that children use play in order to explore their potential and their place in the world. Which is to say, they use it to grow. Need I say more?
  - igouy 4y ago
    "Starting a Spin-out Company: ParcPlace Systems" ? https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Starting_a_Spin-out_Company:_ParcPlace_Systems https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Starting_a_Spin...
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  The thing is that Xerox mgmt themselves refused to consider downsizing the ideas developed internally towards commodity hardware that people could afford. They were interested only in high margin office systems. So other people did it. Not a bad thing for the industry, but bad for Xerox. Most famously, the team @ Apple around the Lisa and the Mac. But also Lee Lorenzen was an employee at Xerox in Texas. In 1982 he tried to pitch management on a port of their Star concepts to 8080 CP/M class hardware, to get it into people's hands. Demo footage here, remember this is before the Mac came out [0]. He was rebuffed, and left Xerox to join Gary Kildall @ Digital Research, where they created the GEM GUI (which became the OS for the Atari ST and the basis of Lorenzen's next venture, the successful DTP program, Ventura Publisher) [1]. Xerox was never able to penetrate the consumer level DTP market, but this was a big emerging business in the 80s which Xerox would have been a natural fit for. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBGRZftS30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBGRZftS30 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EeOanSInjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EeOanSInjo
  - baby 4y ago
ghaff 4y ago
>But Kodak was fixated on the mistaken notion that consumers would want to print their 'Kodak moment'. Yes and no. They also invented the PhotoCD. Kodak doubtless did a lot of things wrong. But transitioning from largely a chemical and film consumables business--they actually owned a chemical company at one point--to digital was always going to be tough. Very little of their expertise and distribution channels was transferrable to digital. Fujifilm did better by applying its emulsion knowhow to some healthcare products. And also came out with a pretty nice line of mirrorless cameras. But it had tough financial times too and was a much smaller company to pivot.
- marcinzm 4y ago
  Yeah, Kodak was a lot less a photography company and a lot more a specialized chemistry company. Utterly changing the core focus of a large company is very difficult to pull off because they spent decades optimizing everything to the original core focus.
  - yourapostasy 4y ago
    > ... a specialized chemistry company. With the continuous advances in materials sciences, I wish they had pivoted their expertise towards that direction. Though arguably BASF and similar already occupy that sector, there are various photothermal and similar photochemical advances that need their operational and manufacturing prowess to bring out of the labs.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
orev 4y ago
At the time (~1999) digital photography was starting to take shape on the consumer side, the only option for viewing digital photos was on a CRT computer screen. Also at the time, the idea of anyone other than “nerds” having a computer and wanting to view photos on them was completely foreign to executives in the company (this was the overwhelmingly popular view of almost everyone at the time, not just Kodak executives). IMO, this was by far the primary issue that caused Kodak to miss out. Source: I worked in the Kodak HQ at this time.
- Daub 4y ago
  Thanks. One reason why I come here is to hear original testimony such as this. I present on Kodak in my lecture on creativity and will add your quote to me slides. Was there anyone you know inside the company that had the potential to change things, to have made a different future?

by Daub 4y ago

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

If Parc had failed at dissemination we'd all still be using the command line. The windows/icons/mouse/menus paradigm disseminated just fine. It wasn't necessarily completely original - see also, Mother of All Demos - but they showed it could be implemented in real systems with real usability benefits. Laser printers and networking also disseminated just fine. What didn't disseminate was the development environment. That's not necessarily a surprise, because an environment that delights creative people with PhDs isn't going to translate well to the general public. Ultimately Smalltalk, MESA, etc were like concept cars. You could admire them and learn from them, but they were never going to be viable as mainstream products. Windows and Mac filled the gap by producing dumbed-down and overcomplicated versions of the original vision, which - most importantly - happened to be much cheaper. Xerox get a lot of criticism for missing the potential, but it's easy to forget that in the 70s word processors typically cost five figures, and minicomputers equivalent to the Dorado cost six figures. Maybe the future would have been different if someone had said "We need to take these ideas and work out how to build them as cheaply as possible." But realistically commodified computing in the 70s ran on Z80s and still cost five figures for a business system with a hard drive. The technology to make a cheaper version didn't exist until the 80s. The problem since Parc is more that there has been no equivalent concentration of smart, creative, playful people. Technology culture changed from playful exploration to hustle and "engagement", there's less greenfield space to explore, and - IMO - there are very few people in the industry who have the raw IQ and the creativity to create a modern equivalent. It's pretty much the opposite problem. Instead of exploring tech without obvious business goals, business goals are so tightly enforced it's very hard to imagine what would happen if completely open exploration was allowed again.

Daub 4y ago
> If Parc had failed at dissemination we'd all still be using the command line. Yes, it was disseminated, but not by Xerox. It was the startups of the time that took the baton. > The problem since Parc is more that there has been no equivalent concentration of smart, creative, playful people. Could not agree more. Play is a very underestimated component of productive thought. But what is play? I would say that it is production without responsibility. It is notable that children use play in order to explore their potential and their place in the world. Which is to say, they use it to grow. Need I say more?
- igouy 4y ago
  "Starting a Spin-out Company: ParcPlace Systems" ? https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Starting_a_Spin-out_Company:_ParcPlace_Systems https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Starting_a_Spin...
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
The thing is that Xerox mgmt themselves refused to consider downsizing the ideas developed internally towards commodity hardware that people could afford. They were interested only in high margin office systems. So other people did it. Not a bad thing for the industry, but bad for Xerox. Most famously, the team @ Apple around the Lisa and the Mac. But also Lee Lorenzen was an employee at Xerox in Texas. In 1982 he tried to pitch management on a port of their Star concepts to 8080 CP/M class hardware, to get it into people's hands. Demo footage here, remember this is before the Mac came out [0]. He was rebuffed, and left Xerox to join Gary Kildall @ Digital Research, where they created the GEM GUI (which became the OS for the Atari ST and the basis of Lorenzen's next venture, the successful DTP program, Ventura Publisher) [1]. Xerox was never able to penetrate the consumer level DTP market, but this was a big emerging business in the 80s which Xerox would have been a natural fit for. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBGRZftS30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBGRZftS30 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EeOanSInjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EeOanSInjo
- baby 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

>But Kodak was fixated on the mistaken notion that consumers would want to print their 'Kodak moment'. Yes and no. They also invented the PhotoCD. Kodak doubtless did a lot of things wrong. But transitioning from largely a chemical and film consumables business--they actually owned a chemical company at one point--to digital was always going to be tough. Very little of their expertise and distribution channels was transferrable to digital. Fujifilm did better by applying its emulsion knowhow to some healthcare products. And also came out with a pretty nice line of mirrorless cameras. But it had tough financial times too and was a much smaller company to pivot.

marcinzm 4y ago
Yeah, Kodak was a lot less a photography company and a lot more a specialized chemistry company. Utterly changing the core focus of a large company is very difficult to pull off because they spent decades optimizing everything to the original core focus.
- yourapostasy 4y ago
  > ... a specialized chemistry company. With the continuous advances in materials sciences, I wish they had pivoted their expertise towards that direction. Though arguably BASF and similar already occupy that sector, there are various photothermal and similar photochemical advances that need their operational and manufacturing prowess to bring out of the labs.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

orev 4y ago

At the time (~1999) digital photography was starting to take shape on the consumer side, the only option for viewing digital photos was on a CRT computer screen. Also at the time, the idea of anyone other than “nerds” having a computer and wanting to view photos on them was completely foreign to executives in the company (this was the overwhelmingly popular view of almost everyone at the time, not just Kodak executives). IMO, this was by far the primary issue that caused Kodak to miss out. Source: I worked in the Kodak HQ at this time.

Daub 4y ago
Thanks. One reason why I come here is to hear original testimony such as this. I present on Kodak in my lecture on creativity and will add your quote to me slides. Was there anyone you know inside the company that had the potential to change things, to have made a different future?