How the theory of evolution governs the business world

Great post--I especially enjoyed the part about destruction.

Here is another evolutionary example:

In the wild, animals (often) tend to be lumped into one of two categories--predator or prey. In order to survive, they must constantly evolve to keep up with the times.

The prey: To survive, it must develop better colorings and markings to remain "invisible" to the predator in their natural environment.

In response, the predator develops better eyesight to more easily spot the camoflauged prey. Indeed, some predatory animals have developed a four color cone vision system (or more) to detect prey in hiding (humans have only three cones--we cannot begin to imagine the colors that these animals see!).

Although this can be used as an analogy for many businesses, here is a specific example:

Radar detectors!

Police (predators?) develop better systems of detecting speeder. In response, certain businesses keep developing better radar detectors to keep speeders (prey?) informed of any police in the area.

And so the cycle continues, two businesses evolving as they compete.

This makes me also think that the consumer must want to evolve. Although greatly in the minority, there are folks out there who wouldn't give up their typewriters. So down the road we may see one of two things happen: a) Typewriters and their loyal followers will die out or b) these folks will "survive" because they have an advantage--perhaps they are better writers because they don't rely on the word processing program to check their documents.

And here you can see another round of changes happening...as it is parents and educators are concerned that kids aren't learning math because they are using calculators. What if computers moved into the classroom fully, such that kids didn't need to know how to write properly? I think we'd start hearing about it pretty quick...and all of a sudden we have a group of folks (parents and educators) who don't WANT to evolve--at least not yet.

That's my rambling seventeen cents...
Becky




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