Similar to, but more complicated than, Supply & Demand Forecasting attempts to gauge Push / Pull
Technological Push / Pull, cont. Technology Push: Inventors, entrepreneurs, effective R & D, all needed to introduce a useful innovation at (hopefully) the right time in the right place. Basically, a cool technology is invented and people have to be convinced they want it. Example (p.46): “A successful tech-nological change may require changes in basic habits and attitudes. This can be seen in the failure of agricultural extension agents in New Mexico to get farmers to adopt hybrid corn in the late 1940s. There was no question about the technical superiority of the corn: demonstrations showed that its use resulted in a potential trebling of yields. Impressed by this improvement, half of the farmers planted the new variety, thereby immediately doubling their output. But after two years virtu-ally all of the farmers had abandoned hybrid corn and reverted to their traditional low- yielding crop. The problem was that the cornmeal made from the hybrid variety could not be made into good tortillas; it did not taste right and it couldn’t be easily shaped. In the absence of a change in culinary patterns, a technically su-perior product could make no lasting impact. Push and Pull The rejection of hybrid corn in New Mexico demonstrates the perils of viewing technological change as a largely self- contained process.”
Technological Push / Pull, cont. Market Pull: consists of effective adoption – desire for the technology and the ability to pay for it. Basically, a market exists for a solution to a problem, and it effectively pulls the technology out of the lab and into the real world. ( Wired 12.09, 2004 ) Volti (p.47): “Everything from fundamental scientific breakthroughs to minor refinements serve to “ push” new technologies into the world. Still, simply having an available supply of new devices and techniques does not guarantee that they will be used. Many examples of technologies that languished because they were “ ahead of their time” can be cited. The pneumatic tire was patented in 1845 and then forgotten until it was reinvented by John Dunlop in 1888. DDT was first synthesized in 1874, but it was not put to use as an insecticide until 1941. Several decades elapsed before the laser passed from being a laboratory curiosity to a practical device used for every-thing from supermarket scanners to instruments for microsurgery. For a technology to make the transition from the potential to the actual requires not just that it exist; there must also be a desire for it, coupled with the ability to pay for it.”
Europe & Asia: pull
A market economy promises financial rewards, encourages inventive efforts, and stimulates competition. A centrally planned economy assumes that economic activities can be reduced to predictable routines.
Hundreds of different kinds of cars Cars “sink or swim” based on their own merits Reviews, word-of-mouth Frequency of repairs Style, Need Pictured: Ford Fusion Hybrid, voted Motor Trend Car of the Year
Suzuki X90: only existed for 2 model years before being discontinued due to poor sales (7205, total)
Pontiac Aztek, 2001-2005. Often considered the ugliest car ever made by general Motors, if not the ugliest car of all time. See “The Pontiac Aztek and the Perils of Design by Committee” http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000321.html
Hundreds of different kinds of cars Cars “sink or swim” based on their own merits Reviews, word-of-mouth Frequency of repairs Style, Need
Centrally-planned Economy, Push / Pull Few kinds of cars Example: the Trabant Eastern Germany Unreliable Underpowered Horrible emissions Took years to get one
Centrally-planned Economy, Push / Pull Few kinds of cars Example: the Trabant Eastern Germany Unreliable Underpowered Horrible emissions Took years to get one
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