Creative Destruction

 I was scanning my LinkedIn stream and saw an article about United Airlines, and their (nefarious) plot to get their passengers to switch to their credit cards.  From what I gather from the article, using their card gets you more miles on a flight than if you book with another credit card.  Click here to see the post on LinkedIn.  Leaving aside for a second what it means to folks in places like Chicago and Denver and San Francisco, where United controls a significant portion of the gates and is in some instances the only real option for flying, we can ask ourselves - why does a transportation company care what credit card you use?  And the secret hiding in plain sight is that the airlines make more profit from credit card fees than they do from ticket sales.  If that's news to you, don't take my word for it .  All the majors operate in a loss without their loyalty programs. Which leads to another question - given the move to subscriptions, outsourcing...

 I'm constantly amazed by how much emphasis people place on starting things - a new hobby, a new career, getting married, starting up a new company, initiating a new war, but how little thought they put into how things might end.  Starting new activities, companies, even wars, is relatively easy.  Unless a lot of thought is put into how things might end, getting out can be very difficult.  It's a lesson that seems we must constantly relearn, to our detriment. The enthusiasm of the beginning In the beginning of the execution of any new idea, the energy and passion seems to virtually guarantee success.  You've found the perfect mate, or spotted an emerging market to address, or found a tin pot tyrant to take out.  As Bill Murray says in Stripes, when they have to take the armed RV into what was then Czechoslovakia, "We go in, we get out, it's like going to Wisconsin".  Oh, the unwilling led by the unready. But, and there is a big "but" here, few people...

 I teach strategy in a graduate business program and one of my favorite frameworks to introduce to the students is VUCA.  Unlike, say, Porter's Five Forces or Treacy's three competitive positions , VUCA is something they've all experienced, just never had a framework or way to put a name to what they've experienced. VUCA was developed by the military to help officers better consider what they were facing and how to respond. Private companies and universities started teaching the VUCA approach in the late 1990s as a way to think through complex situations. Today, businesses need to be much better at interpreting the change that's going on around them, and, more importantly and perhaps surprisingly, the VUCA we ourselves create and even welcome into our operations by adopting AI. Every new technology or platform has introduced uncertainty and change.  I've been in the sphere long enough to remember what it looked like to get an email address, and what that meant...

 Everyone is talking about the impact AI will have on business.  AI may make companies more productive, more efficient and possibly more profitable.  AI may lead to fewer employees, cutting costs.  AI may lead to new insights and new products or services.  All of this is well and good. The problem with all of this AI enthusiasm is that it is not asymmetrical.  If company A has AI and deploys it, company B has access to much if not all of the same technology and will likely be getting much, if not the same, answers.  As everyone moves toward mutually assured AI, where every company has the same insights and the same analysis, AI won't be a competitive advantage for any company, because the ones that are keeping current on AI will all have the same information, and those that did not choose to stay current will wither and die. So, how do the companies that keep up on the cutting edge with AI win?  If we assume that all of their remaining competitors...