Last week,
I tuned in to a MySQL Webinar on Web 2.0 and MySQL’s place in it. I
was actually more interested in how they do it – they are very
professional – than in a marketing presentation per se,
A webinar
lets you broadcast say a Powerpoint presentation on the web. You see
it in your browser. Simultaneously it sets up a conference call so
everyone can listen. Lastly, a chat mechanism (similar to Skype, MSN
or IRC) enables the audience to communicate with the speakers. These
tools together make a cheap and effective tool for marketing, remote
training, decentralized meetings, etc. Cool stuff. Not sure if Webex
is considered Web 2.0, but it’s a cool application.
And the
MySQL folks are really good at it. They showed that it is possible to
start on time, with no technical hiccups, echo’s on the line, broken
connections etc. Amazing. ;-)
Being a
marketing presentation, MySQL listed all their name-brand Web 2.0
references. Google, del.icio.us, flickr, youtube and many more. The
list was quite impressive.
An then it
struck me. With the possible exception of Google (which had to buy
youtube to get a top tier web 2.0 application), none of these
companies were name-brands from even the previous Internet
generation, much less from the pre-Internet days.
Thinking back to fruit flies and disk drives, why is it so hard for
established companies to think outside the box? How do you foster
revolutionary innovation in the face of your own (current) success?
