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?