Growing Faster than the Market – Part 9 – What the !@#$ Does Market Do?

One of the phrases that all marketing executives aspire to use is — “We’re growing faster than the market!”

What is ironic is that in the ’90’s this phrase foreshadowed good things and in the ’00’s this phrase foreshadows disaster.

The 90’s

In the ’90’s this phrase was used often, and surprisingly, it was reasonably accurate. For example, companies that sold SerDes chips and successfully added Framers to their product lines resulted in 2 products that tracked the market. Thus the “product family revenues” would grow faster than the market. If the company could continue to win more content with each generation of chips this would be sustainable.

The 00’s

In the ’00’s this phrase is not used often, but when it is, the situation is often “darkly comic”. The last time I heard it was to describe how a product family could grow in a declining market.

The story goes like this, “The customers have very few resources allocated to their next generation programs, they now see the light of ASSP’s, they know that we’re the best choice, they’re go gonna go exclusively with ASSP’s this time! (ASICs are out) The coolest part is that even though the market is shrinking our %share of the box is growing faster and will offset the end market decline”.

The “darkly comic” part is that all of these “next gen” programs will be cancelled, or delayed to death.

Summer CDs – Skater Music Doesn’t Work for Golf

This Summer my cars CD player had its usual eclectic Mix.

1. Arcade Fire “Neon Bible“ This CD has really grown on me. I really like the whole thing, especially tracks 2,6, and 10.
2. Dinosaur Jr “Beyond“ Easily my most played CD this year.
3. Bob Marley “Upsetter singles Disc 1“ Summer is incomplete with out Marley. I admit I’m stuck on this guy.
4. Fugazi “13 Songs“

   When I left for summer vacation I was still thick into my Dinosaur Jr “Beyond” phase (not ended yet). I’d already picked up much of the Dinosaur Jr. back catalog available on eMusic.

   I then stumbled upon Fugazi’s 13 Songs. I’d heard about them many times over the years (especially during my vert skating years), but never bought an album. I really goofed on missing these guys. What an album It’s crazy glued into my car CD player. (mainly ’cause not many passengers are into it … my better half can’t stand it and the kids give me the “DAAAAAAD … what is that?”). This is why it is hidden in the middle of the pack

   I’m diggin’ the irony of driving to the golf course listening to this. I love it, but it just doesn’t work ( as pre-game prep material). Completely proves the old golfer tales like Sam Snead’s waltz pace or Hogan’s go slow. Golf just isn’t vertical skating. Who knew

5. Neil Young “Live at Massey Hall 1971“ This is my 2nd most played CD of the year. Neil never gets old.
6. Pixies “Doolittle“ ( often too intense for me) It’s been over 20 years of listening to these guys and I still don’t know whether I love or hate the Pixies. When they work, they really work. When they don’t … they are really annoying.

Mapping G Moore’s “Darwin” to Telecomm Semi’s in the ’00’s

The reception to my post on mapping PMCS of the ’90s into Moore’s latest model is a mystery. It had a very high number of hits ( relative to my site), but I received very few comments. (note. most comments come via e-mail or in person). If I received any they were of the “snarky” variety … like “what happened in the 2000’s ” … or … “you guys suck”

Recently I’ve been preparing some lectures which have sent me in the Moore direction for material. Having revisited “Darwin” I’m taking the bait and tackling the innovation strategies for Telecomm Semi in the ’00’s.

I agree with Moore that companies are innovating like mad and they aren’t seeing good results come from it. Sadly from the Moore “Dealing With Darwin” perspective the Telecomm Semi sector provides far too much poster material for his examples of “Innovation strategies gone bad” or “What not do.”

Comments on Lee Goldberg’s – Death of Telecom Centric skills in Chip industry

I’m catching up on topics that I missed over the summer. Thus …I’m a tad late on this better late than never

I’m catching up on Lee Goldberg’s “Paving Paradise” post which laments the dearth of semiconductor companies actively involved in the development of TDM-based technologies while these seminconductor companies may be missing an opportunity as the Internet goes thru its current “speed bump” for Video and Andrew@Nyquist’s addition “The Madness of the Carrier Chipset Market” where he says the chip guys are doing the right thing.

I agree with Andrew on this. The chip guys are doing the right thing in ignoring TDM transport. Here are my points.

Grand Forks BC Native Wins 2007 Kiev City Golf Championship

One of the coolest tidbits I picked up this summer is that a long-time buddies brother won the inaugural Kiev 2007 Golf Championships. The link includes results and photos of Kelly Hoodikoff’s cool adventure and his course record 68!

Congratulations Kelly! This is so cool

Summer Golf – Good News and Bad News

The good news is that I tied my “Personal Best” a few weeks ago! Which means that I was playing “way over my head”

The bad news is that I bogeyed the last hole for a one-over-par 73.

Pretty awesome and pretty sad at the same time. C’est la vie

Deathly Hallows Went By Too Fast

I was 4th in-line for our family copy. Luckily I only had to wait a handful of days to have it to myself. I was able to sneak in 364 pages during those “sharing” days.

Talk about power reading! It was like passing a “hot potato”. It was always being read. It never hit the ground or stayed un-opened for longer than a few minutes during the last weeks of July.

I’m still very impressed that JK Rowling was able to deliver 7 great books. Great Stuff … but it went too fast. I’m gonna get the audio book to relive it