Necessity is the mother of invention, but Creating Necessity is the father of a good "Mass Market Product"

"Where will innovation come from? That's always on the minds of those whose livelihood depends, directly or indirectly, on information technology. Visionary entrepreneurs and brilliant engineers are always out there, building solutions for markets others don't even see. Yet most of those markets are hypothetical today for a reason. The majority of innovation occurs because it solves identifiable problems. As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

Precisely because computers and digital networks are so powerful, pervasive, and inexpensive, however, few applications truly call for breakthroughs. Corporate and government research and development once drove significant innovation, but both have been cut dramatically in recent times. And even research operations with generous funding, such as Microsoft's (MSFT ), have produced nothing comparable to the legendary output of Xerox' PARC and AT&T's Bell Labs. Some other drivers must take up the slack.

Anthropologist Jared Diamond tackled a similar question for the planet as a whole in his Pulitzer-prize winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. He showed how the three elements in the title, plus other surprising variables, explained why certain parts of world attained a much higher level of development than others. Hidden conditions of the local environment, rather than innate capacity differences, produced extraordinary innovation in regions such as Europe while retarding it elsewhere.

PRACTICAL TASKS. In today's technology industry, the three hidden factors shaping the innovation environment are guns, games, and style. " Kevin Werbach


Good marketing is not understanding the needs of your customer, but understanding YOUR customer's psychology in order to create his needs.

Necessity is the mother of invention, but Creating Necessity is the father of a good "Mass Market Product"

People didn't need to call while travelling on a train till they provided cell phones that worked on trains.
People didn't need to play video games before they invented Video Games.
They didn't feel needs, until somebody CREATED a good and highly sellable product.

Knowing the psychology of man and using your knowledge is the marketing tool of the present and will be the marketing tool of the future.


Man has three main needs:

1) Surviving

2) Reproducing

3) Fighting the fear of death


"When man had reached the stage of eating, clothing, social organization and weapons, so overcoming the danger of starving, freezing and being eaten by wild animals and these dangers ceased to be the essential factor influencing selection, an evil intraspecific selection must have set in.
The factor influencing selection was now the wars waged between hostile neighbouring tribes..
Aggression is really an essential part of life.


Style can be seen as the need to "look better" in order to "attract more".
Or can be seen as the need of beauty, as the need of Art.

The third point must not be under evaluated.

The biggest kingdom of this world, the biggest market is the "Religious Market" which has the basic fundaments in the fear of death.

Keeping in mind these three main issues, a good "Market strategist" can create the needs for Wars, Video whatever, style, and all what is connected to the safety of the "soul".


Without forgetting the need of Communication that is in between the need of Survival and Reproducing.

I wouldn't include Skype in the category of Style.
It has, in my opinion, everything but style, at least the way I intend style.
The style of their softphone and web pages is more like a lipstick on a Gorilla mouth than real "fashionable style".
But then, everybody has his personal tastes.

I would include Skype in the category of "Creating a need for cheap communication and so more communication".
And you can believe it is the greatest and most innovative technology.
But then, everybody has his own tastes and convinctions...