For a book on high tech that was first published nearly two decades ago to feel so relevant today is a testament to the ideas and writing of Geoffrey Moore. Its frankly pretty amazing how Moore seems like he's discussing the various success and failures of the social networks and their adoption issues (friendster, myspace, and facebook).

The genius of this book is not the discussion of how technology adoption follows a normal distribution. The genius is in Moore's research around how to increase your chances for taking a technology or idea from its early nascent days to mainstream success. The key as Moore lays it out is in the attitudinal differences between members of the Early Adopters and the Early Majority. The early adopters he argues are typically Technologists and Visionaries, and can see the possibilities of what a technology represents. They are more willing to play with immature technologies (in the case of Technologists, it's a geek thing we wouldn't understand, in the case of visionaries, it's about pushing what's possible further along). In order to continue to grow the business beyond this early set of customer you have to prove your value to the pragmatists that make up the Early Majority who want to go with a proven leader. This is the chasm, to shift from the Early Adopters to the Early Majority if you will. This is where a great number of companies falter and don't last.

The key per Moore, and frankly it jives really well with my admittedly anecdotal experience, is to focus on a small segment, while keeping your end goal in mind. To do this, you have to pick the right segment to focus your efforts on in order to build out the product. Moore argues that in order to know whether your segment is the right size or is truly a segment, you have to a small enough community that can generate word of mouth completely on its own. To me this is sound advice no matter the truth of whether technology adoption occurs this way or not, as it forces companies to focus on a relatively small group of customers with common concerns, which in and of itself is a great thing. It means that the service/product is going to get developed completely for a group of people instead of trying to be all things to all people.

Moore has a great analogy, to describe this strategy. He calls it D-Day. Your end goal is the liberation of Europe. In order to do this, you need first to get a foothold in Europe. To do this you must gather all of your resources and position them to come out of the early adopter market (England) and send them onto a focused point (Normandy) in a rapid manner in order to cross the chasm (English Channel), and ultimately to success (mass market appeal).

There are tons of other great insights in this book (from understanding the need for a larger ecosystem of companies to define a value chain, to positioning yourself relative to your competition).

Complete review of this and other interesting non-fiction can be found at www.cosmicwanderlust.com

Nutshell review - A good concept, insight, idea and explained well. As is often the case though, it could have been written in far fewer pages (but where's the margin in that?).

A good concept, insight, idea and explained well. As is often the case though, it could have been written in far fewer pages (but where's the margin in that?).

It is amazing how this book describes, through real examples, they key role that the marketing plays in the massive adoption of a technology. Although most of the ideas should be known by most of the technological marketing people, this book must be a reference for newcomers.

I've bought copies of Crossing the Chasm for two customers and one associate. I guess that means I'm impressed.

Few books, IMHO, can have a profound "life altering" effect on a business. E-Myth Revisited was one. This is another. It provides a very well thought out and persuasive strategy for transitioning a high-tech product from a geek market into the mainstream.

A must read if you have a highly advanced product and are struggling to get traction in the market place.

Having already read the sequel, Inside the Tornado, I wondered whether this book had essentially been summarized in that one. While the basic premise of the technology adoption lifecycle is common to both books, this book, as the name implies, gives much more focus and detail to the stage of "crossing the chasm". This translates to the time between the first few big sales (from innovators) and the point where there are steady (and growing) sales (from pragmatists). This is a particularly troubling time for most companies because what worked on those first few will FAIL on the next customers, because they are more risk-averse. This book does a fantastic job of not only explaining what needs to be done, but WHY as well.

Having already read the sequel, Inside the Tornado, I wondered whether this book had essentially been summarized in that one. While the basic premise of the technology adoption lifecycle is common to both books, this book, as the name implies, gives much more focus and detail to the stage of "crossing the chasm". This translates to the area between the first few big sales and the point where there is steady (and growing) sales. This is a particularly troubling time for most companies because what worked on those first few will FAIL on the next customers, because they are more risk-averse. This book does a fantastic job of not only explaining what needs to be done, but WHY as well.

"Crossing the Chasm" is essentially about crossing a 'chasm' in the Technology Adoption Lifecycle.

There is, however, a major flaw with this idea. The Technology Adoption Lifecycle is a normal distribution and there are no chasms in normal distributions -- it is against the very definition of normal distributions.

Notwithstanding, I do think the author was before his time. If you graph the phenomenon he is talking about, it seems very similar to the Gartner Hype Cycle, and how to get you and your product through the Trough of Disillusionment.

Even Rogers in the fifth edition of his book, Diffusion of Innovations, denies the chasm suggestion.

If you are interested in technology adoption, give this one a miss.

You can tell that Geoffrey Moore had been overturned by the events of the 90s in that business communication just got a million times quicker. He has updated his contents but they are still lean towards that decade. None-the less they are timeless.

His content is beyond description it is so fantastic - informative and educational. I'm not recommending this book to any of my friends as I want to keep the sharp edge and knowledge to myself - sorry Geoff.

I have put my thinking and business in the fast lane after applying the ideas, which by the way, come with an little analogy that is so simple to follow (read the book to discover his trick) it is a must for every person who has a desire to be head and shoulders above the rest and win.

It beats marketing in the formal sense and offers down to earth ideas that really work. Thanks Geoffrey.

Mike Whitenburgh
Psychoanalyst.

Moving from early market success to mainstream market leadership is indeed a critical step for the hitech industry and this book helps you cross the chasm in confidence. It'd be a good thing to read this book in conjuction with EIGHTSTORM: 8-Step Brainstorming for Innovative Managers.

I can not give you any feedback. I haven't received the book yet.

This book remains a classic on the shelf of just about every client - most of whom have incorporated Geoffrey Moore's approach toward vertical sales and marketing into their overall business strategy. No coincidence that Moore also sits on the advisory boards of so many technology companies. ;)

This is the book that launched my career in technology and drove me to establish a more strategic approach to marketing and business. Geoffrey Moore was ahead of his time and offers priceless information on how to stand back and re-evaluate your market approach. If you know nothing about business strategy or marketing OR you consider yourself an expert, Moore's models stand the test of time and give you the tools you need to not only do your job but offers the insights that can help build consensus within a company. Apply these models to your corporate and product strategy; use it as a point of discussion with other senior executives to FINALLY drive a coherent strategy. This book changed they way I think about the business of technology it will for you too.

This is the book that launched my career in technology and drove me to establish a more strategic approach to marketing and business. Geoffrey Moore was ahead of his time and offers priceless information on how to stand back and re-evaluate your market approach. If you know nothing about business strategy or marketing OR you consider yourself an expert, Moore's models stand the test of time and give you the tools you need to not only do your job but offers the insights that can help build consensus within a company. Apply these models to your corporate and product strategy; use it as a point of discussion with other senior executives to FINALLY drive a coherent strategy. This book changed they way I think about the business of technology it will for you too.

I am a senior product manager and found most of the concepts very relevant. In particular I was impressed by the fact that we have to target a focused customer segment to initially establish the product and then branch out to target a wider customer segment. But it requires lot of self-discipline. The instinct is to throw a dart in 100 different directions and hope that it will stick. Similarly in marketing we tend to market our product in different segments and hope that we will be successful in one of the segments.

Bottom-line...A great read, but implementation is a challenge.

I found the information provided by Mr. Moore to be very informative and usable by anyone trying to grow a new product and company in today's business environment. It makes you think about how best to strategically position your product to enter the larger main-stream market. I have used the information in this book at two different start-up companies. It is worth your time!

I am a senior product manager and found most of the concepts very relevant. In particular I was impressed by the fact that we have to target a focused customer segment to initially establish the product and then branch out to target a wider customer segment. But it requires lot of self-discipline. The instinct is to throw a dart in 100 different directions and hope that it will stick. Similarly in marketing we tend to market our product in different segments and hope that we will be successful in one of the segments.

Bottom-line...A great read, but implementation is a challenge.

I found the information provided by Mr. Moore to be very informative and usable by anyone trying to grow a new product and company in today's business environment. It makes you think about how best to strategically position your product to enter the larger main-stream market. I have used the information in this book at two different start-up companies. It is worth your time!

I re-read this book recently. It's Marketing 101 for anyone working with technical products and/or services. The book leverages the Diffusion of Innovations Theory (from Everett Rogers). Simply stated early adopters are different from the majority. To secure more users, it's important explore those differences. This book will help you choose a target market, understand the whole product concept, position the product, build a marketing strategy, as well as choose the most appropriate distribution channel and pricing.

I re-read this book recently. It's Marketing 101 for anyone working with technical products and/or services. The book leverages the Diffusion of Innovations Theory (from Everett Rogers). Simply stated early adopters are different from the majority. To secure more users, it's important explore those differences. This book will help you choose a target market, understand the whole product concept, position the product, build a marketing strategy, as well as choose the most appropriate distribution channel and pricing.

I've been reading this book and since I bought it in July, every chapter seems a good lesson for every enterpreneur who really wants to go into high-end tecnology market. I also teach enterpreneurship at a college in my city and my pupils are computer science students. Because of this book, I decided to change the metodology which I teach them. Really a good choice !

Products, technologies, and companies change, but many of the issues described in this book are still relevant today. It is a worthwhile read for anyone new to marketing technology products. However, even this latest version doesn't adequately cover the emergence of Internet-based products and services, which have different marketing challenges and strategies.

Yep, that's what this is the BIBLE for marketing and selling tech product to mainstream customers. Foreword by Regis McKenna -- the guy who launched APPLe...A great book that covers such topics from the basics of tech marketing including the revised technology adoption lifecycle from innovators to early adopters to early majority, late majority and laggards (the people still not using the Internet today)....so what is the chasm-- according to WiKIPEDIA it is:chasm between the early adopters of the product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists). He says tgat visionaries and pragmatists have very different expectations. The book outlines techniques to successfully cross the "chasm", including choosing a target market, understanding the whole product concept, positioning the product, building a marketing strategy, choosing the most appropriate distribution channel and pricing. Critics criticize the book because it deals with adoption and not profit. Not all products that get across the chasm make MONEY! by 2002 -- more than 300,000 of these books had been sold according to various sources on the web. If you're in Silicon Valley you better know what CROSSING THE CHASM means and take a look at buying his next book too....and if you don't know what an early adopter is ---well don't bother to try to market a tech product!

The Technology Adoption curve is as relevant as it was a decade ago. Geoffrey Moore has succintly elucidiated the importance of the curve and provided explicit examples and alternatives as to how a young company can navigate through the different stages. The book highlights the strategies one needs to adopt in order to break into the "pragmatist" consumers, who are the most difficult to crack.

Goeffrey Moore offers an insightful view of why most high-tech companies either fail, or fail to cross the chasm between early adopters and early majority, thus doomed to remain a niche player. The book could have been shorter but is an easy read. For a more serious study, visit Clayton Christiansen's "The Innovator's Dilemma."

I am not a technology business owner, but reading this book helped me understand how to take my innovative research and consulting practice to market in a more effective way. My key learnings were that "Markets" must be self-referencing (first three chapters) and how to profile and reach your targets within each market. Moore actually has a step by step profiling questionnaire that we've made copies of and distributed among our strategy team.

It's one of those books you need to dog-ear and write in the margins, make copies of, and share with your management team. Read it before investing any more money into a marketing campaign to make sure that you're investing in the right places, and reaching the right people.

While this book (as Moore states) is unabashedly geared toward the high tech industry, I believe entrepreneurs in general, and anyone engaged in bringing forward innovative products, services or ideas will probably find some value here. Given that high tech is, as Moore describes, a "microcosm of larger industrial trends," the marketing strategies are relevant to almost any organization that seeks to create or increase demand for what it sells.

This book requires careful, but not arduous, reading. Brilliant analogies, dry humor, accessible examples and very lucid explanations help to drive home the concepts. Outside of high tech, those engaged in B2B marketing will more readily be able to translate the concepts from this book into their environments. Others will need to translate more heavily to apply the wisdom found here. You will probably be challenged to rethink, not only how you expand your company's presence in the marketplace, but how you define your market (or target audience). You may end up with something much different than you would have thought.

One very key concept is that the way you market your product to win early acceptance will be vastly different from how you market that same product (and might I add service?) to cross the chasm to the mainstream market. Mainstream does not necessarily imply "the masses," but rather the long-term users of your product. In fact, the decision-maker you are targeting at one stage is completely different than the person that you are targeting at the next, and the two have a completely different mindset, completely different objectives and a completely different approach to buying into innovation. The difference is so great as to be very astutely called a "chasm." Yet, crossing that perilous chasm is the only way to ensure viability over the long-run. As Moore succinctly states, it's "a do-or-die proposition for high-tech enterprise." This could be said of many other enterprises as well. Moore cites examples of how, often, it is not the superior product that wins out, but the one that most successfully crosses the chasm.

As someone who highly values the entrepreneurial and the innovative, and the types of people who embody these attributes, in reading this book I am reminded that the strategies required for an organization's long-term success may not be those that are naturally derived from an entrepreneurial mindset, as much as I hate to admit it.

Of the many eloquent analogies found in this book, perhaps, my favorite is the one that Moore uses to launch the discussion of how to successfully cross the chasm. Using the analogy of D Day (Chapter 3), he talks about the need to "concentrate an overwhelmingly superior force on a highly focused target" to secure the beachhead and expand from there. Brilliant! This chapter alone makes the book worthwhile.

If you are not into reading, and do not want to or do not have the time to read... this is the one book you simply should.

This book could have been shorter. There are a lot of succint summaries that do a good job in highlighting the main ideas of the book. But its light read, with lots of examples.
BTW the chasm analogy does not apply to Microsoft, apparently the they are an example of the "Evel Knievel" strategy....

This book could have been shorter. There are a lot of succint summaries that do a good job in highlighting the main ideas of the book. But its light read, with lots of examples.
BTW the chasm analogy does not apply to Microsoft, apparently the they are an example of the "Evel Knievel" strategy....

Geoffrey Moore puts into words what many entrepreneurs have long known but until now no one has been able to thoroughly describe. That is, there are many differences between early adopters and the mainstream markets. This causes problems because the early adopters are the ones who "sell" your product to the rest of the market, yet at the same time the characterists they look for in a product are much different than what everyone else looks for. Without pleasing the early adopters you are dead in the water, but what pleases the early adopters may make your product unpalatable for mass consumption. Crossing the Chasm for the first time teaches entrepreneurs how to reconcile these differences, in a way that is almost incontrovertible. One of the most useful business books ever published, and well worth a careful reading.

My class professor highly recommended this book. He called it "the best business book I have ever read." Although, I don't share his enthusiasm, the book is interesting enough for me to get through it. People who are interested in marketing new high-tech products can learn a great deal from this book.

This little book is probably one of the best books out there on technology entrepreneurship. Very clear and concise, it points you to one of the biggest problems of start-ups everywhere - how to break through the world of small-time players, and become a big one.
This is definitely one of those books you want to read, and re-read every couple of years, just to keep it lessons fresh in memory.

I liked the overall idea of the 'chasm', but some of the model the author used in the book need to be updated with the current actual issues that , if modeled, are quite different from the book.

The high tech market illusion markets new technology immediately too the mass marketed. Enthusiasts of the market illusion argue, "if Bill Gates can market windows to the masses, why can I market my technology to the mass market?" At the origin, all high tech markets have a gap between the mainstream-market, the chasm. The chasm problem can't be solved by voluntary assistance, all the resources required to cross the chasm must be requested. In a closed market, a central authority controls all standards and rules. This works fine for a closed market, however, the mass market is composed of numerous interest groups and each group is distinguished by its own psychology and demographics. This each each group will have its own market response. The key too crossing the Chasm means understanding each group niche and its relationship to its neighbor niches. Make a total commitment to a niche and don't take on more than one or two niches at a time. Reverse the trend in the niche decision from high risk and low data too high data and low risk. Focus resources to become dominate in the niche, big fish in small pond. Characterize the target: create something that feels like real people, record down your customer scenerios, store thumbnail information about each customer, and determine how the product will be brought to use by the customer.

Accepting this reality means building a whole application that solves a 100 percent of the business problems of the group, this becomes the high tech lore: 1. target the right customer 2. derive the compelling buying reason 3. build the whole product 4. form partners and allies 5. create a distribution channel 6. find the right pricing 7. distinquish from competition or create competition 8. position into the niche and work to create a mass market merge 9. determine the next target customer.

The high tech innovator must become enlighten. As you cross the chasm you will not be a market leader, but by the time you reach the other side, there will be a strong following. The high tech innovator must realize the markets do not unfold in a smooth continuous manner, there are perils in the chasm, and gain niche loyalty is the key to gain mass-market loyalty. The innovator must gain the trust of the pragmatist. The pragmatist is critical to gain customers because of his large support base. Once the pragmatist is won over, he remains very loyal to the application. It is impossible to win mass-market acceptance with gain the pragmatist loyalty.

Visionaries give high tech companies their first breaks. The winning strategy is for the entrepreneur to define product deliverables. The Visionaries can give the high tech company a burst of revenue and exceptional visibility and without the boost the high-tech products can't make it to market. The visionary is in a hurry to build the future and perceives limited windows of opportunity. Because the opportunity windows are small, large sums of money are generated to complete the project on time. The entrepreneur must create phases of the visionaries project. The high tech company must seed the entrepreneur community with their idea and product overview and hope that a visionary will share its vision. The process is a creative imaginative dream and high tech company is offering a credible way for visionary to realize their dream. The core of the dream is a business goal and it involves a quantum leap forward in the way business gets done and it also involves a high degree of recognition and reward. The dream is looking for a fundamental breakthrough.

The market is flush with enthusiasm and vision. The high tech company must attempt to distinguish themselves from their competitors and once the mainstream merges with the market niche, wealth and growth occur.

The early majority wants evolutionary and not revolutionary product features. The early majority is concerned about disrupting their organization. A very pragmatic attitude compels the early major to seek resource references reassuring them on the technology investment.

The early adopters hope to gain a jump on their competition, lower production costs, provide more complete customer service, and create a radical discontinuity between the old way of doing business and the new way.

It is tough to break into a new industry when selling to a pragmatist. Pragmatists deeply value the experience of their colleagues and funds are in the hands of prudent souls. Pragmatists seek a percentage improvement: incremental, measurable, and predictable and too them risk represents a chance to waste money. The natural prudence and budget restrictions keep them cautious. Pragmatist focus on standardization, increased sales, and lower costs and once won they are very loyal.

The customer can't reference each other when they are in different markets. Customer reference is a chain reaction affected usually by word of mouth. The market purpose must be to develop and shape something that is real and has a set of potential customers and a given set of products and services and allows the customers to reference each other when making buying decisions.

Let's face it -- 80% of business books are pure garbage.

This is one of the gems. One that should sit on your office bookshelf.

Moore came up with an interesting take on how high tech businesses must move from early adopters to the mainstream and the challenges involved.

Long established as a classic, the drawing depicting the different classes of customers and their adoption rates are commonly used in the industry. I personally thought I already understood it, just from osmosis. However, reading the book taught me more about the characteristics of those customers, how you gain penetration into their markets, and most importantly how you manage a team and produce a product into those markets.

There are also lessons in there about establishing a beachhead and how to choose your target customer that dovetail nicely into some more modern work around persona identification in software development and the need to identify just one target persona for your application at a time. This is a great marketing book -- even if some of the specific company examples are somewhat dated -- whose concepts readily translate into not only management but directly into product development and vision.

There are some rare books that create revelations, and in my professional career, this is one of them. Now it is obvious why I often failed to connect with "Pragmatists" and other customers, who didn't seem to get it like the other "Visionaries" and "Technofiles" I had little trouble selling to.

I was the one who didn't get it!

In addition, marketing and sales books can be such dull tomes, but Moore's professional experience and accesible manner makes for an interesting read. His "lingo" has been picked up but many professionals, to the point where you need to read Moore just to be up to date. But the good news is, you will be much more effective in technical sales and marketing after reading this book.

There are plenty of long reviews on this, so here's just a short synthesis. This is considered the Bible of marketing thought for early stage, technically-oriented products. It describes the phases of customer thinking, and how you have to appeal to them, including some non-intuitive but dead-on approaches for making the leap to the Early Majority.

For some reason, this second edition seems to have been edited poorly though, with grammar erros and such. Unfortunate for a great work.

A good book. I don't know much about high-tech or marketing in general but it kept me turning the pages, non the less. However, for an ex-english prof., this piece is littered with typos! Moore's predictable humour lends itself nicely to the overall warming, I want to help you help yourself ambiance of the book. All now unemployed techies (and post-bubble, will-work-for-food VC's) will enjoy it as they cozy up in front of the fireplace and patch their wounds with the 'If only...' band-aid. Hindsight is always 20-20... I hope I can look into the future with such good vision. Anyway, this book will surely help.

"If you build a better mousetrap" is the old saw about inventing new and improved products. But this adage is completely wrong; if you build a better mousetrap, they DON'T come and buy it and you are left wondering why your product failed to make the grade.

Geoffrey Moore writes clearly about the need to cross the chasm that exists between those customers who buy the latest and greatest and those who hang back for a bit, waiting for..what? They are waiting for an incentive to buy your product for other reasons than "it's NEW!" The problem is, there aren't enough of the customers who will buy anything because it's new and exciting--and what's more, the these customers aren't particularly loyal. The sweet spot of customers are those who wait to see if something new and inventive actually gives them back something of worth, a return on investment, a better way to work, doing more with less, you name it. These customers will often switch to a new technology, but only if they have the right incentive to do so.

If you fail to market effectively to this type of customer, you end up with a pile of boutique products that languish in sales and don't ramp up the profits for your firm. To avoid this all-too-common scenario, many companies are now hiring consultants to teach Moore's methods to their marketing and R&D departments. By "Crossing the Chasm" they strive to market products that will sell. If you are in a tech business, and especially if you are an inventor marketing a new idea, reading this book is a very good idea. In fact, I'd say it's required reading.

`Crossing the Chasm' and `Inside the Tornado' explain high-tech marketing strategies and product/technology life cycle. In the 90s, some of the most successful high-tech companies could be distinguished by their marketing strategies. Standard approach to marketing might be fine for other industries, but it has less chance of succeeding in high-tech industry. `Crossing the Chasm' refers to product's acceptance by mass market. Typical product adaptation cycle would go through various phases that include: innovators (very narrow market), early adopters, (much larger than innovators, but still nothing major), early majority (this is where you want your product to get), late majority (still huge market), and laggards. Now, in high-tech world, there is a chasm between early adopters and early majority. It takes different approach to cross that chasm and get accepted by early majority.
Once you are on the other side of the chasm, be prepare for the `tornado' phase. Your product/technology will take off with enormous power driven by huge market. You don't want to be at the point where market demand surpasses your supply. At this point your company can grow at hyper growth rate and gigantic revenues can be generated. We have seen this before so many times and some of the examples (Dell, MS, Oracle, Apple, etc...) are known to everybody.

This book tackles the Internet and the marketing tools needed to master this medium. I liked this, but it was not an easy read. I just picked up Guerrilla PR Wired, by Micheal Levine, and it is much more straight-forward and I am better able to understand the concepts within "Crossing the Chasm" because of it.

Both the Chasm and the Tornado books deal with the fundementals of how technology companies either do or should come to market. As so often with work like this it is often bought and a few pages read - and little is taken on board as to how to implement the ideas.

In my previous role in BT both these books were heavily promoted by PA Consultants who did a load of marketing training for us - but you tell me if you think they were read with any real insight?

The recommendations and points discussed relate to coming to the market through the early adopters and visionaries - then if successful we should be able to move to the mass market. Unfortunately even though we know this to be true intuitively and can prove it's true in the real world - most marketing departments want to go big, mass market, fast.

This is a bible for visionaries, innovators, start-ups, small businesses with a focus on customer relationships - if your in a big corporate, forget it. Nobody will let you proceed like this - it will be too contra to the arrogant,internal focus most corporates have.

If you consider yourself a visionary, manic business missionary - then this is the book for you (just don't expect your friends in big companies to understand what your talking about as they burn their way though millions of unfocused marketing budget!)

Crossing the Chasm (1991) and Inside the Tornado (1995) should be read in combination. Having just re-read both, I consider them even more valuable now than when they were first published. Chasm "is unabashedly about and for marketing within high-tech enterprises." It was written for the entire high tech community "to open up the marketing decision making during this [crossing] period so that everyone on the management team can participate in the marketing process." In Chasm, Moore isolates and then corrects what he describes as a "fundamental flaw in the prevailing high-tech marketing model": the notion that rapid mainstream growth could follow continuously on the heels of early market success.

In his subsequent book, Inside the Tornado, Moore's use of the "tornado" metaphor correctly suggests that turbulence of unprecedented magnitude has occurred within the global marketplace which the WWW and the Internet have created. Moreover, such turbulence is certain to intensify. Which companies will survive? Why? I have only one (minor) quarrel with the way these two books have been promoted. True, they provide great insights into marketing within the high technology industry. However, in my opinion, all e-commerce (especially B2B and, even more importantly, B2B2C) will be centrally involved in that industry. Moreover, the marketing strategies suggested are relevant to virtually (no pun intended) any organization -- regardless of size or nature -- which seeks to create or increase demand for what it sells...whatever that may be. I consider both books "must reading." Those who share my high regard for one or both are strongly urged to read Moore's more recent business classic, Living on the Fault Line.

Moore's primary point in this book is that the early adopters of a technology are not necessarily the same as the mainstream market. Moore points out that early adapters often buy things because they're cool, not for practical reasons. Early adapters deal with pain in the form of bad interfaces, minimal network effects. etc. Following this informal observation, Moore divides the population into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. This is his "Technology Adoption Life Cycle", of which the "underlying thesis is that technology is absorbed into any given community in stages corresponding to the psychological and social profiles of various segments within that market" (p. 15). He illustrates this with a bell curve with a horizontal axis corresponding to time of adoption. There's no explanation for why a Bell curve; I'm guessing it just looks pretty in PowerPoint. Moore continues with "this process can be thought of as a continuum with definite stages, each associated with a definable group" (p. 15), although actual definitions are notable by their absence. So Moore advises us that marketing to the two groups might have to be different. Complex? No. Obvious? Perhaps. In any case, this observation is followed with 185 pages of examples and pep talks which I found perfectly readable, but without much additional content.

The second point, which is really just as important, is that the way to "cross the chasm" is by targeting a single industry or group of users, a so-called "vertical market". The only way customers who are beyond the early adopter phase are going to buy into a new product is if it is easy to adopt or if it truly fills a perceived desperate need. That is, it looks less "disruptive". Usually this means a lot of custom integration with industry-specific infrastructure. It's easier to build something well integrated with existing, for say, just the airline industry and their SABRE database backend, than it is to try to target the entire Fortune 500, each sector of which has adopted different sorts of databases. It worked just the way Moore described for my company, where Moore's book was required reading.

You can get much more insight about sales and marekting (as well as finance and logistics) about disruptive technologies from Clayton Christensen's excellent "The Innovator's Dilemma". You can learn more about marketing segmentation and network effects from Shapiro and Varian's "Information Rules". I might be biased as both a techie and a recovering academic, but I liked the more heavily researched, serious case-study orientation as well as the precise, restrained, academic tone of these two books from business professors. On the other hand, Moore's book gives you an excellent feel for the seat of the pants consulting and hype side of the business world, which itself is a useful education.
Moore's book is breezy and highly readable. This is great can't-sleep-on-the-airplane material. And two good ideas are more than you get out of most pop business books.

Like many techies, I thought this book offered tremendous insights into the way technology products should be marketed. Earlier this year, however, I attended an industry conference where no fewer than three engineers told me they were working at "disruptive" startup companies and explained that this book was their inspiration for accepting their jobs.

What I saw was a group of gullible engineers who'd been suckered into working long hours for low pay at companies with great short term profits but no future.

It is very tempting to frame your work in the terms outlined in this book, because who doesn't want to work at a "disruptive" startup? Three words: beware the hype. If your manager cites this book, it's time to start taking a look at your work situation!

The book is okay, although it takes way too long to deliver its basic message. Most techies will benefit from it because they don't realize laypeople think very differently from them about their industry, and need this lesson pounded home. Most laypeople can get all the information they need from the reviews posted here.

This is probably One of the Best Business Books ever written, together with Will and Vision, Innovator's Dilemma and The Death of Competition.

The thesis of the book is as follows:
There are several groups of customers to whom you want to market your new technology:

1. Techies - Technology enthusiasts.
2. Visionaries - Looking to create a breakthrough competitive
advantage using the new technology
3. Pragmatists - The Herd. Adopt a new paradigm only if
everybody else does
4. Conservatives - Buy after Pragmatists. Exploit mature
competition to negotiate better prices
5. Skeptics - Hate new technology. Will buy only when absolutely
have to.

Now, at every stage of the life cycle, the strategy that causes success in that stage, causes failure in the next. THIS IS WHAT CAUSES THE CHASM.

The Chasm, the Gap is the result of the opposition between the Visionary and the Pragmatist
- Visionary is looking to get ahead of the herd
- Pragmatist is looking to stay with the herd

How Do You Cross the Chasm, then?

I'll let you read the book and find out.

Michael

This should be required reading if you are involved in sales or marketing in a high tech industry. It clarifies the mystery surrounding the cause of so many successes and failures in the tech industries.

If this is not on your shelf and you playing high tech, you might as well fill out the chapter seven papers now! A must must must read for the high tech start up.