Digital Darwinism

Summary

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The Digital Marketing Podcast – "Digital Darwinism" (April 10, 2018)

Hosts: Daniel Rowles & Ciaran Rogers
Guest: Tom Goodwin (author of Digital Darwinism, Head of Innovation at Zenith)
Theme: Surviving and thriving in a fast-changing digital business environment. Tom Goodwin discusses his book, "Digital Darwinism", exploring how organizations should adapt to technological change, avoid repeating historic mistakes, and why enthusiasm for innovation is rarely matched by real transformation.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the concept of "Digital Darwinism"—the relentless pace of change in the business world due to digital technology, and how companies must adapt or risk obsolescence. With guest Tom Goodwin, the discussion explores how organizations often misunderstand, resist, or only superficially engage with new technology. Drawing parallels with the past, Tom argues that being large or dominant is no longer enough; relevance hinges on willingness to reinvent, embrace discomfort, and think beyond incremental innovation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Motivation Behind "Digital Darwinism"

• Tom's Journey:
  • Not a "natural-born author", Tom began writing out of frustration with existing narratives on change and transformation (02:21).
  • "We live in this pretty extraordinary time... but most of the people writing about it are actually not people with jobs that are on the cliff face of action." (02:40, Tom Goodwin)
• Purpose of the Book:
  • A provocative, candid call to action to start meaningful debates around how organizations face change—beyond buzzwords and superficial gestures (03:02).

2. Defining Digital Darwinism: Natural Selection in Business

• Shortened Lifespan, Accelerated Change:
  • The concept links natural selection in biology to survival among companies in the digital age—change is so rapid that typical adaptive mechanisms are no longer sufficient (04:17).
  • "Things are now changing sufficiently fast that the sort of mechanisms we've always had to adapt are... not helpful for this fast-changing environment." (04:19, Tom Goodwin)
• Not Survival of the Biggest:
  • Larger companies are often the least fit, paralyzed by fear of change (04:41).

3. Historical Parallels: Electricity & The Fate of Incumbents

• Learning from the Past:
  • Companies historically misapplied new technology—like early factories using steam engines just to power existing waterwheels, rather than reimagining processes (05:21).
  • "There's a long history of companies having this new technology, applying it to the edge of what they do... It's only when businesses are created for this new environment that we see leap changes in productivity." (05:15, Tom Goodwin)
• Repeating Mistakes Today:
  • Modern businesses replicate this by confining digital initiatives to silos rather than fully integrating them (06:29).

4. Structural & Cultural Resistance to Change

• Bolted-On Innovation:
  • Many organizations create separate digital departments, avoiding the discomfort of true integration—especially notable in the advertising industry (07:07).
  • "Every single new thing... we create a new department, stick younger people in a more funky part of the building, and hope not to work with them that much." (07:32, Tom Goodwin)

5. Boiling Frog Analogy: Incremental Change is Deadly

• Complacency as a Risk:
  • Companies become comfortable with gradual change (boiling frog syndrome). By the time the heat (competition/disruption) intensifies, it’s too late to react (08:30).
  • "If the change seems quite slow... you just become warm and... apathetic. By the time things are too difficult, it's too late to do anything about it." (08:54, Tom Goodwin)
• Call for Positivity:
  • Instead of fear, organizations should embrace and get excited about new tech (09:26).

6. Superficial Innovation: Signal vs. Substance

• Virtue Signaling:
  • Many innovation projects (like chatbots, Alexa skills, ibeacons) are more about perceived modernity than real transformation (09:50).
  • "My main role... seems to be doing things which are gestural, which are about signaling... and actually they're not [real change]." (10:53, Tom Goodwin)
• Need for Existential Rethink:
  • True adaptation would involve asking tough, identity-level questions about the organization’s future role (10:32).

7. Financial Inertia & Incremental Thinking

• Short-Termism:
  • Current accounting and investment frameworks favor incremental improvements over bold, long-term changes (11:36).
  • Metaphor of UK rail upgrades illustrates how “drip” investments produce mediocre outcomes, mirroring business decision-making (12:04–12:46).
  • "It's easier to justify money for maintenance than to improve things. That's how most businesses operate..." (12:52, Tom Goodwin)

8. Leadership’s Misaligned Incentives

• Perpetuating the Status Quo:
  • Executives often have short-term incentives (stocks, retirement horizon), making them risk-averse toward significant, long-term bets (13:17).
  • "We see ... leaderships ... just managing the decline, rather than investing for the future." (13:55, Tom Goodwin)

9. Real-World Examples: Who Gets it Right?

• Netflix as a Standout:
  • Cited as a company that disrupted itself before the need was urgent (14:43).
  • "Netflix is the only company ... that changed before it had to." (14:47)
  • Their move to streaming caused consternation among analysts and investors, yet paid off spectacularly (15:07–16:12).

10. Should Companies Self-Disrupt?

• No One-Size-Fits-All:
  • Not every industry faces existential digital disruption to the same degree (16:40).
  • Industries like breweries may need incremental change, while others require more radical reinvention (16:56).
• Denial is Dangerous:
  • The more a company needs to change, often the more denial it exhibits (17:29).
  • "Maybe the long-term future of some retailers is to go bankrupt. ... At least make an active decision to do that and ... open new companies." (17:59)

11. Acquisition vs. Internal Innovation

• Acquisition as Deferral:
  • Many large organizations prefer buying disruptive startups (e.g., Unilever and Dollar Shave Club) rather than taking risks on internal innovation (18:23–19:30).
  • "It's puzzling... that these ... well-capitalized companies ... assume the only possible way to succeed is to buy a model which someone else has perfected." (19:18, Tom Goodwin)

12. Chartism: Over-Reliance on Data

• Fetishizing Forecasts:
  • Businesses place misplaced confidence in charts and linear data projections, despite their poor predictive track record (19:58).
  • "We did a terrible job predicting ... curved TVs, virtual reality, 3D printing." (20:24)
  • True vision requires empathetic understanding of possible futures, not just data (21:05).

13. Innovation Theatre

• Superficial Innovation Labs:
  • Many companies use flashy experiments (AR, mood-sensing blankets) for PR rather than operational transformation (22:00–22:37).
  • "If you decide to completely re-engineer the entire booking engine... you won't get any press, but would probably see customer loyalty increase massively." (23:04)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On digital adaptability:

  • "Change is happening so fast that the old ways of adapting just aren't cutting it anymore." (04:19, Tom Goodwin)

• On real transformation:

  • "We've never once taken all these amazing new skill sets and... really integrated them into our entire offering." (07:51, Tom Goodwin)

• On boiling frog syndrome:

  • "You just become warm and... apathetic. By the time things are too difficult, it's actually too late." (08:54, Tom Goodwin)

• On short-term thinking:

  • "No one wants to make a change which is radical, risky, or will take a long time to pay off." (13:47, Tom Goodwin)

• On chartism:

  • "Most of the data we use to talk about the future is inherently unreliable." (20:17, Tom Goodwin)
  • "We need to get better at having confidence in beliefs which are not necessarily supported by accurate data." (21:12, Tom Goodwin)

• On innovation PR vs. substance:

  • "If you try flying transatlantically with one airline powered by biofuel, you will get some press... If you re-engineer the booking engine so you can change your flight online, you won't get any press." (22:37, Tom Goodwin)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Tom Goodwin introduces himself and his motive for writing (00:35–03:02)
• Defining Digital Darwinism (03:49–04:41)
• Lessons from electricity, historical analogies (05:12–06:29)
• Siloed innovation & advertising industry critique (07:07–08:11)
• Boiling frog analogy for complacent companies (08:30–09:40)
• Virtue signaling & superficial innovation (09:50–10:58)
• Critique of financial/investment models (11:06–12:52)
• Leadership incentives and risk aversion (13:17–14:07)
• Netflix as a model for proactive change (14:20–16:12)
• Self-disruption debate—industry differences (16:30–17:34)
• Acquisitions vs. internal innovation (18:23–19:30)
• Dangers of 'chartism' and data worship (19:58–21:12)
• Innovation theatre vs. meaningful change (22:00–23:12)
• Closing recommendations & where to connect with Tom (23:51–24:13)

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Conclusion/Recommendations

Tom Goodwin’s Digital Darwinism stands as both a warning and a rallying cry: companies must face the realities of change head-on, embrace uncertainty, and think deeper about their role in a world where technology and consumer behaviors shift rapidly. The episode is filled with practical wisdom, memorable metaphors, and challenges to business-as-usual thinking—essential listening for anyone involved in digital transformation or organizational strategy.

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For more on Tom Goodwin’s book:

• Website: www.digitaldarwinismbook.com
• LinkedIn: Tom Fgoodwin

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com hello and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast. My name is Kieran Rogers and today listeners, we're joined with an author, Tom Goodwin. Now, Tom has written what I think is a really amazing book. It's called Digital Darwinism. And Tom, I want you to just introduce yourself to the audience, tell us a little, little bit about who you are, what you do and why you've written this book.

[B]

Hello, everyone.

[C]

Thanks for having me. I'm Tom Goodwin and I work for Zenith in the US My job is very much about understanding change and the context of change.

[B]

In particular, how technology is changing our.

[C]

Lives, what that means for the kind of business world, what that means for the marketing world, and also how it's not changing our lives as well.

[B]

And yeah, I just finished writing this book called Digital Darwinism which is now out. And yeah, it's come about from a strange way. Like I'm not a natural born author.

[C]

But I've been writing for quite a long time and people seem quite interested in what I've been writing. I've studied a few debates through my.

[B]

Writing and a few people approached me.

[C]

And told me I should write a book. So reluctantly I agreed to.

[A]

Fantastic. So we're going to talk about Digital Darwinism because a few things we need to discuss on that. But before we do, Tom, I noticed on your Twitter profile that you are your best hair on LinkedIn 1999 and 2004. I didn't even know that was a thing and I feel it needs explaining.

[B]

I don't think LinkedIn know that's a thing either. I don't know, I think lots of people sort of. I've got quite an annoying style.

[C]

I think I'm quite irritating and I think I get quite a lot of comments on my hair, which are mostly sort of complimentary, which I find quite awkward.

[B]

Yeah, I just wanted people to make it clear that wasn't particularly serious in life. So I kind of made up these.

[C]

Awards which I got given, I think before LinkedIn even existed. So I'm always hoping that that's sort of understood to be.

[A]

I fell for it hook, line and sinker. I was like, I was dreaming up stars for myself. Didn't. It's not. It's never going to happen. Okay, so why did you write Digital Darwinism?

[B]

Well, I mean, so the awful answer is because people told me to. And it's also true that I get.

[C]

Quite frustrated with the kind of stuff that's out there about Change and transformation. We live in this pretty extraordinary time when the world feels quite chaotic, where everything feels in flow. But most of the people that are.

[B]

Writing about it are actually not people.

[C]

With jobs that are on the cliff face of action. They're using words like disruption and reimagination.

[B]

And they didn't really say anything.

[C]

So this was my chance to be sort of quite provocative and punchy and ask questions and put a point of view out there genuinely with the role.

[B]

Of starting a debate. Because I think technology is allowing us to do incredible things and I think.

[C]

Most companies are completely ignoring that. And this was my kind of way to start a conversation. But also help companies deal with this change. Like how do they focus on the things that really matter? How do they deal with change in the right way? How do they get more excited about technology?

[B]

Because I think most companies actually seem.

[C]

To be quite scared by change.

[B]

I think if we were to be.

[C]

Honest with, if we were to go to the pub and get some CEOs and CFOs and CIOs drunk, I don't think they're as excited about the Internet as they probably should be.

[B]

So this was a sort of rallying cry to try and get a bit.

[C]

More enthusiasm and excitement out there as well.

[A]

Yeah. So what is digital Darwinism and why in your opinion, does it matter?

[B]

I mean, digital Darwinism is kind of.

[C]

The umbrella concept behind the book. So quite literally it's kind of find the kind of shortened lifespan, the way that companies need to change more quickly. The way that natural selection seems to occur within the business environment is drawing parallels between that and sort of natural selection and Darwin and the way that species evolve.

[B]

It's basically saying that things are now.

[C]

Changing sufficiently fast that the sort of mechanisms that we've always had to adapt are actually now not particularly helpful or suitable for this fast changing environment. And therefore, therefore we need to see companies that make these kind of leaps.

[B]

Going from kind of worst in class.

[C]

To best in class, investing in new technology, sort of really, really taking new technology to the very core of businesses.

[A]

And what fascinated me is it's not necessarily survival of the fittest or certainly not survival of the biggest. I think you sort of make a very good case in point that there's a lot of very big fat gorillas out there and they're just not fit at all. And they're scared of this change and they're scared to embrace the new. And I loved, you know, some of the, that you take from, from the past in particular, you looked at the sort of migration to electricity from steam power in the 19th and 20th century. What kind of lessons can we learn from that? Because I found that part of the book really interesting.

[B]

I think one of the great lessons I think we can get from the.

[C]

Past is looking at how factories in the past adapted to electricity and how.

[B]

They went through this process where essentially they completely misunderstood what electricity was about. There's a long history of companies having this new technology, applying it very much to the edge of what they do, and then spending decades being quite proud of what they've accomplished. And it's only when factories or businesses have been created for this new environment that we really see these kind of leap changes in productivity. It makes me laugh. The very, very first steam engines that were used in mills weren't used to actually drive the power shafts themselves. They were used to lift up water to power the existing water wheel infrastructure. And it's quite remarkable. You can go to the science museum and you can see these huge steam engines that must have created incredible torque and been very, very quick to turn on in the morning. And to think that they looked at these things and thought, oh great, we can use this to lift up water to drive the water wheel. It's very, very strange. And to see the way that electrical motors replace steam engines, we see exactly the same mistakes made again. But it just makes me realize that.

[C]

When we look at businesses today, we.

[B]

Can'T be that we're not making the same mistakes again. So when you see the way the banks are sort of failing to deal with change, when you see the insurance companies, when you see retailers, e commerce departments being completely separate, the rest of the business, you realize that we're continuing to make the same mistake, which is to kind of take this technology, to sort of take it to one side, to kind of stop it from affecting the rest of the business, because it's much more easy to sort of deal with when it's bolted onto the side.

[A]

You only have to look at how everybody has approached social and digital. Most companies, these are little separate, bolted on teams. It's exactly the same thing, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. There's no industry which has done a worse job, I think, of managing change than the advertising industry, which is odd because we celebrate how dynamic and young and funky and creative we are. But every single new thing that we've kind of either invented or had access.

[C]

To, whether it's the Internet in 2000, whether it's social media, whether it's mobile, whether it's blockchain, whether it's voice.

[B]

Like every time something new happens, we kind of create a new department from it sticks or younger people who are a bit cheaper in a sort of more funky part of the building and kind of hope not to sort of work with them that much because they're.

[C]

Too different to us.

[B]

We've never once or taken all these amazing new skill sets and amazing new.

[C]

People and amazing new tools and really integrated them into our entire offering. Even now, you know, if you're a big agency at Unilever, you've probably got about 300 agencies around the world, minimum.

[B]

You know, the reality is that all of these conversations should be massively integrated. The social teams, the video teams, the audio teams, the TV teams, everything needs to come together.

[A]

And in your book, there's a very good analogy, I particularly enjoyed of boiling frogs alive and it's highly relevant analogy for today's companies. But I just wanted you to explain how is boiling a frog alive relevant analogy for today's companies in the. The new digital, digital world that we find ourselves in?

[B]

I just think, I mean, it's not my analogy, it's a sor.

[C]

Fairly well known one.

[B]

But the reality is that when something.

[C]

Happens quite quickly, all at once, there's a sufficient shock that people realize they need to sort of leap out of the way or do something quickly. And instead if you are in this environment where the, where the change seems.

[B]

Quite slow, where there's not one obvious.

[C]

Dramatic shift from one day to the.

[B]

Next, then you just become warm and.

[C]

Sort of soft and malleable and sort of apathetic. And then by the time things are too difficult, it's actually too late to do anything about it.

[B]

And I think most companies are a bit like that today. I mean, again, I don't want to go around saying the sky is falling, everyone is screwed. But the reality is there are quite a lot of industries where the degree to which they're making changes is not. It's not happening fast enough. And the scale of these changes are not sufficiently great that companies are going.

[C]

To thrive in this world. And again, my main message is actually one of optimism and positivity, which is.

[B]

How can you get really excited about these new things? Like, we now have phones, we can now text message people, we can now communicate with people in rich, secure, intimate, tactile, personal ways. Let's get really excited about this great new thing rather than being worried about it.

[A]

So in what ways do you think, feel that, you know, companies are maybe lulling themselves to sleep in this slowly bubbling digital boil that we have surrounding ourselves.

[B]

I mean, I think I see in my job quite a lot. So as the sort of leader of innovation, I receive a lot of briefs which if I'm honest about it, I think they're more about sort of virtue signaling and it's kind of the marketing of innovation, more than innovation that's actually going to make a difference. So if you are a retailer, it's doing something with ibeacons or it's having a chatbot, or it's opening a new Alexa skill, the real change that retailers need to go through is to actually reconsider what their role is within the future. Yeah, that's a very deep, existential, awkward question. You know, similarly, if you're a car insurer, you probably need to be thinking.

[C]

About what the world of self driving cars will mean for ownership, what that will mean for the notion of insurance. How do you deal with the generation of people for whom, you know, opening your Uber account is the new passing your driving license at your driving test.

[B]

So I just think, you know, my main role at the moment seems to be about doing things which are gestural.

[C]

Which are about signaling to the financial markets that these companies are excited about change and actually they're not, because if.

[B]

They really were, they would be much bigger, more boring, more existential projects that they need to do.

[A]

And in the book you're quite critical of finance directors and kind of current investment and accountancy wisdom. Just kind of explain your thinking on this because actually for me, yeah, I was nodding very energetically in agreement with this because my experience, and if you are a finance director, no offense meant, but very often the ways in which decisions are made do seem to stop. Kind of real innovation, real big change. Because big change is expensive. Right?

[B]

Yeah, I think, I mean, everyone in.

[C]

Their jobs are acting logically. So it's not a sort of personal attack. It's more that these people exist in a framework where the length of time.

[B]

Over which their investments need to pay.

[C]

Off is very short. And we have infrastructure and we have mathematical models which don't really favor huge investments that change things for the better for a long period of time. We actually sort of favor incrementality.

[B]

Both a literal example and an analogy really is something like the west coast.

[C]

Mainline upgrades of the railway system in the UK, where if 15 years ago.

[B]

They decided to build a brand new train line, then we'd have incredibly fast.

[C]

Trains going between London and Manchester. The line would have cost a few.

[B]

Tens of billions of pounds, but we'd have way more trains. They required way less maintenance, they'd be way faster, way more capacity, way more safe, everything would be great. But instead we pretty much spend the.

[C]

Same amount of money incrementally over that 20 year period and we now have a train line that's a little bit faster with a tiny bit more capacity that doesn't quite work most of the time.

[B]

And that for me is a great metaphor for what happens when politically it's much easier to spend money in this.

[C]

Kind of drip like fashion and it's much easier to justify money on the basis of it being required for maintenance than it is about it being required to improve things. But that's how most businesses operate, I think.

[A]

And you had some really interesting thoughts on how to align the best interest of leaders and the best interests of the company. And very often as a case you make those things can be very much working against one another. Just sort of share that with us.

[B]

Yeah, I think, I mean, again, I don't want to act like I'm sort.

[C]

Of criticizing these people, but the reality is that most people who've reached the leadership within most businesses have been in the industry for a long time. That's just how life is. It's a good reason for it to be that way.

[B]

But therefore they're massively sort of invested in these companies and they probably are rewarded with stock options, they're probably coming to the end of their career and therefore no one really in a position of real power in a company wants.

[C]

To make a change which is either.

[B]

Radical, risky or will take a long.

[C]

Time to pay off.

[B]

And therefore we do see, I think, a significant number of companies with leaderships that are for very good and rational.

[C]

Sensible reasons just managing the decline rather than investing for the future. So they're trying to cut costs over time, they're trying to make sure that no one does anything particularly radical.

[B]

And what they should be doing is.

[C]

Investing much more significantly and ensuring relevance in 5, 10 or 20 years time. It's just the financial models don't really incentivize that.

[A]

And so are there any companies out there that you think have really cracked this, this kind of conundrum?

[B]

Remarkably few is, is the honest answer. I mean, I think a great deal.

[C]

Of that comes from the fact that this is still quite new. I know it doesn't feel that way, but you know, the way that mobile phones have changed our lives has only really happened in the last sort of five to seven years.

[B]

And I think it takes a long.

[C]

Time for this stuff to really hit the sales lines and hit the P and L sheet. And therefore, I don't think many companies.

[B]

Have realized the degree to which they.

[C]

Need to do this yet. The only company that really springs to mind is Netflix. Netflix is the only company really that changed before it had to.

[B]

And when you look at the chaos that it caused the stock markets, when you look at the stress levels it must have given to investors and executives, you get to see that this is.

[C]

Not an easy decision to make.

[B]

But their decision to go from a.

[C]

Mail order subscription company to a digital streaming company now to a vertically integrated entertainment company, you know, it's done incredible things for their value.

[A]

And it was. I mean, that was probably back. Was that back 2012 when they pushed up the cost of online subscriptions?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, they went through quite a few stages. I think it was even earlier than.

[C]

That that they decided to sort of eat their own business by kind of removing the. I mean, almost removing the notion of mail order CDs and DVDs and instead focus on streaming and then on making the shows themselves.

[A]

And at the time, you know, it was the online. Well, it was the mail order that was making all the money, wasn't it? That was what they were being valued on. So to sort of walk away from that seemed almost commercial suicide at the time, compared. A lot of the analysts were sort of jumping up and down at it.

[B]

No, absolutely. I mean, the stock market, I think.

[C]

Went down by 50% pretty much overnight. Everyone thought they were nuts the way that they separated the company into two. They had to walk back on some of these decisions a bit later on just to manage the chaos that they'd caused.

[B]

Which I think is probably, you know, I think if you are causing chaos and if there is a degree to which people are thinking, wow, this is crazy, that's probably a good way of knowing you're either onto something that's a great idea or you're doing something terrible. It's just that you'll only know which one of those two things is sort of five or ten years down the line.

[A]

So do you feel that, like, self disruption, like that is potentially a way, a way forward? Should companies be disrupting their own markets deliberately to try and stay ahead of the curve?

[B]

I think one needs to be careful about not doing this kind of one size fits all prescription. I think if you look at companies that are out there, they cover the.

[C]

Whole spectrum of companies that are going to be just fine, that need to change nothing.

[B]

If you're a brewery company, the reality is that Uber is not completely destroying the world. Of beer making. Airbnb is not having a strong impact.

[C]

On how we consume alcohol.

[B]

You know, they probably need to be.

[C]

Investigating craft beer and how can they kind of, you know, be more authentic and local brands in some ways, but they don't need to sort of completely change how they do things. There are other companies that probably need.

[B]

To be a lot more open to the idea of accepting change in a.

[C]

Much more existential way.

[B]

So I think every company needs to find their own mileage and they need.

[C]

To find their own tonality to this and they need to find their own depth and scale of change.

[B]

But I think every company needs to be looking at this. I think most of the problems that have happened in the industry have happened because there's been a degree of denial. And I think it's more likely that the greater the need that you have to change is, the greater the sense of denial and burying your head in the sand is. And therefore, if nothing else, it would be great for these companies to just.

[C]

Make more enlightened decisions.

[B]

Maybe the long term future of some retailers is to go bankrupt. Maybe there is no way to sort of change the existing asset base and brand in time to really compete in the new world, but at least make an active decision to do that and then at the same time as shuttering your existing company, be opening new companies.

[C]

That are going to take advantage of the new world that lies ahead of us.

[A]

And you make a good point that a lot of big, big organizations are just buying up other companies rather than necessarily investing in their own innovation. Do you think that's a sustainable model long term for the future?

[B]

I think it may be seen as a sort of weird interim period. Again, my book is kind of annoying and irritating and it's sort of naive.

[C]

In places, but it's not done with.

[B]

The intention of saying to people, you're idiots. It's surprising to me when you look at sort of incumbent businesses and you look at all the skill sets they have and you look at all the kind of wonderful things that they can offer, it's surprising to me that they don't leverage those better than some of these young thrusting startups that emerge. So it's puzzling to me that a company like Unilever didn't go out and create something like dollar Shave Club rather than having to sort of buy it. It's so strange for me when these huge marketing centric, very, very, very well capitalized companies assume that the only possible way for them to succeed is to.

[C]

Sort of buy a model which someone else has sort of perfected first.

[B]

Now there are times when it makes sense that no one's done that. Like if you are creating a startup that removes value from the market, then it's unfair to think that a company.

[C]

Would have wanted to have created that themselves.

[B]

But there are other examples where you think, you know, why did, you know, BMW not create Uber? Or why did a hotel chain not create Airbnb and things like that.

[A]

You talk about the dangers of chartism within the book. Just explain to us what, what that is.

[B]

Well, I think we're at this time where people need confidence in decisions they make. So we've fallen in love with data. And I think it's strange because most of the data that we use to talk about the future is inherently sort of unreliable. You know, most people seem to have.

[C]

Way more confidence in these charts where, you know, linear interpolation exists into the future than they should do.

[B]

And the reality is that we did a terrible job collectively of predicting a success of 3D TV, of curved TVs. We did a terrible job of predicting what cars of the future would look like. We've done a terrible job predicting virtual reality success or the success of 3D printing. You know, most of these sort of numbers based consultants seem to be sort of men that sort of love drones.

[C]

And these, these physical things.

[B]

And the reality is actually that if you speak to most people about these technologies, they're not particularly positive about them. So I think we just need to have a much more empathetic approach.

[C]

You know, my personal belief is that most of the statistics that I see about the use of voice is complete nonsense.

[B]

And therefore I think we just need to be confident. We need to get better at having confidence in beliefs which are not necessarily.

[C]

Supported by accurate data about the future, which is actually completely nonsensical.

[A]

There's a few references in the book to sort of innovation for innovation's sake. You know, almost like innovating for the, for the sake of it so that you can be seen to be doing something new.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What I found really interesting about that is it's very true. There's a lot of innovation at the moment, but almost zero kind of use cases. So a lot of big companies are developing platforms and machines and items that they're just hoping the developers will work out how these are actually going to be integrated and knitted into our lives and become, become essential. And I think potentially, you know, voices is something, something a bit like that. Certainly virtual reality and augmented reality seem to be going down, down the same route. Do you think that's true?

[B]

Yeah, I think it sort of varies a little bit. I think there are some companies that are using these sort of innovation labs as ways to, to try things out, as ways to kind of learn about new behaviors, as ways to get expertise.

[C]

Before other people in the category have a chance to. And I think that's a very sensible use of innovation. I think some of them are much more based on the idea of, you.

[B]

Know, we know that our business is built on a dodgy foundation, but it's way too expensive to create this new.

[C]

Foundation for our company. Instead, let's try to sort of distract people a little bit.

[B]

And it's kind of logical because, you know, the reality is that we do live in an environment where if you have a mood sensing blanket on a plane, you will get press. You know, if you try, if you try flying transatlantically with one airline powered by biofuel, you will get some press. If you have a staff training program where you wear AR headsets, you will get some press. Or actually, if you decide to completely re engineer the entire booking engine, which means that you can change your flight online yourself, you won't get any press and no one's going to get promoted for that. It's just that you probably would see customer loyalty increase massively.

[A]

Well, Tom, I really enjoyed reading your book and I did read it cover to cover. So it took me two days on and off doing various other bits and pieces. But I found it a really entertaining read and I think, well guys, if you listen to this and you're curious about Tom's book, I think the thing that it got me really excited about it was that Tom is helping us to join a whole bunch of dots I'd never even thought of joining before. And you can't help but read Tom's book and start applying it to your own line of work and that of your organization. So I highly, highly recommend it. If you want to find out more about the book, Tom, and your work, where do we go? What do we do?

[B]

I guess probably the main way is LinkedIn really. I mean, the book has a website, www.digitaldarwinismbook.com but I'm sort of most active.

[C]

And most sort of easy to connect with on LinkedIn. So Tom Fgoodwin is my handle or username or whatever you say. I'm on Twitter and stuff, but you can find me through LinkedIn probably best.

[A]

Fantastic. Well, Tom, thanks so much for giving us the time and we wish you the best of luck with the book.

[B]

My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

[A]

Thanks for listening to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by Target Internet. If you're investing in your digital marketing skills, take a look at our free Benchmark Skills Test and look at the wealth of online learning we provide. To help marketers get up to speed and stay up to date, just visit targetinternet.combenchmark.

[B]

It.