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There are only two ways to catch up a “market leader”:

1. the leader makes very bad decisions that eventually comes back to haunt him and leaves him vulnerable.

or

2. you buy a startup or small company that has the innovation, but lacks the resources, giving you a better possibility of catching up.

Either is very hard, just look at Microsoft. Vista really sucked, but still they are the “market leader” operating systems. Or see at Google, they bought Android and see where they are today, still on the hunt for iPhone and trying to be the dominant mobile platform.

So, what to do? Stop playing the game of others and play your own. The catch game is like gambling in a Vegas casino, you will win enough to continue betting, but will never win against the house or break even. Do something different, which makes you the leader since you are the first to come up with it.

For example, Asus and the netbooks (eventually everybody was able to catch up). More interesting, instead of trying to play catch-up, Apple did something different, the iPad, which is a device that is between the tablet, eBook reader and netbook.

Another example is the Puma Phone, just freaking cool stuff.

At the end of the day is like convincing people to not follow the conventional patch and follow, therefore making you the leader.

Today I was checking an email account that I log in occasionally or when I remember, and not as a habit (it used to be a habit). I saw an email from a presenter at a workshop I attended some months ago (I think it was in February). We had a conversation in the event and then exchange some emails. I had shown interest in a trend analysis report that at that time was only in Swedish. Two months later the report is in my inbox, as she promised and the most astonishing thing is that she remembered me, in contrast my interest on it was in the limbo of my memories. Then I realized that its called Reciprocity.

It came out of the blue, “but reciprocity is responding to a positive action with another positive action”. Giving me the report is not a positive response, but is intended on creating a sense that I should be respond to her action in a positive way. I confessed I feel flattered that she remembers me and I can say she is woman of her word, but I can see she wants me to do some marketing for her. How do I get to this conclusion? Well, it is also mentioned in the email that I can share the report with anybody and that they are working in a new web site, where we can buy the reports. First of all I will had pass it on with their permission or not, may sound a bit harsh, but that is how the world works. If you get it for free, why not share. Second if she had not mentioned nothing from the new site I will have thought its pure “mensching“. I may be wrong, maybe she is mensching, but still its very interesting how human act and response.

In part I feel guilty because some people might think this post is rude (or maybe not), but I’m not complaining, it just serves as an example of how important is to understand how humans think. How this will help you in market your product or service better or even understand the customers that you think you know.

She has a lot of merit for still remembering to send me the report and I really appreciate that, because some people tell you that they will send you something or call you, etc. and they don’t do it, only if you are Bill Gates or they need something. This is a cool tactic, not as some “comment spammers” leave generic comments saying they like my blog, so I visit their blog and leave a comment.

will share with you the report and the web site where you can buy it if you like it, still she got me to spread it around, in one way or another. I wonder if the sharing of the document and the site is it a result of guilt, reciprocity, chance or something more complex ?

Site:www.urbanlifestylereport.com

Urban Lifestyle Report March 2008

Update
If the above link is to complicated for you, here is a public storage folder

Public Storage