So What Have We Learned?
Just as the development of software has its inviolable rules of good practice that extend far beyond the platform, language, or application, businesses too have time-tested methods of staying in business. Entrepreneurs and veterans of the executive washroom alike cross those rules at their own peril. The MBAs receiving the multimillion-dollar checks and the implicit knowledge of everything should know better.
While you may see me as either a broken record, based on reading any number of my other writings, or just a part of a sanctimonious wolf pack using the clarity of hindsight to berate the brave pioneers in the sector, I defy such shallow categorization. I am at the front of the line when discussing intellectual property as an asset. I remain confident that the simple graduation from EDI to a standards-based XML communication mechanism will save businesses in all tiers of all supply chains billions of dollars.
What needs to change is the belief that any one technology or idea in a vacuum will revolutionize the way in which people live their lives or conduct their business. Even "the Internet" is not a monolithic titan that emerged from the bog. Millions of people were using DARPANET long before a single web page, browser, or e-anything existed, simply facilitating communication between academic institutions. It's a decades-long refinement of countless ideas and technologies. The blur of numerous advances just makes it look like a single stroke.
Individuals and society at large are simply unwilling to change without hesitation. That fact has kept humans alive as a species. It's the reason that evolution hasn't slain us all with our own brilliance.
But until the coordinators of revolutionary transactions follow the best practices to which everyone else must adhere—such as planning for seasonal changes, customer loyalty, and the fickle finger of fate—they'll continue to become roadkill as traditional companies motor into their markets.