The First-Mover Advantage

LESSON was started with the video on 'Who Moved My Cheese?', and here's the video clip on it:

What Hem written on the walls in the maze makes a lot of sense, but the thing that got my mind thinking was the writing 'What would you do if you are not afraid?'.

And another video that was shown was 'Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy', and here's the video:

And now, the title of my post for today - First-Mover Advantage.
Being the first to stand out and do something is never easy. You may get ridiculed, you may look stupid, and you may end up being the outcast of your group or your society. Take the first video for example 'Who Moved My Cheese', when Hem was the first of the little people to want to go into the maze to find new cheese, he faced so much criticism from his counterpart, Haw. Hem has no idea what he was getting into, what he will find in the maze, whether was he right or wrong but nevertheless he pushed on. Being the first is never easy, BUT once he started gaining his momentum, he realized that what he is doing is not stupid at all. He first found an empty cheese station E, and realized that had he moved sooner, he would have reaped the rewards sooner. So let's keep that lesson in mind as I go on the talk about the second video.

'Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader.'

Being the first follower, following the lone and stupid-looking nut also puts you at risk of being an outcast yourself because you are now being associated with that lone and stupid-looking nut. But the first follower stands up for what he believes in, and if he believes in the leader he should follow him (or her), no matter how his image will be ruin.

That's easier say than done. Which brings me back to Hem's saying 'What would you do if you are not afraid?'. Leaders are people who are not afraid to be different.

So how does all this leads to technology? The First-Mover Advantage can also be referred to as Technological Leadership. Take the famous Apple for example. Its success in the high-end smartphone market can be largely credited to its first-mover advantage. With the iPhone and its Apps Store, Apple has established a formidable smartphone ecosystem. In fact, Apple is now becoming the de-facto standard of sorts in the consumer smartphone market due in large part to its first mover advantage and tight software and hardware integration.


So I'll end this post with Prof's analogy of leader, ignorers and laggards. 

The one that dive into things and        The one that knows what's going
is the centre of actions.                       on but does not do a thing about it.
The Leader.                                       Scared of change.
                                                        The ignorer.                       


The one that does not know a single thing about what's going on.
Goes 'WTF' in situations.
The Laggard.
The EXTINCT.






So who wants to be what? The hopeful-of-being-an-eagle is signing off!