Think a moment about the journalist and the historian. The former is presenting the new(s) the latter combines the new into a (historic) perspective.

If you want to be in the lead with new trends like the innovator you should know the new(s). You should know about all new developments and more important, you should try and proof them. This is more than a single experiment with new technology. Blogging for example is such a new trend, and the innovator (journalist) will experiment with it. Like the investment journalist who is commenting on a financial movement during the day, the innovator will not be able to determine in what direction the trend will go, nor whether the new movement is strong enough to be a real trend.

The more conservative investor and entrepreneur will wait to take action on all those pre-trend movements. He wants to value the new movement before betting his money on it. To do this you need to put things into (historic) perspective.

The approach of the innovator brings advantage in the sense that he is up to date, and gains hands on experience on the matter. The disadvantage is that each such an experience costs time and money that could have been spent otherwise. But once one of the little trends is speeding up, the innovator is already there standby to take the next steps.

The conservative entrepreneur will be affected by this new development and needs to redefine his strategy according to the impact on his market. He is not experienced with the new trends or technology and needs to catch-up with the pioneers.

The real question is what is more expensive - all those little experiments for which many will not survive, or to wait until a real significant development is manifest.

2006 Hans Bool