How Hits Happen: Forecasting Predictability in a Chaotic Marketplace
Author: Winslow Farrell
List Price: $24.00
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ISBN: 0887309070
Publisher: HarperBusiness (July, 1998)
Sales Rank: 62,753
Average Customer Rating: 3.06 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
Shed a light on new way to analyze market.
I have read this book and I think the author has revealed us future of how we will analyze the market. We have seen many hits and flops over the years. Some hits were expected and started with much fanfare while other came out of no where. I don't think there has been any systematic approach to how this kind of hit happens. All analysis has been 20-20 hindsight. In this book, the author proposes a new way of study how hit happens, not by looking from top to bottom but from bottom to top by using computer model that stimulates the real world. I think his idea is breakthrough in marketing research and new way of using computer simulation to solve mysteries of hits. One problem, I have with this book is that while I understand this book's purpose is not to delve into technical aspect of computer model, I wish he explain a bit more. I am curious about how to construct adaptive agent. Not to the detail of building one but to understand if there are some flaws. After all building any model to simulate the real world is not easy.
Rating: 4 out of 5
New tools for winning in the New Economy
In "How Hits Happen", Winslow Farrell provides what will be for many managers a first glimpse at how market leaders will be thinking in the post-linear world of the new economy. Farrell clearly shows that the current extrapolative, generalizing, top-down, spreadsheet-oriented view of the world is becoming an increasingly distorted lens for viewing markets and what drives them. Powerful, creative successes are nonlinear, arising seemingly spontaneously from the relatively simple interaction of large numbers of independently acting and communicating people.The relevance of this book goes far beyond the entertainment industry from which it draws its examples-hits are an emergent phenomenon in every market. Farrell provides numerous examples of what happens when markets catch fire, when the "buzz" surrounding a product travels like a contagion through the network of relationships in a population, fanning out from the "in" crowd to the rest of us.
"How Hits Happen" is the bottom-up counterpoint to Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm", the hit marketing manifesto for the high tech community that has become the default worldview in Silicon Valley. Moore described how new product adoption is driven by influencers, in a trickle-down process between distinct segments of a market-- segments separated by gaps and chasms. Farrell draws on the fascinating and relevant tools of complexity theory and multi-agent simulation to show *how* influence works, *why* there are gaps and chasms, and that managers can adaptively interact with markets to recognize hit potential. Perhaps the most important lesson is that we can add "energy" at the right place and the right time to help turn product potential into phenomenal success.
But be forewarned-- the book leaves a number of questions unanswered. Such as "What are the warning signs of an impending hit?", "How do we adapt to emergent market behavior to fan the flames?", and "When and at what level should action be taken?" Farrell and his team at Coopers ! & Lybrand are on to something big, pioneering the application of complex adaptive systems, artificial life, and simulation to real-world businesses. Neatly wrapped answers are lacking only because these are the early days, and much lies waiting to be discovered.
Despite the high ratio of description to prescription, I encourage anyone interested in why products like Barbie, VHS and Windows win in the market to read this book. This is exciting territory-- the forces have been set into motion for a dramatic shift in business thinking.
--Ken Karakotsios Author of "SimLife" software, co-founder & CEO of Salamander Interactive
Rating: 2 out of 5
glib and insubstantial
I agree with the reviewer who said this should have been condensed into a magazine article. In a nutshell, Farrell says that hits are non-linear events in which crowd psychology and feedback play a key role, in other words it can't be modelled by summing the buying behaviors and preferences of each individual. Of course this is obvious, so Farrell's contribution is to say that complexity theory and software agents can be useful for modelling these situations, and have been used by his consulting firm and others. This is interesting, but Farrell never provides any real details of how the modelling is done, what the problems are, etc. Instead, much of the book is filled with fluffy business anecdotes and observations, such as how the movie Titanic succeeded in dominating entertainment culture in 1997. I get the impression he is the glib "Mr. Outside" of the projects he's involved with, and perhaps doesn't have a really good grasp of the technical substance. Either that, or this book is essentially a brochure for his firm's services. Similar Products
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