Tuesday, February 26, 2013

From research to product

".. the competitive advantage likely to be gained from the introduction of a new product largely depends on one's ability to create a demand for it, which usually has more to do with an ability to second-guess consumers than anything truly revolutionary in the product itself. Thus, relatively small innovations can end up making huge profits for big companies, while truly radical innovations can be easily captured or ignored."

".. the expansion of the arts and sciences faculties in the universities in the 19th and 20th centuries had been nation-building exercises motivated by the prospect of citizen mobilisation in time of war. The humanities provided instruction in the values that needed to be upheld; the social sciences taught the relevant mechanisms of social control; and the natural sciences contributed to the consolidation and upgrading of the nation's infrastructure and defense system. However, in times of peace, these disciplines potentially created obstacles to commerce by reifying differences that could otherwise be negotiated away in the free exchange of goods and services."

Steve Fuller, Knowledge Management Foundations

"Pedro Cuatrecasas states, “during the R&D of acyclovir (Zovirax), marketing [department of Burroughs Wellcome] insisted that there were ‘no markets’ for this compound. Most had hardly heard of genital herpes...” Thus marketing the medical condition – separating the ‘normal cold sore’ from the ‘stigmatized genital infection’ was to become the key to marketing the drug, a process now known as ‘disease mongering’."
...
Much of the hysteria and stigma surrounding herpes stems from a media campaign beginning in the late 1970s and peaking in the early 1980s. There were multiple articles worded in fear-mongering and anxiety-provoking terminology, such as the now ubiquitous "attacks," "outbreaks," "victims," and "sufferers." At one point the term "herpetic" even entered the popular lexicon. The articles were published by Reader's Digest, U.S. News, and Time magazine, among others."

Wiki article

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