"How is it that large, powerful organizations, with access to vast sums of money, and many talented, hardworking people, can simply disappear?"

The words of Michael Nielsen who looks long and hard at the current state of publishing on his blog.

It’s true that stupidity and malevolence do sometimes play a role in the disruption of industries. But I’ll argue that even smart and good organizations can fail in the face of disruptive change, and that there are common underlying structural reasons why that’s the case.

Firstly he argues that

1.

Unfortunately for the newspapers, there’s little they can do to make themselves cheaper to run.

adding that

The problem is that your newspaper has an organizational architecture which is, to use the physicists’ phrase, a local optimum. Relatively small changes to that architecture - like firing your photographers - don’t make your situation better,

2.

some of the forces preventing change are strongest in the best run organizations. The reason is that those organizations are large, complex structures, and to survive and prosper they must contain a sort of organizational immune system dedicated to preserving that structure.

It's a frightening scenario but it is also the classic business model.

But do read the whole article

Ht-Alfred Hermida