The Future of NEM: Strategy Discussion

General Discussion
#1

So, this is my first post after having attending the NEM Meetup event in London last night…

I must say, I am extremely encouraged by the progress and future strategy for the NEM platform, and props to Kristoff and Lon for delivering a fantastic presentation!

I first heard about NEM around last august 2017 after having spent many weeks researching various blockchain platforms and cryptocurrencies and deciding that NEM is the clear winner when it comes to the underlying technology, company and potential applications. I have great faith in the company, and truly believe that NEM has the potential to become the No.1 global blockchain solution. This was likewise confirmed to me at the meeting last night. Not only does NEM have a fantastic technological base and world class dev team, but I was very impressed by Lon’s business philosophy and the emphasis on a positive ‘company culture’, and ‘passion over profit’. I personally feel that these are fundamentally crucial aspects to the success and longevity of NEM. However, as a student of the history, philosophy and policy of science and technology at University College London, I have some minor ‘concerns’ about the strategy going forward.

One aspect of my studies has been the various factors that determine whether or not a technology achieves widespread adoption and market dominance. That being, we might tend to assume that the best technologies are the ones that succeed in the long run, but history shows that this is very often not the case. One famous example of this is the QWERTY keyboard, invented in 1872. Although there have been many different keyboard designs since QWERTY which are far more efficient and logical designs, we nonetheless still use QWERTY today. The primary reason for this is ‘first mover advantage’ and technological ‘lock-in’. i.e since everyone had already invested in QWERTY typewriters and trained to use this layout, companies were unwilling to adopt newer, better designs, despite the technology being superior.

Another famous example is the electric car. If you were not already aware of the fact, the electric car was invented before the internal combustion engine car. Despite having first mover advantage in this case, the electric car ultimately succumbed to the powerful vested interests of the oil and gasoline industry, which were already well established and already had the infrastructure to support widespread adoption of the gasoline powered car. The infrastructure to support electric cars was not sufficient to support widespread adoption, and so the gasoline powered car dominated and continues to dominate today.

Although these are just two very basic example in a long list of superior technologies that were not adopted, they provide key examples of the primary challenges that emerging technologies face. Again and again, the most important factors in the adoption of a new technology are supporting infrastructure, vested interests, and first mover advantage/technological lock in.

The take away message here is that, even though NEM is clearly the best technology and far more promising than it’s competitors, and even though NEM has immense potential, this is certainly no guarantee that it will succeed against inferior competitors.

With this in mind, I feel that the most important questions we need to ask about NEM going forward are as follows:

  1. What constitutes ‘first mover advantage’ for blockchain technologies (usability? public adoption? commercial adoption? etc) and should we strive to beat others to the finish-line, or focus on ‘slow and steady wins the race’.

  2. What potential vested interests could pose a threat to the success of NEM? I.e does NEM threaten any powerful established industries, and could they act to prevent NEM from succeeding? (are there any industries that may feel threatened or wish to compete with NEM that have the power to make things difficult?) If so, what should NEM do to out maneuver any potential challenges from these vested interests?

  3. Does the underlying infrastructure exist within society and industry to support the widespread adoption of the NEM platform? There are two ways to achieve this. Create the infrastructure, or focus on designing NEM to be compatible with the infrastructures that already exist. OR both. Which is more important or likely to be successful? Crucially, do any of the competitors have or have access to superior infrastructure?

I know what many of you are going to say. MARKETING!!!. And I would agree with you, to an extent. Marketing is, of course, absolutely crucial. But marketing for it’s own sake is hit and miss. Yes, marketing is key, but intelligent marketing that builds on genuine strengths and broad analysis of potential pitfalls is key to the success of said marketing. Otherwise you’re just throwing things at the wall and hoping they stick. Part of developing a successful marketing strategy is asking the right questions, which might perhaps include the ones I have detailed above, and more.

NEM undoubtedly has the potential to lead the market and change the world. But we can do even better than that. Let’s make NEM bulletproof.

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#2

A very good discussion above !! And very valid points ! Will you be buying NEM though ?

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#3

Thank you. I’ve held XEM since around last august. I consider it a long term investment.

#4

When I first saw this post I told myself “wow, very interesting points”.
I wanted to answer back then but I am not very active in this forum.
I thought this post was going to be the start of a discussion regarding NEM strategy for future…
But almost no answer.
Community and community involvement is very important (critical) to success. We all know that NEM is not hyped (one of the reasons I like it), but honestly, if you look at some other coin community, it is far beyond what we have here.
Forum is a great place for in depth discussion. Telegram is quite active, but it is not the place for discussing NEM strategy.
Without community involvement, success is difficult.
Apple didn’t invent everything: They take existing ideas, make them better, and create trends. Was Facebook the first social media? Why was it successful?

I really like NEM more than any other crypto, but saying “We have the best tech” “It is easier to create ICO on NEM”, and all those messages are nothing without a strong community.

When people want to create an ICO on Ethereum, it is not because of tech, it is because it is more widely adopted.

So marketing by itself is not the solution. Tech only is not enough. My thoughts are that we need a bigger community and more involved. Then everything will follow

How to achieve a bigger and more active community? This is an open question.

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#5

Hi all,

As I mentioned in the projects, Crypto Cashback Coin can introduce NEM wallet to many people, especially in the UK, Europe, US, but plans are global.

We will be providing sign up bonuses, rewards and bounties, especially that it aims to be a DAO. However, it is very important for NEM Foundation to take marketing seriously.

In the London NEM meetup one member described marketing as the ‘easy part’. Well this is where the project will either live or die. People and the users are the key, without them technology is useless.

Many far superior technology wise products have died, due to better marketing from competitor.

Peace out!

CCC

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#6

NEM has been around for years, developing the perfect blockchain. Yes it has been a gruelling, dragging time for investors, though I still believe NEM is the sleeping giant because of the tech and development behind it.

NEM is not a hype coin like many others out there. It’s had gradual growth and once the latest, greatest update is released I believe this will lead to developing marketing resources.

As you might know, it costs money to pay developers, it costs money to pay a marketing team too. I firmly believe that NEM has taken the product first approach, utilising their financial resources to fund development to create the best and safest blockchain. Once the hard work is complete, then I’m sure they will utilise resources for marketing.

Imagine a huge marketing campaign, just to later get hammered by fud because we don’t have a working product, or a poor working product. It’s not going to be a good look for investors.

My 2c :slight_smile:

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#7

you got the point right

#8

Really, I was trying to avoid this turning into another “Marketing!” thread. Everyone knows every product needs marketing, sooner, or later. This much is obvious.

What I was really trying to draw attention to and provoke discussion and ideas, was historical precedents, trends and theories of innovation over time.

Specifically, when we look at the development of technology over time, it tends to look like a linear step-stage development of increasingly better technology. I.e. when we look back at how technology has developed, we only see the winners. Therefore it looks like a simple process of increasingly sophisticated technology being developed and adopted as time goes by. For example:

linear-innovation

However, what researchers and scholars of the history of technology and innovation have realized for some time now, is that the development of technology over time looks more like a web. We only see the linear progression because we only see the ‘winners’. In reality, for every technology we live our lives by today, from light bulbs, keyboards and cars, to electricity supply systems and space rockets, there a countless other technologies that didn’t make the cut and vanished into the annuls of history. Moreover, often these technologies are superior to the technologies that ‘win’ and become adopted. Although sometimes the superior technology eventually takes over, often the weaker technologies become adopted en mass and become next to impossible to replace. This is called Technological Lock-in. Example:

09_technology-lock-in_b
09_technology-lock-in_b.jpg750×532 109 KB

So, turning this knowledge toward NEM in a positive way, we can perhaps start to think of ways to avoid the pitfalls of new technologies.

Yes - NEM in the superior technology.
Yes - NEM has the potential to succeed
Yes - There is every reason for the public to adopt NEM technology
Yes - NEM seems like the perfect blockchain-crypto tech.

Unfortunately, absolutely none of these facts guarantees that NEM will survive/thrive, even with all the marketing in the world (although it helps). We could end up with the worst blockchain tech in the world becoming dominant and cornering the market for the next 100 years. And we will all be scratching our heads wondering how it happened, why NEM didn’t ‘win’ and why people make such stupid choices about tech.

Returning back to the example of the QWERTY keyboard (only one simple example, but easy to understand), maybe there are lessons we can learn from this. QWERTY has absolutely dominated keyboard layout tech since 1878. Despite countless more efficient designs over the years, we still use it today. In other words, we are still using an ancient inefficient technology from the 1800’s when we could be typing are NEM forum posts twice and fast and with less wrist strain!.

How does this relate to now and what can we do to bulletproof NEM against the same pitfalls? Well, this is where I will leave this discussion for now, and I encourage everybody to have a think and throw in their ideas. Some are a few things to think about to get the ball rolling:

  • Is Bitcoin the QWERTY of blockchains?
  • If so, how do we break the lock-in of obsolete tech? (Maybe Elon Musk and Tesla is a good example. Breaking the lock-in of combustion engine cars. Remember from my first post, the electric car was invented first, and should have become dominant but didn’t…)
  • Besides marketing, what should be done to encourage adoption?

Personally, I think an absolutely critical aspect is making sure NEM slots seamlessly and smoothly into the technological systems we already use. I.e. it should be able to replace or be interwoven with current monetary, banking and financial systems with close to zero problems. If for any reason it is harder or more difficult to use or implement than the current entrenched systems, people and institutions will not want to risk rocking the boat (even though NEM would improve things once implemented!). Failing that, NEM would need to create the infrastructure to support itself, a la Edison and the light bulb. Edison (and Telsa) literally had to create the electrification systems for the light bulbs to work in! If he had just invented the lightbulb, people would not have been able nor willing to adopt their usage.

As a certain someone said, marketing is the easy part.

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#9

I do apologise if it was my comment which made you feel that way sir,
It was my fault, I should have replied directly to @cashback as my response was for him and not for your original post.

Sorry for the confusion and frustration.

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#10

Any updated news for NEM outlook ? Whats the direction after some major Figures re-formation?

#11

Really interesting thread, as an early user its encouraging to see people with an ultra long term approach.

@futuretech made a terrific point regarding the Edison (Tesla) comparison. NEM needs to be able to be fully utilised by the general public, seamlessly. To replace a previous product/service it must triumph in all areas to be sufficient enough to fully replace as an example the current fiat system in place.

Encouraging ways to have adoption of NEM can be seen in the community fund proposals. Some large starts up are truly attempting to integrate a platform to effectively provide users the ability to transact with NEM. Providing support to these start ups is one real way to boost the expansion phase. I am currently developing my own start up and am very interested in providing the users the ability to transact with NEM on the platform. To me, innovative start ups and other small businesses will be the key to growing the market and help facilitate the seamless models of transacting or whatever your intended use is.

As mentioned I am only new to the crypto space (roughly 8 months) so I’d love to receive some feedback or see what everyone thinks!

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#12

very insightful article, learn something everyday

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#13

This is very interesting.
I know that NEM foundation is aiming “the blue ocean”. But… I am still thinking that NEM needs to achieve recognition with current crypto early adopters. How?
In history, we have seen many times the best tech disappear.
In Telegram, Tony, as a blockchain dev, was giving example of customers asking specifically for development in Ethereum.

Is Ethereum better than NEM? So why asking specifically for it? Because they’ve heard of it and “everybody is using Eth”.
It sounds stupid, but this is how many people react.

Aiming blue ocean is great, but we are still at the beginning of crypto and NEM should at least care about today’s early adopters.

Early adopter means devs and crypto enthusiasts.
The first one are key, because they actually use the blockchain.

The second ones are a more heterogeneous community, composed of speculators who only care about price, but also people willing to use blockchain (and NEM) for everyday life.

An effort should be put there, involving community.

1 Like
#14

Some great responses here. Let’s keep the ball rolling.

Remember though, it is still early days. It might seem like crypto/blockchain and NEM has been around forever, but that’s because we’re very very early adopters. Crypto and blockchain is still not even close to mainstream adoption in the real world, on the level of your average consumer. There is EVERYTHING left to play for.

But conversation like this should keep us on our toes, and as prepared as we can be.

#15

On a less positive note, it looks like we have an early example of what I have been talking about:

This highlights the potential risks, despite the advanced technology. This is an important lesson!

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#16

In Germany, we like to say “leave the church in the village.” Although I share your opinion, we should also see the period of the post and the team strength of Nem in relation to it. The project was presented December 2017 and you can easily find it via the search function of the forum. There are zero comments under the project proposal. So it seems not only that the Foundation has overlooked that, but we too as a community. Nem had a small team at that time (still a bit small today but it is developing) and Comsa was on the way. But I think that in the background, the important projects all run according to plan and many things happen that are simply subject to a certain trade secret and are only worn to the outside when they are ready to go.

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#17

Good observation. Very true.

Still good to keep and eye on these things.

It’s also positive to note that the team did want to use NEM and would have if things had gone to plan.

#18

I appreciate your care and concern, however i find many aspects of your writing to consider only a low spectrum of facts. Even your historical / business references are weak.
Attributing first-mover benefit to fossil fuels is a fallacy. Even in 2018, with government subsidies, and major advancements in chemistry, mining, design, production, etc - Electric cars have massive setbacks and cannot yet compete on scale in an open market against internal combustion engines.
First Mover could be applied to keyboard layouts, however- Qwerty was designed to minimize jamming in typewriters and there hasn’t been significant technological advancement in keyboard layout to justify mass changes. Most consumers simply don’t care that much about typing fast.
Where speed typing is necessary, Stenotype is used.
Now there are significant tech advances to justify new text input designs and methods, and people are adapting somewhat. - Speech to Text, Swype, new input devices coming out every other day. - etc

I prefer to compare NEM to Amazon and Google during the .com bubble. There are plenty of articles you can find online, written during late 90s and early 2000s, about how Amazon is doomed to failure, etc. Meanwhile, millions of dollars were being lost in failed Internet startups.
Same sort of thing is happening in crypto right now.

As far as growing NEM - yes things can be done different. However, every time someone brings up this subject, I ask myself what they are doing to grow NEM.
Everyone has an opinion on how to do it, but not everyone is taking action.

One thing that I think most agree on, is that we need content creators. - And there are bounties for it as well.
You seem to write well (though I disagree on much of the content). Maybe you’d like to write some positive and helpful articles about NEM?

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#19

Sorry for the late response.

I’m in the middle of exams and haven’t had time to catch up on the thread.

On your first point about the examples used (i.e. electric cars, keyboards etc) you are, of course, entirely correct. And I am in complete agreement. Likewise, this is exactly the kind of thinking I was trying to inspire.

Although you are correct on both points, these are the introductory examples commonly used in training and academia to introduce the topic and get people thinking about the development and life cycles of technology, which is why I thought it appropriate to use in this thread. On further examination of these examples, one finds that (just as the development of technology is not linear or predictable), instances of technological lock-in or failure are, likewise, not always what they seem. In this respect, responses such as yours are exactly what I was looking for, as it starts to crack open the opaque shell of what makes a technology tick. History and philosophy of technology (and policy) is an emerging field that was once assumed to be a very simple progression for one technology to the next.

Increasingly however, companies and innovators pay big dollars for consulting and advice on these topics in order to try and avoid these pitfalls, and so my reasoning for using them still stands. But you are correct on the details, and I’m impressed by your knowledge on the subjects. One thing that is really blossoming with crypto and blockchain, more so than many other technologies, are the strength and enthusiasm of communities behind them. By making the best use of these communities and pooling our ideas, we can (in a sense) provide the service that outsourced consulting companies provide, but at a fraction of the cost. Of course we don’t get paid for the effort, but as investors we have a vested interest in NEM succeeding.

On the second point about Amazon and the .com bubble, I am in complete agreement. My intro into the world of crypto came off the back of an extensive study of the .com bubble at the time and why certain companies succeeded and others failed. There appears to be many parallels, and I would definitely recommend an intensive study of the .com bubble era to any budding crypto investor. This is, in fact, exactly why I decided to invest in NEM (and also why its a long term hold for me).

Also, thanks for the suggestion about content creation. This is something I have planned for a while now and will be starting this summer. I’ve been busy with my work and studies until very recently, and so have not had the time to make a serious effort of it. I understand the frustration of endless threads saying things should ‘be different’ or ‘better’ without any creative input. I’m sorry if this thread sounded that way. It was not my intention. It was however my first contribution to the forum and community, so it was intended to function as a form of personal introduction, whilst also spurring some fresh discussion beyond “marketing!” and price prediction threads.

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#20

I read this thread with great interest. I’ve recently started work on a NEM focussed documentary film about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. I only recently became involved but I’m drawn to NEM for the reasons mentioned above - it seems to be a steady paced solutions finder/provider rather than excessively being hyped like many of the other chains and coins. I’m planning to post my proposal for the documentary film in the next day or so.

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