The Tale Of The Power Plant

There was once an innovative and socially minded power plant that figured out a new way to develop clean energy at 1% the cost and environmental impact of previous power plants. It wanted to deliver its sweet sweet power to its town, whose mayor invested in and supported this plant's research. A vendor approached the plant and said "hey, this is a new power source, and a grid doesn't exist yet. I can work with you to wire people's houses."

"But who will run the wire between the generator and the house?" asked the plant owner.

The power plant, shy about its lack of expertise in running wires, so it asked if the vendor could do it. The vendor said yes. The power plant and vendor formed a partnership. Wires were paid and power flowed into houses, lighting up the town.

There was another town to the west that was dark. Another vendor approached the power plant and asked if they could partner and deliver the power. The first vendor fussed a bit, complaining that the new vendor's wiring job was affecting theirs. But new customers were waiting in the west, and the power plant paid both vendors to rewire a bit to accommodate each other.

Many years passed, and one day, a vendor approached offering to bring this plant's power to a series of small island on the Pacific Ocean. The people who lived there could have their lives transformed by the inexpensive and clean power that this plant produced. The plant owners were moved by this story, but barely had any room in their office to get up and shake the vendor's hand. The office was too packed with various vendor wire management boxes. And outside, a vendor engineer heard that a major rewiring might be happening and struck the "new vendor alert" alarm.

The plant owners were met with howls of "but our wires!" from all the existing vendors, and a flood of bills from every vendor to pay for their rewiring efforts in response to this effort to help people in the Pacific Islands. The total cost to deliver its cheap and clean power was too high to bear, sadly, and the Pacific Islands stayed dark.

The power plant owners were haunted by this decision for many years. One day, an owner caught up with a friend who ran a more traditional power plant, one that burned natural gas.

"What was it like working with all your vendors to deliver energy?" Asked the plant owner.

"We didn't have to do any of that. We joined Global Grid's platform. They had all the infrastructure set up, and we just joined as a power producer." Said the friend.

"That must be so nice! Since we have a new power source, and Global Grid couldn't support us. I wish they could have" lamented the plant owner. "All we do is manage our distribution now"

"I think you might be the lucky one" said the friend "we are not at all in control of our distribution at all, and we have no direct relationship with our customer. And don't even get me started on the control they have on our pricing. If Global Grid wants to keep a town poor, they can literally keep that town poor by under wiring that community. I don't feel good about what our platform is doing sometime, but I'm too small to change it."

The plant owner thought about these words. She thought about the islands in the Pacific Ocean, in the dark, overlooked by Global Grid and too far away for the plant owner to reach. She thought about her customers, and the fact that she knew many of them by name. She thought about her friend who like a cog in Global Grid's wheel.

The next day, the plant owner marched into the facilities and asked to speak with all its vendors. Scheduling emails took too long, so she slammed the new vendor alarm. Everyone suddenly showed up, with change management contracts in hand and concern in their eyes. After all, there were a lot of wires on the floor and people were starting to step on them.

The plant owner began to speak.

"Vendors, team, we've worked together for a long time. Thanks to our partnership over many years, we've lit up hundreds of towns, fed our families, and built our businesses together. But it's time to make some changes."

She took a deep breath and continued:

"I keep paying you to do the same things, wiring towns, and each time, that thing gets more expensive for the plant. The vendor wiring the new town doesn't necessarily get paid more, but I have to pay more to make sure all other vendors can accommodate this new town."

An uncomfortable rustling swept through the room. People started asking each other under their breaths how much they were paid to do their wiring.

"Last month, we had a chance to do something that not even Global Grid's platform could do: light up the Pacific Islands. And it turned out, that we couldn't do it either, not in the way that we've been approaching things, town by town, vendor by vendor. We need to redesign how we spend our energy to deliver our energy.

We innovated this source of clean energy decades ago. And I believe we can innovate our way to creating a method that can deliver this energy to new customers"

"Do you wish to compete against Global Grid?" Asked a vendor incredulously.

"No, Global Grid has already overlooked this customer base. I intend to serve that base exactly, but I don't know how. We've never been able to do it. You all have engineers in your company. I've invested a lot of money to everyone where to lay down wires, and perhaps we've never been able to do it because we always ask ourselves about wires when considering a new opportunity. Who is ready to apply themselves to a new challenge that is not about wires?"

"Do you wish to build a proprietary platform? A new grid?" The vendor engineer spoke in a monotone.

"That's a huge investment!" cried another one of the plant owners. "We can't compete against Global Grid, good god, this will ruin us!"

"Building A grid technologically feasible, and the technology has never been cheaper or more accessible." said the same monotonous engineer. "And we don't have to copy Global Grid. We can almost certainly learn from the design mistakes of Global Grid other platform builders who were first in the platform business and do better. This would be risky if we compete for an established platform's customers. So we need to find a distinct group they are not targeting, or offer a unique feature set that is fine tuned for a group of customers who are only using Global Grid because there are no other options, and they have no reason to stay other than -" The monotone engineer’s manager kicked him, interrupting his lecture.

"That's not our job!" the monotone engineer’s manager hissed under his breath. He didn't realize the plant CEO was sitting behind him.

The CEO stood up to speak.

"No, that IS our job. It is absolutely our job to use what we have to figure out new ways to deliver solutions to people. We can invest in a way that expands into new business, but also improves how we run our current business. If we invest in a platform, will all this" she waves at a few sparks flying from the ceiling as engineer repaired a vendor wire box, "will all this go away?"

"We are willing to migrate to a new platform" said a young vendor executive said proudly. "We are already familiar with a platform approach, and it's how we work with other power plants. But we started working together so long ago, and that wasn't an option... If a platform existed, we would know how to get on it. And our engineers can then focus on people's houses and innovating at the customer facing side, instead of reacting other vendor's wiring changes. It's truly our least favorite part of the job." The engineers all high fived each other and their boss as he sat down. The bro energy was strong among them.

"But some of us can't migrate to a platform." said another nervous vendor engineer. "Does this mean we are out of the picture?"

"We have to ask ourselves if the future is friendly to companies that cannot work within platforms or build new ones to meet new needs" said a plant owner. Groans were heard across the room. A few vendors began to leave out of the back door. Many followed, typing furiously on their smart phones, and some gave a good stomp on the wires on the floor as they left. The plant owner knew he was going to get a lot of angry emails. Only half of the vendors teams remained.

The nervous engineer and his team stayed. The bro energy team stayed, and so did a few smaller teams whose relationship with the plant was very important to them. The monotonous engineer was also among the people who stayed but his boss was no where in sight.

"I can give you some tips on how to migrate to the new platform" said the monotonous engineer. "You could have left, but you didn't."

"We had some senior engineers quit this year" said the nervous engineer. "If they were still around, I know that we could do it."

"Enabling platform oriented interfaces is something we've wanted for a long time." said the nervous engineer's boss. "Right now, we can only work with this power plant, but by developing platform interaction capabilities, we can improve our business too. But who will foot the bill to make this platform that doesn't exist?" The nervous engineer's boss looked towards the plant owners, and in some way, the owners of his business's future.

"We'll figure out a way". Said the CEO. "But we need to look towards the future. I have a feeling that the business side will take more energy to innovate that the technology. We aren't made of money, and between us we don't have infinite time. We need to make this work with the people and resources that we have. But we'll figure out a way".

The plant owners and this smaller group of vendors stood for a few minutes together, felt the gravity of what just happened, and turned to walk out together. Something that hasn't happened in years.

"So your boss is no where in sight." the nervous engineer said to the monotonous engineer "Do you want a new job?"