Crossing the Chasm

I had a hard time with this book. On the one hand it is an excellent book about high tech marketing, or really, any marketing that is done to a niche product that has the potential to go mainstream with enough momentum. In that context, it is a pretty good book. I have to confess that I don’t really have much hands on experience with marketing, but it generally passes most of my BS filters. On the other hand, most of the examples that the book presents as marketing problems had significant technology problems, so they didn’t function effectively. That being said, the book does do one thing very effectively – it provides a great set of vocabulary with which to talk about marketing concepts and a roadmap for marketing a product from a niche product to one that enters the mainstream.

Crossing the Chasm

Shoot the Moon

Shoot the Moon[pdf]

This is a paper which was published prior to Low Energy Transfer to the Moon and talks about much the same solution to a vexing problem – how to get from LEO (low earth orbit) to a lunar orbit with a minimum amount of energy. The paper notes that, using this technique, the transfer time may be around 6 months, compared to a few days – definitely not something that a person would want to be subjected to, but quite acceptable for properly shielded electronics.