While investors care about a company s present situation, the long-term future is often much more important in determining a stock price. Stocks live in the pressure tense as much as people do. Industry also lives in the pressure tense. In effect, anticipatory feedback takes the lessons of the past, projects them into the future, and asks people to act on them in the present. Twenty years ago, the approach might have been a good concept for a science fiction movie or a television series.
Products live in the pressure tense.
Your Oldsmobile Delta 88 broke down after 90,000 miles because that s when cars of that generation broke down. Your car s style broke down after 50,000 miles because General Motors made significant changes in the model s look every three years, to try to force you back to the showroom before the car wore out physically after five years. You continued to drive the Delta 88 not at risk to your safety but at risk to your cool. The Northstar system allows your Cadillac to travel 100,000 miles before its first scheduled maintenance, but, by the time your car reaches 100,000 miles, its technology will be three generations removed, already grandfatherly. Not long before the launch, Fermilab fired a neutrino 235 miles into the core of the planet, proving it is possible to stop launching satellites and send media messages through the earth.