What the Construction Industry Can Learn From the iPod

What’s spaghetti without meatballs, a movie without popcorn, or Forest without Jenny? The answer: not much. After being paired with their soulmates, these duos have become iconic. 

The take-away here is no matter how incredible something might be on its own, it will never attain its highest form until it meets its better half. The same is true for technology. As published by the Harvard Business Review, what makes a new product or technology truly transformative is not a single feature, but rather, the pairing of this new technology with an emerging market need through a new business model. 

Case in point: the iPod.

Arguably the most innovative product of the early 21st century, the iPod meant you could have “all of your songs in your pocket at one time,” as Steve Jobs often claimed. We thought then and now that the iPod was absolutely incredible, a groundbreaking achievement. But in truth, it wasn’t, at least not on its own. It did however become truly transformative when paired with a new business model. In this case, the new emerging market need wasn’t actually all of my songs in my pocket, it was every song in the world in my pocket. Which was ultimately brought to life through the iPod’s soulmate, iTunes. 

Imagine just for a moment, how long the iPod craze would have lasted if it weren’t for iTunes. Would we feel it was an iconic piece of technology if we were still buying, uploading, then downloading CDs onto our iPhones to this day? I think not. 

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