Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business

Chapter FourteenEnrich and Scale at Internet Speed: Turn a Spark into a Blaze

Little may appear to happen after you launch your pilots in the Spark phase, at least in terms of traditional business metrics. This period of Code Halo build-out often creates tension for leaders who are betting on a telematics device, a crowdsourced product design, or a mobile app. Entrepreneurs will be sitting on pins and needles hoping it will scale like a virus.

However, these are the wrong considerations at this phase—because a lot is happening that traditional metrics might not show. The organization learns during Enrichment, and algorithms get smart based on meaning derived from business analytics. You refine and improve the initial Code Halo to fit the specific needs of your customers and market. You will enter the Enrichment phase with a nascent Code Halo initiative, yet—if successful—exit this phase with a rapidly growing, robust, and potentially game-changing solution.

You want to look at Enrichment as a greenhouse phase that allows the new business model to grow in a healthy way. As such, the early parts of this stage require patience. Managers who focus too early on “moving the needle” in traditional business metrics can actually do great damage—if not stop the Enrichment process altogether.

Central to this success is filling your Code Halo with data. Your team should be obsessed with the ongoing accumulation of the right data during Enrichment, but also recognize that this accumulation ...