Forbes Magazine: The Central Shortcoming Of Conservatism And Kodak's Collapse

"The number one thing companies don't learn is how to let go of the past."

Marc Benioff, Billionaire-Entrepreneur

Alan: My Dad worked for Kodak over 30 years and during the century of George Eastman's dominion over "all things Rochesterian" our family, like most locals, prospered. 

Kodak made a valiant -- but belated -- effort to catch up with the epochal changes taking place in the new digital photography market. 

But even though Kodak's own engineers told management that digital photography was the wave of the future, they did not take the threat seriously until it was too late. 

When an individual or an institution becomes attached to "doing things a certain way" -- and when that way has a track record of rich profitability -- resistance-to-change, with vanishingly rare exception, is insurmountable.

Big Companies' refusal to change may underlie wealthy conservatives generalized abhorence of change: Once people learn how to make a lot of money, they don't want their socio-political environment to change since any change in the economic matrix may render obsolete their proven method of money-making.  

Rochester, New York, And The Fortunes Of Kodak

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/01/rochester-new-york-and-fortunes-of.html