Avalanche is an important metaphor for innovation.1 It is a cascading series of events where each one triggers new events.
Entrepreneurs try to anticipate the right moment—the tipping point4—when an innovation proposal will trigger an avalanche of people adopting the proposal.
If the timing is too early, the proposal will not be a tipping point. If it is too late,
someone else will have started the avalanche.
The metaphor is borrowed from complexity theory, where snow avalanches or sandpile avalanches
can only be described by the frequency and duration of a cascade, but it is impossible to predict whether any particular event will trigger a cascade or how long it will last.
Edison banked on cheap electricity causing an avalanche of people moving from gas to electric lighting.
Intel Chairman Andy Grove once said any technology that could do something 10 times better
than any current technology creates a high risk of an avalanche in favor of that technology.
In the Internet, the introduction of the Mosaic browser in 1994 triggered an avalanche into the
World Wide Web and into commercial use of the Internet; prior to that time, commercial uses were discouraged.
Today, a number of education leaders see MOOCs as the beginning of an avalanche that will transform education.