作者：唐寅
作品：桃花庵歌
内容：
桃花坞里桃花庵，桃花庵下桃花仙；
桃花仙人种桃树，又摘桃花卖酒钱。
酒醒只在花前坐，酒醉换来花下眠；
半醒半醉日复日，花落花开年复年。
但愿老死花酒间，不愿鞠躬车马前；
车尘马足富者趣，酒盏花枝贫者缘。
若将富贵比贫贱，一在平地一在天；
若将贫贱比车马，他得驱驰我得闲。
别人笑我忒疯癫，我笑别人看不穿；
不见五陵豪杰墓，无花无酒锄做田。 ¶ 9:31 PM 0 comments
（最近比较忙，进度慢了些——2006年4月4日记）
Shining and embedded in dark nights, you are destined to belong to dark nights, the dark dirty nights!
¶ 10:22 AM 0 comments
命运的逆转
The booming Japanese economy from the 1960s through the mid-1980s was one of the most thoroughly studied and admired phenomena of modern times. From steel to automobiles, consumer electronics to watches, Japanese companies easily overran the fortifications of their American and European competitors. Western scholars praised Tokyo's careful economic planning and the focus of Japan's keiretsu -- massive, interlocked networks of companies such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, and Sumitomo -- on building long-term competitive advantages. Other analysts attributed Japan's economic momentum to its workers' selfless dedication to improving productivity and to the extraordinarily high savings rates of its consumers. Scholars cited the absence of similar factors in Europe and North America, meanwhile, to explain the stagnation afflicting those countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, the huge share of GNP taken up by government spending was seen as crippling economic growth because it crowded out private investment capital.
六十至八十年代日本经济的急速发展是得到最彻底研究和令人艳羡的现代现象之一。从钢铁到汽车，消费电子产品到手表，日本公司轻而易举地突破欧美竞争对手的防御。西方学者将日本公司长期竞争优势的建立归功于东京细致的经济计划以及日本的keiretsu——牢固的、互相联结的企业网络，例如三井、三菱、松下、住友等——（注1）的专注性。其他分析家则将日本的经济动力归因于工人为提高生产力无私的奉献和消费者奇高的储蓄率。学者们同时指出，欧洲和北美缺乏这些类似的因素，并以此来解释困扰这些国家的经济停滞现象。例如在英国，政府消费占国民生产总值的巨大份额因其排挤了私人投资资本而被认为损害了经济增长。
The fortunes of these economies, of course, have now reversed. America has experienced the longest unbroken economic expansion in its history, and the United Kingdom has achieved levels of prosperity that few could have imagined 30 years ago. Japan, in contrast, has been mired for a decade in stagnation that appears to have no end. What happened? The answer lies primarily at the managerial and microeconomic levels and in particular with a phenomenon best termed "disruptive technology."
当然，如今这些经济体的命运已经发生了逆转。美国已经经历了其历史上最长期的、不间断的经济扩张，而英国现在的繁荣水平在三十年前是很少有人能想象出来的。相反，日本则已经有十年陷入看来没有尽头的经济停滞的泥潭中。这是怎么回事？问题主要出自管理和微观经济层面，特别是与被称作“颠覆性技术”的现象有关。
Disruptive technologies create major new growth in the industries they penetrate -- even when they cause traditionally entrenched firms to fail -- by allowing less-skilled and less-affluent peopleto do things previously done only by expensive specialists in centralized, inconvenient locations. In effect, they offer consumers products and services that are cheaper, better, and more convenient than ever before. Disruption, a core microeconomic driver of macroeconomic growth, has played a fundamental role as the American economy has become more efficient and productive. Once the microeconomic roots of disruptive technology are understood, policymakers can learn how to transform relatively stagnant economies such as Japan's, Germany's, and India's. Understanding disruptive technology can also help forecast the dangers lurking for strong economies such as South Korea's.
颠覆性技术使得那些以前只能由高成本的专家在集中的、不太便利的地方从事的事情可以由不太擅长技术和不那么富裕的人来完成。由此，即便其令一些传统的、地位确定的公司垮台，颠覆性技术还是创造了各行业中主要的、新的增长。实质上，颠覆性技术提供的消费产品和服务比以前任何时候都更便宜、更好、更方便。颠覆，作为宏观经济增长的核心的微观经济驱动力，在美国经济变得更为高效、多产的过程中扮演了重要的角色。在理解了颠覆性技术的微观经济根源之后，政策制定者们便可以知道如何改变像日本、德国、印度这些国家经济的相对停滞状况。对颠覆性技术的理解同时可以帮助预测像韩国这样的强势经济背后隐藏的危险。
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING
好事做过头
Japan's macroeconomic puzzle has a microeconomic parallel. Why did so many companies that were once considered the best run in the world stumble so quickly? Many of these leading companies faltered not because they were ineptly managed but precisely because they were well managed. In fact, their leaders followed some of management's most sacred rules, such as staying close to their customers and focusing investments on the most profitable new products and services. But their innovations fell victim to disruptive technologies.
日本的宏观经济难题是与其微观经济并联的。为什么那么多曾被认为是世界上运营得最好的公司那么快就变得步履蹒跚？很多不是因为管理不善，而恰恰是因为管理得太好了。实际上，这些公司的领导人遵循着某些最为神圣的管理法则，如贴近客户、将投资集中于利润最丰厚的新产品和服务等。但他们的创新却成了颠覆性技术的牺牲品。
Every market features two types of "performance trajectory" -- the rate at which the performance of a product or service improves over time. One trajectory measures the ability of customers toutilize the product improvements introduced by manufacturers. For example, even though carmakers keep developing new and better car engines every year, most drivers cannot take advantage of this improved performance because of outside constraints such as speed limits.
每个市场都会体现两种类型的“性能轨迹”——某种产品或服务的性能表现随时间变化而改进的比率。其中一种类型的轨迹是测量消费者对制造商提供的产品改进性能的利用能力。例如，虽然汽车制造商每年都不断地开发新的、更好的汽车引擎，但由于外界约束（如速度限制）的原因，大多数司机无法更好地利用这些性能改进。
The second trajectory measures the actual pace of technological innovation. This pace of technological improvement almost always outstrips customers' abilities to utilize the improvements -- so that companies with products and services centered on what customers need now nevertheless almost always overshoot what those same customers will be able to use tomorrow. A good illustration is Microsoft's popular Excel spreadsheet software. Microsoft can innovate at a much faster pace than its customers' needs, so most users are not even aware of 90 percent of this program's features. Well-managed producers overshoot the improvement rate that customers in any given tier of the market can absorb because they can improve their profit margins by selling more-sophisticated products to the most demanding customers. Companies that do not overshoot but instead keep their technology aimed at lower tiers of the market often find that competition drives profit margins sharply down. Hence good managers try to keep their profit margins healthy by moving their product lines out of the sluggish tiers of the market into those tiers where profitability is greater.
另一种类型的轨迹是测量技术创新的实际速度。技术进步的速度几乎总是超越消费者对这些进步的利用能力——这就是为什么将产品和服务集中于消费者目前需求的公司，将来提供给同批消费者的产品和服务几乎总是超出他们的使用能力。微软公司广为人知的Excel电子制表软件就是一个很好的例子。微软的创新速度比消费者需求增长的速度快得多，所以多数使用者对这种软件90%的特色并不了解。管理有素的企业，其（产品和服务的性能）改进速度超越市场任何层级消费者的吸收能力，其原因在于，企业可以通过向最苛求的顾客销售更加复杂的产品来提高利润率。如果不这样，而是将技术焦点保持在较低端市场，那么由于竞争的因素，利润率会急剧下降（注2）。所以，好的经理人员通过摆脱不景气的市场层级而将产品线上移至利润较高的市场层级来努力保持健康的利润率。
The tendency of good managers to overshoot, however, can allow disruptive technologies --cheaper, simpler, and more convenient products or services -- to enter the tiers of the market where customers are already over served by the existing (but more expensive) offerings. The leading companies in such industries are so focused on sustaining innovations and addressing the more sophisticated and profitable customers that they ignore the disruptive innovations piercing into the market from the low end. In this way, disruptive technologies have plunged many of history's best companies into crisis and, ultimately, failure.
然而这种好事做过头的倾向却使得颠覆性技术（更便宜、更简单、更便利的产品或服务）能够进入一些市场层级，因为这些市场层级的客户得到的是过度提供的现有（更贵的）产品或服务。这些行业中的领先企业过分关注巩固性创新以及选择更加成熟的、高利润的客户，以至于忽略了从低端市场切入的颠覆性创新。通过这种方式，颠覆性技术使得历史上很多最好的公司陷入危机并最终失败。
注1：即日本汉字“系列”，类似的概念还有韩国的“财阀（Chaebol）”。
注2：这句原文比较拗口（Companies that do not overshoot but instead keep their technology aimed at lower tiers of the market often find that competition drives profit margins sharply down.），译文在尊重原文的基础上有较大调整。
I want to give a first shot at Clayton Christensen, Thomas Craig, and Stuart Hart's (2001) The Great Disruption. （注1）Let's start from the Abstract.
Abstract: The article discusses the relationship between disruptive technologies and economic development. Disruption, a core microeconomic driver of macroeconomic growth, has played a fundamental role as the American economy has become more efficient and productive. Japan's macroeconomic puzzle has a microeconomic parallel. Every market features two types of performance trajectory--the rate at which the performance of a product or service improves over time. The leading companies in such industries are so focused on sustaining innovations and addressing the more sophisticated and profitable customers that they ignore the disruptive innovations piercing into the market from the low end. For example, Japanese steel companies began exporting inexpensive steel targeted at the lowest-quality tiers ofthe American steel market in the early 1960s. As the Japanese captured these markets and drove the prices of their products down, western steel makers simply exited those tiers of the market to focus instead where profit margins were higher. Over and over again, Japanese companies succeeded with this approach. But disruptive technologies also set their own trap. Firms in both the U.S. and Japan face the innovator's dilemma as they approach the high end of their markets and become unable to pursue new disruptions at the bottom. To their credit, Japanese policy makers have been trying to reform the country's financial system and industrial structure. What is clearer, however, is how economic growth is tied to the infrastructure that supports disruptive technologies and the creation of new growth markets.
标题：伟大的颠覆（注2）
作者：克莱顿·克里斯坦森，托马斯·克雷格，斯图亚特·哈特
摘要：本文探讨颠覆性技术与经济发展之间的关系。颠覆（注3），作为宏观经济增长的核心的微观经济驱动力，在美国经济变得更为高效、多产的过程中扮演了重要的角色。日本的宏观经济难题是与其微观经济并联的（注4）。每个市场都会体现两种类型的性能轨迹（性能轨迹是指某种产品或服务的性能表现随时间变化而改进的比率）。某些行业中的领先企业过分关注于巩固性创新以及应对更加成熟的、高利润的客户，以至于忽略了从低端市场切入的颠覆性创新。例如六十年代早期，日本钢铁公司开始是把目标瞄向美国钢铁市场中的最低质量需求层进行低价钢铁出口。在日本人占领这些市场并拉低西方钢铁制造业者在这些市场的产品价格之后，西方公司简单地选择了退出，并转而专注于利润较高的高端市场。正是利用这种方法，日本公司获得了一次又一次成功。但颠覆性技术也为日本公司自己设下了陷阱。无论是美国还是日本公司，在转向高端市场并无力把握低端市场新的技术颠覆的时候，都面临着创新者的两难境地。值得称道的是，日本的政策制定者一直以来都在努力改革本国的金融系统和行业结构。而越来越清晰的是，经济增长是如何与支撑颠覆性技术以及开创新增长市场的基础结构紧密相连的。
注1：本人此番尝试纯属个人兴趣及学习需要，无意侵犯原作者（包括其他译者——如果有的话）的知识产权。任何人可以在此发表评论，进行交流，甚至学术探讨，但请不要复制此间任何内容作其他用途。如需引用，请注明出处及原作者。
注2：great的含义很广泛，在本文中应为“Remarkable or outstanding in magnitude, degree, or extent”的含义，但在中文中暂时难以找出既表达原意又与下文的“颠覆”相匹配的词汇，因“颠覆”只是暂时的译法，所以great在这里暂时译成“伟大的”。
注3：“颠覆”不一定是disruption的最佳译法，网上关于disruptive的译法并不统一，包括破坏性、破坏式、颠覆性，应该还有“中断”、“分裂”的含义。理解文章的本意后，我认为译成“颠覆性”为佳，以对应sustaining维持性、巩固性之意，相应地，我暂时将名词译成“颠覆”。但正如下文指出的，“disruption是宏观经济增长的核心微观经济驱动力”，其确切含义要待考察过经济学中的相关解释才能确定。
注4：原文是“Japan's macroeconomic puzzle has a microeconomic parallel”，本人对自己的译法不太肯定，欢迎指正。
