What Innovations Have Caused Growth In Scuba Diving?

[RJP]

There was an interesting thread last week regarding which product or service introductions did - or did not - constitute "Innovation" within the recreational scuba diving industry. As you can imagine... there was a fair bit of debate. So I thought it might be useful to reset the conversation by establishing a common framework for the discussion by establishing criteria for evaluating what KIND of innovation any particular introduction represents... rather than trying to assign a binary is or is not measure of innovation.

Current thinking is that there are three types of innovation in business: Sustaining Innovation, Breakout Innovation, and Disruptive Innovation. (You can find specific descriptions of each here: All Innovations Are Not Created Equal ? AQUIS Strategic Marketing)

The key to determining which type of innovation any particular product or service represents is to look at the impact that its introduction has had on the scuba diving marketplace overall, rather than to evaluate the merits of the technology behind the introduction.

So, with a set of objective criteria to use to guide the discussion... how would you characterize various innovations in the recreational scuba diving industry? Any innovation has its merits, and all three types are important to any company or industry. But which have been Sustaining Innovations? How about Breakout Innovations? Does anyone believe that scuba diving has actually seen any Disruptive Innovations?

Who wants to start?

PS - I didn't want to clog up the forum here with all the detail about the three different types, but it might be useful to follow the link above for a quick read so as to keep everyone on the same page regarding the criteria for each. These are not MY criteria, but rather those used and discussed in the academic literature regarding business innovation.

 

[Akimbo]

The wetsuit and the waterproof zipper which made reasonable drysuit designs possible.

 

[RJP]

The wetsuit and the waterproof zipper which made reasonable drysuit designs possible.

But what KIND of innovations do each of those two things represent?

All Innovations Are Not Created Equal ? AQUIS Strategic Marketing
SUSTAINING Innovation?
BREAKOUT Innovation?
DISRUPTIVE Innovation?

Based on one of your posts in the previous thread, I discussed wetsuits in the article as an example of a Breakout Innovation. Clearly, their introduction raised the expectations of the marketplace as a whole and changed diving - to a limited extent - in a way that increased its appeal to new divers. However, I followed that up with my belief that - once we're in a marketplace with wetsuits - the drysuit is actually (only?) a Sustaining Innovation.

 

[diver 85]

the internet.........

 

[RJP]

the internet.........

So do you see the internet as being a Sustaining, Breakout, or Disruptive Innovation for the recreational scuba diving market overall?

Go one step further, if you like...

What kind of innovation has ScubaBoard been in terms of its impact on the scuba diving market overall?

 

[Akimbo]

But what KIND of innovations do each of those two things represent? ...

There is little doubt that Wetsuits represented a game-changing and enabling technology that made the sport possible outside of tropical locations… so Disruptive. The base of the Disruptive chart has to start with Cousteau’s demand regulator and perhaps the Churchill swim fins in the US.

Drysuits are probably Breakout because they will never replace wetsuits like the iPod did to the Walkman, but do expand the market to colder waters and for people with lower cold tolerance.

Diver education is probably Sustaining. I doubt that world-changing innovations in learning will change that because it will come so slowly, evolving with customer expectations. It has the potential to make far better educated divers more cost-effectively, but won’t cause sudden jumps in the market.

Sea Hunt and the Cousteau TV episodes were one-time Breakout bumps along the way. There was a lot of technology and innovation required to make them happen.

Dive computers are a tough call. Were they Breakout or Sustaining? Their market impact has taken decades to virtually displace analog instruments and tables. I doubt they could be credited with a significant increase in the market size.

 

[underH2Oman]

The only disruptive innovations that I think may be
- the scuba regulator after all it is what started us.
- the digital camera Although not specifically diving related it has made underwater photography available at a more reasonable cost to everyone

There have been a few breakout innovations.
- Single hose reg from double hose
- dive computers
- the dry suit


I think most innovations would fit into the sustaining category.
-regulators get updates but it is still a regulator
-BC get style and cosmetic changes but they are still a BC
- Material changes for products have improved an example; If we went from the old thick rubitex to the nice stretchy suits of today overnight that would be a game changer but as it has happened in so many small steps they are just sustaining.

 

[RJP]

Dive computers are a tough call. Were they Breakout or Sustaining? Their market impact has taken decades to virtually displace analog instruments and tables. I doubt they could be credited with a significant increase in the market size.

Breakout Innovations don't need to provide a significant increase market size; in fact most don't. I think the dive computer is indeed a "Breakout Innovation" in that it has changed the expectations that that marketplace has in terms of "how diving is done." Even the most rabid "everyone must learn tables or they'l die" diver fully expects that they will plan and execute their dive using a computer. Even those who cut table on Vplanner and run the dive using a bottom timer only are still effectively using a "dive computer" really.

Perhaps the true Breakout aspect of the dive computer is their ability to make the underlying algorithms usable by the recreational diver.

 

[rx7diver]

RJP,

In the earlier thread, I submitted that the dive watch (among two other items) might be considered a true scuba innovation. (Just what *type* of innovation, I'll leave for others to decide.) I've read numerous articles detailing the historical development of the dive watch, and my impression is that sport diving began before the dive watch, as we know it today, came into existence.

It might be argued that "SCUBA" did not exist before a diver, though having tank and demand regulator, could dive completely independently, without a surface timing device. That is, to be entirely "self-contained," the diver necessarily needs to be able to keep his/her own time throughout his dive.

How diving was managed before the advent of the dive watch, I don't know for sure. I suspect that the relatively small 1,800 psig cylinders utilized in the early days minimized the types of exposures that might lead to "diver's sickness."

If I've correctly understood the history, then I submit that the dive watch (combined with the submersible depth gauge) was the final component necessary to make SCUBA truly "self-contained." Moreover, I think that the advent of the dive watch enabled further development of sport diving. For example, scuba divers probably could not have safely dived with larger air supplies (either multiple small tanks or single larger cylinders), nor could scuba have safely dived deep, nor could scuba divers have safely made staged decompression dives, without a dive watch.

Safe Diving,

rx7diver

 

[RJP]

The only disruptive innovations that I think may be
- the scuba regulator after all it is what started us.
- the digital camera Although not specifically diving related it has made underwater photography available at a more reasonable cost to everyone

So you feel that digital photography has driven untold millions of people - most of whom never considered diving previously - to get certified and become divers?

:cool2:

I'l take the complete opposite view and say (as I did in the article) that digital photography is far from a Disruptive Innovation in diving. It's not even a Breakout Innovation in diving. In the photography market it was certainly disruptive (ask Kodak). But the impact that digital photography has had on SCUBA DIVING is a Sustaining Innovation. Scuba Divers already had the ability to take pictures underwater with cameras protected by waterproof housings... a change in the type of camera merely presents an incremental change to what DIVING is and it's APPEAL to non-divers.

Think of it this way: when digital cameras first hit the consumer market, how many people looked at one and said "Wow... I'm going to take up diving!"

---------- Post added December 1st, 2014 at 01:56 PM ----------

RJP,

In the earlier thread, I submitted that the dive watch (among two other items) might be considered a true scuba innovation. (Just what *type* of innovation, I'll leave for others to decide.) I've read numerous articles detailing the historical development of the dive watch, and my impression is that sport diving began before the dive watch, as we know it today, came into existence.

It might be argued that "SCUBA" did not exist before a diver, though having tank and demand regulator, could dive completely independently, without a surface timing device. That is, to be entirely "self-contained," the diver necessarily needs to be able to keep his/her own time throughout his dive.

How diving was managed before the advent of the dive watch, I don't know for sure. I suspect that the relatively small 1,800 psig cylinders utilized in the early days minimized the types of exposures that might lead to "diver's sickness."

If I've correctly understood the history, then I submit that the dive watch (combined with the submersible depth gauge) was the final component necessary to make SCUBA truly "self-contained." Moreover, I think that the advent of the dive watch enabled further development of sport diving. For example, scuba divers probably could not have safely dived with larger air supplies (either multiple small tanks or single larger cylinders), nor could scuba have safely dived deep, nor could scuba divers have safely made staged decompression dives, without a dive watch.

Safe Diving,

rx7diver

Agree that it's an innovation. But I'm not sure it was anything more than a Sustaining Innovation.

Before the dive watch... wasn't there some sort of timing device available to divers underwater? If so, the idea of putting that timing device on one's wrist is a fairly minimal, incremental change.