"successful early adopter gets the *PRIZE*" I can
Post# of 43064
I can tell you one thing I've learned, thankfully not by losing money. It's just as valuable as your adage.
1) Successful early adopters will clearly and unambiguously communicate the value proposition. The adopter will repeat it many times, provide hard evidence and bend over backwards to make sure everyone understands the positive results. Doing so helps the adopter, helps shareholders and helps everyone else involved. Communication flows freely because that facilitates adoption.
2) Unsuccessful early adopter...blows smoke and requires investors to heavily "connect the dots" and assume value. Communication typically is incomplete, leading and generally leaves more questions than answers.
A shortcoming I have is that I don't entirely understand the lack of communication in the other direction--the unwillingness of shareholders to ask questions when those shareholders have a clear interest in knowing how well the process actually works and in knowing what's holding up their pay day. It might be that shareholders feel that asking questions like that disrespects the company or feel that they might offend the CEO but I'm not entirely sure.