Choose the best definition of the verbs in italics in these extracts.

5

10

15

20

25

30

Today we are told we live in a rapidly changing, technology-dri­ven world, hungry for better, more powerful products. More money than ever is spent on research, development and invention. Yet it is generally accepted that eight out of ten new products fail. Worryingly, the ratio has remained constant over the past 30 years. Two conclusions can be drawn: either consumers are not as interested in innovation as we think or they are not being offered the right products.

Art Fry knows a thing or two about innovation: he invented the Post-It note on behalf of 3M. "People hate change, and many companies still don't really under­stand that," explains Mr Fry. "People follow their own estab­lished patterns. They figure that even if a new product is better, perhaps all the work involved in learning how to use it and getting accustomed to it simply isn't worth it."

Not necessarily, maintains Vijay Jolly, professor of strategy and technology management at the Institute for Management Deve­lopment in Lausanne, Switzer­land. He has identified a number of elements crucial to success: "The first is what I call the use paradigm: what is the product going to be used for and how. Take multimedia functions, for example. Some contend that they are part of the personal computer par­adigm, which people will access and use them as they do with PCs. Others believe it's a television paradigm, it's a passive process rather than an interactive one. Either way, you need to be very clear about what your product is for.

"Another factor to keep in mind is that more often than not, class association is more important than added value," he adds. "That is, in class association, when designing a product, avoid making it unique. People will accept a sub­stitute for an existing product much more easily if they can relate it to the existing product. Of course, it has to be a better substi­tute as well. The only exception to this is when the relative added value of the new product, from the consumer's point of view, is immensely greater, but that is extremely rare."

Bearing this in mind, con­sumers will reject, say, a pyramid-shaped television, even if it is ten per cent "better" than existing ones, because it will not have the required class association. Acc­ording to Professor Jolly, a con­ventional-looking television that is just two per cent better has more chances of success than the pyramid TV...

From the Financial Time