There was a lot of car talk in my home growing up. My dad & brother could compare features and minute differences on cars from different years. Road trips were filled with casual competitions to see who could accurately identify the year and model of an old car we passed.
Now I hear more talk about various computer specs or the latest digital this-or-that than about what we drive. Things change. Can we change with it to make the most of it?
Seth Godin has a few things to contribute to the conversation . . .
Sixty to zero
Ever notice that most car specs focus on acceleration,
not braking? It's more fun to focus on getting fast than it is on getting slow.
How would you manage or market differently if you knew that you had to hit the brakes, and hard? Slowing one thing and speeding up something else.
Prediction: there will be no significant newspapers printed on newsprint in the US by 2012. So, you've got two and a half years before the newspaper industry is going to be doing something else with the news and the ads, or not be there at all. Does that change what you do today if you work in this business?
Insight! The newspaper industry is in trouble, but news is not going to go away, just the paper part. Those who are working hard to preserve the paper part are asking the wrong questions and are doomed to fail.
Prediction: 90% of your sales will come from word of mouth or digital promotion by 2011. How do you change what you're doing today to be ready for that?
Prediction: The effort required to
outsource a task involving the manipulation of data of any kind will continue to decrease until it will be faster and cheaper to outsource just about anything than it will be to use in-house talent. What will you do today to ensure your prosperity when that happens?
It seems to me that if you know the old world is about to end, you'd run like crazy to master the new one.
Going fast, doing your best and then slamming into a cliff works best for Wile E. Coyote, not humans.
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