Future of Business
The Future Of Business – Who’s In Charge?
For years I’ve shared with you about where business is going, and how it is changing, I’ve tried to plant idea’s into your noggin, with the hopes of giving you some insight, or….foresight of what’s to come, and what to do about it. Everything is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up, and yet, so many are doing what they’ve always done, and many don’t understand why business is still changing. We want things static, we want things in their place, we love our comfort zone, I think that’s how the theory of Pavlov’s dog came to be. With that in mind, a short story.
There was a man who owned a dog, the dog always sat on the porch, and it howled constantly. The neighbor complained about the constant howling and barking, the owner said, the dog howls because it’s laying on a nail. The neighbor says, “why doesn’t get off the nail, go lay down somewhere else?”. The dog owner says,”I guess it doesn’t hurt enough”.
Today the business owners are the dogs sitting on nails, they want to get off the nail, but they are afraid because they know they aren’t really in charge. They believe if they get of the nail (change) they’ll lose business, worse yet, they’ll have to close the business. This belief isn’t really true, but it’s a real emotion. So who’s in charge?
The answer to the question of, who’s in charge is simple, it should be obvious. It’s your customers.
The future of business, and the future of your business will always have the same boss, those who come to your business, visit your site, and buy your product or service. You, were never in charge, you merely ran the business, and provided what customers wanted. When you change the way you think, stop worrying about how to use Social Media, and looking for short cuts, you can get to the heart of the matter. The questions you should be asking, if you don’t know is, not how to use Social Media, but why your customers are using it, and which one’s are they using. At the very least, start there, the rest will come out of the data you’ve collected, if the rest is still not coming, you’re still asking the wrong questions, and maybe in the wrong place.
If you want your business to survive in the future, ask yourself who’s really in charge.
In The Cross Hairs – The Middleman
Never before has the been a time in business where a threat so strong has immobilized business owners and their management teams. Ignorance has never been a place to hide behind, not paying attention doesn’t work either. The reason nothing is happening, CEO’s are protecting their bonuses, middle managers are fighting to keep what they believe is entitled to them. This movement, this new second industrial age has been known and talked about for many years, here, and in the board rooms. But very little movement to accept or adopt keeps fear as the motivator to do nothing, to do what has always been done.
Some 25 years ago, the Internet was born, it opened the door to a brave new world, a world that brought even more confusion on top of what we already have, the pile got bigger. The pile (fear) is bigger, it’s enormous, because we chose to be spectators, we were convinced we didn’t know what to do, so we did nothing. I’m speaking to the masses in big business, those who adopted, who chose to act on what they could see, they are down the road, enjoying the fruits of their labors.
The Internet, for all intents and purposes, has removed the need for the middleman, the Internet put customer and product together without the need to be sold by that so-called person in the middle. Our BS protectors work better than ever in this new industrial age, this new or second industrial age. If we are going to act like the Industrial age of the last 150 years, we might as well name this new revolution the 2nd Industrial Age, it might ease the pain of big business. But make no mistake, the middleman is in the cross hairs, there is very little need for them, unless they can reinvent themselves to take part in a new role.
If you’re that person, the middle man / woman, find a way to get of the way, stay out of the cross hairs. If you choose to do nothing, your world will come crashing down around you. It doesn’t have to, because you have the same opportunity to go build something great, you have the tools, the brain power, and you need very few resources, what are you waiting for, now go!
The Best Way To Predict The Future
The Best Way To Predict The Future, the words from a famous leader are, “The best way to predict the future is to create it”! The man who said these words was, Abraham Lincoln. Which proves, we….man / women, have been thinking about this for a long, long time.
I was chatting with a friend this morning, about the future, married kids, and our ages, it was fun but bothersome at the same time. I was consumed by the feeling that, I’m running out of time. I may spend hours on end looking into the future, where business is going, and how it will change, but I don’t worry about what MY future looks like, to a small degree.
Creating your future sounds simple enough, but it rely’s on a great many things not in our personal control. You could plan your life, write it all down on paper, then try to live it exactly as you laid it out, but the odds are, you probably got off course along the way, like a boat on water, in a massive storm. You see, I think Abraham Lincoln was talking about something else, he was seeing a bigger picture, as if standing on top of a mountain, and looking out at what could be, watching at what was happening, and how it would have to change, but there was only really one way it would come to fruition.
The only way, the best way to predict the future, is to create it, not by just saying the words, giving lip service, it doesn’t happen unless you take part. That’s the real message from the President, get involved, build, be a member of society, and a creator of the future. Help build a community, be a part of that community, in that you would be living in a future you helped create, where ever you happen to be in this world. The future is not built by one man or women on this earth, it’s built with the help of many. So inspire your tribe to create your preferred future, and bring many along on the journey, you have the power to create the future. The old saying goes, “many hands make light work”, go and make something happen, make the world a better place.
Future Of Business – What Kind Of Business
Considering all that is changing, how business is changing, how global and yet how locally our businesses must be, does your business line up with that future? Is your business social, or is it traditional? Does your business advertise on the Internet as part of its marketing mix, or do you stick with traditional modes of advertising. There are many questions to ponder when starting a new venture, but the main questions is, what kind of business, what structure, what type, and will it meet the needs of the economy.
The new economy is a connection economy, how does your business connect consumers, how do you connect to other businesses. Just using social networks is not connecting, depending on how you use them, most use them as another channel to yell, flood, to do what you’ve always done. You use them with a traditional mindset, it’s not connecting, it’s telling.
The traditional way, meant you had to have ads in the yellow pages, maybe you ran radio commercials, and you mostly used Newspaper. You never had to consider the Internet as part of your mix, and most still don’t have a clear understanding of how it works, and how to you use it for business. Today you have to think about where to best spend your time & money, adding the Internet as another way of enticing consumers to your business, to buy. But consumers act differently online, or do they?
More than ever , there is much to consider, it’s not black & white as it was back 30 years ago. The Internet is 25 years old, and brings with it challenges, and incredible opportunity. Asking yourself if you’re on LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus is the new normal today, knowing what to do on them, and how to leverage them, is not normal, not like Radio, TV, and Newspaper. But you’re already figuring that out aren’t you.
Business is getting much more complicated, it’s causing you to rethink what kind of business. Traditional or The Connected. And what does a connected business model look like, it’s the Open & Free Business Model. And that you can learn here on owengreaves.com.
The Future Of Business – The Resume Part 2
I happen to be married to an HR Manager who disagree’s with my earlier post, she claims that resume’s, traditional resume’s are the only way to hire in certain industries, I disagree of course : ) Her argument is for those who are labor workers, those who drive forklifts, work in warehouses, drive pallet jacks, stock shelves and so on. If you believe resume’s are the only way, then you’re right.
Let’s talk about this traditional way for a moment. I’m going to do a very high-level view here, not much detail, but you’ll get the idea I hope.Let’s use a warehouse job scenario. Someone submits a résumé to your HR office, it goes in a pile for review, you’re holding job fairs (that cost money), you have a staff person give the résumé’s a once over, and those resume’s are short listed. Once you’ve decided who is on the short list, you call them in for an interview. Keep in mind, you know nothing about the candidate, other than what’s on the resume. You then arrange an interview, if the candidate is a good candidate, by whatever measurement you’re using, you go to the next step. Yes or No, are you going to go further with the candidates after the first interview.
Typically, once you’ve decided to offer a person a job, whatever it might be, you do a background check on them, you are now going deeper on your financial commitment. On average, once you’ve decided to hire a full-time employee, it costs your organization around $10,000, and they haven’t worked a minute, you just hired them. And you still know very little about the person you just hired, you still don’t know if they can meet the job description, and or physically do the work. Sure you have 90 days to decide if they are a good fit and will keep them on, but you’ve just spent good money after bad.
I would recommend to the warehouse to set up a website that runs candidates through a serious of questionnaires and tests. This site does low-level training while they are applying, for the purposes of knowing more about a candidate long before they even get an interview. Yes, there is an investment in building the online tools, but it’s a one time investment, you’re not paying or investing large amounts of time and money.
By directing job seekers to your website, you save your HR staff time, and you don’t waste time interviewing poor candidates. Aptitude testing, job related testing, and how to do certain job activities online can tell much more about someone than a piece of paper ever will.
If we are going to change the way we do our work, we must change the way we look and think about the work we do. It’s a paradigm shift, it’s not easy, but if you’re willing, you will be seen as a problem solver that saves time and money.
