Futurists
New Chip Technology Is Everywhere
I talk alot about future trends and technologies, RFID chips, nanotechnology, and well, even computers as we know them. With all these advances, there is a growing challenge, how to keep your privacy private. The new chip technology is everywhere, we are forced into it, all financial institutions in Canada must have this chip technology embedded into each card by 2011, credit cards and yes even debit cards. The government and corporations are mandating this technology without your knowledge, it’s happening and you have no choice. Oh, and by the way, as of October 2010, if you don’t have this chip on your Visa, you will no longer be covered by the Visa Zero Liability Policy. I’ll be you didn’t know that.
These cards with chips embedded are called “Smart Cards”, in time will permanently have replaced the current magnetic-strip cards we carry around today. These new chip cards mean you can, you will not be able to hide, you will be tracked at all times, if you are a criminal or have bad credit, they turn the card off and you are unable to buy anything. Let alone not be found, hiding is something we did when we were little, covered ours eyes and no one could see us, remember?
This past week, the Google & US Government collaboration was announced, the Internet will be monitored, every Tweet, every FaceBook Update, every Blog Post will be scrutinized. So be careful what you put on the NET, it might get you in serious trouble. Here is an example of how a simple purchase of a Pizza might go for you in the near future.
Flying Cars in 2011!
A friend of mine in Seattle is very much a transportation expert, in fact, he predicted flying cars would be here sooner than we anticipated, but I was skeptical. Not any longer. I can remember as a young boy talking about how someday we would be like the Jetsons, but here on earth, not in space. Do you remember the cartoon based show, every Saturday morning we would watch the Jetsons and pretend it was me flying around in one of those fan-dangled vehicles. Glen Hiemstra from the site Futurist.com, made a statement not to long ago, here’s his quote, ” Looking ahead, over the next decade or two we will, nationally and internationally, need to be thinking systemically about travel demand and supply, advanced transportation technologies, and how to achieve sustainable transportation, if that is possible.” Advanced Technologies, could it be that Glen is talking about flying cars? Probably not.
The truth is, the 1st flying car is expected to be available in 2011, that’s right, a company called, Terrafugia Inc. has produced a vehicle that flies! Barring government interference and the FTC, we should see this car soon. Now I figured you wouldn’t believe me so I am going to let you see for yourself, I have for you a video of the car actually flying, and parked in a driveway. Wrap your brain around this, I can see all kinds of problems making this car available. Hell we can’t drive properly on roads now let alone be flying too! On June 3rd, 2009 this car took it’s first flight, here’s the video:
Change is hard – Not Changing will be Much Harder
The world we live in is always changing, as much as we try, it keeps on changing and shifting whether we like it or not. The truth is we can’t control change, we hang on to it with all our strength but still the change takes place. The world of commerce and how we interact changed years ago but we keep trying to hold it back, keep trying to stay in our comfort zones, it feels better that way. I am change agent for the most part, but if someone moves the forks in my silverware tray I get this disturbed feeling like I was just violated. That shows just how easy it is to get stuck in a rut, there is a saying, the difference between a rut and a grave is the dirt on your face. Are you stuck? Do you like change or does it make uneasy?
I talk frequently about the future and the change we have yet to experience, technology is growing at an exponential rate that we can’t prevent or control. If you look close enough and you are being completely honest with yourself, we are in for a very painful shift in the next 3 – 5 years. How we do business, how we interact with each other, how connected everything is and will be, is going to turn our comfort zones upside down.
Change is hard, change to an Open Business is even harder. Open is scary because it will feel like we are all out of control, it means KAOS! The part that scares most business owners is, the customer is taking some of the control away from them, the customer is now making decisions differently and that makes the world of commerce a very different environment. People are re-grouping on the fly, they are swarming into Tribes, they are reshaping what it means to be a trusted brand, and business is struggling with this shift.
Being open means you as a business owner have to talk to your customers, you must give them more access than you are currently comfortable with today. The world is coming, no the world is not here yet, but when they do arrive they will force you to do business in a very uncomfortable way.
The world is broken up into many many incubators that communicate and act in a way that is acceptable for each incubator. These incubators eventually will all be connected and will reshape how they act and communicate, bringing about change and innovation. This can’t be stopped or prevented, because you can’t stop a connected audience, they move to quickly and resist control, especially on the Internet.
The Internet is THE Platform that has changed the way we think, the way we communicate, and it is allowing for the reshaping of commerce, not too mention bring new meaning to Copyright and Sharing. Social Media is a bad name for the future we are entering, today we think having an account on Twitter makes us an authority on Social Media. The fact is, Media goes much deeper than using these Social Networks, they are tools, they allow us to connect and share, but that’s primarily it. The Media part is what we need to pay attention to, how we get paid for what we do through being in media, is a shift that is still unclear.
We are all becoming the Media, we are going more and more mobile, getting paid will be based on getting Attention, bringing value, and making your value feel like free, that is the secret. How you view the world matters in this new paradigm shift called Open & Free, where you put the toll booth will be even more important. Pay attention to what’s happening to the world of business, what technology is allowing us to do, and pay special attention to who is connecting with you and your business.
Change is hard, the change or shift to an open & free marketplace is coming, and not changing will be much harder in the future.
Control Is Dead!
The old business model of a closed / control is failing us here online, we truly believe that if we are in control, put things behind walls, force people to pay first, we will create new money and all will be well. Not true. The new open & free model is somewhat the opposite of that model, your product & services are out in the open for people to try and use, then they will buy. Recently, media futurist Gerd Leonhard put his products out there for you to freely download and use, and announcing the payment model for his new iPhone & Android mobile apps: pay what you think it’s worth. Would you do this, you will in the future.
I can tell you first hand that most business owners are scared to death of this model, but what they don’t realize is, they will create more new money with this open & free business model than they believe they will. Now I am not saying there isn’t a need for controlled models, I am however saying, here online it can’t be maintained and have it survive. Gerd Leonhard stated in a presentation he made March 2nd, 2009, “Rights-holders / Content-Owners have the choice: Control + Declining Revenues or ‘Open’ and New Revenues “.
This is only one example of someone embracing the new open & free business model, he is trusting his marketplace, his following and current strategic business alignments to provide revenues. Social Currency (trust) is the key here, your brand must be trusted for this open & free business model to succeed. It’s not that simple, you must be open, transparent, and have integrity at all times. This sounds great but is a lot of work, maintaining this kind of model can’t be done with the current closed business model. The current model relies on control, fear and you not pushing back. We are moving to this model, it’s going to happen, why? You won’t tolerate the old control model, you want access first, you want to try before you buy, you will dictate how business is done. Eventually.
If you write a book or make a product and try to position yourself under the old model, you have to jump through all the control mechanism hoops. In the open & free business model you just make it available, you may not make money from the book immediately in terms of sales. You will however realize revenues by monetizing around the book, consulting, coaching, teaching and or maybe even get hired because of your insights and know how. Your book must be good of course, you must bring quality in order to get the attention you need to realize the levels of revenue you desire. Attention is another form of currency.
Chris Brogan is all about making business human again, he also knows you will help him drive that process. You may not know it, but you want business to be human, not a system making you a number. You want to feel human, be viewed as human, and most of all, you want to feel important. Chris knows we are all after the same thing really, he is helping you see it, we want to make a difference, and make the world a better place, we all want to feel important. The problem has never been the desire, it was the how do we do it. Social Media has opened the door for you to exercise what you didn’t know how to do, you now have a way to express yourself and make it happen. You will and are shaping the future of business, the open & free model even if you can’t see the bigger picture right now.
Eventually you will make it happen, Control Is Dead!
Attention Bloggers & Marketers
The Internets future is of great interest to me, I study some of the worlds smartest technology people because they see things differently than the rest of us. The Futurists are an interesting lot, they even cause me to chuckle now and then, but we need them because it forces us to look outside the box. I share and talk about the possibilities technology can bring, I care very much how it impacts society and our economy’s, plus I love looking into the future.
So I ask you Bloggers & Marketer’s, have you stopped to consider what and how the new economy is going to work, what it might look like, and how it will impact how you Blog and Market? Do you know what the New Economy is? There is and will be a New Economy, it will be The Data Economy, the New Content Economy. We will connect data to data, line to line, not web-page to web-page, this economy will set the table for a revolutionary way of doing business on the Internet. Google is ensuring this will happen, everything will be mobile and on the cloud.
We are entering a time where Command & Control will become Coordinate & Cultivate, where domination is out – and Collaboration is in. Where the current economic egoism no longer works, because now we are all connected, it breeds mediocrity. Mediocrity is what we have / had under the control model. We need to build an Ecosystem, where we freely, openly share & collaborate, with the right blend of sharing rather than piracy. Collaboration is and will be required to build in this new economy.
An entirely new way of thinking comes from being connected, Trust is the Key, Trust is the new currency. This trust will be developed over time, it will make or break organizations and indivduals with large followings and high levels of influence, but this trust won’t come easy. Advertising in the connected world has to be radically different, otherwise it will keep declining. We can no longer market on the Internet by yelling. Marketing needs to hit the RESET button and figure out how to function in the new economy.
Content today is copied, you download a PDF, an MP3 and what have you, it’s a copy. The Internet is a giant copy machine, if you disconnect the copy function, you disconnect the listening function. The fight to keep control of copies is a losing battle on this network, but how do we get the money from a network that can copy everything for free? We need to sell things that can’t be copied, the conversation is the sell. We need to sell things around the content, the packaging, the experience. Money is moving from the selling of copies, to selling the experience. After all, your Brand will be judged by that experience, if it’s bad, you will be out of business sooner than later. You can see the landscape is changing, the end of control is taking shape everywhere.
Social Media is a very human driven practice, it can’t be done with a single person, it just doesn’t scale well that way. Gary Vaynerchuk has shown us how hard it is to keep up and stay on top of all that is data, he won’t be able to sustain the demand on his time and become ineffective.
It’s important to state that Social Media is not about technology, it’s about a culture change, a paradigm shift, we have to get better at believing in the impossible.
We need to think about how we Blog & Market, re-write the books on how it’s done, because what we are doing is a diminishing return. What kind of experience do people have when they come to your Blog, and what kind of emotions are engaged when they see and hear your marketing messages? The power is now in the hands of the people formerly known as consumers, how will you engage them?
You’ve heard this message before a million times, you probably preached it over and over, but the real question is, are you one of the change agents helping shape this new economy? Have you studied what’s to come, do you know and see the indicators? The New Economy views content first as a service, then an experience – and only then (maybe) a product.
I know my voice gets lost in the noise, that’s OK. I know the Internet is a big place, and a very large network that dissects, crosses over and loops back, and some how we are supposed to find what we are looking for. Companies like Google are trying to filter the content and help us all get exactly what we want. But that my friends, is whole nother story. Filtering and curation are the keys to the next phase, and eventually we’ll find ourselves dealing with smart noise.
Are you paying attention, what do you see?