It's Me Sharing Out Loud, Come Walk With Me
I’m going to let you read me thinking out loud today, here’s a few things on my mind right now, and I’m laying it in front of you to ponder. Here’s the thing(s).
An interesting trend is taking place and it’s a problem for insurance companies, it means a loss of revenue, and possibly a declining customer base. I suspect it’s a problem for more than just Insurance Companies. I’m not saying insurance companies are on the endangered species list, but there is a need for innovation in that industry, one that will allow them to adjust to this trend.
Let’s say you are a Futurist, say like me, and you get that call from your insurance agency. They start to ask the regular questions and you keep saying no I don’t work that way, I don’t have tons of equipment, and people don’t come to my office and so on. For example, your business might look this way in more detail.
You are a sole proprietor, you only do workshops & public speaking 90% of the time, if you do work with clients it’s at their offices, and your equipment might be a $750 Laptop, and Internet Connection and a smart phone. Oh, and did I mention, you are most of the time mobile, on the move. You never have clients come to your home office or desk, your workshops are held at another site like a hotel or local school, because you are not a typical bricks & mortar business. How does an insurance business get that extra business out of your home insurance when your considered home-based business functions like it doesn’t exist?
Everyday, more & more people are starting businesses with little or no overhead, not like the old home-based businesses we are used to starting. You know, the one’s where you have to carry inventory, have customers do pick-up at your home, or you have expensive equipment on your premises. Don’t get me wrong, many still do this but they are somewhat short sighted I think.
It’s almost like this type of business is a loop-hole in the home insurance industry, these types of businesses have been around forever, and I’m certain existing policies don’t cover all facets of this type of business. You’ve read it here before, you probably heard me say it, a connected audience, or a connected consumer can not be forced or controlled, mostly because they are on the move at all times. As the population grows more than 9 billion over the next 15 years, much of what we know today will have been re-written, like insurance policies, they need to adopt the social and mobile trend. The new businesses of tomorrow are mostly digital, require virtually no traditional functionality, and will never see a customer come to an office.
If you were to ask me if I had a FAX machine, I would answer back with, what’s a fax? Imagine when your kids, kids have kids, they will never know what a FAX machine was, a Computer in a Tower, or maybe even a Laptop for that matter. That leaves one thing, hand-held devices, or, technology that is embedded into our eye-care / contact lenses, or maybe the RFID chip finally gets it’s day and be put into our bodies. RFID is actually already here, you carry it with you everyday, so the chip no longer needs to be in us, we have social accepted carrying it around in our pockets. I know, I know, I’m going down a rabbit trail.
I’m not saying the demise of insurance companies is imminent, I’m suggesting they need to observe a trend that would seem to impact their livelihood. I would also suggest, not unlike Real Estate, you & I will be able to handle / do what these agents do for us today.
If insurance companies are still cold calling existing clients to develop new revenue, in the home-based businesses sector, I would suggest finding another method, because we can do that ourselves. The insurance company rules will change as the shape of business takes place, the rules though, are currently being broken and by-passed because of this trend in business.It’s no ones fault, it’s evolving, it’s changing it’s look, you might call it a Chameleon.
The future of business is a social and mobile business, the details still need to be worked out, but if your business isn’t paying attention, then you won’t get the attention. So I ask you, do you market to convert, or do you market to get attention? If it’s the latter, you have increased your chances of conversion ten fold, attention is the new currency, and you will use it to convert your product & services into cash.
The Future Of Business Is NOT Social Networks
One of the futurists I was following tweeted something that spurred me to write this little bitty, so bare with me. There is much confusion about Social Media / Networks, and saying that the future of business is Social Networks only adds to that confusion. For some unknown reason, there are far too many who seem to think that Social Media is the answer, the messiah, the silver bullet to all their business problems. STOP IT! This is far from the truth, and is sheer stupidity on the part of those who say it is.
I’ve talked about the next generation a few times now, GEN C, they are the under 20 somethings and they are starting to figure out what they want, and it’s not what business owners want. In fact, the generation that comes behind them will never know what a Tower or laptop is or was. imagine a generation that only knows wireless handheld devices, may never know what a Newspaper was, let alone a fax machine. They will all be things placed in a Smithsonian in some major cities if they can afford to have the show in town.
If you are paying attention to these social networks, and those who have built them, they are shifting and flowing, not because they work well, but because the people in those environments are looking for something. The future of business will be dependant on a couple of things, social networks are one of the tools to obtain those things, but not the end all. Being tagged will be paramount to being found in the future, your brand / product or service will live and die by being found. That being found will need to be everywhere, not just in social networks!
To found on the Internet will be one of the many challenges to deal with in the next 2 – 3 years. As with everything, the cream will rise to the top, the have’s over the have nots will continue as it does in the bricks & mortar business world. The big difference will be the tools or mediums you use, and how you use them that will matter, and should be well thought out. In the bricks & mortar we just yelled, and the loudest business got the attention, not so in the future, and social networks will play a minor role. Attention is the new currency, data is the new oil, and the combination of those two will present a whole new way of doing business in the near future. The problem is, the data is not fully understood, the technology we need is still not ready, it’s not ready because we don’t know what problem needs solving yet. Much of what we are relying on in social networks, hasn’t happened yet.
The future of business will be social, and it will most definitely be mobile, but it won’t be social networks that are the future. The real future of business is because we are connected, on the move, regrouping on the fly, unable to be controlled by anything or anyone, including social networks. A connected world cannot be controlled, it might be seduced, but only temporarily, and that is what big business and corporations are afraid of, they can’t control you & I.
Consider this, there will be another 3 Billion users of the Internet in the next 2 – 3 year, 5 at the most, are you in a position to get they’re attention online? Do you have a strategy or a plan to capture .01 % of that potential revenue? I can’t wait to see what new ways of increasing the new currency of attention, I’m ready, I’m more than ready, I’m down right excited. But if you’re still trying to figure out how to use social media networks, how to use a blog or a website, you better hire someone tomorrow to help you see whats coming. They can at least help you see the tidal wave and show you how to ride that wave rather than get wiped out by it.
That’s what we do here, we show you the future, and then help you create ideas to adopt what we show you. We are in the beginning of an upsetting industrial shift, a paradigm shift, and it’s very painful for some. Also keep in mind, much of what I am talking about is not about skill set, it’s more about how you think, to look at the world of business as it really is or will be.
One Of The 1st Technological Revolutions In History
Much of what we know in Technology is sometimes shocking, and even down right revolutionary, but we have had many of these startling events long before you & I were born.
One of the greatest leaders in history is credited with introducing one of the very 1st technological revolutions of mankind, King David. He ruled over Judah c. 1010 – 1003 BC, and Israel from c.1003 – 970 BC, and was considered one of the worlds premier leaders in his day, and is still referred to as such today.
The real story is some 200 years before King David ruled over Judah & Israel, there was a tribe called the Hittites, and they knew how to combine minerals to make iron. They had more advanced knowledge and education, better weaponry, cooking utensils, and tools long before anyone else, they also won more battles because of it.
King David is credited with introducing the Iron Age, and iron today is used in much of the worlds most cherished structures. So all the technological change you and I have been experiencing, is not early advancements, but merely a maturing of technology over thousands of years. Technology has become exponential in it’s growth, you & I double our knowledge every year, but technology is not linear, it’s exponential, 2,4,8,16,32… and we can’t keep up.
In the next few years you will be able to buy a computer that computes faster than the human brain! This computing speed will birth products unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetime. Superior robotics will emerge and be much more life like because of it, a chance to actually have Artificial Intelligence will present itself. Virtual Reality will be so advanced we won’t be able to distinguish between real life & virtual life. we will spend more hours in virtual reality than we ever will on FaceBook or any other Social Network. Handheld devices will be so powerful, they will be able to do things we haven’t even thought of yet. There is so much to consider as we move forward in this century, technology is just one spoke in the wheel, we have bigger issues to face that technology may or may not be able to solve. Like the water shortage the world is starting to experience, I live in one of the rainiest places on this planet, and we have a shortage!
In 1998, Billy Graham shared at a TED Talk, that there are 3 things Technology has yet to solve.
The Big Three:
1.) Human evil
2.) Human Suffering
3. Death
The first one most likely will never be solved, it comes from you & I, we make bad decisions alot and we end up hurting mankind in the process. Human suffering is a puzzling one, there are 403 Billionaires in the USA alone, 40 of those billionaires have decided to give away 50% of their estates. If that’s true, why do we still have hunger? We live in the richest part of the world and yet we still have hunger, I hope someday we’ll right this injustice.
The third is Death, this has the potential to be solved by Technology, Nanotechnology to be more specific.
Nanobots will some day make it possible for you & I to live forever, and in perfect health, but that’s another blog post. I have written about it in my book The New Technology – The End of Mankind? You can download for FREE here on this blog.
Everything about our world is going through an upsetting industrial change, a paradigm shift, and it’s very real and very painful. Much of what we are experience in the business world, is not peace, harmony and quiet. These new social media environments disrupt closed systems, and most big business and corporations are fighting it tooth and nail. We are in a constant state of change and revolutionary thinking, but it scares wall street, because they can’t control a connected audience or consumer.
I also hope this post makes you appreciate the introduction to iron, more importantly, I hope your paying attention to what is really going on around you.
It's Time To Start Thinking About Setting Goals for 2011
Last year on Dec 6th, 2010 I did a blog post on my goals for 2010, I also challenged you to do the same. Here are my goals from 2010:
My Plans for 2010:
* Increase Public Speaking Engagements – on The New Technology, I.T. Strategies / Planning
* To educate and teach 100 businesses develop an I.T. Strategic Plan. (roughly 8 new businesses per month)
* Develop a video series on developing I.T. Strategic Plans. ( The I.T. Strategic Planning Series)
* Continue working on my next eBook, The New Technology Pt 2. (hope to complete by end of 2010)
* Write more often on my Blog. (daily if possible)
* Get more subscribers on my Blog.
* And of course, increase revenues ( I have to put that on here)
Now goals are important, they hopefully kept you moving in the right direction of your overall business plan. So how did you do? Better yet how did I do? For the sake of transparency, I’ll will list the results of this year.
1.) Increase Public Speaking Engagements – I have averaged 1 per month in 2010, that’s up from two in 2009.
2.) Educate and teach 100 businesses to develop an I.T Strategic Plan – well, I have educated & taught 150 businesses, but more on the Open & Free Business Model than I.T. Strategic Planning. I’ll take it either way.
3.) Develop a video series on developing I.T. Strategic Plans – I started and stopped, I have a face for Radio and I just wasn’t happy with how things were going. maybe I’ll try something different like Slide Shows or Podcasts, maybe Slide Shows with Audio….hmmm. Or, Webinars…what you think?
4.) Continue working on my next Book – I have been working on two books, Part 2 of The New Technology & a new book on The Future of Business – The Open & Free Business Model. This is a work in progress.
5.) Write more often on my Blog – I have increased posting here but not at the level I should me thinks.
6.) Get more subscribers on my Blog – they are up over last year but only marginally – maybe another 30 – I guess I’m not interesting enough.
7.) Increase Revenues – I am very happy to report that I surpassed the previous years revenues by the end of January, so 2010 has been a good year so far. Still not sure what that number is, will know better in Jan 2011. Keep in mind, in 2009 I only made $4,600, that was due to losing 6 months to health issues, that prevented me from working at anything close to full capacity. Also, in 2010 I changed my Business Model – yep, The Open & Free Business Model – and it works!
So, there ya have it. What about you and your goals, how did you do, did you actually set some? If not, how about trying it this year, set some easy & hard goals for 2011, but be realistic too, otherwise you’ll give up.
I’m currently assessing my goals for 2011, you can never have enough positive challenges in front of you. So I challenge you again this year, set some goals and share them, sharing them puts them out there and in front of the world, that way you have accountability.
Good luck and I would love to hear about your goals.
One Mistake Corporations & Big Businesses Make
Something interesting has been happening since Social Media became a force to be reckoned with, it’s power and use has been grossly misunderstood. The big mistake most corporations and big businesses make, they try to understand communities rather than the users (generations) that build and make up these communities.
To understand a community is actually quite simple, if you spend enough time in any community you will discover a personality and a few trends. But that doesn’t mean you understand the people in that community, people influence people, and communities can influence other communities, but the characteristics vary. What these communities and people (generations) tolerate today, most likely won’t fly the next year or for that matter the next day. Another interesting characteristic about these generations, they group and regroup on the fly.
The Gen C and generations to come, group and regroup for the purposes of grouping and regrouping for a new purpose, they will no longer staying together for long periods of time. Making it virtually impossible to derive quantifiable data that can be used for marketing and or to merely understand any community. They social and very mobile.
Gen C are the under twenty somethings with very little patience for old industrial age thinking, or for that matter, systems developed by those old thinkers. They want a more Natural User Interface (NUI), they want their content to be relevant, useful and interesting. They move in packs, very tribal in behaviour, which means you need to be able to adapt to there moods swings. Gen C are at best chameleons, constantly changing and morphing their identities to simultaneously belong to as many tribes as possible.
Communities will come and go, but those jumping from community to community will be harder to attract unless certain criteria are in place. Connect Gen C members with each other, not just with a brand. Enable Gen C to participate in, play with or produce themselves and then share. Ask for a reaction and have a fun social interface. Enhance social status within tribes, and as I mentioned earlier, Keep it relevant, useful and entertaining.
Remember, pay-walls are not inviting, these generations will keep looking until they find what they want for free. Yes, those with money will pay upfront for some things, mostly just to save time, but the majority of the global population will spend the time to find what they want for free. The Future of Business will be an Open & Free Business Model, where FREE is the business model.
The businesses of the future should pay attention to the user not the communities, they don’t spend enough time in communities to provide enough reliable data. Whether you agree or disagree really doesn’t matter, the future generations will move in packs whether I say they will or not, they’ll group and regroup to meet their needs. Pay attention to what they get behind, not where they hang out.
If you’re in business today, don’t assume communities is where the valuable data is located, it’s in the users, the Gen C and beyond. The communities are a way to determine where they are at the time, that’s it, and it may not have anything to do with what the purpose or cause happens to be at the time.