The more things change...

This week, I had the strangest thing happen. I was informed that my ideas are too big and I have to pull back. Here is how I interpret that... people don't want to change and they don't want to see the future unfold. They don't want to prepare for change, they want to wait and react to it. They want to take the easy way out. It's very much like the auto industry, the traditional film/camera industry, the newspapers (and soon to be magazines). It's anyone who thinks that the rules will never change and that they are secure in where they stand today because of history, or size, or market dominance.

Those are the very things organizations ought to be afraid of because they mean that you are vulnerable. You have become complacent and don't have the fight in you anymore. You are resting on what made you who you are and are not focused on doing what needs to be done to become who you need to be to compete and survive.

You only have to look at the stories in the news to see examples of this very rapid change coming to an industry near you and how each group is responding in various ways. (Served up via RSS feed, of course.) Some are effective and many are not. Here are a couple to consider.

Click here for a story about Skype and iPhone putting the Telco's out of biz.
Click here for a story about the changing landscape of the hotel industry and the death of Encarta.

The list could go on and on.

Consider how rapidly everything is changing with the internet (now very old news, yet not much more than a decade old to many home users), web pages (so late 90's), blogging (old news, very 2004), text messaging, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, Skype... the list goes on and on. How about Wii, hybrids, biofuels, microlending? We haven't begun to see where Google and Amazon are going to take online commerce. Phones have just scratched the surface of their usefulness and will continue to dominate and change the way we interact with the world around us.

Who carrys a laptop anymore? We've all gone Blackberry in the last 5 years. Remember when you used to carry your laptop, cellphone, digital organizer, iPod and digital camera with you on a trip? Now it's all in your smartphone which is smaller, lighter and a fraction of the cost of all those items combined. You can make a call, update your blog, and post real time video to YouTube while sitting in a cafe half way around the world from your office or computer. The world just got a whole lot more convenient and a whole lot smaller.

All these big changes are going to impact the way we live our lives for decades to come. Here's the catch, a year from now, two years from now, they won't look the way they do today. They too are going to evolve into something even easier, cheaper and better. Convenience and usability will continue to be the driving force. When you can remove items from someones pocket and give them the world in their hand, they are going to go for that convenience everytime. The savings in time and frustration are well worth any initial upfront investment in the device.

These cycles of change are going to get even more rapid. What consumers don't yet know is change is happening before the new products and services even hit the shelves. This stuff is obsolete when you buy it. You just don't know it yet. Great innovators are in the business of putting themselves out of business before going to market. It's the way they stay one step ahead of the competition.

So what's a forward thinker to do when they find themselves told to slow down? I haven't figured that one out yet but I'm working on it. Perhaps I'll Twitter the question (in 140 characters or less) and see what evolves.