lAtesT uNconditionaL wIsdoM -->

Let’s review some of the current things going on in the world.

1. Banks dying off because of poor lending practices that are barely trackable. They have a hard time even knowing which assets are toxic!


2. Old companies such as the auto industry needing bailouts to survive.


3. TV content providers are struggling for eyeballs with new media and being over-protective of content.


4. Many customers want their media and TV content on demand and the old way of watching TV is expiring.


5. Music labels grasping at straws to protect from ‘illegal’ music sharing.


6. Writers struggling for the same eyeballs taken away by tv, internet and video games.


7. Internet and new media marketing starting to overtake where print advertising used to be.


8. Copyright laws of old becoming insufficient to deal with current media rights.


9. Industrial & manufacturing work is not really any longer a middle class job.


10. The rise and empowerment of the individual over the group.


11. Instant communication is the only respected kind of communication. Everyone is available and on the grid all the time.

All of these things lead me to believe the industrial age is not only ending but any industrial age mindset or sight way of thinking is proving to be poison. The type of thinking that says "Well we always did it this way so it should work." doesn’t actually seem to work any more and anyone who attempts such methods does so at their own peril many times. The audience and customer base changed a lot just within a decade. It seems only the companies that will cater to their customers or audience in new and interesting ways get to keep them and gain more.

Customers expect an expedient bi-directional conversation with companies now. There are review sites, text messages, blogs and twitter streams where people rapidly discuss a company and it’s products or services. This leads to instant feedback and a quick slap in the face to a business when they fail. If businesses aren’t participating in this conversation that is going on they are bound to fail or not reach full potential.

The information age has been very disruptive to the monolithic companies who are used to practicing business in the way they have for decades and have been slow to change. In a short 20 years this country and many parts of the world has went from a slow and industrial based society to an extremely fast paced society where speed and accuracy of data is king. Efficiency has become more relevant than ever and transparency the key to that efficiency. Light is being shed on companies and businesses that never had light shed on them before. All the dark and crawly things are coming to the surface which the slow and deep mask of the industrial age used to hide.

This has happened as any major shift in technology and the way of thinking has occured and will continue to happen. We can brace for change or move with the changing tide. Learn how to be part of the information stream and how to poise yourself and your business within that information stream. If you ride the waves properly you will succeed and if you ignore them you will get swept away or drown by them. Resistance is futile.

I wanted to write this article about something that recently inspired and amazed me a bit. I have a long time client, Brian Hanson, who has been a client of mine for about 10 years. About 2 months ago he approached me about his business as he noticed leads were drying up a bit and there were some serious problems with his business. I reviewed his traffic, sales, strategy and advised him accordingly. He not only followed my advice but exceeded it and has been very successful accordingly.

The Problem

Newspapers are falling apart in this country. My feeling on this is they haven’t adapted that well. They are monolithic relics of the industrial age that no longer know how to survive in the information age and most have not changed their thinking in order to adapt. Those who don’t adapt to changing circumstances become victims of it. Well, my client Brian sells classified advertising in newspapers and magazines all over the nation. You can go on his site NationWideClassifieds.com and pick a multitude of papers to run your ad in and within a few minutes you have an ad in the papers you selected. So, the paper business is falling and those wanting to place classifieds advertising is falling to.

My Advice

Basically I told him to ween himself off of this failing industry slowly and press his skills in to online marketing, which is a rapidly growing market. I told him we could rebuild his site to offer classical media advertising as well as new media marketing. We are still negotating about the revamp of his site. But in the meantime I made sure he was setup and understood Google Analytics, got him setup on twitter, made sure he was setup with a blog and showed him how to use these some of these social tools. I encouraged him on how to use twitter and blogging to promote himself and his services. He also learned on his own how to use Google Webmaster Tools to get some SEO worked in to his site.

Good Advice, But…

So, my advice is good but there are a couple problems with my advice. Brian is still selling a failing product. Classified advertising in old media is dying. Capturing a larger part of a failing market is still a faulty strategy for the long-term. I advised this as well. But Brian is a really good business man and not only followed my advice but exceeded it in a way I didn’t expect.

He was following a strategy I gave him for getting twitter followers and adapted some of his own methods on top of it. I can’t go in to detail because the strategy is a bit of a secret. So, every x amount of followers he would design a custom twitter background for his x’th number follower. I watched but thought this was strange and unexpected. His first few designs were not in my taste as a long time web developer and I said as much. But, he got much better with each free one he did. Finally he started getting requests for twitter backgrounds from paying customers who wanted better twitter background themes. Wow, he turned this damn thing in to a business.

The Lesson

Between @nationwideclass and @customtwit Brian has over 8000 followers. This is over a time span of roughly 8 weeks. He also has built customtwit.com to sell his backgrounds and is edging his way in to learning overall web design. His traffic and sales are up and his core business NationWideClassifieds is doing much better. He just landed a corporate contract to do 14 twitter backgrounds for a TV station. WTF? The lesson here? If you are clever, receptive to good advisors and are persistent you can build great things very quickly. There is no reason to sit around complaining about what’s not happening for you and/or how bad this recession is. Get up, get out and do something.

 

There is enough money in the world that if you find a niche and exploit it well you will do awesome in life and have more than enough to survive. Many people try to be Microsoft or Google, which is a great aspiration and I’ll admit to having those day dreams myself but it’s not practical. Only when you come from a strong and supportive point by exploiting a niche (something you are good at) will you likely find the energy to expand in way to reach your overall goal of ruling the world.

I believe it’s a matter of setting long term goals vs. short term goals. Any successful person usually has a task system of some sort, even if it’s just a paper list of tasks. That person usually has some short-term goals as well. Short-term goals are longer than tasks (things that take days instead of hours). Then lastly, long term goals (months, weeks, years). Without some target usually people do not get successful.

I was watching someone talk about success on twitter the other day and discussing how if you focus on success you become more successful. My response was along these lines:

"Success is like a small flame… can be difficult to start but once started if nurtured can become a bonfire with the same persistant will that it was started."

Okay, I spiced it up to get my point across. My response wasn’t as eloquent on twitter because I had less space to write. You must focus on small attainable goals to build a history of success and it’s much easier to target your focus on a niche market. Look for markets that aren’t saturated and can accept what you have to offer. There are a ton of niche communities in this country and in this world. You can be very successful just off of a couple thousand dedicated eyes and ears if you navigate properly.

Trying to accomplish too much and overextending is the death of most people and many businesses. You can’t be everything to everyone at all times.

Blogging, Again?

So, a few months ago I started a personal blog and had a pretty steady readership. I really enjoyed it but I started to slack a bit and focus more on my business during the beginning of the recession. I started writing a lot for my business blog and a lot for twitter instead of focusing on personal writings. A few people told me I should get back to writing because they enjoyed my blog. I held out for a while until I could stabilize the business a bit and focus on some personal tasks (including setting up this blog). I really wanted to go at it full-force if I was going to do it. I wanted to design my own look and feel, write about things I cared about and write frequenty. I feel that my life is interesting enough and that I gather a ton of valuable information from day to day that I can share with the world.

Why Should You Read?

Further I’m a pretty interesting person. I got my first buisness license at 16, was emancipated from my parents at 17 and had my first job as a programmer when I was 17. I am in an interracial relationship with a black woman (which is worth mentioning because the cultural clash does make my life interesting sometimes). I have a 2 year old son with her and we live together. I am a pretty decent poet, a good programmer, an innovater, creative and an eternal optimist. Politically I’m in the middle but I lean conservative on financial issues and liberal on social issues. I have a pretty good knowledge of the history of this country, I love to travel and do it whenever I can and I’m have a tendancy to just be spontanious.

For all of you that love a good car wreck I can be a complete mess sometimes. I give great advice but don’t follow it myself which makes me look like a hipocrit but I learn quickly. I can be an insentitive, stubborn, arrogant prick. However, it makes for a good read. I’ve been doing two things from a very young age:

1. Playing with computers.


2. Writing

I’m a little self-absorbed sometimes too, which makes this a perfect platform for me. Maybe I didn’t get enough attention as a child or not enough from the right people. Eh… who knows? At least I’m interesting.

Where Is This Going?

Yeah, so, I don’t really know. I’m gonna write about whatever I feel I want to. I’m not going to pull many punches about what I write. If transparency is a flaw I guess I can call myself that too. I hope this goes to a point where I at least have an audience for my creation. If not, at least this will be an interesting read to my children one day.  A good record of who I was and why. If nothing, people should blog for that.