Evolve Your Business
Reading up on new technology needn't be a headache. The 5 minutes you spend might even give you some new ideas.
John Hartigan, CEO of News Ltd. gave a talk at the National Press Club today which was picked up by Bloggers all over the world within minutes. He basically attacked Bloggers, accusing them of being unprofessional, unqualified and unreliable. And yet, News Ltd. also publishes BLOGs – in fact, they hire successful Bloggers to write the material. But the most interesting thing he said was that Bloggers lack “access to decision makers”. It seems to me that this is a response to upper management – who are rapidly losing their footing. Bloggers have found a set of skeleton keys and the gate-keepers aren’t too happy.
The same thing can be said of television. Packer abandoned TV and moved into the (more obvious) world of gambling. He’s invested Dad’s money in a bunch of Casinos because Internet advertising is taking an increasingly larger slice of advertising revenue and it’s more attractive because it’s targeted at warm audiences and gets seen by many more eyes …
So what does all this have to do with your business? Well, I read an article on one of my favourite business sites Flying Solo the other day where a bunch of small business owners lamenting the fact that they weren’t up to date on the latest software (Facebook and Twitter were mentioned) and technology. They felt “left out”. And yet here they were – on the net – commenting on Rob Gerrish’s article. Twitter and Facebook are free and it takes about 5 minutes to log in and join both networks. you can tweet once a week and your “micro-blog” is limited to 140 letters – that’s less effort than sending an SMS.
I’m not a massive fan of either Facebook or Twitter and once they start charging – just like with Napster – I’ll be out of there. But I do think early adoption of new web technologies is very important because it opens doors and lets other cultures and ways of thinking in. Don’t go the way of th dinosaur, jump in and try these things.
The world is slowly moving towards massive micro-communities – all interconnected via social apps like Twitter and Facebook. your facebook and Twitter friends will probably be in your market. You don’t need to go out selling your wares these days. The web is modifying the way we work. People who are in your “target market” (and I use that 80s term reservedly) will come to you. Why not put a welcome mat out – instead of battening down the hatches?
Don’t be scared of the new technology. It’s mostly fun and takes about 5 minutes to set up. Plus it might just nudge your business into the 21sy Century.
