It’s not the technology, stupid!
March 18, 2011 § 7 Comments
The problem with technology skeptics like the many peers I met during my MBA, is that they fail to see that it is not only the changes on technology what is important, but the changes of business models and shifts on consumer behaviors. They just take it personally and refuse to accept changes just because of personal preferences and habits they refuse to change.
There is nothing more troublesome than to meet “dinosaurs” with 30 years old or less! People without a Facebook account because of unfounded privacy concerns, people fearing to blog or to reveal their name somehow online, etc. I wonder what this people have to hide. They don’t understand that is not about avoiding been online, but to learn how to have a positive and educated online presence.
I don’t expect people to know and handle all new tech evolved in almost light speed around us like I do. No! but I do expect them to at least be open to try things out and understand the implication technology has in business and society in general. I watch many of them trying, and those that see the big picture, get fascinated about all this changes as I do! (one year ago I didn’t know what a blog was!, so no, I am (was) not a “techy”!
To be more clear, let me put an example about my frustrations in class. Lets talk about eBooks for 2 minutes. Some classmates my age are worried about the growing trend of eBooks and the fear of not been able to reading on paper in the future. They focus on demonizing digital content distribution instead of seeing all the opportunities it brings. Besides all convenience and advantages that digital books have (there are of course also disadvantages) they fail to see that the digital revolution is not only about disrupting content consumption, but more importantly, about content production!. Authors have now the chance to difuse more their content through digital channels. Call it the “market of niches” or “the long tail”, etc. But even current famous authors like Seth Godin are giving books almost for free if shared via twitter about releases. Other savvy ones give their books for free for some limited time online in order to diffuse their content and they then earn from giving conferences.
By reducing intermediaries that are not providing value, production cost are shrinking enabling more authors to produce, specially those with hard access to current big publishing houses that are sometimes more focus on making money (delivering best hits) rather than distributing other good work. And we all know it happen very similar in the music industry and will continue happening to more industries where intermediaries used to provide value in the offline world, but don’t do the job any more in the digital world. Change is imminent, so lets discuss about how to embrace it and make the transition sustainable, rather than fighting against it. Specially if you are a top MBA candidate!
There was yesterday a fearly guy in class that first complained about the whole point of using facebook due privacy, bla bla bla, and later, when asked how Facebook should make money, he then simple responded that Facebook should sell the data to make more money. There is nothing worse than “offline” trolls! You can simply not deleted them that easily! :)
Blogged from my iPad! Sorry for any typo.
Revealed! Even magic tricks are not longer safe now…
December 8, 2010 § 1 Comment
If you are a fan of magic or just someone who loves to keep things in secret, then you are going to hate the links I am posting below. I just hope I don’t get arrested as Wikileaks founder did today!
David Copperfield Flying. (…and here the trick revealed!)
Disappearing the Statue of Liberty by David Copperfield. (…and here the trick revealed!)
David Copperfield crossing the China Wall (…and here the trick revealed!)
Actually you can find almost all magic tricks revealed in YouTube by now. So, if you are planing these days to make a living by keeping things secret, then think again.
Technology is changing the world directly and indirectly. It takes only one staff member from the David Copperfield team to upload a picture or video to the net to reveal the most precious secret! It takes only one employee to reveal the next iPhone before it reach the market. It only takes a soldier to reveal secret government information. And all without the need of a hacker, a spy, or any other kind of sabotage activity. The hardest truth comes from within, where it needs to come from and only when it needs to be revealed. There is no way of controlling information from within and it can not longer be kept secret forever.
So? what do? Fight against it? or better simply adapt to it and change behaviors to avoid exposure? Well, it is sad to see how people, companies, industries and even governments keep on thinking they can stop this trend and hence, continue to make the same mistakes, again and again. Take the US Government for example, trying to neutralize Wikileaks by shutting down their domains or by using all of their power to bring Julian Assange down. Do they really think these leaks can be stopped? Wikileaks or any of the 100 mirror pages, or even better, any new similar site to Wikileaks will continue as long as there is truth to be revelead.
So, as David Copperfield’s magic, there is no way to keep these secrets safe these days…is this necessary bad? What speaks against a transparent information society? Yes, we all like magic tricks, but we all know they are just that, magic tricks. When a government act in our behave in an non-transparent and unethical way, well, we should embrace platforms like Wikileaks. This is why Wikileaks is actually a good thing for the US, as Wired Magazine just published. And as Julian Assange said, don’t shoot the messenger!
Transparency 2.0, Welcome!
3 big things I will never do again
November 5, 2010 § Leave a Comment
During the last past months I have been learning lots of new stuff throughout this MBA experience. Since the start, I have set myself into an “experiment and try new stuff” mode. Now I see how I have already started to change behaviors.
Because of the new technologies that are enabling new business models (after disrupting old ones) and my willingness to adopt early to all these new trends, I am now doing things differently. This changes are making my life more efficient and convenient!
So far, there are three big things I have decided not longer to do:
1. Buying physical content. This means acquiring no more content stored in CDs, Blue-rays, DVDs, USBs which applies for all digital media like music, video, software, games and others. If is not digital delivered to my devices, I am not buying it! More important is the avoidance of all content produced on paper, which includes: printed magazines, newspapers, books and any other sources of printed information! I am sure that print media will never be completely dead, but will definitively lose the dominance vs all kind of digital formats in the near future.
2. Single source news reading. I was used to read news from one or two single newspaper only. Now I use Twitter and RSS to get my news. I get the info from more than dozen prestigious sources and other many dozens via blogs! I specially enjoy reading recommended articles from friends and professors. I use applications like Twitter, Facebook, Flipboard, Pulse, Reeder for the iPad and their equivalent for the iPhone. I avoid reading articles from my laptop because it is just like the old fashion way to consume digital media (no wonder print was still more dominant). I also continue listening to audio podcasts and watching video subscriptions from my TV and my other mobile devices.
3. Printing. Yes! you heard right! Lets be consistent here for once! If I don’t purchase physical content, why should I produce it? Hence, I have decided not to print again unless it is a life or death situation! So far I haven’t printed in about 6 months! How do I achieve this? specially as a student? I read all my PDFs and all stuff from my iPad. I am taking my notes digitally and I even decided to kill the printed version of my CV, which means, only online and personal contact for my application process. No more paper requires not only to change the format but also of how we see and do things. So, I guess I am leaving paper just for all those other physical needs :)
Some final thoughts. There is nothing greater than to see such big changes occur in such a short time. Imagine now all the new business opportunities! But there is a catch: To be able to come with new business ideas, you first have to live and understand (experience) how this technologies affect your daily life as a normal consumer. You have to be willing to change yourself in order to lead change. This is the only way to understand how customer behavior can change and by doing this, avoid all the mistake that traditional industries (music, publishing, telecoms, etc) are still making.
The world is changing, are you?
Want to be an Apple Store manager?
October 4, 2010 § 6 Comments
…then you have to first study an MBA at a top Business School!
Seriously, this is so far the worst “Bad Apple” ever… Or was it fault of the career office of the school who organized this career fair?
In my opinion you don’t search top potential for this kind of job. The Apple guy asked that all was needed was to be passionate for people and for technology. Well, I am passionate for both of them, specially for technology, but that doesn’t mean I want to work at an Apple Store at a genius bar to then (and maybe then) become a store manager. And this is not only my view but of all students I talked with after the event.
Well…career fairs are not meant to find your dream job anyway, but just another way to get to know unknown companies and chat about the same obvious stuff all students do with the most famous known ones.
To be more precise about my convictions, I didn’t even brought my CV with me. I actually decided to kill the printed version of my CV even though I got some strong disagreement of friends via facebook. I guess they just weren’t aware about the context of the situation. I decided instead to just have plain white business card with only following input: guersonmeyer.com/about. And I did give one! I realize now I should have added my email an tel in the back of the card. :)
To find your dream job is like finding your dream partner. It is normally all about relationships (I know a friend, of a cousin of a friends friend, etc), or through simple coincidence (love at first sight from both of the interested).
I am sure my dream job is somewhere out there… If I could only just know where. I guess I should remain calm. Good things are hard to get, but the reward is huge! And I know this because I already found my dream partner and created a wonderful baby boy with her. It was definitively worth the wait.
