Adapt or a spoiler alert will be issued . . .

In light of the recent gaff by NBC in trying to hype up the Olympics in a time when technology has the score before prime time it has become screamingly apparent that it's time to adapt.  In case you don't know what I'm writing about, let's just say the twitterverse already knows who won the gold medal in whatever event is airing tonight - hours before NBC puts it on TV.  But that's just one example of a practice that's behind the times.

People are more "with it" than ever before and our ability to adapt is challenged every day.  It used to be that email was the best way to share photos with relatives, now it's Facebook.  A few years ago you could find just about anything out about a company on a search engine alone, now you read the reviews on Yelp or ask a twitter friend for a reference.  Traffic was measured by footsteps into a place of business, now it's measured by check-ins on Foursquare.

And all this seems to be happening at a lightening pace.  Each new day here brings another new, cool technology that we want to try.

But some companies are lagging behind, failing to see the need to "catch up."   Last year Netflix nearly lost it all by trying to put together a pricing model that didn't make sense to anyone all in a quest to make their services more accessible.  While at the same time, cable television companies keep raising rates while they lose subscribers to more affordable, easily accessible services.

I remember when we went to all email invoices.  A full year later I still had customers asking me to "mail" them a "print copy." *huh?*

When I first started in this business it was about getting a website, then it became about finding your website, now it's about getting more people to do business with you via your website (which, by the way, I think should have been the goal all along).

Today, more than ever, you have to be able to adapt.  Whether you change the way you do business to suit today's customers, change the way your company uses technology, or just change your own way of thinking about things.  How will you be adapting?

Sunday Inspiration

So I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning doing what I always do, play catch up.  This is the day of the week that I look back on what I didn't get accomplished and try to get it done.  Content for clients, wait for design inspiration and have a few minutes to focus uninterrupted on client strategies.

While catching up on some of the blogs out there I found some interesting inspiration that reminded me that some of the greatest successes came out of some of the most dire economic times.

"In 1876 the US was in the middle of a six-year recession. It was in this year that Thomas Edison established General Electric, now the third largest company in the world. A garage in Palo Alto at the end of the Great Depression was the launching pad for Hewlett-Packard. Harvard University dropout, Bill Gates, founded Microsoft in the recession of 1975. Existing companies have also been able to set the stage for great success in the midst of economic turmoil. For example, Burger King launched its now famous Whopper during a recession in 1957." (Whitestone Partners Inc blog)

Really cool to think that we are living in great times.  Yes, I mean now.  With all the cool technological advantages that have changed the way we communicate, keep in touch, and do business I know the next great thing is happening right now.  It's happening in the world today.  I think about how far the world has come and it's exciting, I'm excited.  I hope you're excited too!