The three year technology lag

Back in 1999 we used to call software that ran off the internet “browser-based” software and all other, which was most of, software was packaged and sitting on the shelf of CompUSA.  The packaged software industry is essential gone. Today everything is browser based; Google, Yahoo, eBay, Netflix, etc. Applications are everywhere on the web. Back in 1999 this was predicted to happen by 2002. Which is why the internet bubble burst. The promise of everything being on the internet drove stock prices through the roof, and then everyone realized it wasn’t going to happen soon enough to give a quick return on investment.

Here we are in 2008 and it is just getting mainstream. Quite a lag.

But we shouldn’t be surprised.

In the 1990’s I was with a company which sold software to schools. We built our software for the lag. For instance, in 1999 the software we wrote for schools had to be based on 1996 computers and operating systems, because the upgrade cycle was always three years behind. Using that as a benchmark for today, most of the population is in an early 2005 mode. They don’t use blogs, but are about to. They don’t post to YouTube. They don’t have a sense of podcasts. It is still the day of the early adopters and the earlier adopters have had it going or about 2-3 years as far as the social media Web 2.0 thing.

The tortoise and the hare story comes to mind. Which character didn’t get intimitaded by the lag?

Cultivating, fertilizing, gathering. Successful digital media follows law of the harvest.

The Internet allows us to cultivate relationships across the social networks. Traditionally marketers mine, attack and plunder our attention. Now its cultivation – it’s about you as the marketer getting out of the way and let your customers talk to each other and let them talk to their customers. It’s a conversation – cultivation through conversation. There’s always new stuff to try, but orchestrating the social book marking sites, orchestrating the Facebook, the Linked In’s, Twitter’s, etc. Youtube has at least 62 “me toos” from which to choose. Pick one and cultivate there. You can map out from that point.  Once you’ve gathered your friends, it is easier to go to the farmers market and interact with new friends. If you are a traditionaly ‘hunter” rather than a gatherer, here’s how you think of it…Instead of shot gun. think rifle.

Or

Instead of cultivating a tomato plant in 23 different gardens, why not get really good at growing your own tomato garden and then selling starts, giving starts to other places and seeing how your message can grow there.

When you start small, you cultivate by hand and learn the lay of the land in a visceral way. Be patient and you’ll be riding a John Deere harvester eventually.

Cognitive Commuting: Trains, Brains, and Automobiles

Continuing education is a great industry for many universities, community colleges, and “Learning Annex” type concerns. The learner in a continuing education class is there for a very different reason than a traditional student. A continuing ed. student is there not for credit or a grade, but for actual knowledge and expertise in the subject. For enrichment. Being a continuing ed student is like being in the church choir; nobody does it for the wrong reasons. It is volunteer, self directed learning driven.

One of the advantages of the digital age is, with all the channels being cast into the digital ether, you can find an expert channeling their expertise on almost any subject. For Free. And if you are in it for the learning, and not a grade or a credit, it is a great time to be alive.

This past fall I chose to commute once a week for a bunch of weeks, to a far off college to develop a course in online content creation. I live in Connecticut, the school is in Pennsylvania. The one way trip was 2.5 hours. I choose to do this for two reasons. I like teaching every once in a while, so there was that. What I was most excited about was gaining expertise in a new facet of internet marketing I’ve been exploring, and this I was doing with an iPod filled with courses by some of the country’s smartest experts on the subject. I listened to panel discussions from conferences, ebooks, podcasts on branding, sales training, etc. I must have listened to 30-40- hours of instruction. I let it wash over me as I drove, grabbing a little here, and a little there. By the time the project at the University ended, I was expert in many things, by book learning standards, and I’ve been implementing ever since.

So try this. If you want to pick up some expertise in anything- Elizabethan poetry, internet marketing, quilting, etc. Get a podcast, a video feed into an ipod and listen to it on the train, in your car, or on the bus. Anytime you are waiting, pop in the headphones and learn. This is not new. We’ve listened to books on tape since the walkman came about, but now it is all free. Want to learn how to start a blog? You can pay 27.00 for an ebook OR you can do a little searching on iTunes’ podcast directory and find it for FREE. You can take a community college course in French, or you can download a complete set of audio lessons for FREE, complete with worksheets, from one of many language “casts”. So many people are freely giving away great expertise today, one wonders why spend the money for continuing education, when the expertise is online…FREE.

The main reason I’ll take a course is the human interaction. For a physical mentor. But, for pure learning, for the information, to get to the essence of a thing, I’ll take portable and free.

Joe

A Doctor Starts His Own Channel? The Future of Healthcare, Hopefully.

What if your pediatrician had their own interactive TV show? What if you’re OB, GP, or Radiologist had a video blog where you could ask a question via their comments page and get a diagnosis through a webcam within 24 hours?

This would be a doctor with a channel. A doctor with an IM account, a blog, email subscription, video chat, and an RSS feed.

Here is someone who comes close. AND he makes house calls.

The medical profession is starting to get it.

Shut off your TV and go make your own show!

I’ve just been combing through footage we shot for our own web animation program tonight. We have it all mapped out for 2008. I can’t tell you how excited I am. I haven’t seen a TV program for 4 months. (excluding a few sporting events)

We’re on vacation now and coming back with a vengance mid Jan.

Free! The new way to make money?

For those who’ve read this blog for a time, you know I’ve required reading, The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson. It’s in my blogroll too. If you want to understand why all this niche/internet thing works, it is a must read. Now I have required “watching” of Chris Anderson. Watch this to see his latest thinking on, “Free”. From my perspective, he’s dead-on. (There is just a little problem with the phone carriers, so watch the Q&A at the end to understand.)

Basically, it’s, “give it all away for free and find unique ways to create scarcity to monetize later.”

Something many of you already know, but he gives it it’s full due in this lecture. Enjoy.

Marketing Entertainment in Shakespeare’s London

I’m reading Bill Brysons’ Shakespeare: The World as Stage. He lived in a world where not many could channel their voice, but lucky Will Shakespeare had his own channel at the Globe. Of course the apparatus required to cast his show to an audience was quite elaborate. Amusingly, not much has changed in marketing and product launch mechanics.

According to Bryson, plays started at about 2:00pm. Handbills were distributed that morning and early afternoon,. A large banner was hoisted upon the highest parts of the structure wherein the play was to be held, and then horns would blare in fanfare for the play when 2:00pm was near. The horns could be heard across much of the city.

For those aroused enough to take in an afternoon’s amusement, tickets came in three flavors. Groundlings (standing room) paid a penny, sitters paid another penny on top of that and those who like to sit upon a cushion paid another penny on top of that. (a day’s wage was less than 10 pennies) The money was dropped in a box, which was taken to a safe room for safekeeping and counting — the box office.

Then the upsell! Apples, pears, (the cores became projectiles for performers ) nuts, breads, bottles of ale, and tobacco were all for sale inside the theatre. The tobacco, delivered in a small pipe, cost three pennies, or three-times the cost of admission. (been to a multiplex to buy treats lately?)

Recently, an internet marketing conference sent handbills to my email account. Three tiers of entrance fees were offered, and of course when I show up, back of the room sales will look to extract many times the price of admission.

A walk through Times Square will illustrate the staying power of these methods. It still works for plays on Broadway. For that matter, it works for the airlines, credit card companies, health clubs, churches, etc.

As the good Bard said, “…the more a thyng justly changeth, the more it truely stayeth the same.”