WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY? (4)

What would you have done then—when you finally found out the news months or years later—if you were a cotton farmer, ink well maker, shipbuilder, or weaving factory owner? Would you fight change with all your might? Would you dismiss the newfangled inventions as a fad? Or would you figure out where these technologies could take you and grow faster than you ever imagined? Would you have had the abilityto single out these innovations at an early stage? After all, around this same time, Ben Franklin was coming up with successful inventions such as the bifocal lens and the lightning rod.He also invented lightning bells, however, which were designed to ring whenever electricity was in the air. Unlike his more successful projects, these went over like a lead balloon.

Zoom ahead to the early years of a new century, and we find these changes equally dramatic but happening faster and faster. I’m not one of those “living on chaos” consultants who is going to tell you to continually throw everything you know out the window and reinvent yourself every week.Yes, technological changes create opportunities, and you need to be aware of them, but they are the tool, not the driver. Your sense of purpose can and should remain resolute. For example, just consider the motion picture industry. Between 1972 and 2002, this industry grew from a $1.4 billion industry to a $15 billion industry. Despite this incredible rate of growth, you would have lost your shirt had you bet on the wrong technological horse: drive-in movies, Betamax, or laser discs. Mindlessly jumping on the hottest new trend has been the downfall of countless companies. I’ve seen just as many companies fail,
however, because they are late to recognize the transformative power of a compelling innovation.

Some technologies are passing fads. When a new development is going to cause an undeniable change in the marketplace, however, you need to move on it. This is what is commonly called a disruptive technology, and it is the real deal. The steam engine, the electric light bulb, the automobile, the airplane, and plastic are examples of developments that fundamentally changed entire industries. For that matter, so did more humble objects such as the fountain pen, the twin-blade razor, and the ball bearing.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY? (3)

As difficult as it is to imagine now, many foundations of a typical office didn’t exist in the twentieth century. It wasn’t too long ago when nobody had a telephone, a typewriter, an electric light bulb, a car, or—for better or for worse—a coffee maker or vending machine. Even 20 years ago, when I began my career in advertising, the typical office operated far differently than it does today. (See the Not-So-Futuristic 1984.)

If you feel as though the current changes in technology are disruptive, consider the following list, developed over just a 20-year period, from 1780 to 1800:

• Bifocal lens
• Hot air balloon
• Power loom
• Threshing machine
• Steamboat
• Gas lighting
• Pencils
• Cotton gin
• Hydraulic press
• Lithography
• Smallpox vaccination
• Electric battery

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY? (2)

When we began to craft tools, people began to specialize. Some scholars even hypothesize that it was our early development of tools that led to a need for language. Our tool-making ability and the ability to disseminate information led to the building of civilizations. The world of industry and commerce could not have developed in the way that it has without continual innovation in our tools and our ability to communicate. In the book Guns, Germs and Steel (New York: Norton, 1999), Jared Diamond points out that the surface reason some societies took over the world while others became the conquered was mostly a matter of technology: “Technology, in the form of weapons and transport, provides the direct means by which certain peoples have expanded their realms and conquered other people.” Diamond devotes most of his book to figuring out how people got to that point, but the end result was that technology created the competitive advantages, whether it was advanced agriculture, better ships, better swords, or guns.

Consider the impact that the following now-standard items had on sociology, history, and business. Before paper, we wrote on rags or papyrus. Before the steam engine, we didn’t cross land or ocean without either the wind or animals to slowly get us there. Before the elevator, buildings could not go up more than a few stories. The Panama Canal digging failed the first time not because of engineering hurdles, but because we didn’t have good enough medicine: Too many workers kept dying from diseases.When Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865, the news had to literally cross the ocean by ship before Europe found out about it. By the time Krakatoa erupted in 1883, the incident quickly became a global news event due to the widespread use of the telegraph and undersea cables.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

Excellent Wedding Favors

When we talked about a wedding party, surely what across our mind was about the big glamorous party with everything so beautiful? We would also see so many beautiful things inside the party.
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WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY? (1)

These days, when we hear the word tech or technology, we tend to think of computers, the Internet, software, and chip-driven electronic gadgetry. That aspect, however, is a very recent development in a long line of disruptive technologies. To me, technology encompasses a much broader range, such as physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and agriculture.

According to NASA estimates, the universe is around 13.7 billion years old. Our little planet has been around only the past 4.5 billion of those years. The human race has been here in some form for a mere 2 to 2.5 million years, depending on whose estimate you like best, but Homo sapiens didn’t appear until, at most, 150,000 years ago. So, in the history of the planet we call Earth, we Homo sapiens have been here only a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the time. We didn’t invent agriculture until the end of the last Ice Age (around 13,000 years ago) but from that point on technology has been the driving force changing who we are as people.

Archeologists and anthropologists use our tools to define who we were and who we are as human beings. The StoneAge, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, and the Industrial Age all refer to our evolution as innovators of technology.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

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WE GET USED TO WHAT’S HERE NOW (2)

What are you offering right now that will go the way of the sextant, the slide rule, or the acoustic “folky” singer? It’s not too difficult to see these events coming if you keep your eyes open and recognize the signals. In 10 years, will we still seepay phones, film cameras, VCRs, or stock exchange trading floors? Will anything be made from “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil”? Many products hitting the shelf right now will be obsolete in the time it takes for one of our kids to make it through college. At the accelerated level we’re moving now, product and service cycles in some industries will be measured in months, not years.

In the first half of the twentieth century,Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the famous phrase “creative destruction” to describe the ongoing process that is capitalism. When the waves of creative destruction are heading your way, you have two choices: either drown or learn to ride the waves.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

WE GET USED TO WHAT’S HERE NOW (1)

This story about the decline of henequen may feel like something that happened a million years ago, but it wasn’t very long ago at all. My great-grandmother was alive during both the boom and the bust, and I knew her well.

The refrigerator seems like it has been around forever, but my mother still calls it an icebox. The first NASA engineers, many of them still working today, used slide rules to figure out how to put a man on the moon. There was a time, not so long ago, when I played vinyl albums on my hi-fi, played the new Pong video game for hours, and listened to progressive rock music featuring the newfangled Moog synthesizer. (My 13- year-old son still can’t understand why I call a CD an “album.”) In one defining moment in July of 1965, Bob Dylan “plugged in” at the Newport Jazz Festival and changed the sound of pop music forever. Amplified music that had heretofore been mostly the domain of teeny-boppers and blues enthusiasts suddenly became a popular creative force. By adopting technology, Dylan angered a significant portion of his “customer base,” but opened up an enormous new market of baby boomers who were gravitating toward a more electric sound being popularized by the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion.

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth

RULE 5: PUT THE POWER OF TECHNOLOGY TO WORK (5)

Wall Industries realized its business wasn’t growing plants and making rope. Its business was providing a binding solution for shipping companies and other industries. The solution didn’t change, just the materials and the means of delivery. By leveraging the latest and greatest technology,Wall not only survived but also thrived. By ignoring technological advancement, the Yucatan Peninsula became one of the poorest regions in North America (before Cancun came along).

Do you think technology can’t do this to you? It can, but the difference is that it won’t take 30 or 40 years; it might take only 3 or 4 years. For proof, you need only to look at how fast Polaroid slipped into bankruptcy or how Xerox and AT&T went from dominant giants to also-rans. Or, what about your local travel agent, music store, or TV repair shop?

Taken From:The 7 Irrefutable rules of Small Businnes Growth