WCBN – Interactive Technology Interview – Part 2 of 2 – 2006 Dec 19
Part 2 of a 2 part interview. I talked about abundance, ways for Detroit automobile industry to deal with China’s increasing manufacturing dominance, unemployment, how to make things free, information technology, new ways of looking at the world.
http://www.markproffitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/it12262006.mp3
Make a Killing With Unprofitable Ideas.
The most valuable idea you can find might be the one that you can’t profitably market. Have I totally gone out of my mind? Has all this talk of abundance and things being free and eliminating jobs being a good thing rotted my brain? No, not in the slightest! For once I’m going to tell you a way to succeed in a scarcity environment. I’m even going to tell you how to fight dirty and DESTROY YOUR COMPETITION. No I’m not talking about some profound way of avoiding competition and embracing each other to become friends. I mean wipe out, nuke, obliterate, put out of business and just be mean nasty and underhanded.
You’ve created a fabulous product. Your marketing has connected with customers that stand in line to buy your great new product. The profits are rolling in. You make plans to expand and crank out more of your product to meet the ever-increasing demand. Life is great.
So there you are driving your new super luxury convertible when you hear on the radio that someone figured out a way to do exactly what your product does for 1/10th the price of your product with something just about everyone can get in any store. You spit your double latte half-caff espresso all over the windshield and nearly run off the road. In utter disbelief you shout, “how is that possible!?!” You can’t even buy the raw materials to make your product for that price.
When you get to your office and try to verify what you heard on the radio you get the call. Your largest distributor just canceled that multi-million dollar order. That is when it hits you; instead of spending 3 weeks on a cruise you will be begging investors and bankers for help to avoid bankruptcy.
That is why you need to discover unprofitable ideas. If you had known this was possible you never would’ve risked so much. You would have found a different product and you would’ve been prepared. When you come up with your great innovation you need to uncover all the competition. Competition might not be another business. It might be the next great idea just around the corner. Sometimes the worst competition is your own customers. If your customers suddenly don’t need your product, you’re business is dead.
Where are the High Paying Jobs?
The big complaint in all the industrialized nations is they’re losing high paying jobs. But where are those jobs going? The quick response is the high paying jobs are going overseas or foreigners are coming in and “stealing” jobs. This is an easy explanation but it’s totally false.
High paying jobs aren’t moving overseas or somehow being stolen. The high paying jobs are gone. No one is getting the old high paying jobs, those jobs don’t exist.
There is a fundamental rule of human nature. We always want More, Better, For Less, with Less Hassle. That continuous drive to get more for less has caused tremendous increases in productivity. 100 years ago it took thousands of people to do what one person does today.
As recently as 50 years ago telephone companies had operators manually connecting calls. This person’s job was to plug wires on a board of connectors to make the connection between telephones. It could take 15 minutes for a call to be connected across the country. Today a device that costs $100 can make thousands of connections a second. Only a few years ago telephone companies charged extra for long distance calls. Today almost every cellular plan offers free long distance.
The job of telephone operator wasn’t stolen, or shipped overseas. That job is gone. If someone did want to do that job today they wouldn’t get paid very much. Plugging and unplugging wires isn’t valuable. No one wants to pay for a manual telephone operator.
The creation of automated switches led to new high paying jobs managing the switches. As the switches became more reliable and easier to manage even those jobs went away. Now one person can manage thousands of switches that connect thousands of calls every second. Today one person can do the work of millions. That one person does have a high paying job. But that will go away as well. It will get easier and easier to do the job and it won’t require special training.
I don’t think anyone wants people to spend all day unplugging and plugging in wires to connect telephone calls. I don’t think anyone wants to go back to paying for long distance either.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com