What business are you in ? Seriously, this is not a trick question. If you answered TV, Radio or Newspaper, you could be in for a rude awakening. For example: for readers of this blog that are in the “Newspaper” business, you may be surprised to learn that you are now in the NEWS business, not the NEWSPAPER business. Some of that job relates to the printed paper. Other parts of your job description are increasingly focused on the web.
Need some tough love about what business you are really in ?
Kodak thought they were in the film business. In reality, they were in the business of capturing images. Railroads thought they were in the railroad business. It didn’t occur to them that they were actually in the transportation business.
Even great, powerful businesses (like film, Railroads, Broadcasters and Newspapers, etc.) can be up-ended or marginalized by new technology. Often, it is very difficult to see the disruption coming, because most successful operations are still making big bucks with their current revenue/business models.
Awesome wake up call for Information Architecture Executives ! On this track of thought I’d like to turn everyone onto USAToday and how they have been struggling to evolve thier website in the past year trying to capitolize on other sites successes of User Generated Content (UGC) – but it seems not quite there either, its only a component.