Some people embrace change. Some people just go with the flow and deal with it only when they have to. Then there are those few, die hard, stubborn, inflexible, obstinate people out there who are going to fight changing to the bitter end. In today’s accelerating pace of technological change, I am finding that if you plan on WINNING, SUCCEEDING, and STAYING ON TOP, you better pay attention to the ever-changing landscape of technology.
Blind devotion to past technologies, methodologies, systems and procedures is a success killer. The pace of change is accelerating in every industry, every market, and in every facet of our daily lives. Technology is coming at us faster than it ever has. It took over 50 years from the invention of the gasoline car before one quarter of the population in the US had one. The telephone required 35 years to hit the one quarter mark. Then things started getting even faster. The television only took 26 years, personal computers took 16 years, and the cell phone reached that population exposure in just 13 years. Since its release on June 29, 2007, Apple has sold over 243 million iPhones and will pass 500 million by the end of 2013. They sold 10 million of the iPhone 5 in the first two weeks of its release.
In his book, Critical Path, futurist R. Buckminster Fuller estimated that it we took about 1,500 years or until the sixteenth century for our amount of knowledge to double. The next doubling of knowledge took only 250 years, until about 1750. By 1900, 150 years later, knowledge had doubled again. The doubling speed of knowledge is now between one and two years. So, if it takes 4 years to get through college, everything that was known to man the day the student entered college will be quadrupled when they graduate. That is a rather daunting fact; they are behind before they ever get started.
With all of what I have just pointed out, I think it is obvious that for companies and people to succeed, they need to embrace change. We all need to stay curious, flexible, inquisitive, and never satisfied with today’s standard of excellence. What is considered excellent today may be considered average tomorrow. But, never forget the fact that technology is no replacement for staying in touch and caring about your customers and your employees. You can have the most technologically advanced company in your industry but it you lie, brake promises, make mistakes, don’t meet deadlines, are impersonal, emotionless and unwilling to make any extra effort to help customers or care about your employees … you will fail.
If you look for ways to unite technology with a human, caring touch … everyone will benefit.
