 To the best of our knowledge, DVDs and books are still the predominant way training and development tools and products get distributed to companies. This has the advantage of providing trainers and consultants with in-hand products they can build courses and development programs around. But does that old system still meet the need of organizations with dispersed workforces in a global 24/7 business environment? Why shouldn’t you be able to continue your learning via BlackBerry at the airport terminal when your flight is delayed? Why can’t you twitter your team with a sales tip and video from a great coach or motivator as soon as the idea hits you? Why don’t more organizations use Facebook-style interfaces for project management? The instant updates and the ability to friend other people in the organization for help and direction seems invaluable.
This article on Slate.com describes the frustrating lag between technology and service in the home video market. As Manjoo says, “charge me a monthly fee and let me watch whatever I want, whenever I want, as often as I want.”
The parallels are striking.
Apple is about to sell its one billionth “app“, an amazing pace of development for a marketplace that just got established 8 or 9 months ago. In contrast, it took a couple years to sell a million songs on iTunes. A lot of entrepreneurs are toiling in basements and coffee shops to make those kinds of numbers happen.
Ning has now generated 1 million social networking sites, evidence that virtual  networking is becoming a way-of-life. When social networking becomes a way-of-work we’ll see projects, teams, and organizations run differently.
Now expert advice service is becoming increasingly virtual, too. The question will become – how do you determine quality and how will those services be delivered in ways that solve our work and life frustrations?
You can read a great review in the Wall Street Journal of the book, The Industrial Revolutionaries by Gavin Weightman. The author makes the case that the practical applications of innovations – and the systems that underly their successful deployment – are what really changes our lives, not the innovations themselves. For example, telegraph lines existed before Samuel Morse, but it was Morse’s telegraph system and his famous code that made long-distance communication indispensable for businesses. Similarly, it was Trevithwick’s steam locomotive that enabled steam power to change economics and society.
Peter Drucker made similar points about the Internet. The internet, he wrote, is our steam engine. But internet commerce, or the “buy-button” as Lou Gerstner once put it, is our steam locomotive. Think of how our buying and business habits have changed with the widespread emergence of digital commerce.
Al Vicere, our June presenter, has a similar view of the economic shifts we’re experiencing now. According to Dr. Vicere, the information age is finally upon us. The economic crisis of 2008-2009 is hastening the demise of many traditional economic institutions and organizations, and what emerges on the other side will feel a lot more like the promises we’ve been led to expect for some time now.
Jay Light, the dean of Harvard Business School, is calling for business school education to swing back toward the center: “We lived through an enormous extended period of financial good times, and people became less focused on risks and risk management and more focused on making money.”
 Christoph Bangert for The New York Times We needed better risk management over the last 5 years, but now that we’re on the downside of the cycle the need for innovation and risk-taking is at a premium. It’s time to grow new businesses and new products not preserve a diluted balance sheet.
Daniel Gross noted today in Slate.com that the “zeitgeist has spun 180 degrees” and adds: “For the economy to recover and thrive… business must once again be willing to roll the dice.”
Some of the greatest entrepreneurial ventures have been founded in recessionary economies. As Wired Magazine put it in December 2008, “When the economy is in turmoil, the time is ripe for ambitious innovation.”
FG Ghadar and Al Vicere will have much to say on these topics in the next few months.
The economy dominates everything right now – business planning, personal planning, hopes and fears for the future. We’re eyewitnesses to one of the greatest periods of creative destruction seen in our lifetimes. This article in the NYT captures the scale: “Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy.”
Our authors are as focused on this churn as you are. Marshall Goldsmith in his webinar on Succession and Career Planning advised everyone to hang onto what’s working, even if it’s not completely satisfying, and think about what’s important at least as much as you think about what’s urgent. Jim Kouzes certainly echoes that perspective in his understanding of the journey of leadership.
Several of our upcoming webinars, including Lisa Orrell and Cindy Ventrice, are about generational issues in the workplace. While some people might think it’s a time for workers to pipe down about their concerns, in truth, those issues don’t just go away because of external circumstances, and organizations need to be as productive as possible right now. Bev Kaye tackles this issue head-on in her webinar on Engaging the Kept-On Workforce. Those who remain behind at a corporation that’s been shaken up can be traumatized and unproductive, unless they’re skillfully brought through the crisis. Rayona Sharpnack talks about the reality that women leaders are facing, with the double crisis of work and home.
On the big scale, FG Ghadar is going to be talking about tectonic shifts and how those impact an organization’s long-term business and people planning. And Al Vicere’s webinar is about the gap between planning, rhetoric and culture. As the New York Times’ article noted: “This rapid deterioration has prompted talk that some industries are being partly dismantled.” This holds to Dr. Vicere’s view that what we’re experiencing now is transformational change of whole industries and organizations, but when the rubble has settled, we’ll see the long-awaited rise of the true information-age economy.
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