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The sky is falling! The sky is falling! So proclaimed uneducated Chicken Little after having an acorn fall on his head.
His cry, an exaggeration of the actual situation, shows us how some react to the unknown. How they react to change.
Change: the passing of one form, phase, place or state, to another.
Many of us complain about all the changes taking place in our industry or in the world. For instance, we just become accustomed to and confident about using the new Point of Sale system installed in our store when we read that the year 2000 will cause havoc with our system and we may have to CHANGE it.
Change is a fact of life. Change is affecting our business systems, processes and our customers more than we can even imagine. Sometimes those changes occur so fast or are so fleeting that we don't even have a chance to see how they will impact on our business before they become obsolete. (anyone have need of a black and white scanner?) We're so busy running to catch up that we don't see the next form of transportation flying by us.
Change is creating the new economy and transforming the new economy every day. What is this new economy? How will it impact on business owners and managers in the Kootenays?
The new economy is a digital economy. That is, information in all its forms is reduced to bits stored in computers and racing at the speed of light across networks.
The new economy is also a knowledge economy. It's based on the know-how of everything we produce and how we produce it. We add value by using our brains, not our brawn.
The new economy is also about adding ideas to products and turning those new ideas into new products. A customization of sorts.
In the book, Digital Economy the author, Don Tapscott states, "Today we are witnessing the early, turbulent days of a revolution as significant as any other in human history. A new medium of human communication is emerging, one that may prove to surpass all the previous revolutions - the printing press, the telephone, the television - in its impact on our economic and social life."
This column will discuss the new economy as it applies to the Kootenays. Improving processes, managing information, networking, creating new businesses by adding ideas to products and creating a new product, focusing on adding value, creating wealth, strengthening our supplier economy. Which Kootenay businesses are part of the new economy? Why? What are their successes? How did they learn their techniques? What local resources are available to help the rest of us?
The new economy. Rather than running around spreading false information, it's about Chicken Little gathering and storing all possible information on oak trees. It's about making that information accessible to others. It's about studying the oak tree and the acorn to see if a new product can be created. One which would add value to the oak tree and Chicken Little.
The new economy. Coming to a region near you.
Other articles in the "New Economy" series by Marilyn Strong:
Marilyn has spent most of her life marketing products and services for herself and others. Today she writes about the new economy as it is unfolding in the Kootenay region of BC, she earns her living by coaching and training entrepreneurs both in the Kootenays and around the world to understand how a digital economy will change the market of every product and service available. Click here to learn more about Marilyn Strong.
copyright (c) Marilyn Strong 1997, 1998.
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