There’s a cultural shift underway, and this “Great Disruption” is acting as a catalyst to speed the change.

We work hard, we work long hours, and we earn ridiculous amounts of money. “We have generally taken the proceeds of our productivity in–you guessed it–increased consumption.” Big house. Big car. Big TV. But as our nest eggs get scrambled, we’re realizing that Stuff doesn’t matter as much as we thought it did. It’s people (and experiences) that matter: our friends and family that fill our big empty houses. But why? Why are we collectively realizing that now?

What if we’ve gotten so fast, so connected, so frenetic, that we’re burning out? We’ve been on a crusade to cram more and more activities into a finite amount of time. And in the tug-o-war between us and time, we lose. Unless someone does for time what the Manhattan project did for e=MC2. Anyway, we’re always out of time. Never enough.

So what effect does a perpetual time famine have on a society, and what does that mean for business? (Warning, this is about to get thick & crunchy) According to this study, we either view our time as limited or expansive. If we perceive time as limited, we tend to focus on the present– more specifically, we tend to avoid negative emotional experiences and use more schema-based decision making. Combine the present-focus with the natural tendency to protect (and desire to be protected during a crisis), and bibbidy-bobbidy-boo, we move away from “bettering” ourselves and collecting things.

We start to “simplify.” We start to focus on positive emotional experiences. We start to ask for quality over quantity. Great example in advertising: this VISA commercial asks the question “when was the last time you went to the aquarium with your daughter… on a Tuesday?”

If this is happening, it’s not enough to make the coolest gadget, or the nicest house, or the invisible hover car that grooms your dog while you eat pizza… although that last one would make for an interesting experience.

What do you think? Anyone have examples and/or counter-examples?

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Posted by Seth on July 8th, 2009 :: Filed under amature anthropology, business, strategy
Tags :: Great Disruption, marketing, not-so-big-house, predictions, small, strategy, VISA

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I work for a big corporation. As with most big companies, the corporate hierachy is pretty tall. That makes it a bit tough to create and/or maintain a culture of innovation: politics and title are usually more influential than a good idea. But blaming management for not accepting your brilliant idea is a cop-out. What if Al Gore gave up on inventing the Internet “because his boss said no?” You don’t want to be a cop-out, so you work the system to make friends, and influence people. But that’s a little like pushing spaghetti uphill. Instead, you could sidestep that whole mess and at least get a running start.

This is where social networking can be more than just an interesting sideshow. There’s a great tool called Yammer. It’s like Twitter for private networks. Maybe I’m slow on the uptake, or maybe I just have a profound grasp of the obvious… but one thing I’ve noticed is that Yammer is (relatively) flat– it completely sidesteps all the day-to-day corporate hierarchies. The CEO and I are somewhere around 6,269 levels removed in the official corporate structure (not to mention half the land mass of the US and then the Atlantic ocean). But on Yammer, we have the opportunity to interact as equals. Most innovation articles I’ve read suggest that flat is good. Flat means that the best ideas– not politics or title– attract the best people. What company wouldn’t want the best people working on the best ideas?

Now, moving the ideas from this ephemeral channel into the real world? That’s another story. But don’t be a phony! Learn some sweet moves and go get something done.

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Posted by Seth on July 7th, 2009 :: Filed under business, innovation
Tags :: Al Gore invented the Internet, business, innovation, organizational structure, social networking, twitter, yammer

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