Because of this!
Video: “Why Do Smart Companies Do Stupid Things?”
Daily Inspiration: “Invincibility, arrogance, hubris, complacency, denial, a belief in incumbency : these are the original sins of corporate failure!”
“Invincibility, arrogance, hubris, complacency, denial, a belief in incumbency : these are the original sins of corporate failure!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
So I figured I need to do a lot of live events in the online studio to master the skill of going live in the online studio – so I’m busy finding new sets (obviously), and on the prowl for relevant content to focus on.
Over the last few days, the response that I gave to a random tweet that crossed my feed gained significant attention, being liked and retweeted over and over again:
“I will never understand how Skype cocked up a two decade lead in video calling technology” to which I responded: “They never responded to email. They never responded to Tweets with potential upgrade questions. They never listened to their customers. They always presumed supremacy. Arrogance, complacency, hubris, first-mover ego – they are the Research in Motion/Blackberry of the Zoom age.”
Think about it – who thinks about Skype these days? It’s all about Zoom – Skype and others have blown the opportunity!
And yet, we’ve been here before. I sent a followup tweet noting a post in which I commented on an experience I had in leading a futures-oriented session with the senior global leadership team of Motorola. Hey, remember them? They were once a top technology company. So was Nokia, Research in Motion, and so many others. And then, poof!
I referenced my post: “#Motofail: Why Do Smart Companies Do Really Stupid Things.” Give it a read – it’s the source of the quote above.
And with that in mind, I put in a new stage set and filmed a clip that told the story. You can give it a watch – and ask yourself if your organization is guilty of these original sins.
Far too many organizations fail to the original sins of corporate failure, and we see it happen over and over and over again.
Daily Inspiration: “Face facts: your business model is faced with a surge of inevitability. Innovate & adapt – don’t give up & surrender!”
“Face facts: your business model is faced with a surge of inevitability. Innovate & adapt – don’t give up & surrender!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
So yesterday morning I had a bit of a rant in this post, stating my belief that the global meetings, event and convention industry is pretty delusional – we won’t be going back to live, in-person meetings any time soon. Given that, we should be doing better at virtual events since what a lot of organizations and people are doing right now is of marginal quality, dubious value and shoddy delivery.
That ruffled some people. Then, just a few hours after my rant, it was announced that the massive CES show in Las Vegas, which draws tens of thousands to the city in early January, was going virtual.
Point made.
So later in the day, I went down into my broadcast studio, fired up a new stage set I had been playing around with, and filmed my viewpoint from that blog post. The only way I can get really good at virtual is to do a lot of virtual. So, why not film my blog post!
Rant on! Face facts. Reinvent. The future is virtual.
I like the “breaking news” metaphor. Part of my art of reinvention for this virtual space is to translate my 25 year track record at providing deep strategic insight to a real time world that is fast. I think I’m off to something here – opportunities to interpret significant, disruptive breaking news in a way that will help people interpret it.
The CES story is typical of what is unfolding in virtually every other industry out there. With the massive changes imposed by Covid-19 and the pandemic, existing business models have been shattered. Supply chains are broken, consumer behaviour is skewed, day to day activities are altered, new product ideas are coming to market. You either see the opportunities unfolding in all of these disruptive trends and become a part of it – or you don’t.
In my industry, I see countless people sitting back, just saying over and over, ‘we’ll wait for a vaccine.’ That will not be a magic solution, a panacea, a magical formula that will suddenly lead us to a world in which thousands of people get into small, closely defined spaces in meeting and conference facilities. The process of making a site ‘safe’ is going to be deeply complex – and then, interrupted by those who view any attempt to guarantee the safety and life of their fellow human as an affront to their constitutional freedom.
So with everything that is going on, I know one simple fact – my future is found in my basement!
Watch for another new studio set later today!
CES Goes Virtual. What’s It Mean for the Global Meetings, Conference and Events Industry?
Face facts. Reinvent. Or die.
That’s what CES is telling you. In person events are gone for a long, long time. I wrote that this morning in my Daily Inspiration even before the CES news.
Face facts. Reinvent. The future is virtual.
Video: You Can Fail and Win – Or You Can Fail to Win! 10 Things You Should Do to Move Fast!
I noticed yesterday’s morning that a lot of people were looking at – and sharing -a post I wrote back in May: “You Can Fail and Win – Or You Can Fail to Win! 10 Things I’ve Learned in 2 Months of Moving FAST!”
It’s a great post, full of concise guidance on what you can and should learn from accelerating your reinvention in this new global pandemic economy.
Inspired by the interest, I decided to go down to my basement virtual broadcast studio and film a clip that spoke directly to the points in the post. I also implemented a new stage set in doing so. I hope you like it!
Want to get right to the point? Here’s a short version of the key points.
Daily Inspiration: “Right now, your speed matters more than your plan. Think fast. Move faster!”
“Right now, your speed matters more than your plan. Think fast. Move faster!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Here’s some facts to ponder:
- you won’t be going to a conference, event, or corporate off-site for a long, long time
- even so, you don’t like the virtual events you’ve been to so far – they’re pretty bad, too long, are boring and often devoid of content
- and yet, organizations and associations have a crushing, relentless need to bring their people, teams and members together in the relentless pursuit of new knowledge and new connections
Going forward, these 3 points need to be reconciled. It’s not going well so far. In fact, it’s been really bad, leading to this fact:
Most people think virtual events are shitty because all they are doing is going to shitty virtual events!
Case in point. Yesterday, a speakers bureau that has occasionally booked me into an event or two put out a tweet with a link to a playlist of various ‘virtual speaker highlight reels.’ These are the short video productions that folks like me often put out to let you get a quick preview of what we can do, how we handle ourselves on ‘stage,’ and the topics we cover.
I had a look. It was, to be blunt, pretty appalling. A number of speakers looking into a camera like they were in a hostage situation, stuck in their office, looking to escape. Backdrops that consisted of an office wall or a bookshelf, or worse. An ugly Powerpoint somehow squeezed onto the screen that just made the whole production look awful.
This is how they’re going to sell a product?
The thing is, the event and leadership industry needs to reinvent itself for the reality of this new world – and is doing a pretty bad job doing this so far. We’re going to be in this virtual space for quite some time, and need to do better. I’m working hard to do that. I don’t think that if we are reinventing ourselves, we should do so by putting out a crappy product.
Otherwise, we quickly become irrelevant. So here’s an example of what I’ve got.
I was so inspired by seeing the shitty product that so many of my competitors are putting out there that I felt inspired to run down to the studio, pull together a new ‘stage set’, and fire up some insight.
Virtual, done right.
I’m reinventing myself at a blinding speed. You need to do this as well, regardless of your industry. Nothing is the same, we aren’t going back to where we were, and in ten years, we will look back and go ‘whoah.’
And we’re either a part of this great big change, learning fast, or we’re not.
Rant over.
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