Here’s a book that will rock your world. Topical, heady, informed, courageous, remarkably terse, and scary as all get-out. The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo is a non-fiction mystery you won’t be able to put down.
When you get done with it, you’ll just want to start over again – to catch up on the 90% that escaped you on the first read.
I’m not going to summarize it or write much about it, because Joshua Cooper Ramo does it better:
This book is the story of a new way of thinking. It is one that takes complexity and unpredictability as its first consideration and produces, as a result, a different and useful way of seeing our world. It explains why unthinkable disasters are blossoming all around us and — as important — what we can do about them. The main argument of the book is not particularly complicated: it is that in a revolutionary era of surprise and innovation, you need to learn to think and act like a revolutionary.
Reading this book will not only make you tremble, it will also make you think more deeply about the forces at work in your own world. What “unthinkable” events might you be heading toward in the next few years?
Out on a Limb
Of course, that got us thinking. From the viewpoint of our speaking and training world, here are four concrete, “unspeakable” predictions about how that world will change.
As you read our predictions, you may think, “I get your point, but it won’t happen that fast.” Think again, along with Mr. Cooper Ramo:
All of these trends follow what Internet watchers like to call a “hockey stick” curve: they start slowly and then rapidly accelerate.
So here are four capsule summaries – with links to other resources and some of our longer articles on each topic:
Bye-Bye Email
We subscribe to lots of email newsletters. We’ve given out our email address trusting it will be used appropriately. However, here’s the kind of thing that’s been happening lately:
*One sender decided we’d like his newsletter every single day of the week.
*One pleaded that we vote for her social web page contest.
*One asked us to join his Mafia Wars cabal.
None of them asked our permission for these changes. They figured we’d be tickled pink. We weren’t. And, those are just a few of the email infractions that are family friendly enough for us to write about.
When email spam now constitutes 94% of your inbox – and the other 6% of senders are making decisions like those mentioned above – email itself will surely “hockey stick” its way to its final coffin by the year 2012.
So Long, Frank Lloyd Long-Page
We’ve called him “Long Page Larry” in a recent blog post and renamed him here to “Frank Lloyd Long-Page.” He’s the man with the “Squeeze Page” (which are Internet come-on pages designed to gather email addresses), and he’s heading into oblivion.
With so much free information available on the Internet, your customers will quickly learn to insist on good free content that proves your expertise before they will ever plunk down their precious email address, or open up their wallet.
In fact, the message above will soon have to change to:
“If you’re not providing your customers with inventive, valuable and free content on your web site… Then there’s no doubt you’ll be watching your customers leave your egregious little
come-on’s with a quick, resounding click.”
The squeeze page mavens and super-slick online sales types say, “Trust Me,” or “Buy My System.” Within the next couple of years, we’ll all stop donating our email addresses, and we’ll all stop buying their bunk.
What a Pain You Are, Mr. Salesman
One of the bedrock approaches of the sales world is that you get further by making your customer feel pain, than you do by helping them understand their gain.
In other words, they know you buy things because you feel inadequate. When it comes to technology they’re masters at exploiting your insecurity about things like “Can I really become #1 on Google?”
As Carolyn Myss has said, “Americans have managed to make lack of self-esteem a national malady.” But, better access to information will help all of us build our confidence. And more confidence will keep us from succumbing to the pain messages those salesmen are pitching.
Some companies, like Dove soap, are already catching on. We wrote about their Campaign for Real Beauty in “It’s Time to Build the Customer’s Self-Esteem.”
Your New Best Friend – The Competition
Here’s what’s about to happen. Your increasing access to information (and your customer’s access to that same information) will revolutionize your relationships with your competitors. We’ve written more about this in “You Can Kiss Your Competitors Goodbye,”
If you’ve seen the television ads for “Injury Lawyers who Ride” you’ve already gotten a taste for how business competition is changing. Instead of competing with each other, “Donor-cycle” lawyers across the country have banded together to create this national network.
Take a good look at your competitors and ask them over for a cup of coffee, because “somethin’s happenin’ here” – and what it is will become very clear in just a few short years.
Your Own Predictions?
Agree, disagree, ticked off, beguiled? Don’t just sit there. Tell us what you think. And, send us links to the unthinkable, unspeakable predictions you’re making for your own industry or market niche.
We think that many current ideas and solutions (no matter what the discipline, market niche or public forum) are like those described in The Age of the Unthinkable:
“These ideas fail both tests of good science: they neither predict nor explain our world. But too many of our leaders are incapable of confronting this disconnect. They lack the language, creativity, and revolutionary spirit our moment demands. In many cases, they have been badly corrupted by power, position, and prestige. We’ve left our future, in other words, largely in the hands of people whose single greatest characteristic is that they are bewildered by the present.”
What do you think?
9 comments ↓
Loved what you two have to say! Really good points. Here is my comment as a video on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcYKesTG1sw
Enjoy!
Terry
http://www.TerryBrock
Oh my, Terry,
You have taken commenting on web sites to a completely new level. Thanks so much for the encouraging words and for the innovative way you have given us probably the best comment ever on our blog. Thanks!
For those readers of this blog who don’t know Terry Brock – you’re best introduction is his YouTube page – http://www.youtube.com/terrylbrock
nice post. I agree with some, we are in revolutionary type times, however, corporate America is still dragging it’s feet. Sure they want to play in the social sandbox, reap the efficiencies of technology, tap their customers to be low cost/no cost marketers, hey perhaps they even reduced headcount because of mommy bloggers. There is a big difference between playing in social media and being social.
Terry nice comments and use of YouTube. You Mac guys love to show off your toys :>) that was meant to me funny, you are smiling aren’t you. OK see I have a face for radio which is why I posted these audio comments. http://bit.ly/2KFVKc
I want to have a world where I can have coffee with people like Albert and Terry and Sheryl and Michael …having great thoughtful discussions being miles and miles apart. Of course…I don’t know when I would get anything done, but I love the technology that enables us to interact ike this.
Thanks Albert, for contributing your “smiling face” to our blog. We knew once we saw Terry’s video comment that we had to see what you might say about it.
I’ll talk to Terry, but we’d love to join you on http://www.socialmediathrowdown.com – and I’d also suggest we include the “Lovable Luddite.” – We keep trying to get her to blog, create YouTube’s or record audio podcasts, because she has a ton of good ideas and she’s almost as much of a curmudgeon as Michael!
Thanx for the comments, Albert! First, I have followed your work from a distance now for a while and LOVE what you’re doing!! WOW! You’re amazing! Second, thanx for your comments on your audio (everyone else, be sure and listen — Albert is known for having great content delivered succinctly. Very good material for the time-pressed person today!). I agree with you about email. I get that as the main source of info. I’m seeing a shift now towards more social media.
I think we’ll always have email but for quick replies, it is being replaced by a Tweet, a text message (please, not while driving!!) or other quick communication. I think we’ll see email morph into more detailed messaging coupled with rich media like audio and video on portable devices (think iPhone, Blackberry, Apple Tablet, etc.).
Great comments, Albert. You da man! Keep up the good work!
Terry
Fantastic post. I have been pondering aloud with collegues what we’ll have after email as the volume of email we’re all receiving is on an unmanageable, unsustainable trend. I am very happy to hear others are envisioning the same twilight for email. For it’s faults, I’m finding I like Twitter’s succinct mandate of messaging.
So what’s working? For me I’m finding intentional networking and back to good ol’ phone calls for 15 minutes as a follow-up to determine value of contacts. And using face-to-face, peer-to-peer references. Building a network and influence like our parents.
Re: prediction #4, in the clean technology realm, a concept that ties the efforts of researchers, entrepreneurs and other players is the notion of “collaborative advantage”, not necessarily the old school srtiving for competitive advantage. It comes from a deeper motivation for being in business than just to make $$$ – in my experience the clean tech guys (maybe not the VCs but the actual innovators) are researching solutions to global, societal ills as they perceive them. Hence their interest in seeing what’s working for others and collaborating around resources and more recently, govt. financing, leads to a sharing of efforts and ideas unlike the conventional corporate Darwinism.
Thanks, Terry, for continuing the discussion.
I’d give three examples of why email will be history in just a couple short years. First, the Mayans predicted the death of email on December 21, 2012. I’m with them.
Second, and more important, I used to connect with my most important people (family members like kids, brothers and cousins) via email. Now, overwhelmingly we text message on our phones (not while driving, Terry). You may be experiencing the same change.
Third, and we love experiments you can duplicate at home. Try simultaneous emails to three or four people you know – and then pick there most likely social media hangout and ping them there. We regularly get people faster on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, than we do on email.
The point, really, is not that we don’t use email now – it’s that the forces of change are at work at lightning speed and it’s going away. Just like the Mayans predicted.
Thanks to Dan,
We’ve written about Dan Powers several times on this blog – most recently in “Just the Guy we Need for Government 2.0″ – http://goldencompass.com/blog/just-the-guy-we-need-for-government-20/
Dan’s put his finger on another unthinkable trend – networking like your parents used to. Social media has become perhaps one of the most anti-social networking environments in history. Much of our writing and workshops are devoted to identifying the destructive forces at work in the social networking neighborhood and the social media square.
Dan, awesome, gutsy, forward-thinking predictions. Thanks for joining in.
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