Put aside your need for a step-by-step manual and instead realize that analogies are your best friend. By the time there is a case study in your specific industry, it’s going to be way too late for you to catch up.
(Seth Godin, in a recent blog post, Learning by analogy)
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At a conference, I recently presented the synopsis of the book Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present; Using Foresight to Provoke Strategy and Innovation by Bob Johansen (Institute for the Future). It may not have made the best-seller lists, but it is definitely worth a look. The author points us to the VUCA world we now live in, (VUCA originated at the U. S. Army War College – the graduate school for Generals-to-be):
• Volatility
• Uncertainty
• Complexity
• Ambiguity
In a future that is volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, we have to keep innovating, keep changing, and keep getting there early.
Here are a couple of key quotes from the book:
In the age of the Internet, everyone has the opportunity to know what’s new, but only the best leaders have foresight to sense what’s important, make sense out of their options, and understand how to get there ahead of the rush.
Consideration of provocative futures can lead to better decisions in the present. Foresight to insight to action really works.
For corporations, get there early means finding new markets, new customers, and new products ahead of your competitors… For non-profits, get there early means anticipating the needs of your stakeholders and sensing emerging issues before they become overwhelming or before others who don’t agree with your issues have taken a commanding position. Get there early means seeing a possible future before others see it. Get there early also means being able to act before others have figured out what to do.
I thought of this book as I read the blog post by Seth Godin quoted above. It’s the last sentence that is so gripping, so challenging, and in a real sense, so frightening. Market share, strategic advantage, can be lost in the blink of an eye these days. Facebook has eclipsed MySpace. LinkedIn has eclipsed a slew of others in the business networking arena. Twitter is… about to take over the world.
And the iPhone is now everywhere present. Last night, I saw an owner’s son of an NFL game taking a photo (or maybe video) of the game with his iPhone as the tv camera scanned his luxury box.
Every one of these success stories put previous success stories in the “whatever happened to” category. Today’s success story means that someone/something is no longer the success story that is was just a brief time ago.
And every new product, new web site, new idea, is under attack from the next new product or idea.
So, Godin is right: By the time there is a case study in your specific industry, it’s going to be way too late for you to catch up.
And it gets worse – we all have to get there early, and then get ahead of the next threat to keep ahead of the next competitor who is (always) right behind us.
First Friday Book Synopsis 