“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Yogi Berra
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Here’s one of those predictions that missed it a bit…
BLOOMBERG: The iPhone’s impact will be minimal. It will only appeal to “a few gadget freaks.” Nokia and Motorola haven’t a care in the world.
In an opinion piece in Bloomberg, Matthew Lynn predicted that the iPhone’s impact on the wireless industry would be minimal, arguing that the smartphone would really only appeal to “a few gadget freaks.”
You know, for most of human history, you did not have to worry about whether or not your job was going to disappear. And people “relaxed” because once they learned a job, they could perform that job for a very long time. In many instances, generation to generation. If you dad was a farmer, and your grandfather was a farmer, then you were a farmer, and your son would be a farmer. Sure, other stuff mattered – work ethic especially. And the elements could wipe out the family farm, or war could disrupt everything. But your job – your product, your service – well it would be ok. Even for most of the last century, there was stability. If you knew how to work on your spot on the assembly line, you were pretty much set for life.
Not anymore.
Back to these predictions. How about this one, from Business Week (from the same Business Insider article)?:
BUSINESSWEEK: The iPhone will never be a threat to the BlackBerry.
Stephen Wildstrom argued in BusinessWeek that the iPhone would not be a BlackBerry killer as some had predicted because the two devices were intended for two different markets.
“People get BlackBerrys to get mail, specifically corporate e-mail,” he wrote “People are going to buy iPhones to get entertainment, with mail as a bonus. The products live in almost totally disjoint worlds.”
The iPhone vs. the Blackberry: It seemed like such a slam dunk win for BlackBerry when the iPhone first came out. But, as we all know now, that “seemed like a slam dunk” missed the mark pretty dramatically.
So, here is the threat we all face today. Is our product or service one that can last for while? And, whatever we do, let’s not get cocky, complacent… We’ve got to become world-class observers, constantly scouting out the possible competition. Something is coming around the corner, and we’d best be ahead of that new threat, and then the next, and the one after that…
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