Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Reflections on Ten Years of Blogging

The Internet era was born around 20 years ago, when Netscape went public in August of 1995 and caught the world by storm with its highly successful IPO.  For many people, myself included, the Netscape IPO marked the passage of the Internet from a network primarily used by universities, research labs and the technical community in general, to the universal platform for content, communications and commerce it’s since become. 

The Internet ushered the rise of a highly connected economy all around us, whose magnitude and implications were nicely captured by NY Times columnist Tom Friedman in his 2005 bestseller The World is Flat.  But it’s a measure of how fast things are changing that, as Friedman observed in a conference in 2011, the environment he described was already out of date.  In a short 6 years, we were already transitioning from the connected world of PCs, browsers and web servers he wrote about, to the hyperconnected world of smart mobile devices, cloud computing and broadband wireless networks, a transition that in 2015 is now in full swing.  

Friedman’s words came to mind as I was reflecting on the evolution of blogging since I posted my first blog in May of 2005.

According to Wikipedia, something like blogging got its start with the advent of the Internet era in the mid 1990s, although the term weblog, later abbreviated to blog, didn’t come into being until the latter part of the decade.  In its early years, blogging was mostly viewed as something geeks did, - technical knowledge was required since the tools were fairly primitive, - or as a narcissistic endeavor, - early blogs often felt like online personal diaries.

This all started to change in the early 2000s.  The advent of easy-to-use tools and platforms brought blogging to a much larger, non-technical population.  People started to blog about a wide variety of topics, from politics and journalism to business and technology.  Internal company blogs, only accessible to employees, began to appear.  By the mid 2000s, blogging was growing quite rapidly and had made its way from the fringes to the Internet mainstream.

Embracing Disruptive Change - Why Is it So Difficult?

A few weeks ago I participated in a lunch discussion in New York with a group of around 20 people from a wide range of ages and professions.  The theme of the lunch was The Future of Work, but given the eclectic nature of the group we talked about a number of subjects.  One of the topics discussed was how companies generally deal with major technology and market changes, - like those that have been taking place all around us for the past few decades.

Transformative change comes naturally to young companies, as it generally does to young people.  But, based on my personal experiences, adapting to such disruptive changes is much more difficult for successful, well established companies.  Not for nothing do we refer to the changes accompanying disruptive innovations as creative destruction, the powerful force that rejuvenates the economy in Joseph Schumpeter’s 70 year old theory.  Mature companies that once led their industries are too slow to respond to the waves of startups now attacking them with innovative products and services. 

Following the lunch, I kept thinking about the topic.  Why are so many successful, well managed companies done in by disruptive technology and market changes?  Is it that in spite of all their strategy efforts, their management is unable to anticipate the changes and is caught by surprise?  Or is it that, as if actors in a kind of Greek tragedy, they see the changes coming and understand what needs to be done, but are somehow unable to make the needed strategy and cultural transformations?  Let me share some of my thoughts on these questions.

Imagination as a Journey of Survival and Discovery

On April 18 I participated in a TEDx conference at my local community library in Westport, CT.  TEDx programs were developed to help independent organizations create their own TED-like events in the spirit of TED’s mission, - ideas worth spreading.  As is the case with TED, TEDx talks should be carefully curated, compelling and short, lasting no more than 18 minutes. 

Imagination was the overall theme of the Westport Library conference.  Five different speakers applied the theme to their various talks, ranging from Imagining Risk to Boredom - A Source of Inspiration.   Imagination as a Journey of Survival and Discovery was the title of my own talk.  I’ve given many seminars and taught semester-long courses on the subject.  But, boiling down your key message into a meaningful, 18-minutes-or-less TED talk is quite a challenge.  It forces you to think really hard about the very essence of the story you are telling, as well as why the audience should be interested in what you have to say. 

I focused my talk on the role of imagination during times of major economic and societal change.  At such times, when survival and discovery are at a premium, imagination is badly needed to help us accept the need to deal with a fast-changing present, as well as to encourage us to take the necessary actions and embark on a journey toward an uncertain, and possibly perilous future.

I followed the wise advice once given by Leo Tolstoy - Describe your village, and you will describe the world.  Part of my talk was about Westport, the village or town where I’ve lived for the past 24 years, and in particular about our community library with which I’ve been closely associated for most of those years.  But first, I talked about IBM, which while not quite a village, was for me a kind of extended family for over 40 years, from the time I joined in 1970, - right after school and shortly after my 25th birthday, - until my retirement in 2007, followed by an additional 3 years as a consultant.

Customer Service and Trust in the Internet Economy

The Internet may well be the most important technological innovation in my lifetime, the engine that’s been pulling the economy and society from the industrial age of the past 200 years to our 21st century digital age. But, it’s important to remember that in addition to their many benefits, technological revolutions are also highly disruptive.

The Internet’s transformative impact is being felt in industry after industry and company after company.   Despite high profits and stock valuations, many companies are feeling the stress of our fast changing business environment.  Advances in technology and new competitors are constantly threatening their market shares and business models.  Adapting to the ongoing digitization of the economy is the most challenging transformation every business is facing.  And arguably, no transformation has been more challenging than meeting the service expectations of digitally empowered customers. 

Digital technologies enable companies to better engage with their customers and offer them a superior experience at affordable costs.  But, providing such an experience to increasingly savvy, - and fickle, - customers, is getting harder.  New offerings are hitting the market faster than ever, brand loyalty keeps decreasing, and the increased competition is continuing to shift power from institutions to individuals.  Consumers have more choices than ever in virtually every category of products and services as well as in the channels used to acquire them.  Customers are taking advantage of all the information at their disposal to search for the best possible values.