Don’t Lose Focus
Last week, after another slight free for all in the stock market, it felt like perhaps we might have hit if not the bottom at least closer to the bottom. Looking again at the stock markets over the past week, that doesn’t seem to be the case. If you haven’t been following, keep it that way, and make sure not to check out your 401k. Despite the lack of good news – Be it rising oil prices, falling home prices, rising food prices, and/or rising default rates, those of us in the online advertising industry still work in a growth industry. Hiring may not occur as fast as it once did, but unlike the recent past, we probably won’t see the mass layoffs. In fact the tech sector, much like Internet advertising as a whole, still seems more positive than negative. That doesn’t spare any of us from reading about others going through this, especially other companies that we interact with in our daily lives. Starbucks is a perfect example. Those with a coffee fetish may now have to commute a little farther than before to get their caffeine fix. News came out two days ago of a sweeping overhaul that will see 600 locations shuttered and impact approximately 12,000 people. It’s a sign of their aggressive growth, though, that six hundred stores accounts for not even ten-percent of their total number of stores.
Even if your particular store doesn’t close, and even if you don’t drink coffee, it’s hard to ignore news of a stalwart to the US economy and, for better or worse, modern culture cutting aggressively. We might work in our own little island of an industry, but we’re still human, and enough bad news will, at one end test one’s moral and the other make us think twice about our own careers. That was somewhat the case when reading an interest post by one of the best known tech bloggers, venture capitalist, Fred Wilson. He’s a prolific writer and doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of someone with his level of interest and knowledge on everything from the latest physical widgets to the latest web ones. It was all that much more interesting to come across a posting of his titled, "Am I Bored With ‘Web 2.0?’" With the almost overkill of companies, and two-plus years of not being able to avoid coming across a mention of companies in that arena, many have probably become bored with Web 2.0 themselves. Fred’s posting doesn’t have to do with saturation, though. What he says has more to do with a world view than anything necessarily specific to Web 2.0, e.g. when he states, "At times it seems that helping the web become more social, intelligent, mobile, and playful is not as impactful."
We’ve reached that point, where the enormity of the broader economic challenges existing currently and in the foreseeable future, makes news about large valuations for social media companies less newsworthy. Perhaps it is better said that when we read that LinkedIn raised money at a billion dollar valuation, it will always make news. Unlike two years ago or even a year ago, and to borrow from the above, it’s just not as impactful. Having reached a point where we must start to second guess purchases we could once take for granted, i.e., when the term "daily grind" takes on a whole new meaning, it becomes harder to become excited about such things as "Modeling the Real Value of Social Networks". Part of the problem is an increasingly more connected world, where we have less and less choice of living in a vacuum and trying to ascribe answers to life’s fluctuations. As we’ve all seen, our ability to tune out information has become only more difficult. The abundance of information isn’t a bad thing, though. It means that we have a greater likelihood of creating a more complete picture of the world around us. We might deal with a greater signal to noise ratio, but we can make up for it with an enhanced perspective and ultimately using our time better.
As Fred wrote, it isn’t that social media has no value; it is more that it has so much potential and should aspire to more, much more, especially given the current world needs. Each generation has its milestones, has those times where the world’s needs eclipse those of the individual. That our generation has reached this point is only a matter of time. We might not have predicted what the issue or combination of issues would be, only that we would face something bigger than ourselves. We are lucky that the tools to potentially solve those problems rest not in force but in the extended collaborative and connected world. Direct marketers as doers of change and not just the type that goes in the pocket? It will happen. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I doubt many would have thought peer to peer lending site Prosper.com possible. While more the exception than the norm, it shows efficiency does not have to come without sacrificing healthy returns. Perhaps more importantly, it also creates a business needed as much, if not more, in times of overall economic duress. The challenge for those used to picking the low-hanging fruit is; can they can also focus on something that solves a problem? Do that and you have the strength to whether just about anything and come out stronger in the end.
