I read Chris Anderson’s book last year, it got buried among the other books I read, I dug it out recently just to remind myself of the sub-title:
‘Why selling less of more is the future of business’
Now how many people are cognizant of that idea of ‘niche’ mass markets ? Let me be optimistic and say the vast majority of people with Broadband access and a brain, most of us understand that social media, web 2.0 and baseline technology innovations have enabled the creation of a proliferating Internet that caters for all tastes, the web now brings geographically diverse interest groups together, with the consequent impact on customer creation – Chris Anderson might not have another quality idea in his lifetime, he might have several, even thousands ! And that’s the real nature of the future – unpredictability. Or is it ?
Some subtle common sense indicators of the future exist, a sky that crams with clouds may suggest to even the most meteorologically myopic that there is some potential for rainfall. A chill wind might suggest the prudence of having a jacket to hand. Such delicate indicators were present in the Irish Economy in the last five years and few warm and dry greed merchants took notice, propelled as they were with their own important opinions and an exponential appetitive for their own self improvement – sadly seeking it only in the material sphere.
BIFFO (above), our then arrogant minster for finance, was down and dirty with the engine of our economy: the builders, the developers, the finance industry, while FAS ran amuck training people how to use hods and spinning jennies, enterprise Ireland did what they always do: Sweet FA and generally after the fact, The uni’s got pumped with money, so that the Dean’s could adopt a more CEO like posture, God forbid if they had to actually teach someone something, researching some research while primary education was given mere lip service, the politician’s even tried to give themselves a pay rise, Meanwhile BIFFO just fired our money at things for political expediency, but it’s the National Development Plan clevercelt, it’s the spatial strategy dipso, again it’s the economy stupid, infrastructural deficits, building with the builders for the future, reduction of national debt, you small folks just don’t get the bigger picture.
And he’s probably correct, I don’t get his bigger picture, as painted in their monochrome ideas, the colour in my life comes from all sorts of sources and primary (sic) among them, are my three sons. I tried to protect/insulate my kids and prevent them from getting dragged into the material whirlwind and greed storm that was Irish society over the last couple of years. I listened to them, because they are part of the one predictable thing about my future. That for me has been the biggest flaw in our national government over the last number of years, utterly incapable of engaging with and understanding the next generation. Trying to do so now, just smacks of patronisation.
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