I’ve been talking about how much the world is changing, like I’m the last one to notice, but my point is that there are fundamental parts of our world that are going away quickly. Forget how many trees have to die to deliver this pile of advertising to your door step, there is no better example of how much the world is changing than the Yellow Pages.
You used to get one phone book for every phone in your home, back in the days when the phone company was a monopoly and charged you for “extensions”. The phone book was our Google, it was the source of all knowledge that we couldn’t get from the encyclopedia our parents bought (one book a week) at the grocery store, we depended on it.
One day, about 15 years ago, I heard this query, from a man who probably wasn’t “quite right” in a gas station, “There used to be a lumber yard across the street from here, does anybody know where they went? I don’t read, so I don’t know how to look them up in the phone book. Do you think if we called the operator she’d know where they moved to?” It was sad, one of those “there but for the grace of God go I” moments that has stuck with me for a long time.
It illustrates how the telephone company and the phone book were such an integral part of our world that we considered them essential to everyday life. No merchant would even consider opening a business if he couldn’t get in the new issue of the phone book. So, where am I going with this?
The Affluent Artist is about money and creativity and whether you are a creative trying to sell your work or an investor trying to find investment opportunity, you need to look past the traditional, look beyond what used to work. It’s more than technology and the speed of information delivery, it’s about revolution. The recent events in the stock market have shown that being a part of something that used to work is no guarantee that you will be a part of something that will work in the future. There are more ways than ever to get your work out there, more efficient and better companies to invest in, but it’s going to require, a little homework and a lot of creativity to find them. I think you are just the person for the job!
