Do you remember a time when you didn’t buy plane tickets without a Travel Agent, you couldn’t buy stock without a Stockbroker and the big three television networks had a monopoly on television programming? I’ll tell you what, that day wasn’t that long ago!
Sure there are still travel agents, stockbrokers and television networks, only their jobs have gotten a whole lot harder. Being the only one that has certain information is a very valuable business asset, trying to play that role in the Web 2.0 age is pretty stupid. Knowing a little about the way business is changing is crucial to your survival as a creative in 2009, as I’ve been saying, if your job can be sent to India or done by a computer, you are toast.
When I was a rookie stockbroker in the eighties, all I had to do was get a prospective client into my office and show them my ADP terminal. It was a black and white screen that quoted stock prices in real time and scrolled the Dow Jones News Wire. Once I proved I had access to information they couldn’t get at home, these people couldn’t wait to become new clients. They left stock buying to their stock broker.
If I wanted to go to Vail to ski, I called a travel agent who found everything from a car to a flight to a ski resort, not to mention ski rentals and restaurants. She had a computer terminal with connections and a telephone, you left travel up to your travel agent.
There were only three television channels and they each hired very serious people to tell us what was going on in the world, they controlled the information America got and Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley told us what to worry about and who was famous. They did it at 6:30 every evening, you’d better tune in or you’d miss the information they were doling out. Local news was the same way; did your team win tonight? Better tune in at 11 to find out.
Old farts like me remember those days, my kids don’t. They use their mobile device to buy a stock, book a trip and find out who won the game; they do it NOW. In fact, just today, the network news reported new ALL TIME lows for CBS and ABC network news, the slide to irrelevancy is near completion.
Yes there will be successful stock brokers (I am one), good travel agents (just less of them) and network news; but our product will have to change to deal with smaller and more specialized markets. Stockbrokers offer financial planning now, travel agents specialize in cruises (or some other niche) and networks have the ability to tell stories in a way no one else does. Note, none of these things involves having a monopoly on disseminating information.
So, what’s The Affluent Artist message here? Actual, quite a bit of this is relevant to the creative.
* Information gets out and people who think they can control it suck. Turn in for news at 11? No thanks, I’ll look on my Blackberry right now. You don’t write for editors or publishers anymore, you don’t paint for gallery owners. You can get your work out to the masses with a You Tube channel, a $19 web cam and a Starbucks connection. You create for your end user, your customer. You use the web to find them.
* That smaller more specialized market thing? I believe you need a niche, you need to find your potential buyers and design stuff just for them. Think of your creative self as the local handcrafted furniture store, building stuff your customers want, you know your neighbors and what they need. It’s JUST like that, only your customers can be anywhere in the world.
* The world is begging for more content. Creative people are in big demand right now, if you can tell a story like no one else or design a product no one else can, you have a talent that people are willing to pay for, Web 2.0 allows you to get that work out there in a more efficient and targeted manner.
I’m pounding away at this business model thing because it is so relevant to the way people buy. Going to open a bicycle shoppe in London? Before you do, through social networking, every bike rider in town should already know who you are and you should know them. Then, selling them bicycles is like shooting fish in a barrel, you know what they want and you can just give it to them.
I’ve got a lot more to say about this, I’ll keep you posted.
3 Comments
June 24, 2009 at 9:29 pm
There are so many ways today for an artist to show/sell his or her work, including the traditional ways, but with the web, the sky’s the limit.
-Don
June 24, 2009 at 10:18 pm
YEAH I’m psyched for the creative revolution. It’s like a wave of creative energy is crashing over the world. instead of letting the wave crash on us and push us into the sharp coral, we bravely ride the thrilling wave until we end up on the soft sandy beach of financial independence by doing what gives our lives meaning and passion.
I’m in part 2 of A Whole New Mind as per your suggestion and i’m LOVIN it. great read so far, Rick. Thank You.
June 24, 2009 at 10:45 pm
As we said in the last revolution, Right On!