Those who saw 2001: A Space Odessey will recall the opening scene of the ape that stumbles across the usefulness of a bone for crushing skulls. A group of apes with the same understanding of a bone, clenched in fist, proceed to move in on another pack’s turf to show them the power they have acquired. After beating an unarmed defender to a pulp, the Ape throws the bone up in the air and it transitions to a similar looking object in space that is a space ship.
That sums it up right there - humanity has always been leveraging tools to advance its motives. In the Dot.com era, of which I was a part, there was a run on the bank of ideas and a real run at de-stabilizing the establishment of modern business. I witnessed many multi-national corporations spend millions of dollars to protect themselves by emulating start-ups and trying to corner markets as some built momentum. Too bad the foundational technology just wasn’t ready for prime-time and many of these projects were written off. There was another problem - the old chiefs were not ready to cede power to the up and comers. That created a perfect storm for us B2B providers playing the young smart guys with VC money against the establishment with even more money.
There’s probably a name for that move in Ocean’s 11 lingo. This blog is about the crystalization of ideas, themes and trends that I have been noticing now for a while. There is enough swirling around in my head at this point that I need to write it down or I will forget it. There is also a strange symmetry and flow to the events that have been happening to me lately that it just can’t be coincidental. This blog will hopefully culminate in some great inspiration for me or possibly for one of you. To prove the point that my life is really stranger than fiction, I will give you an example from last year.
Around December time frame, I was in the Capital Grill in downtown Miami FL waiting for my boss at the bar. I happen to glance around since I am aware that each Capital Grill has painted portraits of local industry titans and I’m wondering who is on the wall. Above the door way to the entrance were two round wooden carvings that were the familiar to me from the back of the dollar bill - the US seal. I had some free time and my web enabled phone and curiosity soon had me looking up Wiki entries in no time. It was some fascinating stuff and part of the story was the link of the HMS Resolute to the president’s desk in the white house. Fast forward one week later and I’m watching National Treasure in the movie theatre and the same history unfolds before me.
Maybe coincidence when it happens once but the same thing happened to me when I watched the John Adams special on HBO. One quote came racing back from the past that I always admired when he told the French that he studied war and politics so that his children may study science so that their children may study the arts. That also sums up my family history as my father fought Castro in Cuba and fled the country so his children could have a better life…I had an Apple 2C when most kids were just pitching marbles. There are so many of these connected moments in my life and I guess I should have named this blog Deja vu if that is all that I was going to write about. But, I want to direct these observations to the forecasting of business in the future. In my next post, I will draw some corollaries between what I see happening on the World borders and what might happen on the Internet.
Just to leave with one final irony - I wrote my blog text before setting up a blog and settled in on WordPress. How ironic that my opening lines were about Stanley Kubrick’s film and the default template for WordPress is called Kubrick. I’m not making this stuff up folks!
Tags: B2B
