Seth Godin tells the story about the Monks copying the Bible by hand and then the printing press in Germany is invented by Johannes Gutenberg. I can just imagine how it went.
“What’s Johannes up to?”
“Don’t know. Messing around again in the yard with some crazy machine thingy.”
“He needs to pray more and practice his calligraphy. His calligraphy is crap.”
“I know, I’ll speak to him about it.”
Enter Johannes a few days later.
“Father Achilleus, I’ve invented the printing press.”
“A print thingy what?”
“A printing press.”
“Ya that’s good Johannes. What’s printing?
“I would like to print the Bible for you – there is no longer the need for you to do all that calligraphy”
“And how do you do that?”
“Well I make up the pages with letters using metal”
“And what do you do with these metal letters – Johannes have you lost your mind who can carry around a whole Bible of metal letters?”
“No no you get an oil based ink and you put it on the metal letters.”
Johannes Johannes, you are such a joker … putting oil based ink on the metal. That’s good.. ha ha the metal would be slippery then, would it not?.. Johannes, ha ha, even more difficult to carry around.. ha ha.. Johannes , you’ve been out in the sun too much.”
“But Father Achilleus, this will change the world…”
“Excellent Johannes, Your metal letter printing thingy is wonderful… ha ha… I’m busy now I have to finish the book of Revelation before Father Benedict gets here. It’s going to take another two weeks”
“But Father Achilleus?”
“Ya ya that’s good Johannes. Excellent – come back when I’m not so busy and tell me how it goes. If it works I’ll have a look.. by the way, Johannes, … your calligraphy is crap, you need to practice more”.
Of course the first book ever published was the Bible – the world suddenly changed. Mass communication became possible.
Today we have the internet. – the world has changed again.
Problem is we have too many monks still wanting to do their calligraphy. Today’s monks are people stuck in the 20 Century working old the ways.
“The old ways are safe, tried and true”. I hear people say. If you continue to hold onto that, you’re going to go the way of the dinosaur, General Motors, Pan Am and others.
That’s why the music industry is in a mess. They’re still doing their distribution and marketing the old way (still doing calligraphy)
The publishing industry is starting to reinvent itself with books now being distributed electronically and sales of the Kindle starting to grow rapidly. While still not anywhere near physical sales, E book publishing has grown by 40% over the last year and all major publishers are gearing up to handle electronic books.
Many business are struggling and stuck in the last century. So are Churches and a lot of other organisations. Senior management is freaked out as they clutch to the old ways of doing things. They may try something new but try to make it work or to fit in with the old way of doing things.
The internet is more than a printing press. You have colour pictures, video, sound instant communication, file sharing, not just to the local area in which you live but to the world, 1.7 billion people in fact that are connected to the internet. www.internetworldstats.com.
Imagine a store front or a church or whatever on the corner of a busy highway with plenty of parking space, easy access and 1.7 billion people going by every day.
Imagine, whatever industry you’re in, someone trying to sell something or getting an idea out, but doing it ‘the old way’. Seth Godin tells the story of how he has self published books, used the internet and new ways of doing things and has used the old traditional ways, paid advertising, billboards, bookstore distribution etc. When he used the old way his books did poorly, using the new way he moved thousands of copies.
Take music for example. I’m going to pick on the music industry because it’s the most obvious, however the principles apply to just about every business or organisation.
Record companies no longer control music. Real music started it’s decline when the record companies realised they could create music by way of boy or girl bands and sell it the same way you sell cars or perfume.
The record companies had distribution tied up, fed radio stations what they wanted to sell and they became fat and lazy. Then darn; home computers took off then the internet arrived.
We no longer needed a record player or cassette now we had CD’s and they could be copied. BTW: The only reason we have CD’s is because music sales started to decline and the industry wanted a new system to force us to replace our old music in the new format. With the internet we could exchange music with friends. Instead of trying to work with the new system the Record companies have and are trying to force us the public into staying with the old system. (The Monks want to continue doing hand written copies of the Bible). Now we have MP3 players and iPods.
Any garage band can record music and within a few clicks have their music exposed to the world. They can give it away, or do anything they like with it.
The change has affected other things as well. I can remember how we couldn’t wait for the next issue of Rolling Stone to come out. Even Time magazine was a great weekly buy. Who cares about Rolling Stone anymore. The ‘buzz’ you got from buying a copy of Rolling Stone has shifted over to magazines like Wired, Fast Company and others. Even MTV used to be great, now who cares?
I read a report the other day which said that things are changing so fast that 25 year old programmers are terrified of the 13 and 15 yr old kids coming along with more computer savvy than they have.
So what does all mean? It means that whatever you’re doing, what ever business you’re in the paradigm has changed. Your CEO, the middle managers who have been doing business the old way better realise that there’s a new printing press and it’s called the internet. You, the middle managers, the CEO can either hinder growth and innovation and thereby kill your business or you can grab the 21st Century by both hands and work out new ways to do your business and grow.
Be warned however. People are very savvy these days. I’ve seen appalling uses of the internet and the new media that is available. Just because you or your organisation is connected to Face Book, Twitter, using SMS on mobile phones, or the latest apps on your iphone, whatever, make sure that those who are using it know how to use it. I had one client’s staff member who thought it would be smart to join several groups that offered hundreds if not thousands of twitters to the company tweet account. Suddenly everyone on the companies tweet list was getting spam six or seven times a day.
People will drop you like a hot potato if they feel you are spamming them, using them or they realise you have the tools but don’t know how to use them – and any 13 year old can tell you how to use them correctly.
The internet as we know it is only 14 years old We’ve only just begun. (origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s, I actually love this because in an ageist society (in the west) it means a Baby Boomer invented the internet).
Imagine what it is was like when other industries were only 14 years old. Ships, Flight, Printing, Cars, Telephones, Radio, TV, Recorded music, Computers, Video games.
We live in exciting times. New rules apply to just about everything, to you, your situation, your business, your non profit, your church, your local store. You can either jump on board or you can sit back with the Monks and let the world go by.
Will you make mistakes? Yes, but I leave you with the words of Thomas Edison after hundreds of attempts to invent the electric light bulb and being called a failure, he said: “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. He also said:
“There’s a way to do it better – find it.” and
“Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something”.
If he were today he’d be having a ball. The internet has changed all the rules, new ones need to be invented – go for it. Let me know how you get on.
Amazingly how easy it is to start talking to people you don’t really know about spiritual things. During the conversation at a dinner party on the weekend I was asked about what i thought about ‘the Secret’ and I thought to myself “Oh shoot.. do i be polite or just go for it”? So I went for it and said “It’s a load of crap”!
