On Monday, I succumbed to the NYT relentless pleading to get me back as a subscriber to their electronic editions. Given that it was Cyber Monday, and the deal was really good - 60% off for one year - I signed up again, at least for a year. I came across the article below, which you might not be able to see. Basically it's about how one perceives certain things as either expenses (a cost) or an investment (an opportunity to realize a benefit or gain of some sort).
http://nyti.ms/1IjFvHH
The author, Carl Richards, asked the president and founder of a leading research and consulting firm on global political risk at a global conference how they invested. He was expecting some kind of answer about a mix of stocks, bonds, ETFs, etc. Instead the person answered that he'd just hired another Ph.D at his business. Not exactly the answer Mr. Richards was expecting. But it showed that this person considered the Ph.D an investment in human capital. Now that's interesting. Some might consider staff to be a necessary part of any business, and they're certainly a cost input into any business plan, but change your perspective a bit and you can see that they're an investment too, and many might argue staff are the most important investment you make in your business.
The article is interesting in and of itself, but what captured my attention more so is that of perspective. How we look at things is determined by a multitude of factors - situational, learned, hereditary - but we can (and should) change our perspective in order to appreciate things we might otherwise overlook. It's not always easy to change perspectives, and when you do, it's not always successful in helping you appreciate the other point of view. Nevertheless, the perspective notion of the article got me thinking about how to view things going on in the world. Not all things, but something that's been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while - Innovation.
I'll fess up right now. I'm not a huge fan of "innovation", at least not the word. It's overused to the point of numbness. It's like that fad word from a decade ago, synergy. According to Wikipedia, synergy is
the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts.
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Gaudi's La Pedrera is considered structurally innovative for its time, as is
it's underground parkade and undulating balconies. It is innovative
even today; at the time it was considered "controversial".
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Take for example the financial industry, long associated with banks and insurance companies mainly. Today we hear about "fintechs" that are changing the landscape of banking. Some say they're in competition with banks. According to consulting company McKinsey & Co fintechs may be responsible for reducing bank profits by 60%. Other opinions say that fintechs can be complementary to banks.
But what are fintechs? They're typically startup companies that provide a service in the finance sector in either banking or insurance or... One such fintech is Koho.ca which aims to provide banking services online through an app. It may be targeted at Millenials given that it's geared to those comfortable with apps and online transactions. This isn't a review of koho but they are a good example of the kind of creativity that is out there. There are companies that are changing logistics and supply chains, car insurance, consumer products and many other areas by bringing technology and a fresh perspective (there it is!) to businesses that have been around for a long time.
When I think of all the STUFF that is going on out there, it's bewildering. Not that it's incomprehensible - it isn't, you just have to read a lot ;-) - but just the vastness of the changes that are taking place, and the possibilities of what the future might look like. I read an article about Adele's new album "25" and how it was like Jurassic World in terms of her monster sales of the new album. When I read that article, the comparison to Jurassic World led me to a different perspective about the Jurassic period in earth's history. I thought about the vast diversity of life, or at least reptiles, at that time. You know, dinosaurs with horns on their heads or tails, or both. Flying reptiles, long necked herbivores as big as buildings, tiny vicious carnivores that would hunt in groups and overcome larger prey. You get the picture (or just watch any of the Jurassic movies), the variations on dinosaur themes seems huge and the little guys could be just as deadly as the big guys - even more deadly in many cases.
So what's my point? Well, in broad strokes, I'm justifying my recent resubscription to the New York Times as a way of increasing my exposure to what's going on in the world. But really, its that I'm changing my perspective on the "innovation" that I see in the world in general today, and there's a huge amount of creativity that is producing tremendous opportunities for change in the world. Will it all be good change? Don't know. Is it all bad, I seriously doubt it. Is it all innovative, not really. But change is coming and it'll be interesting to see which ones win. Will the little guys eat the big guys, or get crushed by the big guys or is there some little "proto-human" that we haven't seen or paid attention to yet that ends up dominating the landscape. In any case, my perspective is open to change.
short-term pessimist, long-term optimist
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