Skip to main content

Breaking down walls 1

The internet is a great barrier reducing machine. It removes hurdles from the path of most types of creativity. 

Some years ago when blogging was at its peak, it almost threatened to disrupt normal courses of reading. Normal courses were books, magazines - both of which were highly restrictive and had fairly high walls. So, the more connected ones got opportunities regardless of talent. When the talented ones did get opportunities and they mostly returned the favour by making the walls higher. In those days getting published in a newspaper was a big thing. Once blogging came about, anybody could become a writer. It also changed the way people consumed information by breaking down barriers and making the consumption of information a two way process. From blogs to twitter it was a short hop.

If it was not for the incessant blogging, there is no way I would have written daily and managed to eventually write my first book. If you are an aspiring writer, the time to start writing is now.

Photography was disrupted - from Digital cameras to sharing apps like Flickr to Picasa to Hipstamatic to Instagram and then further by the mobile camera whose resolution is getting better day by day. So, if you were a photographer, you had everything you wanted to work on your craft. And you better be out there if you want the word to spread.

Videos happened soon enough  and it broke the strangehold of the entry barriers to create video. No longer did you need a high end camera and equipment - anybody could become a videographer. And a further entry barrier as you had to be connected to a gatekeeper like a Television network in order to air your views. And if you had to make movies, it was an even bigger gate. 

Now, video proliferation has broken this barrier. So, if you are an aspiring journalist, go out with that camera and air your views. Many youtube channels have more viewers than television networks. And what of movie makers - the aspiring ones - the ones who make cool movies which are rejected by the studios and the network - well, again, you have platforms. 

Of course, the underlying aspect of it - data for all - is another big leveller - and that has been a great story in India courtesy Jio and the rest of the providers.

But the larger point is that technology and platforms are yours for the taking. I think this deserves a part II

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zero to One

Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a nice read. (Yes - if I sit down to write a book review - the book has to be worth it - and usually good - so most of my book reviews are about good books.You can stop here if that's the information you seek.) Where this book scores is in contrarian thoughts and contrarian questions that make you think. It starts with a four big lessons learned from the 90s dot-com crash that is, Make incremental advances, Stay lean and flexible, Improve on the competition and Focus on product, not sales. Just as you warm up to it, he says, the opposite rules are more correct - which are: It is better to risk boldness than triviality. A bad plan is better than no plan. Competitive markets destroy profits. Sales matters just as much as products. And finally leaves with a simple definition of contrarianism - it is not to oppose the crowd (or follow a smaller or newer or older crowd) but to think for yourself. "All happy companies are different"...
Post a Comment
Read more

Playing to win

This bright green book with a yellow title has always caught my attention, but I had never read it.  Imagine my surprise that when I finally picked it up as part of a preparation for a workshop that it was such a fantastic book. Playing to win by Alan Lafley and Roger Martin is one of those books that is up there when it comes to learning about how strategy can be crafted and implemented in real business. There is much in the book - and unlike other books - this book is really a leaf out of P&G, but with frameworks and models that can be applied anywhere. Image from here . It is these 5 questions played in a loop (well, iteratively) that are the juiciest part of the book and as simple and obvious as they are, it is this place where the strategy play happens. So, yes, simply put a great book to be read by anyone who is anywhere close to strategy...
Post a Comment
Read more