The interesting change with Web 2.0 has created a sense that the internet is all new again. There are some truly amazing success stories – witness www.utube.com as the largest, most recent couple of guys and an idea turned into millions. And may similar success fall to www.wordpress.com – this is truly a great offering.

But there is something in the air that smells funny…. and it seems we have a new generation of people coming through who have:

  • Never witnessed a recession
  • Never seen businesses lose a f…ing frightening amount of money
  • Never been paid so much for so little experience
  • Starting discussing “eyeballs” as inherently adding value

Am I cynical (or jaded as it didn’t work out last time – I was supposed to be driving a Ferrari to my own private golf course right now!) or does something smell funny?

Today, as it did at the time of the crash, it stills comes down to “show me the money”. At least now, advertising models are well established and easily quantified.

What piqued me to write this was a pic of Malcolm Gladwell on the front of the Australian Financial Review with him saying that business needs to get over itself and recognise the power of snap judgements.

I have read the Tipping Point, and did find it an interesting read. Gladwell may well be onto something – and I share a view that making snap decisions in the heat of business is often very sensible. You are closest to the action, best in the position to make the decision – so you should be able to make it without having to engage in endless email / other approvals – and analysing it may make you change your mind against something that makes sense.

However, I also remember vividly hearing similar tones around the time of the dot com crash along the lines of, “if you are looking for a standard business model, you just don’t get it…”. You should be very concerned if anyone won’t be specific on:

  1. Who wants it?
  2. How much for?
  3. Who says so?

At the end of the day, business is about the exchange of value. Part of value creation is really thinking about things.

For more about thinking, please see my posts Talk to me in numbers and 3 Reasons why smart people in organisations do stupid things

So, what do you think? I look forward to any feedback…

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