Photo Not Available Image
Where can I get an ebook or audiobook copy of the new Chris Brogan and Julien Smith book, “Trust Agents?” ——– NOT AVAILABLE
Where can I get a ebook copy of the Jim Collins book, “Good to Great” – It’s an Amazon Top 12 business book published in October 2001? ——- NOT AVAILABLE
Why can’t I get my favorite Beatles songs from iTunes? ——- NOT AVAILABLE
Why can’t I instantly watch (via Hulu, Netflix, or iTunes) the Tony Gilroy Drama, “Michael Clayton” with George Clooney? —— NOT AVAILABLE
I have a Wii with wireless Internet access and my kids want to play Mario Kart (their friends have it and we do not) so why can’t I just play it online? ——– NOT AVAILABLE
I’ve spent the past few months meeting with top executives from several publishing companies to discuss their digital strategies. Given the challenging market condition, doing nothing is not a viable option – most recognize that. However, I am finding a lot of defensive thinking reactive to market challenges. I can appreciate the steep revenue declines, aggressive cost cutting, and forced organizational change. My suggestions are typical to the Sam Walton philosophy, “Go shake hands and talk to your customers - find out what they want and then give it to them in scale.”
I am a believer that good quality content and great brands will survive this market downturn, if the business executives that run these companies can use these challenging times to get smart and view this as an opportunity to promote change and fresh thinking. The focus must be on making the necessary internal culture and operational changes so as to deliver sustainable value to customers, in massive scale. Scale is the secret sauce that allows a digital strategy to survive with a hybrid business model. Avoid the temptation to repeat the mistakes of other industries, such as the US wireless carriers with competing technologies (TDMA, CDMA, GSM) as consumers end up footing the bill for industry mistakes. Furthermore, the US ended up with the most costly systems to manage and the worst service. You can say the same about the Betamax vs. VHS debacle. Too much of a desire for corporations to independently rule, rather than working cooperatively, burning up tons of capital, and in the end the consumer suffers.
The moral of this story is cooperative capitalism as the publishing industry evolves. “Not Available” is a poor option that significantly stifles consumer adoption and subsequent scale. We all need to find ways to produce great content that consumers want and massively deliver that content in the many ways consumers want it. Don’t frustrate your customers with poor user experiences attributed to too much digital security, business model issues, corporate infighting, or poor delivery products.
How happy would you be if any digital asset you wanted was instantaneously available (for a small fee) via your Internet connection?
