A Pan, a Pick and a Strong Discovery Spirit
by Paula Thornton
This was bebo founder Michael Birch describing how the current business landscape has not had lower barriers to entry since the California Goldrush.
His comments were made during a Social Networking panel discussion at Google’s recent Zeitgeist ‘07 (a partner event) – a must watch/listen.
The entire conversation reinforces a statement that was forming as a ‘need to post’ earlier today in my muddled mind: identifying and capitalizing new business potential requires strong skills in applying the principles of classic economics (have you noticed the trend in industry voices having strong backgrounds in economics?). Case in point, Chris Anderson used the Blockbuster | NetFlix comparison to show how NetFlix captialized on a sweet spot in the economic model of media rentals (including leveraging the time value of the model to their advantage). Then TNR Entertainment finds a way to tweak a couple of other elements in the economic model to play to their own advantage…an advantage large enough to make even big boys like IBM successful too.
The good news is…there is no end to dimensions to be tweaked. It just takes some digging and the patience to hit the right vein.
