Just checking out some of the coverage from SXSW Interactive 2009 today. Patricia Martin summarized with the seven unthinkable ideas here.
1. Vision delivers ROI.
2. Marketing and customer experience are the same thing.
3. Avoid stupid, stupid.
4. You can make money from ‘free’ stuff.
5. Participation will be ubiquitous.
6. Dad is the new Mom.
7. Low overhead is the new currency. Especially for start-ups.
I especially like #2. That Customer Service will take on an all new level of importance as consumers will expect 24 hour customer service via various media.
I found #6 kind of funny, mainly because just a couple of years ago it was all about “Think Pink” - Ignore the men, women make every single purchase decision.
And of course #7 which Guy Kawasaki discussed. It certainly helps to keep overhead low. I’m sure many of our larger competitors won’t be around after this. Just spoke to a recruiter who mentioned massive layoffs at most market research suppliers. She said smaller boutique firms are doing much better.
Wonder what we could call that trend? “Small is the new Big (Secure/Stable)”? I don’t think most clients today even feel the need for a large supplier when conducting global studies, we’ve been doing a few lately.
Trend watching is always fun.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Brett LaDove // Mar 25, 2009 at 6:53 pm
The topic of “Small is the New Big” is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Big companies have survived and thrived, because investments in big infrastructure were required to achieve economies of scale and associated cost efficiencies. Many of these circumstances are no longer true today.
Small companies have access to every bit as robust infrastructure tools as the big guys, but with little to no initial capital costs. Conversely, large companies are incurring huge costs keeping their many years of ridged investments running.
Suddenly, the complexities associated with size, are beginning to far out weigh the economic benefits of scale. Small businesses designed around flexibility stand to gain far more advantages for the foreseeable future.
While work forces will need to be more fluid, and people will likely continue to move jobs more frequently….being skilled at ‘transportability’ may in fact be the best route to security and stability.
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