Technology Darwinism

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Social can make you feel like something is happening. But, it’s hard to find a lot of testimonials of a complete stranger doing business through a social post.

We don’t have 5 different Facebooks with equal power. We have one that dominates. It’s still to be seen if it persists or if the world flips from privacy issues or attention fatigue to sink the ship.

Automation can be alluring and you can bring in so much technology that noone buys into using it in your company. Whether you move the needle of ROI can become overlooked by technology and the perceived power it holds.

Anyone can make their world more complex. And most people do. What if you could take a step back and remove what you have built up in your life. See what matters and doesn’t matter? The guys at Yes Theory deleted social media for 30 days and the outcome was life changing.

Maybe you find out that you can consolidate platforms. Perhaps you see a lot more time returned to you so you can put it to things like creativity and strategy.

We tend to like to add things to our lives rather than subtract. As technology consolidates and some platforms die or limp along painfully, I think of it as natural evolution on a hyperspeed pace. Our collective groupthink helps to filter and see what matters and doesn’t matter – what adds value and what does not.

In our own work and lives, we should speed up our decision-making so we can enjoy the outcomes of what is better at the end of the long cycle of technology darwinism that eventually weighs itself into our lives. Whether we are strategic or intentional can make the difference on reaching our goals faster.

The Strategy of Going with the Winner

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There is an irony about free markets that the collective participates in. On the one hand, we have massive choice in many categories. On the other hand, over time, we have a winner-take-all outcome. Over time, people consolidate and choose the best.

We don’t have all these phones. We have iPhones.

We have Starbucks, Netflix and

Early on, there can be many software options and platforms to choose from. Later on, there is an actual, or perceived, best in class.

If you are building services, you may want to opt for the efficient path and go with the winner. Winners enjoy the support of customers and their funding. They have larger ecosystems with partners, plugins, apps, marketing agreements and all the pieces for standardization.

Furthermore, it’s easier to move information, find talent and get things done around the winner’s platform.

On the one hand, “best” is not always necessarily functional or technical. It’s often a business case of inertia. You can push for merit on features of a runner-up technology or offering. However, there’s a lot of waste trying to metaphorically boil the ocean and convince others what product line should be the standard bearer.

There’s also a simplicity to choosing the winner. You don’t have to spend energy on choice. You can simply execute and give people what they want.

If you take a quick audit, there’s likely opportunity and efficiency you can gain by picking the winners so you can use those products, services and platforms to simply get your business done making money and interfacing with customers.

Value is Perishable

J. Money’s Work History from

I keep up with a lot of blogs in my reader and I came across this article from a fun, candid article at Budgets Are Sexy. I like reading articles from bloggers that put the raw truth of their journey out there. It’s bold and courageous of them. This article was a reflection and a great reminder that value is perishable.

We are not working in an economy where we will be doing the same thing in five years. Here’s a guy that lists 36 jobs in his journey and how he rounded back to his core, but he was always exploring new options and opportunities.

It’s a strange thing when we run across friends 10 or 20 years later. They are usually doing something totally different.

And often, we have been doing something far from the path we were once on as well.

What you consider value today does tend to have a half-life. Automation, competition and efficiencies change the value equation all the time. You might have charged a premium before, but then the world gets smarter and everyone can do what you are doing. That’s when you have to change course or reinvent yourself.

I think there’s sectors where you can hide out for sure. It’s one strategy to combat innovation. I’m not sure it’s that safe or secure. It’s simply defense and fear.

If you simply operate with the security that today is a snapshot of what you may be doing or offering, you can stay relevant, fresh and engaged. You can keep observing and pushing into new areas where your value can be recognized and compensated for.

I don’t think there’s this job out there that will make you feel secure. Nor is there a product that will be a hit for the next 10 years guaranteed.

I do think you are a living, breathing person that can be continually valuable. You are only perishable if you bank on some kind of false staying power rather than increasing your abilities over time. Keep moving and embrace that journey of doing many other things yet to come.

The Goal of Your System


If you are sitting comfortably, there’s not much incentive to improve your systems. However, disruptors such as technology, competition and atrophy (i.e., Groupon), may force your hand to get your systems more efficient.

I’ve been sharing out various books around the area of business growth and efficiency lately. A classic I would recommend if you are serious about getting your business systems working optimally is The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. You get an insightful and packed story that illuminates the complexities, sensitivities and systemic relationships of complex systems.

You also learn about what the goal of a system is: throughput. Your challenge is to drive throughput in the midst of dealing with natural forces including statistical fluctuations, dependencies, inventory, operational expense and bottlenecks.

It’s tricky business, and if you are not careful, you can damage your systems in the pursuit of efficiencies and make throughput worse, not better.

If you get myopic around local maximums, for example, you can cause your system’s throughput to suffer overall.

Systems with their dependencies and obedience to natural laws have to be respected, analyzed and refined carefully to avoid unintended consequences.

I have seen so many businesses with good intentions that violate the principles of The Goal and see negative impacts on their cash flow. It’s not pretty, and sometimes it’s hard to understand.

There are undoubtedly higher efficiencies that would make life easier, make customers happier and put more money in your pocket.

What if you could increase your throughput and your cash by 50%? Does it appeal to you to move the needle? All that lost opportunity and money could be a fantastic motivator to keep growing so you are not vulnerable when change comes to force your hand.

Get ahead of that inevitable decrease and drive the throughput. That is the goal of your system.

I Want to Grow Opportunities with Apps


I saw this recent statistic to date for number of apps for my Apple devices at 2.2 million and 2.8 million for Google Play! It blows my mind how much technology is available for every average person out there with a thought and a click. We got here fast.

When you look at these numbers, do you think creating one more app will be much value? How would you get through all the noise to even be noticed? You might find a micro niche that has been undiscovered. Or you could try and unseat a current app leader in a category. Tough game either way to bet on, especially when the proposition of free or $0.99 apps are expected. We’re app snobs these days and want extreme power with no cost.

But you could take a look at the bigger picture. Much like electricity is a commodity that we don’t give much thought towards, apps have come to be a sort of utility. We use them for travel, productivity, banking, entertainment and many other uses.

How do you grow opportunities with all these apps, however? What if you want to produce rather than consume? The use case for this supercomputer in your pocket can surely go far beyond checking out or checking in.

If you want to grow opportunities with apps, here are some ideas and strategies that gets you thinking about the game of increase:

  1. Networking. If you extend your inbox to include participating in forums or Quora, you can play a game every day. Give a great idea or connection every day. See if you can be a matchmaker and make new friends by giving substantive value. Push your mind and creativity. See if that translates to deal making.
  2. Build teams. Start a project that has a money-making goal. Keep it small. Use an app to add people to the conversation and actions. Move the ball forward with leadership and project management. See if you can set the next steps forward using distributed talent around the globe. You’ll have picked up the skill of managing virtual teams. You might consider Basecamp, Slack or Upwork to drive this initiative and make an ROI the goal.
  3. Curate. If you keep tabs on trends, products, food, technology or other natural interests, find a way to make a daily post on a platform. See if you can turn that into a transaction. Work with those vendors you respect. Become a trusted, curated resource. Build relationships with your audience and your product vendors to find where the deal making lies.
  4. Encourage. Life is tough and most people are carrying around a lot of worries, concerns and problems. Use an app that would facilitate the process of encouragement. Find inspirations, apt quotes, solutions and answers that would help people. Make it easy for yourself to connect the encouragement with the person that needs it.

You are not going to have a million apps on your device. But you can think about what you are doing with your time and attention and think a bit bigger than mere consumption. What if you could turn that powerful middleware someone created and get resourceful to turn the tech into opportunity building? It starts with a purpose.

Reinvent Yourself Before You’re Forced To



Things work … until they don’t.







Innovation is sweet and relentless.







Reinvent yourself by:

  3. Creating new use cases for your competencies.
  4. Selling something new and test for traction.



Skip the Line and Take Smartcuts


Shane Snow’s Smartcuts is an excellent read to get you off your mundane thinking tracks and moving laterally towards results. The insights from case studies of those hackers that have skipped the line and percolated up inspire and inform those that want to figure out how to get results fast with creativity and lateral thinking.

In his own pursuits to circumvent the success ladder, he analyzed the contributing pieces to what might otherwise be opaque to a casual observer of successful people. He shares principals and case studies of nine different attributes of smartcut thinking and approaches.

I liked the challenge to be prepared for waves where he shares analogies of big time surfers and how they excel based on timing, instinct and experience. Likewise, there are waves coming and going in our hyper growth world and it requires insightful and well-timed action based on steady preparation. You have to be in the game and know what you are looking for.

This is an important book for those that understand you don’t have to pay your dues. You can find the workaround, think like a hacker and get to your goals in a completely different style of thinking. It saves time, grief and expense when you put your mind towards creative thinking.

How can you take a smartcut in what you are doing?

Above All Be Human


We live in unprecedented times with automation, technology and ridiculous speed. It can delude us into thinking we have immense power and reach when in actuality, we do business and work in a world of human beings.

Our interactions, slights, likes, moods, and movements matter in whether we want to have anything to do with others.

There’s always the temptation to check out or spam people or overuse technology. But you miss the opportunity to connect on a meaningful level if your approaches miss being human.

How about listening, caring and engaging on a meaningful level? You’re not going to become valuable by simply sharing posts or pinging from afar. What are your insights? Why do you care? How does this help?

That’s the human part. You use the knowledge to create meaning and connection. It has to matter personally to the person you are seeking to share with. And it may only take a little more thought and care. But it’s that last leg that makes the impact.

We are all trying to solve problems. Life is one giant problem. And taking moments to think a bit more about someone’s situation and offering pertinent, relevant ideas and solutions with compassion is gold.

Are you being human in your interactions or simply moving fast?

Leveling Up

Are you keeping your ideas flowing in the real world?

If the world was a static place, you could make your bed, set things in order and watch your money-making job or business simply cash flow without disruption.

However, we don’t live in Narnia. It’s not a place of bliss and perfection. Now that everyone is connected and able to make change, it forces your hand. Resting on your laurels becomes more risky than the better strategy of leveling up and continually innovating.

If you look at large corporations, their divisions are segmented based on natural business functions – operations, marketing, finance, accounting, sales, and research and development.

If you are a solopreneur or small business owner, you have the same functions by necessity. Research and development is where you level up. There has to be time, attention and money dedicated to the goal of continuous growth. It means being open to what is happening in your industry and even beyond.

You have to be open to new ideas and integrate them into your own model.

The threats to your current position have to be evaluated. Paradoxically, the way to reduce risk is to keep moving forward and leveling up.

If you are not testing new ideas and putting them in play with real customers, then how can you be surprised when someone else replaces your position and value in the market?

Here’s an idea. For a couple hours every week, block the time out in your calendar. Get away to a place where you can’t do your reactive work. Take a piece of paper and simply imagine. Open your mind up to new ideas you can test. The ideas can come from news, people, media, gossip, hobbies or whatever else crosses your path.

Merge the extraordinary. See if you can come up with a way to test something new over 30-60 days to see if customers will like and pay for your idea.

Just think of this as embedding research and development into your otherwise busy work weeks. In the process, you mitigate the risk which innovation relentlessly presents to threaten your position. Level up or become irrelevant.

What ideas can you level up on?

Innovate and Leave the Industrial Age Behind


We are in a major election cycle and the promise of jobs keeps coming up as if the candidates can magically create jobs and fill out the shrinking middle class by decree.

Ever take a look at the recent 10 Worst Companies to Work For article? Why do people hang on and work for these outdated industrial age businesses? They are either confused and stuck back in the dark ages when they could decree what the masses should buy because they had massive production or they are retailers that continually lose their way in this confusing world of infinite options.

Yet, people still work at these places holding onto some hope that will only decline over time.

Want to know what a middle class life was before? It is a white-collar person that relied on information inefficiency. Some manager of HR or marketing or finance. If there’s complexity and inefficient information flow, then they are needed. In fact, the more complicated and slow, the more they could snow the bosses and hold onto their precious positions. Multiply that by millions and you have neighborhoods sprawled across urban centers with strip malls propping up someone whose job relies on ambiguity, politics and layers.

The industrial age, when we made things cheap, efficiently and en masse, allowed us to get fat and have everyone work for static, aligned companies.

Now, information and connection flows freely. You can build your own company without any fat to it. You can access powerful databases for a few dollars a month or for free. The only thing limiting someone from launching is:

  1. Guts
  2. Clarity

That’s the scarcity. Rather than waiting for someone to want you, you can kick the crappy jobs to the curb and get in the game of entrepreneurship for no money or very little. You have to innovate and move from an industrial age, outdated mode, where someone is telling you what to do to a place where the real game is being played. Build something people want. Connect directly with customers and people that can help you help customers. Make it happen repeatedly with excellence.

Do you think jobs are coming back? Why?