Constantly Adapting

So much has changed in my career relative to marketing and business in general. During the early 1980s (in my 20s), working as a sales manager, I thought I was so tech savvy because I could dictate my reports onto a micro-cassette player and then mail my tapes to an assistant in the main office who would type them up for me. Then in the late 80s, we started hearing about PCs and I thought somehow other people in my company would take care of that and I would not need to learn about such technology. In 1992, I went to work for a new company and when I asked about who was going to type my documents, they brought me a big laptop. It was a good thing I took typing class in high school so I could be around more girls (I was the only guy in the class). That first laptop was not connected to anything other than a printer. I could type and print memos and walk down the hall to deliver each to the mail room for distribution. Then came internal emails (to each other in the company) a couple years later, and in 1997, emails to a few customers. I even got a PC at home, with a dial-up connection that made this really cool sound when I wanted to connect to the Internet. By 1999, I had much smaller laptop with a cell phone modem that could be inserted on the side of the PC, and wow – I could go anywhere and be connected! What could beat this? At that time I did not realize, this was only Web 1.0.

In 2000, I was working with outside agencies on the race to develop company websites, really just static brochure wear sites. By 2001-02, we were experimenting with 3D imaging scanners that might be able to scan the impression of someone’s ear and electronically develop a point cloud that could be transmitted to a 3D printing system that would build a hearing instrument shell in nylon one layer at a time. By 2005, we had figured out how to make the technology affordable enough to provide scanners to audiology offices so they could scan their patient’s ear impressions and email them to our manufacturing facility (no more wax impressions in the mail). Then in 2008, introducing technology to scan a patient’s ear, without having to take an impression, to build a custom made products. During the same period, our company website went from just nice looking pages to a complete e-commerce site where customers could place orders, check on order status and make payments, and we routinely built new websites for our customers that would interact with our website (a big competitive advantage). In addition, during the same period, particularly during the first few years after 911, we limited travel to visit with international customers and instead embraced various live web communications. What could beat this?

Today we are at Web 2.0, and businesses are racing to implement e-business and marketing activities wherever they can – as that is where a rapidly growing number of customers are going to communicate and do business. It is not enough to have a website anymore, businesses need to be engaged in the various forms of customer engagement and inbound marketing initiatives found in social media. While the traditional marketing processes are still valid, traditional media is on the decline, being replaced with online media sources. Today, a business or marketer must be ever vigilant to stay on top of the quickly changing internet landscape to not miss current and future marketing opportunities.

As far as the future goes (Web 3.0), with discussions regarding the semantic Web, faster connections, artificial intelligence, wearable computers and more – it is all a bit overwhelming – or exciting! My guess is that the pace of development as outlined during the last few decades, while impressive, will seem pretty slow compared to what is ahead. All I can say is, it is a good thing I have been able to ease into this e-thing over the years. Now that I am warmed up, I am ready to pick up the pace. Although, micro-cassette recorders were pretty cool in their day!      

David