Expert Predictions

I walk the dog for about twenty minutes every day. I also run about three miles 3 days a week. I like to listen to podcasts in the car, but when I’m walking or running I usually listen to audiobooks.

I get about 4 hours a week of this, and I typically listen to business development kind of things. Five years from now, you will be exactly the same person you are today except for the books you read and the people you meet. I don’t know who said that first, but I hear it a lot.

I was listening to Seth Godin’s Purple Cow last week, which is a marketing book about innovation. The basic premise is that things that were once remarkable become unremarkable over time, so you need to come up with things that are a little strange in order to get noticed.

The book was published in 2004, likely written in 2003, and contains a lot of references to 2002 and earlier.

So it was kind of funny and a good time-capsule-like experience when he started talking about cell phones. In 2004, I was the only person I knew with what we call a smartphone today. The iPhone didn’t come out until 2007.

Godin made the argument that there was no more room for innovation in the cell phone market because Motorola and Nokia had made phones so small and thin that going smaller would produce phones that were unusable. He talked a little bit about disposable cell phones and then made a statement along the lines of whoever came up with the cheapest disposable phone would win.

It’s funny how one little marketing event can change an industry.