2009 – the year when everything is going to change

Image courtesy of Maja Sten

I’m not good in predicting the future. (After all, I predicted the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the World Series in 2008. And Giuliani to be the Republican candidate.) But, I’m pretty certain about this prediction: 2009 will be remembered as the year of change.

Let’s be clear: It’s going to be rough. It’s unknown how we’ll get from here to the other side. And we don’t know how the other side will look like. What the new reality will be. Sure, we’ve heard this before: After 9/11 life was supposed to change forever. After the house of cards came tumbling down, we continued to sleepwalk through life until we ended up on this cliff. The abyss of economic, political and societal disorder. Today, a gas price of $1,80 and a Dow of 9,000 might make us feel better and lull us into thinking that the worst is over. Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. And, the best is yet to come.

2009 is the year when social discourse, living and experimenting with new technologies, the painful realities of the global economy, new insights into our species and the breakdown of the overall consumer spending umbrella that protected us for decades will force us to change. To rethink everything we’re doing. To rework communities, cities, industries, families. And ourselves.

This year will be remembered by us as the year of change. Just like the East-Germans remember 1989 when everything changed. Or 1439 when the printing press changed the educational system, science, politics, religion. Everything. 2009 will be not the beginning of an evolution. It will be the end of an era. And the beginning of a new one. And the scary part about all this is that nobody has a road map, a compass, any guidelines.

In 2008 we began a journey. Nobody of us volunteered. But we’re all in the same boat. Destination unknown. Keep your eyes open. Listen to others. Learn from others. Trust others. Don’t follow like a sheep. Don’t get caught up in side stories. Stay focused. Keep your head high. Be open to new experiences. Don’t go to bed unless you learned 10 new things that day. Better: 100 things. Don’t be afraid. Stay hopeful. Throw all the old rules out. They don’t apply anymore. Life as we know has changed forever. Just like the explorer that set foot on new territories and encounter the unknown, we’re about to experience the same.

Here’s to 2009.

Transitions

We are living in a transitionary period. From analog to digital age. From industrial revolution to information revolution. From boom times to recession. Climate. Politics. Web 2.0. Media. Advertising. You name it.

Changes are scary. Transitions are even scarier. Changes get us somewhere. Transitions leave us in a nowhere land. We know the old is disappearing, fading away. Like a day that disappears in front of our eyes. Transitions are like the dark night. We know there will be a sunrise but we are afraid it might come too late. Or maybe it’s the first day without any sunrise?

The natural reaction to transitions is to go into stealth mode. Since we don’t know where the transition will lead us, we revert back to old, known behaviors, strategies, tactics. That’s a huge mistake.

Old strategies, tactics and behaviors won’t succeed after the transitional period is over. That’s why it’s imperative to experiment as much as we can. Try things. Learn. Collaborate.

Brands have problems with that. They tend to stay away from transitions as much as they can. It used to work that way, why shouldn’t it work again? We’re in a transitionary period from mass media to social media. We all know it. We all feel the major changes about to break and change our world. Our learned behavior tells us to do nothing, to go into stealth mode: “TV still works.” “If Facebook can’t be monetized, the whole idea of social media is completely overblown.”

Transitions are opportunities. Either an opportunity to retreat into passivity and be ruled by fear. Or an opportunity to change the game and lead by courage. Nobody said it was easy. But, looking at history (Coal Mines come to mind) we don’t have a real choice. Unless you regard failure as an option.

Image: Courtesy of Keri Smith.