I have had this belief, this growing stance that people in this time and place are beginning to develop the belief that they are becoming more empowered. With the advent of increasing access and more user-friendly technologies, the regular person on the street has discovered some very empowering new abilities to become more common in their lives. A lot of 'once' easily unobtainable pools of relevant information are now more commonly accessed and able to be used in an advantageous way. For example, the 'lay' person on the street can see how much a dealership truly paid for the new automobile on their showroom floor. The 'lay' person can truly see what kind of public mess the owner of that dealership is managing in their life right now. Very few secrets are able to be kept away from the savvy consumer. This kind of increase in information access has given the "regular joe" the simple idea that he is more empowered than ever before. In some ways, he is.
However, with this new found empowerment comes some new but unlearned responsibilities. Having quick and unguarded access to some sensitive information that may be more readily available than ever before but does not necessarily mean that those gaining that information have come to respect the boundaries of this kind of news. Knowing what recent legal suits have been settled about an owner of a limousine business model does not necessarily mean that the limousine business owner is an insensitive business 'rat.' Sometimes our desire to become more empowered is shadowed heavily by our desire to take control. This kind of desire is not always managed properly.
Having gained control of some sensitive and important matters requires some learned respect in order for that control to be approached properly. Managing our lives well through troubled waters requires some detailed lessons about how to perform better while dealing with new pressures. It takes some specific management schooling, some detailed training and some bloody noses to acquire this kind of knowledge. In the past, when people become empowered to control some situations they usually come to that point with a bit of trial and error experience under their belts. With the help of technology today, someone can easily gain 'unearned' control of pertinent information in their immediate surroundings. They can get easily carried away with the power they feel of that new control. The potential to mismanage that power ruins high. The new control was not earned. It did not carry the usually trial and error lessons that help to curb the disrespect for that kind of new and quick power. It helps if they have been burnt a few times before they travel down that new road of control. Otherwise, they can become a bit crazy in their leadership ways.
When someone gains quick and unearned control in a situation of power, strange things can occur. Power has some interesting attributes. If those who gain power do not earn that sense of power through some effective patterns of respect they may inadvertently exercise that control in unfriendly ways. And they do. Power is a funny thing, however. It runs mostly on illusion. Very few of us have any power at all. We cannot buy our way out of tough situations. Most of us must pay the cost of our errors and foibles. I am not opposed to this kind of process, however.
My point is this, power is usually an illusion. It is rarely real. Technology has grown up to offer millions upon millions the added illusion that they have gained new powers. Guess what? That new power is not real power. It is just an illusion of owning something that does not exist. Millions upon millions gather 'dirt' and 'opinions', even 'facts' about anything of character from the quick information they found through technology and those who gained that information believe they have gained new power. They treat the new and guarded information they found as if they have gained new power over that person, business, situation or thing. They feel empowered. Technology today has offered millions of people a new sense of power. We can now easily pass on 'dirt' about someone in power and quickly bring them down. Technology offers regular people this new ability. What's more, it works well and is very effective.
Let me give you a simple example. My wife and I were traveling in the upper State of Washington on a rural country highway. We had just left a wonderful resort town where we spent the weekend. In the rear view mirror of my vehicle I could see another automobile doing some extremely fast and dangerous driving. It was also coming closer to catching up with us. I noticed how it took some terrible risks in passing some of the other people that were driving their vehicles well behind us. Some of those passes were dangerously made on double-lined, blind-side outside corners in the road. The risk for meeting other traffic going the opposite direction was extremely high. I was shocked to see this kind of driving going on in my rear view mirror. What's more, this dangerous and terrible driver was approaching my rear.
Having a hands-free device in my ear, I called 911. Within a minute or so I was batched forward and talking to a Washington State patrolman, as he was driving his patrol car about ten miles in front of us near the town we were approaching. While I was talking to that patrolman, that ridiculous driver zoomed right past our car on this highway. I gave the patrolman the description and license number of the foolish driver. He took my description and story down and positioned himself to wait for the oncoming crazy driver. He asked me to stop on the side of the road when I came to the place where he might pull that driver over up ahead. He asked me to remain parked several car lengths back when I pulled over, however. He said he wanted my testimony to help prove to that driver about his reckless driving habits...just in case that driver was not driving wrong at the time he passed the patrolman. Technology. It is a new empowering tool.
When we came around one of the corners on that two lane highway in Washington, we could see the patrol car lights flashing ahead. That patrolman had pulled over that same vehicle and was stopped on the side of the road. This is what I found amazing. There were already two other cars parked on the side of the road, well behind where the officer had pulled that vehicle over. As we pulled over to park, like the patrolman asked us to do, three more cars behind us pulled over, too. I started to laugh out loud. I told my wife, just look at how much more empowered these regular people have become. They can now use technology to stop a criminal act while it is being committed, all without becoming physically involved with performing the arrest. They have all become deputized! They are able to act like deputies all without training, with little effort, and with virtually no added expense. Empowered by technology.
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These new tools have also empowered the owners, the business leaders and the marketing world. The ability and wealth of passing information around has become the new power struggle. Everyone has the ability to do what they want to do to, gather what they want to gather and to reveal what they want to reveal. The game of empowerment has become a crazy game of lost 'one-ups-man-ship'. One source flips to the top of the power control while the other side gathers more strength with newer information to climb back on top. The cycle gets feverish and the tail begins to wag the dog. In the end, nobody truly has any power at all. The endless illusion is short lived and the cycle restarts and begins its customary roll on the proverbial gerbil wheel. Around and round we go again.
We are not empowered, just crazy!
We get caught up in the cycle of the game we devised and find our time spent chasing the power that was never ours to possess. We are crazy. We are acting like crazy empowered owners. The truth is in fact, we own nothing. We are only here as temporary guests making the best of what we are given to touch. We are not gaining new powers with the advancements we learn about how to better use the technologies we acquire. We are the same people with the same minds doing the same basic things trying to gain business control with a certain level of business success. The fundamentals of business have not changed.
We still need to provide great service, great selections, timely products and services, wonderful levels of quality and competitive pricing. These basic fundamentals still remain as important as they once were. No technological advances have diminished how important these five characteristics are to the buying consumer. They are cardinal rules in the buying process. Pretend what you want to believe, but in the end, these five components will always dominate the selling world. Always.
We are not empowered, just crazy.
We have somehow become inoculated with the idea that having new and better technological tools is giving our business models greater advantage to the marketplace of buying. This simple is not true. It is true that in order to compete well in the business atmosphere of this current world, technology must be comfortably put in place. No argument there. However, to succeed in any competitive market requires practicing those above listed five components very well. Good quality, good service, great selection, competitive pricing and timeliness of the offer are all critical steps for producing a healthy business model. Technology does not empower us. The use of technology does not empower us as well as the power we can gain by providing these five components to our customers at the very same time. Step away from the computers, the PDAs and the E-Mails for just one moment and sit back to evaluate how well your business model is doing with these five things. Get out of the illusion that you are empowered by technology, or remain crazy.
The competition you face may already be adjusted to respect what truly produces real power. They may be headed well down the other road to success. They might be working harder on becoming more competitive, selecting better and more useful and timely products with improved quality standards, making sure they have plenty of variety to choose and teaching their people to become the best consumer-driven caretakers that can be found. To ignore this responsibility in a business model is to become very crazy.
Technology offers so many great things. Unfortunately, it also brings along with it some very unwanted characteristics. It can have the tendency to bring on the illusion that we are somehow empowered far better than ever before. Not true. We are not empowered, just crazy.
Go work on becoming less crazy with technology and more crazy about providing the most important five components of value...quality products, wide selections, competitive pricing, excellent customer service and a sense for respecting the timeliness of what your business does and how it presents its wares and itself. Get a little bit less crazy. Refrain from crazy thinking. Refrain from believing that technology provides your business efforts with powerful control. It does not. That is simply crazy thinking.
We are not empowered, just crazy.
Until next time...
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