Tech as a Shock and Opportunity

Almost two decades ago, I began my professional career with an English degree. So I explored all the pathways the world said were available:

Eventually, I took a full-time job as a book editor at Black Belt Magazine where I worked for about 4 years. In hindsight, it was also my first true foray into product management and operational leadership. Because I not only ushered each book through from concept to publication over a two-year period, but I also built the entire operational engine. It doubled Black Belt’s output by 50%, expanded our titles into genres like travel and memoir, created a need for more staff and freelancers, and acted as a multiplier for revenue—building out DVDs, and articles—for martial arts enthusiasts to continue enjoying as an experience.

Aside from all the financial disasters, this was also the year that “print died.” What does that mean?

Basically, the business model that ran the publishing engine radically shifted that year—not to say the least of other industries impacted by the shift. In fact, we are still dealing with the fallout from that shift.

I remember checking in with NewspaperDeathWatch and hearing about another spate of firings across the board. Meanwhile, my publishing company cut positions, salaries and budgets while spilling funds to acquire more niche magazines. We were told to do more with less in an effort to keep the company afloat through the uncertainty.

At the same time, demands came from leadership and initiatives bubbled up from individuals—build a website! Figure out ecommerce! Adapt everything into an ebook! Have you heard of this thing called a Facebook page?!?! Let’s do that!

No one knew what to do. A lot of people clung to what they were already doing. But truly, people were just learning as they went.

That was when I jumped ship into the tech industry. That’s where I’ve worked my way through emerging tech like websites, blogs, smartphones, social media, apps, responsive websites, tablets, VR, AR, the Internet of Things, wearables, chatbots, SaaS, cloud sharing, and more. It’s also where I learned that all my English major skills were still super relevant to my success. Being a hyper analytical, critical-thinking, literate writer just supercharged my influence beyond the interface and into strategy, leadership, and even longterm business decisions, product innovation, and market transitions for my clients.

And as the technology landscape shifted my career did, too. I went from working in agencies to running my own consultancy. But even within the 10 years I’ve coached, advised, consulted, and collaborated with everything from 1-person startups to global brands with thousands of employees on things as simple as a landing page to as complex as a 5-game interactive marketing game for children, my business has shifted. Even as I built a pipeline, found clients, increased revenue, grew into other industries, made new digital products, and more, I also kept changing.

I’m not really sure how it’s going to change or how I’m going to navigate it. Because in case you haven’t noticed, there are a LOT of shifts going on right now that remind me of 2008:

👆 Chart generated by ChatGPT btws.

As much as business searches for homeostasis, the market, the technology, the world keeps changing. And the speed … well, I think we can all agree that the pace of the change is pretty wild right now.

I’ve been making products with and without technology since 2004. And it’s here that I want to talk about how to put those decisions into context and focus. Because those decisions are actually what impact customers, scale businesses, and build wealth in quantitative and qualitative ways across our lives, communities, families, friends, and futures.

You’ll find less:

And more:

here.

Let’s see what we can discover when we focus on the outcomes instead of the noise.

Because even though there’s a lot coming at us, the process and decisions to making the right product or experience for yourself and your company or career remain the same—no matter the tech, industry, team, company size, or decision maker.

Let’s get started! Stay tuned!