I’m as big a fan of Seth as anyone can be. I think most of his ideas are truly insightful and he has a lot to teach everyone here, and the fact that he chooses to do so for free is truly remarkable and commendable.
BUT.
While the majority of his ideas is platform agnostic so to speak, and in their essence could be transposed to any kind of business or concept other than the example Seth has chosen to make his point, he does suffer from the weird idée fixe that happens to a lot of people these days: the internet is the one-size-fits-all answer to every old business problem.
Well, it’s not.
Not every marketing problem can be solved by ’starting your own platform’ or ‘leading your own community’. Not every project can be handled by sending the spec to some obscure location in Romania or India and getting a working proto back the next morning. Not every technology start up has something remarkable to say–some are changing the world by selling manure-to-gas converters. However valuable those mechanisms may be when they can be applied, some things just don’t work that way.
Sometimes you need to see eye to eye to make a deal. Sometimes you just need people in the room to find a great solution. And sometimes media ‘gatekeepers’ deserve to exist because the green pastures they have the key to is so valuable.
Why? Because a huge big chunk of business is about people, and trust and relationships.
So please. Making the web this big umbrella solution actually takes away from it’s power. We should duly realize what it can do, and at the same time be clear about it’s limitations.
Because in the end it’s all about you and me sitting down and me helping you get something done. The web may have put us in touch and facilitated the setup of our meeting, but it’s you and me solving something, however trivial that something may be.
It’s like a spectrum where on the one side you have the technocrats and on the other you have the politicians. And the real momentum is somewhere in the middle. Talk is cheap, but technology is merely an enabler, never the goal.
Fine print: the picture I found here.
Rik is one of the founders of Klatergoud.
He's the marketing director of Intivation, a technology company that develops solar powered consumer devices, and a graduate of Delft University of Technology with degrees in Applied Physics and Strategic Product Design.
He writes about entrepreneurship, design, business concepts, innovation and marketing.
Rik loves his iPhone, the Eagles of Death Metal, things Tom Ford makes, bespoke suits, and Jack Daniels and he hates a rainy day.
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