Remaining Relevant

Greetings.  In a world that often seems dominated by digital media, "traditional" media is beginning to fight back.  And one interesting example is the "Power of Print" ad campaign launched recently by the magazine industry.  It's an attempt to cast magazines in a new, old, and comfortable light compared to their internet competitors.  Here's an excerpt:

This is not the Internet.  Feel free to curl up and settle in.

Magazines don't blink on and off.  They don't show video or deliver ads that pop up out of nowhere.  You can't DVR magazines and you can't play games on them.

But you can take a magazine to the beach, or to bed or just about anywhere else and, chances are, it will engage, entertain and enlighten you in ways no other medium can.

Maybe so.  Though more and more people are taking laptops, iPads, and a host of other web-enabled devices to the beach, to bed, and just about anywhere else.  Not that there isn't lots to be said for the experience of getting lost in a good magazine. But is it enough to keep magazines relevant and essential in our fast-paced multi-media world?  A world in which most of the leading magazines are also hedging their bets by making significant investments in on-line versions.  A world filled with more choices.

Which leads to the simple question of whether or not your company or organization can remain relevant in your world.  A world that is also filled with more choices than ever before.  Choices empowered by new technologies or simply by newer and more innovative competitors offering even greater value to the customers you choose to serve.  One of the most exciting challenges in business is the reality that the needs of customers, and the customers themselves, are always changing.  Not always at the same pace in every industry, but at a pace that should consistently warrant our attention and creativity.  Which suggests that magazines (and the rest of us) can survive and prosper if they (we) are willing to change too. Not by simply stating what has always made us wonderful, but by adapting to the new realities of the beach, the bed, or just about anywhere else.

We win in business and in life when we remain relevant.  By making more innovative connections with the changing needs of old and new friends.

Cheers!