Ted Turner's Atlanta Braves/WTBS "Channel 17" jersey -- a creative if short-lived bit of advertising
Recently, I’ve resumed visits to the public library to gather knowledge in two areas of inquiry. In the first, I’m reading stories of entrepreneurial brilliance — the biographies and autobiographies of Warren Buffet and Ted Turner, for example. In the second, I’m exploring successful aging: that is, books written by really old writers telling others how they managed to maintain energy, creativity and success through their seventies and eighties.
These inquiries (with old, printed books as my inspiration source) coincide with my curiosity and interest in new technology. The Ipad and its counterparts may ultimately “doom” the printed book to a peripheral role — removing the barriers to electronic media from the few places where you really couldn’t conveniently use even a simple laptop computer.
Both the entrepreneurial success stories and retrospective views of success from individuals who have successfully lived fulfilling and highly accomplished lives as “senior citizens” inspire me. I don’t plan to stop working anytime soon and I know the “old media” — especially the conventional printed newspaper and book — may be reaching the stage where they must either transform radically or become peripheral. Of course the information in “old books” and newspapers can still be truly useful, whether in print or electronic format.
I’m writing this blog entry from the darkened patio of a 200-year-old bed and breakfast in Seneca Falls, NY (the only place around the television-less building where you can find a reasonably reliable wireless Internet connection). Looking back, you see the industrial inspiration of early entrepreneurs who devised and built the Erie Canal system; and the challenges to local economies around here when technology, commerce and business leadership moved to other places.
Some of the best and brightest local people picked up and moved on; others adapted to their local settings — building on the heritage and history and perhaps some of the old-time pioneering spirit to develop new economies while retaining their sense of community. Seneca Falls may have never been Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life but the real-town linkage to the fictional community certainly makes for a worthy tourist tale.
As you read these paragraphs, you may wonder: “What does this sort of thinking have to do with Construction Marketing and how can it help my business/practice grow (or survive)?” The simple answer is that the really good ideas you are likely to achieve for your business — the unique, ground-breaking and truly brilliant inspirations — are most likely to occur when you combine perceptions of your day-to-day operations and your own industry’s general “standard practices” with insights and ideas from other places. Reading with depth into areas of inquiry away from home base can provide insights and be helpful in understanding the right course to take.
So can travel and real-life experience, sometimes to places which don’t show up on too many big tourist maps. That is why I read and write on a patio in Seneca Falls, NY now and why, 30 years ago, I sat on the patio reading books from the Bulawayo (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) Public Library. I can’t wait to experience the next 30 years.