With an ability to mould classic concepts together with ever-evolving technology, Fiona Blayney argues that we really do have the best of both worlds.
IN THIS FAST-PACED, technoaggressive world an app created by three students, which slings wingless birds towards pigs, is worth $8.8 Billion. We measure our fitness not from how far or how fast we can run but by a bangle around our arm that depicts an array of traffic lights reporting on the number of steps we take throughout a day. So why do we find ourselves restoring a method of information delivery that we had believed to be gone forever: the magazine?
As you come to the close of the first print edition of Elite Agent, if you are like me, you have enjoyed the visual elements and been engaged through the tactile nature of turning a page. You have identified quality via the stock of the paper and the level of planning and detail that has gone into the magazine’s layout and design. Perhaps there are some things that will actually stand the test of time, and I for one hope they remain.
There is something warm about turning the pages of your favourite book. I enjoy sitting on my leather lounge in our reading room at home, and the feeling of being surrounded by knowledge in the form of the shelves of our books.
I think about tucking my daughters in of a night. There is the ritual of the bedtime story, and I like that we read from a book and not the iPad. The Oh Dear is a pop-up book where the ever-silly Buster attempts to locate eggs on his grandma’s farm; my daughter shouts “Oh dear!” as we open the barn door, look inside the dog’s kennel and so on through an array of farm animals’ homes until finally Buster lifts up a chicken to find the eggs. Would this really be the same if done through technology? Perhaps in some ways it would. Perhaps not.
Currently we really have the best of both worlds – well, from my perspective: an ability to maintain old-fashioned concepts together with our ever-evolving technology. We have the option to read a magazine but also jump online and get the most up-to-date discussions, interact with others and do it all in real time.
With Elite Agent online launching earlier this year, I began to think about my own business, my own life, and identify how I could integrate the old with the new. How will my businesses stand the test of technology and time? Of course Real+, our online learning system, is the epitome of technology, but really we need to ensure we are still ‘rubbing bellies’ with our clients which we can lose sight of in the online world.
Transversely, in the physical world we can lose sight of the need to keep going with technology. Instead we revert to ‘back in my day’ as our means to maintain our end and avoid change. When you backtrack 10 years you would never have imagined a website could replace an agent, a resource overseas would conduct elements of your workplace functions, or a system would allow a tenant or purchaser to select their own appointment times. In 2014 these are not just potentials, these are the reality. So what will you be doing not just to survive but thrive in the evolving market?
Ultimately every consumer across all industries is simply someone with a problem to solve. Perhaps the mix of tradition and technology is changing. Have you stopped lately to identify what problem it is you are solving, or are you simply attempting to keep the existing business model profitable?
As you think about your own business evolution, before you embark on the techno superhighway stop and consider the consumer problem you are solving. Then ask yourself how technology will allow you to solve this issue and whether it will add more to your bottom line. It’s fun to throw wingless birds at pigs, but some technology is just a waste of time – and in business you don’t have much of it to waste.
Well, that’s it from me. I must dash; tonight we are not only helping Buster find some eggs, but also taking a trip to Spain…. Thank you, Google. A healthy mix of the new and traditional.
