To continue on yesterday’s notion that for those living in the Digital Nation, any thought worth having is a thought worth digitizing.… This need to connect has great implications for businesses, particularly for those in publishing. I’m not a believer in that the book is going anywhere. Amazon’s Kindle and the like have their place in this world but the physical book is an excellent answer to a perennial human need. Nor do I believe that this drive to digital lessens the importance of the book. Actually, for those seeking to connect through the medium of Web & telecommunications, the dynamism is often found in the relationship between the physical world and the e-world. So packaging content in books is important but equally important are extensions of that content onto the Web, iPhones, etc., and the interplay between these two. For content providers today it’s not as simply as: “Here’s a book, here’s a DVD, and here’s some Web support.” The key to success is facilitating and harnessing the back-and-forth between these two and the way this conversation informs new product manifestations in the physical world and the physical world informs, pollinates, and changes offerings in the e-world.Businesses that truly desire rich relationships with their customers are doing both. They are bringing down the barriers between these two worlds because these “barriers” are really just our own limiting mental concepts. The principals that drive product development in either world have not changed: know your customers and provide the best solution for answering their needs. It’s simply the manner and vehicles to do this that keep evolving.
Some companies that I think currently excel at this: Apple (natch), Whole Fodds Market, New York Times, ESPN, and Hulu/NBC Universal to name a few. If you have others to suggest, I’d love to hear.
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