What I Remembered In 2011

Most of these year-end posts are about what was learned. Increasingly, I find old ideas come back with more meaning.

No matter how hard you do the wrong thing, it never quite works. Ted Long

The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. William Gibson

If we can't beat a copycat at our own game, we suck. Ben Huh

The middle class is disappearing. Media hysteria

For many years I read how businesses were buying personal computers, yet productivity wasn’t increasing. Turns out we were just learning how to use them.

What took ten professionals in 1970 now takes two.

In the commercial sector we’ve seen a 40% reduction in employees for the same sales volume, probably well over 50% when you count the businesses that have gone away.

During the last five years government employee count has risen ten percent, and government pay rates have held steady as commercial pay rates have plummeted.

I expect a massive equalization in the next 18 months. The equalization has started, not from legislators but from employees who see the end coming.

It is our expectation of constantly reducing cost and constantly improving quality which will overturn our “Because I SAID so” bureaucracy.

82.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

There are two things that force decisions. Lack of time and lack of money. John Sanders

If you’re not embarrassed when you ship the first prototype, you’ve waited too long. Brett Battjer, Product Manager, Living Social

People keep trying schemes to corral and divvy up the Internet. The value from the Internet is its breadth. So far all the attempts at walled gardens and apps have failed based on their lack of breadth.

Most work can be redesigned to use the Internet, cutting cost and increasing accuracy. We are in a period of learning how to do that in industry after industry.

I can counted ten different independent Internet business models for books. Publishers complain about slipping sales and new technology, but the two, slipping sales and new technology, are the two ends of the continuum. You can have one or the other.

Everything new is an improvement on something else. Merlin Mann wrote, “Innovation is starting where the last person stopped.” 

What was the best thing you learned in 2011? 

Come join us for The Direct Economy - How Can You Benefit From The Strongest Economy In The History Of The World? At The Association for Information Technology Professionals (AITP) January 12, 6 pm, Chevy Chase RSVP Here