The economic turn-around

Hindsight purportedly provides amazingly clear vision. Looking back, we should not have any doubts or uncertainties: the facts are supposed to speak for themselves.

Of course it never works quite that way, as historians appreciate. History is interpreted and revised based on current perspectives, technologies and resources (and sometimes contemporary ideologies).

I certainly thought of this dynamic a couple of years ago, comfortably seated on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. Certainly, there was plenty of security, but not the form that Hitler would have ever imagined.

Today, some -- perhaps most -- of this blog's readers are still fighting the Grand Recession of 2010. Aa few of us see the light at the end of the tunnel and have resumed growing. How have our perspectives changed, and where do they take us in reinterpreting the past year, and looking forward to the future?

I'd like to say we've matured, learned from our experiences, grown leaner and more effective at our work/business/life, and positioned ourselves for much better times ahead. But some of us are probably holding on, still, for dear life, wondering when this mess will end.

Here is how things have changed in my perspective:

The "new media", with social networking, the Internet, and convergence between visual and written media, have truly changed the way we communicate. Even though we continue to publish printed newspapers, I rarely read them like before. POINT: If you are thinking one-dimensionally in your marketing, and that the old approaches are still okay, watch out for the storm that is about to hit you.

Word-of-mouth and existing relationships still count for much, but your network and knowledge can (and should) be much deeper.

Research is much easier these days than before; I can write comprehensive stories on significant topics in days rather than weeks or months when I pull together online resources; these qualities are apparent in the story on social networking and technologies for the Design and Construction Report. OBSERVATION: If you aren't comfortably using at least some of the new media (you most likely are, if you are reading this blog), you will soon be left far behind the competition.

Bad, untalented, stuff is still out there; it may seem there is much more of it, and it is much more visible. But good stuff still rises to the top. Before, publishers would have screened your work before letting it see the light of day; now anyone can post, write, and observe. But other gatekeepers, whether it be search engine algorithms, spam blocks, or simply the "voice of the crowd" (see Wikipedia) manage things so that you don't waste your time with stuff that doesn't help your business and life.

CONCLUSION: Remember your strengths and focus on them. Just don't forget that your strengths are not what you want to be, but the combination of how you feel best about yourself and how others who matter to you think about you. We don't live in isolation.