When was the last time you…

Yesterday I reflected on how quickly things can change. In particular I wrote about the swings in my emotions and my finances over a short period of time.

Today I want to reflect on how quickly things can change in terms of the technology and systems we use in our daily lives and the business opportunities that stem from them.

Image: Wikipedia

Paper

I became a member of National Speakers recently and given it’s incorporated status I had to sign a document and submit it to be fully accepted. I’m embarrassed to say this has now been incomplete for several months.

The initial stumbling block for me was that I don’t have a working printer. I use it so rarely that when it stopped working it didn’t seem worth fixing.

REFLECTION: When was the last time you printed something?

Post

Given my slow response, the administration of National Speakers did a wonderful thing and proactively sent me the printed form in the mail. Today I filled it and had to send it back to them.

To do this I had to make a special trip to the post office to pay for postage. The interesting thing was that before I left I found a few stamps on my desk. The only problem they were 50-cent stamps and I was pretty sure that letters cost more than that to post.

REFLECTION: When was the last time you posted a letter?

Digital Media

So, I had to drive down to the post office and stand in line to buy the extra postage. Whilst I was standing there I had about ten minutes to look around at the stock that was selling in the shop. The one item that most caught my eye were the music CDs.

REFLECTION: When was the last time you bought a CD?

Tape

I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD. I don’t even own a CD player except for the one that’s in my car. In fact, my car is sooooo old that it even has a tape player. I’ve had the car for about 5 years and I’ve never used the tape player.

REFLECTION: When was the last time you played a tape recorder?

Whilst yesterday, I reflected on how quickly my business fortunes change, today it shows how quickly everything else is changing too. And, if you’re in the wrong business it could all go from chocolates to boiled lollies very quickly. Do you remember the video store? The one that rented videos, then DVDs and now doesn’t exist because we download movies…