Contrasting effects of technology on lifestyle and shopping behavior in our society. A recurring discussion in our day is the one about how change is affecting our way of life. Very particularly the change that emerges from technological innovation.
Surely the subject is not new. Man has developed different ways of doing things since he appeared on the face of the earth and has since changed the environment around him. It is also not a proprietary activity of humans, as other organisms do it as well. White blood cells and beavers, for example.
The two dimensions that add meaning and importance to the discussion today are the speed of technological change and the effect of innovations on our lifestyle. This effect is a contrasting mix of fascination and fear at the same time. We like the benefits that come from technology, but we feel threatened by it.
An exercise in reflecting on the past helps to better understand what is happening today, although it implies the difficulty of transferring learning from what happened then to what could happen now. Still, it is useful to imagine the postures of aversion to change that should have been generated by the appearance of innovations such as the printing press, electricity, the internal combustion engine or the telephone.
When analyzing the objections that arose in the face of a novelty, we should try to understand when the novelty ceased to be so, and even became a necessity. Undoubtedly, the first ones that appeared in front of the phone (conventional, of course; not cellular) must have been of the type 'I do not need this',' it is very expensive ',' I can go see my neighbors in person ',' it is very cold and impersonal ',' produces cancer ', etc.
Today, calling long-distance relatives and friends is a warm act that contrasts with the coldness of sending a message by mail, whether traditional or electronic. When did the phone become a warm medium of communication? Or when it stopped being a luxurious indicator of status to become an indicator of minimal urban development?
If we do the reflection for the electric current we will find the same pattern. The discussion about whether we really need electricity to live ceased to be relevant many years ago.
What we must try to answer with these exercises of historical reflection is, in a nutshell, when and why did a technological novelty cease to be questionable and became part of people's common purchasing behavior?
Another reflection exercise, as much or more productive, consists in visualizing the future at a time when society has massively accepted changes that we consider threatening today.
For example, imagining a world in which paper exists as a wrapper or as a cleaning article, but not as a means of communication, would help not only to better understand but to value in its proper dimension the changes and convenience of electronic communication.
There are applications in which we no longer miss the use of paper, while in others we turn to see it with some suspicion. If two people enter a movie show, is it absolutely necessary that they give us two papers that double as tickets? Couldn't you give us just one specifying your entry value for two people? Or none?
Filling out a deposit form at a bank branch serves only for an employee to read the written data and transcribe it from their computer to the bank system. It is better to dictate or type them directly from us, as it already happens in some banks.
We cling to paper because our lifestyle is threatened in its absence. Furthermore, we are threatened because it is precisely electronic writing that replaces it. This change causes greater distress when we refer to books and externalize our fear that people will stop reading. Will paper be the only medium through which it can be read?
On the other hand, beyond the survival of paper, we feel the fascination of being able to communicate with whoever, wherever he is, transmitting live image, voice and information.
So strong is the contrast between threats and fascination that it is very useful to better understand the market, categorizing people within a continuum that goes from the extreme position in favor of change, to the extreme position of aversion to it.
Such a classification surpasses others, obsolete in today's world, such as those of the right and left, since, in fact, it recognizes that both ideologies can find individuals in favor of change and individuals against it. We would know how to better understand the opposing positions of Green Peace and the World Trade Organization, or those of globaliphilic versus globaliphobic.
To better serve the market, we must bear in mind that technology plays a triple role in the business world: as a trader of products and services, as a means of delivering them and as a means of communication between markets and customers.
That is, they change the ways of relating and have consequences not only on products and services, the means of delivery and communication, but also on the information that companies are able to record about them.
However, technological change does not affect the business essence of understanding and serving customers to develop a continuous business relationship with them. Believing otherwise has led to some serious business problems. For example, it is assumed that technological change is inevitable for businesses and that, consequently, they must essentially change the way they work. And this is not so to the extreme.
It may be too late to warn that not all businesses will become dot.com tomorrow, but it is not too late to reflect back on why fax-businesses did not emerge, at the time, as precursors to current e-business. They are not equivalent technologies, but we can learn a lot from what were the consequences of their appearance.
The point is not to discuss whether we should be for or against technological change, but to understand the implications that technological innovation has on purchasing behavior and business strategy.
