March 25, 2010

What if there was no Internet?

An old friend of mine recently posed a question to me: Where would I be today if the Internet had never been invented?  What would my accomplishments be?  What kind of life would I be living? 

After thinking about it for a minute, I responded, "I'd probably be doing the same thing, in the same place in society and likely enjoying life just as much."  He looked puzzled.  Then he reminded me of my success first at broadcast.com, then Yahoo, and how that turned my life around and led to my books being published, etc.  

But I held my ground.  I would have still advocated the power of great relationships, and that would have worked whether I was born in the 60's or the 30's.  I was raised to value, nurture and feed relationships by my grandmother, and later in my mid-30's, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's startup (Audionet) became a platform for me to do this on a grand scale.  My claim to fame at that company was producing the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 1999, which crashed the Internet.  But it wasn't about technology, and my value proposition to Victoria's Secret wasn't "selling things."  It was about creating better relationships by getting customers to sign up for email updates, so the company could have inexpensive two way communications with millions of clients. 

Same goes at Yahoo.  All the big deals I worked on were designed to foster cheaper, better and faster relationships with clients or business partners.  That was also the theme for all three of my books, my current consulting and almost every talk I ever give.  Relationships are still more powerful than technology in my view.   

Still, his question was provocative, and helped me distill my value proposition and gain more focus in my life.  Once I realized that the Internet is only the tail of the dog, I felt very free, knowing that I wasn't lucky or just "in the right place at the right time."  Many of you that read this might also operate under the assumption that you'd be lost if the Internet had never come along.  You wouldn't be in your current job, have the success you have, etc.  It's not true.  There's something you are doing (relationships, innovation, efficiency, etc.) that 'works' on the Internet, and would have worked in the real world decades ago.  So spend a minute today finding that thing, and you'll gain more focus on what makes you rich, powerful and successful. 

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