If you are in marketing, technology or at all interested in spotting and benefiting from being ahead of trends this is one of the worst thing you can say. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the world we currently live in.<\/p>\n
It is your job as a marketer, investor or tech entrepreneur to try out and use new sites, apps and devices\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0the general public. If you are doing your job correctly,\u00a0of course<\/em>\u00a0none of your friends are there yet. If you start using something because your friends are there, you\u2019ve already failed.\u00a0You\u2019re late<\/em>. Early adopters and digital savvy people are the first to explore new things. It excites them. It\u2019s interesting. It\u2019s an opportunity to connect with new people and try out a new way of doing something.<\/p>\n The fact that\u00a0your friends<\/em>\u00a0aren\u2019t there is not a stopping point for the curious and intellectually interested. Those who genuinely have a passion for something are simply interested in connecting and collaborating with like-minded individuals. As well as exploring the benefits of new things for their brand, art or portfolio. Not simply exist in the comfort zone of their existing contacts. It feels safe there but your world is small and unchanging if that\u2019s how you live. Paradoxically, it\u2019s actually\u00a0much<\/em>\u00a0less \u2018safe\u2019 because you live in such a way that\u2019s ripe for disruption.<\/p>\n The benefits of being early are huge. I\u2019m an investor and huge fan of\u00a0Tesla\u00a0and believe in their mission, products and CEO. A friend of mine had read all the background, seen the news stories, researched their tech, but was reticent to invest. He said to me: \u201cyou know, I don\u2019t really see too many of them on the road.\u201d But of course, this shows the detriment of following your personal perspective and ignoring the real-world numbers and trends. Teslas are selling like crazy and they can\u2019t even make them fast enough. If he had invested when we were chatting, he would be up significantly.<\/p>\n For social networks, I joined Twitter in early 2008. A lot of my blogging peers \u201cdidn\u2019t get it\u201d and said \u201coh, I already connect with my friends on x and y platform (one frequently mentioned was Digg!). We saw what happened there. If you were early and built a presence you were way ahead of the middle adopters. If you clung to your equity built in a peaking platform you lost everything.\u00a0Even though the growth trend was obvious back then, many ignored it because it lacked\u00a0their friends.<\/p>\n In terms of the web itself, I started building sites and participating in the social web \u00a0for fun and to build a\u00a0platform agnostic\u00a0presence in 1999. None of my \u201creal world\u201d friends were there yet. By the time they were, I was already\u00a0monetizing sites\u00a0and building communities. Had I waited for these friends to be there, I\u2019d be way behind now. PS: I put \u201creal world\u201d in quotes because I personally see no delineation between what I do online and what I do in the physical world. It\u2019s a previous generation mindset to think there is some sort of difference. The web is merely a reflection of the world, it\u2019s the same.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t believe I have to write this post in 2013, but I do. Sadly, I continually hear from people in our industry the quip \u201coh, none of my friends use that,\u201d or, \u201coh, I\u2019d never do that.\u201d I heard the same thing years ago from people when I said print would be irrelevant. They couldn\u2019t imagine\u00a0a world without print\u00a0and consuming content in a pure digital way, but we\u2019ve seen this happen too. It is totally fine for someone not involved in marketing \/ technology to think this way and\u00a0cling to the past. But if you care at all about actually winning big in your life and finally getting in early to something, you\u2019ll drop this statement from your vocabulary.\u00a0It\u2019s okay to be wrong, I\u2019m wrong on plenty. But I\u2019ve made bets and been right too, and many of the bets that panned out were the complete opposite of what other people told me. By the time your friends come around most of the early-mover opportunity is gone.<\/p>\n As my friend Gaston\u00a0said\u00a0before: \u201cPeople being afraid of change? That\u2019s how the world works.\u201d Indeed, that\u2019s why\u00a0many people fear\u00a0trying something before their friends use it. The way to win?\u00a0Be curious, not dismissive. And yes, there are many points you should ignore your personal friends and instead listen to data and your own analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you are in marketing, technology or at all interested in spotting and benefiting from being ahead of trends this … <\/p>\n