The Times They Are A-Changin'

News.Bridge GRIST

Bob Dylan has it right!

The old economy is crumbling with much unnecessary pain and dislocation from poorly planned and executed disintermediation...big institutions, e.g., newspapers, evaporating while Web-based pinpoint interactive information services flourish.

For example: Mr. Dwight Opperman's West Publishing, now of Eagan, MN, the foremost source for legal information, transitioned from print to pioneering digital (Westlaw) by retraining and expanding its workforce and did not lay off a soul.

Fact is: The new economy is growing and is a field of opportunity--for example, Mr. Steve Shank's creation and dynamic expansion of Capella distance learning of Minneapolis.


Customers want what we want and when we want it--see former Dayton Hudson (now known as Target) President Steve Pistner's 1980 vision of the Store of the Future (please see entry below, Take your mark-downs early). We demand products and services of the highest quality, latest fashion/technology, and at the lowest possible price.

New equation: As it's all about delivering VALUE, costly intermediaries (e.g., public relations consultants, travel agents, real estate agents, school administrators, etc.) know we/they must advance with the times or be left by the wayside.

We can profit by looking for lessons from change-masters like the Oppermans, Shanks and Pistners.

Government is next: Business change is the tip of the iceberg (Tofflers, Revolutionary Wealth). Nothing is more resistant to or in need of change than government institutions (e.g., collapse of the Soviet Union, Katrina, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac).