Answer Guy Central

I’ve mentioned Paul Krugman before. He’s one smart guy, and I’m not at all embarrassed to admit that he’s operating in an intellectual space that I’ve not only never visited but don’t even have an apt name for.

And Obama-administration-adviser-and-New-York-Times-Economist Paul Krugman says we’re in a Depression. Not just a recession, you understand . . . a full-blown depression.

The Status quo is broken. Change is here, and the only question is whether you’re going to enact business change fast enough and well enough to remain a “have” in a world more and more frequented by have-nots.

Let me begin by saying that just because Paul Krugman says we’re in a depression doesn’t mean it’s so. But if we look at the evidence he cites and conclude that he’s right, or even close, we have no choice but take swift and serious steps. So if this is a depression, what should your business change be?

HEADS UP: what follows can sound like a commercial for The Computer Answer Guy, PC-VIP, and Virtual VIP. And by definition it is. But that’s coincidence. It’s tough being smart!

In Paul Krugman’s depression-addled world, business is changing. In fact, everything is changing, but let’s focus on business. Sure, the big guys will find ways to leverage their positions, and a good number of them won’t have to adapt any more than they do in times of prosperity; they make the calls, and we all get dragged along.

But the little guy is facing something different. When every step you make has the potential to have huge impact on your success, you have to re-think the way you operate your business and the way you move.

You have to cut costs, even as you expand.

If that means farming out work, you do it. If that means traveling less and still communicating, you do that.

It means you have to change.

With free videoconferencing so easy to set up and use the traveling less part is easy, of course, and anyone who’s ever traveled on business will tell you that doing less of it is a win, not a loss. And despite the US Government’s newest attempt to make it harder, farming out out your work can be easy too, but you have to think about what that means.

Hiring good contractors is even harder than hiring good employees. Virtual VIP et.al. make it easier, and save you from many of the consequences of the pending new employment law. And All Of That Is About Efficiency. Use a cliché like “work smarter, not harder”, if you like; the point is that if a depression really is here, and people really are going to see the kinds of changes that Paul Krugman is warning us about, then business change is unavoidable.

Jump in. Business Change may not be easy or fun, but it’s your friend. And in this “Third Depression”, it’s more important than ever.

Something’s gotta give. Something is going to. Business Change isn’t just an idea; it’s become an imperative.

In a world where the health care we provide for people isn’t even good enough for animals, where famous columnists like Nicholas Kristof and economists like Paul Krugman—very different guys with diverse right and left leanings— are stating the same thing, it’s time.

Politically speaking, it’s a hot potato. The number of people you cross by passing health care reform is huge and the number you cross by not doing so is equally high. And not being from California and looking at our left-coast liberal contingency in exactly the stereotypical way that we East Coasters usually do I see the nearly-forty-percent-jump in that group’s health insurance premiums and . . . shrug. But if President Obama fails to get a meaningful health care reform bill passed, and soon, very bad things are going to happen.

Doctors can’t afford to be doctors any more. Remember when you wished you had listened to mom and become one? I do. And I also remember being at a party with a very successful cardiologist over twenty years ago and him complaining that the best and brightest weren’t going to medical school any more. Things haven’t improved.

Be smarter than the US Congress. When things change in your business, have the nerve to do something about it. Watch for Business Change every day, and be fearless about enacting it.

I don’t get to quote people who occupy such exalted positions as Paul Krugman very often. Frankly, while I like to think I’m a pretty smart guy, the world that Mr. Krugman occupies is one filled with beasties and monsters that I just don’t understand. But this weekend he broke it down in a way that made me go <pop!>. And you should pay attention.

Speaking from his pulpit as an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, the 2008 Nobel Laureate in Economics has advocated a complete re-think of banking and economic policy in the United States. It’s fascinating, and I think it makes sense.

Who says the dollar needs to be strong? For that matter, who says oil needs to be quoted in dollars rather than euros, yuan, or some other currency? Do Americans really benefit from those eventualities, or for that matter do non-Americans really suffer from them?

Now: in spite of having studied economics in college many years ago, I’m no expert, so if you take issue with my support of Mr. Krugman’s position, I’ll play, but let’s make the conversation about contrarian thinking, and not the minutiae of global microeconomic theory.

Look at your business and ask yourself whether “the way things are” needs to stay the same, or whether small — or even wholesale — business change is in order.

Start with how you look at competition. Is there any, anymore, or is this an era of coopetition in which success is determined by finding new ways to do things?

Don’t be afraid of change.