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.

Who do you work with? Who’s your enemy? The correct answers, in order, are:

1. Everyone
2. No-One

In another sign of competition yielding to CoOpetition, Zoho, the not-quite-Google of on-line document editing and storage, has integrated their service with Google Docs. Is this business change, business as usual, or an attempt to “steal eyeballs”?.

The answer is “Yes”.

If you click on the above link to Zoho’s announcement, you’ll leave here, and go to a page on Zoho’s website. That’s the way the Internet works. But what’s the cost of that to The Answer Guy? Have we lost you? What if you never come back?

To protect against that a little bit, we make the link open a fresh window in your browser so instead of leaving here when you click you’re left with a trail back. And we do that not only to “hold on to you”, but because we know how frustrating it is to lose you place in the middle. We’re cooperating with Zoho, and you.

Because we’re not in the same business as the folks at Zoho, (see, there it is again!) CoOpetition is barely in play. But what if you’re Zoho and want to make it easy for your users to see their Google Docs documents right inside Zoho? What are you doing then?

An even better question: what will Google think Zoho is doing?

Google holds such a strong position that I’ll bet they’ll think Zoho linking the two companies’ competitive services is fine. But what if one of your competitors wants to do this to you? Maybe they’ll negotiate a deal, and maybe they’ll just do it.

Don’t wait for that. Be the company that makes the links. Initiate business change instead of waiting for it to come to you.

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.