Answer Guy Central

Oddly, the answer might be “yes”.

A few days ago, teen queen Miley Cyrus enacted one of the worst business changes ever when she quit using Twitter. I don’t follow her, and don’t really care. But I commented then that it was incredibly short-sited, and now that Jimmy Fallon has done what might be the funniest parody of her parody — and the parody that is Ms. Cyrus’ life, It’s time to take a look:

And then ask yourself. When is business change a good idea, and when is it awful?

While there’s no “answer” to that question (and while dear sweet Miley gets a pass for bad judgement based on her age), you need to be ready to make decisions based on changing issues. For someone with two million loyal followers on Twitter to stop using it is throwing away millions of dollars. For me to stop tweeting to my not-quite-a-thousand followers is another story.

Be ready for business change. CREATE that change when the situation calls for it. And know when you need to protect the status quo.

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.