70- Dilemma for Entrepreneurs in creativity and innovation

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In this episode of The Struggling Biz, we deal with the entrepreneur theme (and possible threat) of innovation that may overtake the small business owner and possibly become a negative environment (or disaster) in the entrepreneurship. This occurs when a new technology or product becomes the mainstream rather quickly and may catch the entrepreneur off guard — especially when the entrepreneur does not want to update, improve or ride the coattails of the new technology or product environment.

This theme is highlighted in the book by Clayton Christensen called The Innovator’s Dilemma. So we will start with historical background when related to the ideas from Clayton M Christensen of his book titled The Innovator’s Dilemma (which you can get in hardcopy or kindle from amazon.com).

As a backgrounder and historical point, we see such companies that had the opportunity to take advantage of future technology and innovation and be true leaders in the fields of:

Movie rentals — how Netflix stole the market from Blockbuster, even though the latter had the opportunity to buy the former, but declined;
Xerography and copiers — how Xerox stole the market of copiers from IBM, even after IBM had the opportunity to buy the technology and firm that was later a key competitor, Xerox; and
PC Operating systems and portable phones — how google and Apple stole the market of smartphones and search engines from Microsoft.

Now, what about your own business and its technologies used and products sold? Has there been new technology that can now upset the apple cart for you that can pose a threat to your present and future? Or can it make you change your workflow or work style or products, services, offerings or offers to an entirely new paradigm?

For this, we can take a case study in the world of profitable podcasting by a content creator and new media entrepreneur who is making money from the monetization strategies for podcasting in his business (you can get a good idea of what they are in the book by Dave Jackson called More Podcast Money)

And this book is being updated now and will be published with a newer title called Profit from Your Podcast.

Well, in several podcast episodes of Grumpy Old Bens and No Agenda and other tech-focused podcast shows, the example of DeScript is given as the possible next technology to turn the podcast industry and podosphere upside down.

So, if you understand the technologies used with DeScript, do you think that being able to change the text of a text transcript will be revolutionary to change the face of podcasting and force the indie podcasters to become extinct?

For this podcaster, my perspective is that the podosphere is still a level playing field for indie podcasters — this is my opinion. And with the growth of podcasting by the new shows (now over 1 million shows in podcasting), the technology of creating audio from text and including it into a podcast or making an entire show from the audio-generated from transcripts will compete with the following areas of the indie podcasters:

the perspective and credits and credentials of the indie podcasters who have gained a reputation and a loyal following in the podosphere;
the audio of an accepted podcaster’s character, voice, sense of humor and personality that sets the podcaster apart from anyone else;
the loyal fans of podcasting who hate to hear any type of robot-like voice, regardless of how “perfect” it may seem to the newer publications creators (like the millennials);
Those listeners who still find value in the older methods of publication and reception of audio podcast episodes and shows and refuse to change; and finally
Those podcasters who still want to continue their workflow in creating and publishing outstanding content for the audiences which they have (and have worked so hard to get over the past 15 years).

So you can see the possible threats that come from innovation and technologies that may cause the new media podcaster and content creator to be aware of possible dangers for the future of present business workflows and relying on current products for future revenues.

So, as the above is only my opinion, I suspect that, for our case study, we all have to keep watching the space of technology in podcasting and see what the newer innovations will be. And perhaps we need to focus on the podcasting tech shows to see if innovations like DeScript will grow (and how fast it will be accepted by the podcast community). Please remember that when blab was available several years ago, many podcasters jumped on this technology and predicted that this would be the game-changer in podcasting for the future — and you saw that this was removed after a year or so from the podosphere.

So, we hope that you keep involved in understanding the technologies that are being created, and the innovations that may change the landscape of your environment as an entrepreneur and possible future modifications needed.

Thank you for your attention.