Don't become stale like Borders
You need to be ready to change and make adjustments all the time. Never be satisfied with your systems of productivity. Happy with the way you handle email? Maybe there is a more efficient way. Happy with tracking your to-do’s? Would you consider a new method? Happy with your job? Maybe it is time to challenge yourself more.
When you think of book stores, who do you think of, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon? I think those are the first three that come to the mind of most people. Earlier this year, Borders announced they were closing some stores in an attempt to restructure.
Fast forward a whole five months and Borders President Mike Edwards said today, “We were all working hard toward a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”
So what happened? What happened was Borders was like many large corporations, and they got comfortable with where they were and refused to consider changing.
One of my favorite quotes is: “If it is not broken, break it and make it better.” This is what Borders refused to do. Look at Barnes & Noble. They saw Amazon come out with the Kindle and said, wait, they may be on to something here. So instead of sticking their head in the ground they came out with a Nook, which many consider a better eReader than the Kindle.
Both Barnes & Noble and Borders had a good thing going just a few years ago. One of them said things are good and kept on doing what they were doing, and the other started to adapt. Now one of them is doing good and the other is about to close their remaining 399 stores and lay off 11,000 people.
This world is quickly changing. Every day there are new tools and new systems to help improve our lives. You need to be willing to challenge yourself and willing to try new things or your life may become much like Borders, stale and stagnant.
I believe you need to be always looking for ways to improve your relationship with your significant other, and always be looking for new and creative ways to challenge your kids and yourself.
What have I done recently? Well a few days ago I started tracking every minute of every day. From the moment I wake up, to the moment I call it a night, my day is being tracked. I know what activities I am doing and how long I am doing them for. I see exactly how many times I read my RSS feed, how many times I check email and how long I spend in my email.
I will be blogging more about this soon because it has been a real eye opener.
What are you going to do today to break things and make them better?
Until next time, be productive
Borders did have the Sony eReader. I wouldn’t attribute them going out of business because of their lack of technology.
Dani it was a big factor. They never really pushed it and were late to the game
In 2002, I worked a holiday job for 4 months at a Borders here in “Silicon Valley.” The company had a 30-day return policy, which seemed to result in a huge number of returns after an average of 3 1/2 weeks. Without question, the biggest area for returns was the computer books. Customers were routinely “purchasing” $70 or $80 books on the latest version of key software programs, studying the book in the store and elsewhere for 3 weeks, then returning it for a full refund. Our manager told us that Ann Arbor headquarters asked about the unusual number of returns and said it only happened in Silicon Valley.
I believe this was another event that should have alerted Borders management that the use of books is changing. If they had investigated, they might have realized that Silicon Valley has a huge population of young people from emerging markets working in the U.S. on H1-b visas. The 30-day return policy probably seems ridiculous to young people from countries which don’t have a tradition of intellectual property rights. I think that In their eyes, Borders was foolishly offering a whole month to use the books to upgrade their professional skills — for free! This point of view fits perfectly with the tech industry’s prevailing philosophy of libertarianism — that laws and regulations should be kept to a minimum.
Even ten years ago, publishers were looking at ways to “rent” books for limited time periods. I wonder if Borders had moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle or Austin would they have kept on top of a rapidly transforming industry and survived?
Barbara thanks for your insight. I guess we will never know now will we