Falling walls and rising opportunities

Recently, I caught myself taking an inventory of personal capacity, where a conservation-related hobby of mine is concerned. Over the years, I’ve assembled a pretty nice tool shed, including a couple of laptops, film and digital SLR cameras, now-old video cameras (which at the time cost five-fold the price of a “Flip HD”). With those tools, modest as they are, I have unwittingly become a researcher, writer, photographer, videographer, producer and publisher.

Just for the fun of it.

I was reminded of the significance of this evolution last week, when I read an article about the falling “barrier to entry” in the photography business, which was published by the New York Times. The story explains how a woman turned her picture-taking hobby into a way of making extra cash… using a $99 Kodak camera, at first. That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Unless you are a professional photographer, and the digital age has brought new “competition,” raining down on you by the millions.

When these things happen—and they are happening in many categories of business, in one way or another—we tend to focus on the companies or industries that have been victimized by the falling “barriers to entry.” After all, if tasks that once required expensively trained, highly skilled workers can suddenly be done with an automated device, software package or advanced algorithm… high-paying jobs will be lost, lives will be upset, and entire industries could evaporate.

But I’m thinking about it from the other direction: While falling “barriers to entry” can take some people out of their comfort zone, it puts other people into one. In the Times story, one man traveled many years and many educational miles toward his capacity as a photographer. For the female hobbyist, that capacity came to her.

Implications: It occurs to me that many B to C (business to consumer) marketing campaigns could benefit from having a B to B (business to business) angle. After all, many of the consumers you sell to could be hedging their current job—or supplement their current income—through some type of moonlighting or freelance. Or, in the absence of work, they could be launching ventures on their own, which they may not have had the resources to think about just a few short years ago. [See “Make the job you want” from 9/23/09, or “Me, Inc.” from 8/22/09.]

Among these people, you might find many Baby Boom workers, who are of retirement age, but who do not have the financial means to quit work entirely. Having seen their investments battered by the stock market in recent years, more and more would-be retirees are seeking “next life” employment which not only provides supplemental income, but also delivers personal satisfaction and self-actualization. [See “Retirement, re-defined” from 9/16/10.]
Perhaps instead of taking a job they can enjoy, they will decide to make a job they can enjoy, using tools and technology that have seemingly made almost anything possible.

Mike Anderson