Have you ever stopped to think how the world of work has changed in the last 10 years? Or even 5?
Last night I had a Skype video conference with one of my flagship content clients on the west coast of USA, it was 7 am for Stuart but early evening for me. Chris Brogan just started doing webinars mixed with Twitter. Liz is organizing business masterminds with people who might never meet in person. Darren and I co-authored a book together and we still haven’t met.
When I look back to my early career, if I wanted answers I had to buy many telephone directory sized books, tons of magazines, and rack up huge phone bills on support lines. Nobody around me could provide answers, so it was trial and error, experimentation, or rely on vendors most of the time. Now, just hit up Google.
Clients in another country? Expect huuuge long distance calls, if you can even manage to get the work. Now? 90% of my clients are overseas, spread over many timezones, and they come to me. I use email, Skype often and can keep my phone bill just about manageable.
Bloggers can reach an audience we couldn’t imagine at the start of the 1990’s. It’s not just the size of the audience, but the variety of people you are put in touch with. I have contacts from all walks of life, backgrounds, lifestyle. I even talk to football (soccer) fans now, my ten year old self would be horrified ;)
A large part of my work didn’t exist let alone have a market more than 10 years ago. Back in the early 90’s when I had my first internet consultancy business I was constantly educating clients about websites, domain names, now these things are almost taken for granted and it is all “interactive learning environments”, “CRM” and “multi channel relationship marketing”.
Is the internet and web changing your work?
