Can "The New New Thing" Be Something Old?
I read a little piece in the New York Times yesterday that postcards are staging a comeback, at least in the UK. 135 million were sent last year to British households—30% more than in 2003. The Times suggests that the rise in postcards is a sign of a “yearning for tangibility.” Postcards are clearly more tangible than emails, and they fill up our mailboxes nicely without requiring a lot of verbiage. Jay Dittman, a smart fellow from Hallmark, told me recently that their paper greeting card business is also holding up pretty well.
That got me to wondering whether we would see other yearnings for the past, and whether the next big thing in business can ever involve the past. There seems to be a slight rise in wishing for a less digital past; and several articles and books on that topic, including Nick Carr’s piece in The Atlantic (about which I blogged a few weeks ago), and Maggie Jackson’s book Distracted, are pretty popular. I wonder how far it will go.
What else (besides postcards) might come back? Non-working vacations are a possibility. Those organizations (such as IBM) that admirably allowed employees to simply take as much time away from their jobs as they needed are finding that employees often don’t take enough time, or spend all their vacation time working. There’s another Times article on this from last summer.
Another example of a possible return to the past involves re-regulation. The secular trend—particularly in the U.S., but to some degree globally as well—has been to remove regulation from many economic sectors. The result in the airline industry has been lots more passengers and lower fares, but (in case you hadn’t noticed) really crappy service. In electrical energy, deregulation seems to have led to electricity shortages (in California) and higher prices (at least in Texas). In consumer finance, deregulation is at least partly to blame for the current credit crisis. People are beginning to talk about whether we need more regulation in each of these sectors. I am hardly an expert on the economics of regulation, but it seems that it might stage a comeback, particularly if we elect Barack Obama as President.
We also might see a return to some of the management practices of yesteryear. Every once in a while I think that I should have been born when my parents were, so I’d have a lifelong career with a single company, and that company would treat me in a paternalistic fashion and give me a nice pension (though I would probably find that very boring). But there are still companies that treat their employees quite well in almost a 1950s-like fashion (Toyota, SAS, Google, Wegmans, etc.), and they all tend to perform very well. Maybe treating your employees well is simply timeless.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen a broad retreat from electronic behaviors, so I doubt that will be in the cards—postcards in the UK being an exception, perhaps. But other business ideas are more cyclical or even timeless, and I expect we will see some of them. What do you think? Is everything old new again?
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Tom Davenport holds the President’s Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, where he also leads the 
Comments
Postcards are a simpler, and cheaper to send, version of letters. It could merely be as simple as that.
- Posted by Chris
July 21, 2008 4:35 PM
The anecdotal postcard evidence presented in this blog may be due to the favorable exchange rate which currently affords more Britons the oppportunity to travel.
We probably could use increased regulation, in certain industries, but I'm guessing we'll now swing the pendulum to a point where we'll soon be asking for the return of a laissez-faire government. As a recent example, I'd ask if we have benefited from the security/transparency afforded by the increased regulation of Sarbanes-Oxley when balanced against the costs placed on our economy.
I agree with the idea of treating employees well paying back in spades. What better way is there to attract and retain talent? This unfortunately seems to be quickly forgotten by the average firm as it is seen as an added cost rather than an essential activity.
- Posted by Chris Oestereich
July 21, 2008 5:17 PM
Tom,
Very thought provoking post! I think that with the recent explosion of technological advances juxtaposed with the recent explosion of global concerns, society will most definitely find itself taking a step back and reevaluating what the best businesses, management styles, and even personal life choices are. I recently read another discussion leader’s (Tammy Erickson’s) post about naming or nicknaming the newest generation (the generation after Gen Y) and she came up with “Re-Generations”, or “Re-Gens” for short. After reading her explanation I think this is a pretty appropriate name as she highlights several topical themes such as grappling with reality, restraint and responsibility, and renewable everything. You have suggested another re- in this case re-regulation. As you said, there will never be a broad retreat from electronics, but even there I believe we may witness a subtle amount of nostalgia for the “good old days” when you couldn’t always be reached- especially when people are on vacation and find themselves cursing their Blackberry’s and iPhones for allowing their bosses to contact them. “History repeats itself” is cliché, and business cycles may not be entirely cyclical, but I do find sweeping contemporary trends to be like pendulums- swinging in one direction until they hit an extreme and then retreating backwards slightly, but never all the way back to the original position. It will be interesting to see the current times unravel.
Juhi Heda
Brilliont
www.brilliont.com
- Posted by Juhi Heda
July 23, 2008 7:24 PM
While there has been loads of talk about the rise of online advertising and the fall of advertising sales in most mainstream media, there has been less talk about event sponsorships, outdoor and ambient media, and promotional products, all of which are growing.
Promotional products are largely the opposite of high-tech: they're tangible items printed with a logo and message. At the same time, two tech-driven trends are increasing their value as an advertising medium:
1) Online advertising is trending towards a customer-controlled message. Customers are doing the searching, writing reviews for each other, etc.
2) With the increased saturation of advertising messages, people are trying to avoid advertising, or at least ignore it when possible.
Promotional products are one of the last forms of advertising where a) a company can still push their message and b) the customer is actually happy to receive the advertising.
- Posted by Mark Yokoyama
July 25, 2008 11:27 AM
Another exapmple is the steady increase of vinyl album sales over the past few years (as reported in Billboard last year). People want the tactile interaction and the 'warmer' sound -- the richer, more "tangible" experience.
Interesting that you associate all these different trends together, there does seem to be something in common under the surface of it all.
But I prefer to look at these cases as 'objective vs. subjective' comparisons rather than 'new vs. old.' All of these cases are about things that are objectively more efficient turning out to be not so great in terms of subjective, or "human" qualities that are difficult to quantify , but nonetheless essential.
- Posted by Brian
July 26, 2008 11:38 AM
Tom,
You've put a smile on my face and a grin!
Is everything old new again? Well I was thinking this morning that I'd love to flip through a photo album with my eleven year old daughter , like I did with my sons years ago. Then I realised apart from one very old album my pictures and memories are on my laptop. It's not the same feeling and close bonding moment that I am longing for while reminising. I'm in the market for a good old fashioned album that I can stick some pics in. I spent a lot of money on the perfect digital camera, and bought an external harddrive to keep my memories, and now I would like to see some faded images that reveal my past...LOL, as a consumer is there only one of me?
From a marketing standpoint its worth reflecting on and should be given consideration. I've seen some teenagers seek out books on Archie and Marvel while still focusing on XBOX 360 games. Has our digital age inadvertently gotten to the point where we want to connect to something that is not easy to delete, or some thing that is tangible?
I love sending my customers Hallmark ecards, but for myself I like receiving the old fashion postcard more. Maybe some of my customers will share the same view.
You've given me something to think about. Very thought provoking.
- Posted by donna-luisa
July 30, 2008 10:31 AM