State of the New Economy

The new economy is filled with promise -- and fraught with peril. Those of us who are building new companies, leading change inside established companies, or reckoning with our careers enjoy unparalleled opportunities -- and encounter a seemingly endless supply of risks. What most excites you about the new economy? What's the most compelling opportunity for you personallly, for your work, for business at large, for the world? What worries you most? What's the biggest risk that you face? What's your biggest fear? We posed those questions to 17 new-economy leaders: social entrepreneurs, pundits, spiritual counselors, people on the cutting edge of the Web, even a comedian. Here's the good news -- and the bad.

Tom Peters

Author and Management Guru
Tom Peters Co.
Palo Alto, California
Boston, Massachusetts

Somebody once asked me what I want my epitaph to say. I want it to say, "He was a player." It wouldn't mean that I got rich, or that I was always right. It would mean that I participated fully in these fascinating times.

The most awful thing that I can imagine doing is sitting on the sidelines. Because whatever this "new economy" thing is, it is reinventing the world of commerce, the world of politics, everything. It is reinventing fundamental interaction.

I recently spoke to a bunch of purchasing officers in New Orleans. I said, "If you're not ready to be enterprise- and industry-reinvention evangelists, then do yourself and everyone else a favor: Get out of your job. It used to be that whoever bought the biggest case of booze at Christmas would get the account the next year. No more."

I sent essentially the same message to the leaders of the American Medical Association and of the Anheuser-Busch Independent Wholesalers group. The same opportunity exists for them.

The problem, of course, is that there's this horrible tendency for people who are in the thick of things?people who are reaping huge financial rewards from the world of e-business -- to mistake their world for the world as a whole. There's a lot more out there, folks.

But it's easy to lose perspective -- on a whole host of fronts. Henry Mintzberg once said that it is the great conceit of people in every age to think that they are going through madness and chaos, and that things were quiet in the past.

My mother is 91 years old. Every now and then, I remind myself that she's been around since before automobiles, the Great Depression, World War II, and man's first moon landing. The stuff that my mother has lived through wasn't exactly small change. We need to keep reminding ourselves of that.

Tom Peters (tom@tompeters.com) describes himself as a "prince of disorder, champion of bold failures, maestro of zest, professional loudmouth ... corporate cheerleader, lover of markets, capitalist pig ... and card-carrying member of the ACLU."

Patricia Seybold

Founder and CEO
Patricia Seybold Group Inc.
Boston, Massachusetts

A lot of people think that the new economy is all about the Internet. I think that it's being fueled by the Internet -- as well as by cell-phones, digital assistants, and the like -- but that it's really about customers. Customers are transforming entire industries. That's what jazzes me.

Look at MP3. The music industry is now at the mercy of customers who are taking it upon themselves to do the kinds of things that used to be done by studios and publishers: marketing and disseminating songs that they like. Now, you could just say, "copyright violation" and be done with it. But think about what's really happening. End users -- customers -- are voting with their feet (well, their ears) and bringing into question the long-standing roles of the studio, the producer, and the publisher.

What troubles me is that dotcoms -- potentially great businesses -- are missing the boat. They think that their mission is to sell advertising, go public, and make money from an IPO. They gather customers, and they measure eyeballs and conversion rates, but a lot of them aren't delivering a really good end-to-end customer experience. They think of the customer as just another part of the business. They don't understand that the customer is at the core of the business.

Ultimately, those companies will get burned -- along with their customers and the investors who put their hard-earned money into what they thought was a good idea. And that's too bad.

Patricia Seybold (pseybold@psgroup.com) is the author of Customers.com (Times Books, 1998). Patricia Seybold Group Inc. is a worldwide business and technology consulting-research firm specializing in b2b strategies, e-business best practices, and architectural technology.