Seth Godin had a post on his blog this week that I think is an important concept for the publishing industry. To summarize, Seth talks about ignoring sunk costs when making decisions about the future. Investments you’ve made in the past are gone and should have no bearing on decisions you make about your future. It’s a quick and interesting read — check it out.
We hear publishers talking about sunk costs (ie–existing systems) a fair amount. When talking to them about our software, we hear things like “Well…we had IT build us a FileMaker system that we’ve been using. It took a lot of time to build, so we should probably stick with it” or “Last year, we trained our production people to use Microsoft Project to manage our production, so that’s what we’re using.”
The rest of these kinds of conversations happen something like this:
Us: Well, do they like using the FileMaker (or other) system?
Them: No, they hate it actually.
Us: Is it helping your production department work more effectively & efficiently?
Them: No — it’s probably hurting more than it’s helping.
Us: Do you think Appingo would help?
Them: Yes – it looks like a great system and it would probably make a big difference.
Us: Then why wouldn’t you use it?
Them: Well, because we’ve already built this system, so we should use it.
Ok. No worries.
But Seth’s argument isn’t just important for our potential customers — it’s important for publishing in general. We know there was a TON of investment made into the existing infrastructure of the publishing world, but that shouldn’t be a factor when making future decisions about how to make money in the next 3, 5, 10 years. The past is the past. It’s over. What do we need to be successful in the future?
It’s a tough discipline to master, but glad Seth wrote about it…
Derek
