The pay phone business and looking to your future

This morning I noticed this headline New York starts turning payphones into free Wi-fi hotspots. I thought it was cool so I tweeted it at 2:51 am EDT. Very quickly more than twenty people retweeted and added their comments. It seems the idea of turning the old pay phone infrastructure into a modern use interested many people.

Looking to the future

The idea of reusing old infrastructure got me thinking. In my town, there is a bike and jogging path called Minuteman Bikeway. The old train line from the Western suburbs to the center of Boston was converted to a new rails-to-trails use. Like the old pay phones converted to wi-fi hotspots, old railway rights of way are now re-used to become wonderful exercise spots.

Clinging to the past

But think about how many organizations cling to outdated technology and business models.

Also near where I live is the old Polaroid facility in Waltham, MA. A few days ago I shot this photo of the site, a sad visual reminder of what happens to once great companies that cling to old technology.

Polaroid was the leader in instant photography but missed the digital instant photography revolution and on October 11, 2001, Polaroid Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Polaroid brand name - purchased as part of the reorganization - lives on, but the once great company does not. It didn't have to be that way had management looked over the horizon.

What about your business?

Are you looking to what’s new? Or living upon past successes?

Comments

[Louis Gudema]

Good post, David. So many companies fail in this area - Kodak, Blockbuster (which was approached by Netflix 10 years ago with the idea that they could be Blockbuster's streaming division), The Boston Globe (which was approach by Monster in the late 90s, and now look at what Craigslist is doing to Monster), etc., etc. ad nauseum.

Smug management that is afraid to cannibalize their own products will get eaten by others. The same applies to people who don't keep their skills current.

Louis Gudema
Vice President of Business Development
Overdrive Interactive

[David Meerman Scott]

Louis - Having worked at several companies in the middle of a transformation, I can say it is really tough.

At Knight-Ridder, a 100 year old newspaper company, it would have taken guts to argue in 1995 that the newspaper business was going downhill. I was in the electronic division - we were living the future. But on the newspaper side it was business as usual. The stock was high. Why rock the boat? But that's what needed to be said. Nobody in senior management saw it coming early enough to save the company.

[Mike Maddaloni - @thehotiron]

Hi David:

Thanks for sharing the photo of the Polaroid site - as a former Boston area resident I drove past that building for years. I still remember the Polaroid name on their old HQ off Memorial Drive in Cambridge every time I see it. As much as we realize the reality of what happened to these businesses, it's still sad to see these signs disappear.

mp/m

[Bob Gaynor]

Sounds like the problem described in The Innovator's Dilemma - eventually improvements to the old technology are not enough to keep up with the new technology, and companies who depend on the old technology fail. The answer seems to be a change to the old song ... keep old friends, but make new ones. One is gold now, the other will be gold later. So, who wants to vote: who's next? Will Microsoft fail because it didn't move away from Windows fast enough? Will any of today's car companies fail because they aren't selling an electric car?

[Rj_c]

So many get stuck with they are comfortable and miss out on innovative ideas of using what once served another purpose.

We see so many cases where people are told to recycle but only in a few we look to upcycle.

[James Mignano]

David,

Your explanation of Polaroid's mistake sounds incredibly familiar. It happens to be the exact mistake that Kodak made.

I'm from Rochester, NY, so the story hits close to home for me, as well. You're right - its important to adapt your business over time!

James Mignano

[website developers new york]

If payphones fail completely the blame will not fall entirely on lack of consumer demand. Part of the blame would fall on the fact that payphones simply do not work when you need them.