Aaaaaaaand…Scene! Moving On to the Next Thing

Mar 19, 2013 by Stephanie Frost

Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching too much TV lately–okay, I know I’ve been watching too much TV lately (!)–but I feel like this phase of my life is sort of like coming to the end of a movie. Now that it’s over, I’m already looking toward the next thing only I have no idea what it is. I just know that I want it to be completely different.

For the past three years, I’ve helped run a weeklong conference here in Atlanta called Digital Atlanta.  I was one of the original organizers/Director of Programming and have watched it grow into a pretty great event over that time.  Each year, we’ve pulled it off and had anywhere between 50-75 events over a five-day period.  This past year, we held the event in Atlantic Station so attendees weren’t dashing all over the city to attend sessions. It worked out really well and was our best year in terms of sponsorship and attendance.

However, all good things must come to an end and I felt like it was time to move on and try something new.  The good news is that I’m handing Digital Atlanta’s programming off to some really qualified people and I know they will do a great job turning it into something even bigger and better.

In the meantime, I’m taking a short sabbatical to hang out with my family, catch up on some writing, and refocus my lens.

Stay tuned and if you have any interesting proposals or ideas for me, get in touch!

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Evolve or Die

Nov 28, 2012 by Stephanie Frost

I just had the most interesting conversation this morning with a business owner who is in an industry that, generally speaking, is not keeping up with the times. From an aesthetic standpoint, much of the marketing (logos, websites, user interface, etc) is horribly outdated. Some of the sites feel like they were built in the 1990s and no one has touched them since. From a business process perspective, they aren’t much better. Many of the companies in this industry don’t seem to understand that technology has evolved and is going to eat their lunch if they don’t evolve with it.  Fortunately for the person with whom I was speaking, he’s the guy who is going to be  doing the lunch eating.

There are many industries that, as a whole, seem to be stuck in a time warp and think they can still keep doing business the way they always have.  I suspect some of them still use the Yellow Pages, too (scary thought!).  They are either too ensconced in their worldview or too stubborn (maybe lazy?) to make the effort to do things any differently.  They feel threatened by newcomers and try to build their garden wall (see “walled garden“) even higher.  That might work temporarily but eventually, your wall will simply crumble around you.  Remember travel agents? Sure, there are a few left but once all the direct booking sites popped up a few years back, they began dying off in droves.  The ones that are still in business and making money are probably providing a value-added service above and beyond finding the cheapest airfare. I’m guessing they had to evolve and pretty quickly I might add.

In my line of work, I get a peek inside a variety of different industries–everything from healthcare to consumer products to client services and beyond.  What I like most about the birds-eye view I get is when I stumble across the outliers who are not the industry leaders (yet) but the industry disrupters.  They’ve assessed the landscape of a given industry, decided it’s broken, and instead of trying to fix it in a conventional way, they’re off in a totally different direction and making it work.  Even though I’m not a huge fan of Mark Cuban, it’s essentially his “go-instead-where-there-is-no-path-and-leave-a-trail” philosophy.  He’s proof that it works and when it does, it can be huge.

Why do you think so many companies are resistant to change? Is it fear? Laziness? Both?

 

 

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Digital Atlanta 2012: Here We Go Again!

Jul 24, 2012 by Stephanie Frost

I need to update my site more often. Just realized that last post was from March. Anyway, that’s not important right now.

What IS important is that we are insane enough to go for a third year of putting on Digital Atlanta.  I think we’ve made all the mistakes we can (probably not) and will hopefully have a smoother go of it this year.  The fabulous news of the week is that most all events will be taking place in and around Atlantic Station in midtown.  If you live here, you know what a huge headache parking is and this at least solves that. And, in between sessions, you’ll be able to shop, grab a bite to eat or have a beer with a friend.

Speaker applications are in and we’re busy going through them and looking for sponsors for this year.  We’ve decided to make all the events free again but in order to do this, we’ll need some help.  Please contact me here or email me info (at) digitalatlanta . org if you, your company, your rich uncle, or anyone you know would like to be a sponsor. We thank you for your support!

To keep up with all the latest and greatest, follow Digital Atlanta on the website, Facebook, or Twitter. You can also sign up for the newsletter which we send out at least once a month.

 

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