PSYCHOLOGY
E-business consultant Larry Downes, coauthor of Unleashing the Killer App was so busy counseling corporate execs on digital strategy last fall that he didn't spend two consecutive nights at home. To soothe the souls of worried clients - freaked-out wholesalers, insomniac marketing VPs, and CIOs rapidly fraying at the comb-over - he began prescribing some unexpected reading: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's 1969 classic On Death and Dying.
Everyone had one thing on their minds, says Downes: how the shift from physical to digital threatens their business. What's more, each showed signs of passing through the five stages of grief that Kübler-Ross says accompany the discovery of terminal illness.
Denial: "As soon as network-security issues are addressed, we'll get started. Time is on our side."
Anger: "What do the words burn rate mean to you? Those online idiots are losing their shirts! Not me, bub."
Bargaining: "You want eyeballs? We got eyeballs. We add value. There are a lot of synergies on this thing."
Depression: "We'll never make it. They haven't made a buck and they're worth a hundred times what we are."
Acceptance: "OK, so we have to spend a bit to keep customers long term. Change is good. Let the cannibalizing begin!"
MUST READ
Fight!
Quick, Hide Your Money
Confronting E-Grief
Jargon Watch
Here Comes the Slugger
Insta-Money Hits the Web
Hype List
Going, Going, Again
People
Home(page) Schooling
Tomorrow Today
McService Providers
What Stuff Is Made Of
The Taste of 2000
Cool Battles, Circa 300 BC
Tired/Wired
Very Local Loop
Raw Data
