We are not going back, period. We are human beings and we are moving forward. And moving fast. Fast. Super fast.  And by “fast” I mean faster than lightening, than the time it takes for my TTYL text to land on your phone screen. We are a fast generation. We eat fast food. Sit-down restaurants are picking up on this too. One restaurant in my neighborhood was advertising “You get your food in 14 minutes or it’s free”. What happened to sit-down dining? Sit down is okay. I mean, for 14 minutes. After that we think it should be free. We are fast. Have you heard of retail healthcare? In and out. Got to go, see you later Doc. Healthcare companies are working on software that helps physicians to say it in less than a few words. If you are a physician who still enjoys the long-winded explanations to my Acne, you are out. Speed it up bro. I have places to go and not much time to listen to all your 20 years of medical school. Heal me and heal me quick. Don’t educate me. Blame it on specialization? I think you should. But that’s a conversation for another day. Let’s talk about speed for now. Your speed. Your business’s speed.

Hear it from me because I love you. This is the truth from a brother who cares to tell you the truth and nothing but the truth: You are snail slow!!! Your business is so slow a Turtle would beat it to the finish line. Tell, tell? You are coming up with ideas that are six years old. Speed up. Read up. Train up. Do something. If you don’t do anything, just do this one thing for me: Speed the chalupa up. At your slow speed for innovation, creativity and learning, you are going to be operating in the 16^th century very soon. The Shakespearean era, that is. Not literally of course.

You see, the thing about being slow is that you always end up being the “me too”-kind of guy/gul. You become a recycler of other people’s ideas. Look at Research in Motion (RIM), our friends the makers of Blackberry. I call them Research in Mortuary. They are dead and nothing killed them other than slothfulness. Now they are playing catch-up with the likes of iPad with their Blackberry tablet. Listen to how they introduce the tablet on their website and tell me if that does not bore you to insanity. Here it is:

“Research In Motion (RIM) is extremely excited about the opportunities available with the new BlackBerry Tablet OS and its corresponding application platform. Building on the incredible power of the QNX operating system that’s uniquely suited for tablet computing, the BlackBerry Tablet OS will lay the foundation for the future while preserving the key investments that have made the BlackBerry platform so successful.” Ref: http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/

Now listen to how Apple introduces the iPad:

Technology so advanced, you’ll forget it’s even there. When you pick up iPad, it becomes an extension of you. That’s the idea behind its innovative design. It’s just 0.34 inch thin and weighs as little as 1.33 pounds, so it feels completely comfortable in your hands. And it makes surfing the web, checking email, watching movies, and reading books so natural, you’ll wonder why you ever did it any other way.” Ref: http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

What’s the problem here? Language? No, no. Not language. It’s forgetting that we are in the 21^st century and that communication has changed from the old self-centered communication to the new customer-centered communication. How many times did the Blackberry description use the word “You”? You got it; zero times. How many times did the Apple description use the word “You”. That’s right; one times too many.  Five times to be exact. Why should I care that Blackberry is building on its foundation? I mean, where is my foundation? Where is ME in this picture. And did you know the most important person in the world? That’s right; ME.

The above example is just one example of why RIM has been left at the tail of the smart phone race; communication. RIM of course has so many other problems.  What’s your problem? What’s keeping you in the past century? What’s stopping your business from running as fast as it should? Time to check yourself. Speed up before you fall off the wagon. Speed up or go home.