Digital Sense

15Avoiding Obsolescence and the Road Ahead

Congratulations on making it through the entire book and to the final chapter. By now you probably feel as though you just drank water at point blank range from a fire hose. We appreciate your participation more than you know. As you can tell we had a lot to say. But anyone who knows the two of us won't be surprised.

We thought the best way to wrap up this book was to finish up with a few thoughts on the future that highlight the amazing opportunity and ethical challenges we face as we all endeavor to elevate the digital sense of humanity.

Dead Ideas

Let's start with a chart in Figure 15.1 that shows the newest paradigm shifts of what Chris called “the Opportunity Age” in a blog post back in 2013. These are important shifts to noodle on as a business leader and marketer, as they will influence and shape your thinking around everything from where the gaps in your market will be in the years ahead and where your organization must mentally move on to broken “x” type ideas that no longer hold value or merit.

Figure 15.1 Chart from Chris J Snook's Blog R.I.P. Information Age…Welcome the Opportunity Age¹

It's estimated by Forrester Research in their “Death of a B2B Salesman” report that 1 million B2B salespeople in the United States will ...