In this groundbreaking book, Stan Davis and Chris Meyer deliver more than a guided tour to these momentous shifts. They offer readers a working model to illustrate and benefit from the new rules of the connected economy, where advantage is temporary and nothing is fixed in time or space.

2. BLUR The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy AUTHOR: Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer PUBLISHER: Perseus Books DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1998 265 pages

3. FEATURES OF THE BOOK Blur provides a lens for bringing the emerging economic landscape into focus – a world in which change is constant; knowledge and imagination are more valuable than physical capital; products and services are blended as “offers’; transactions give way to “exchanges”; and physical markets take on the characteristics of financial markets.

4. THE BIG IDEA Blur challenges you to question every assumption you hold about how business is conducted, and encourages you to experiment at the edges of business. Blur outlines nothing less than a revolution in business and consumer culture. Will you watch on the sidelines as the innovators overtake you, or are you ready to start playing by – and discovering – the rules of BLUR ?

5. INTRODUCTION Speed. Intangibles. Connectivity. As these three forces converge, every dimension of business behavior is being challenged to its core. If you think that business can be sustained by the old rules of mass production, segmented pricing and stable organizations, you’ll need to think again. Welcome to the new economy – a world where the rate of change is so fast it’s only a blur, where the clear lines distinguishing buyer from seller, product from service, employee from entrepreneur are disappearing. To profit from these revolutionary patterns of business, you need a dynamic guide to the new economy. You need BLUR.

6. PUTTING BLUR IN FOCUS Speed x Connectivity x Intangibles = Blur Speed: Every aspect of business and the connected organization operates and changes in real time. Connectivity: Everything is becoming electronically connected to everything else: products, people, companies, countries, everything. Intangibles: Every offer has both tangible and intangible economic value. The intangible is growing faster. Blur: The new world in which you will come to live and work.

7. PUTTING BLUR IN FOCUS The BLUR economy has three basic parts: The BLUR of desires – the demand side of an economy – where products and services meld into one to become an offer, and where the roles of buyers and sellers merge into an exchange. The BLUR of fulfillment, where strategies and organizations dissolve into economic webs and permeable relationships. The BLUR of resources, where people are no longer divided into their working and consuming selves and where capital is more often a liability than an asset.

8. THE OFFER The 10 Attributes of an Offer Let us take a look at all these attributes, keeping in mind that the most essential feature of all offers is that they are connected. Anytime Accessibility by users at any time of day is becoming a must-have for offers of all kinds. Real Time This need for Speed of response in today’s business environment puts a premium on systems that can operate in “real time”.

9. THE OFFER Interactive Another great benefit of online systems that eliminate the middle person – travel agent, bank teller, stockbroker (and sometimes maybe even the physician) – is that they can easily be made interactive. Anyplace Hand in hand with anytime access goes anyplace access; this is the other half of the mail-order boom. The trick is being able to service anyplace access effectively – anytime. Is your offer available to customers wherever they are?

10. THE OFFER Learning Offer really start to get interesting when they make it possible to learn; that is, when they can not only capture information about their use, but make adjustments or initiate action in line with that new information. Anticipating Once offers have the ability to learn, it’s just a short step to give them something even more blurred: the ability to anticipate.

11. THE OFFER Filtering A special form of customization is the filtering of the wide range of information and choices that increasingly confront users. Customizing Customization is a major theme running through the offers cited so far, whether they involve computers, jeans, or books. Upgrading One distinctive feature of software products is the constant stream of upgrades they spawn. Once you’ve bought a program, it isn’t necessary to make a whole new purchase when its functionality is improved.

12. SOME WAYS TO BLUR YOUR BUSINESS Make Speed Your Mind-Set Everything exists in the fourth dimension – time – but few of us have a good handle on it in our businesses. To reorient your thinking, start by timing everything you do. Connect Everything with Everything Make sure that all the islands in your business connect with each other, just as the empty shelves in your refrigerator ought to connect with your shopping list. Identify what’s connected.

13. SOME WAYS TO BLUR YOUR BUSINESS Grow Your Intangibles Faster Than Your Tangibles When listing your intangibles, include all services, all software and other forms of information, all financial elements, and all emotions (which include brand loyalty, customer relationships, employee commitment and the like). Build Product Into Every Service How do you offer service today? The only way you can afford to meet those expectations is to productize your service: use software, kiosks, self-service, learning engines, or telecommunication to deliver service like a product.

14. SOME WAYS TO BLUR YOUR BUSINESS Put Service Into Every Product In the past, service add-ons were an afterthought for those in the product business. Today, you must make them intrinsic to the offer. If your entire corporate culture is focused on stuff, wake up. Manage All Business In Real Time Stop making decisions based on what happened last week – or even this morning. Get a grip on what’s happening at this instant, so the right adjustment can be made without delay. Almost always, this will require planting sensors and other feedback mechanisms throughout your operations.

15. SOME WAYS TO BLUR YOUR BUSINESS Be Able To Do Anything You Do At AnyTime Nine to five has been dead for more than a decade. These days, 24x365 rules. Retail banking customers today would rebel if they didn’t have round-the-clock access to their money via ATMs, PCs, or telephones. Be Able To Do Anything, Anyplace With the reality of today’s Connectivity, you should be able to conducts your business no matter where you – or your customers are.

16. SOME WAYS TO BLUR YOUR BUSINESS Put Your Offer Online Today’s electronic Connectivity allows the same simple strategy to work for everybody. Your customers must be able to connect with you and your offer at least as easily and freely as the Coke drinker can pick up a Coke. Make Your Offer Interactive You’re truly listening only if you maintain an ongoing dialogue with them. Your offer must contain a way for your customers to communicate with you as they put your offer to use.

17. 10 WAYS TO BLUR YOURSELF Blur the Divide between Work Life and Life Life Do you work to live? Or live to work? In BLUR, these aspects of life aren’t separate. Everyone knows the line is already indistinct as voice mail invades late nights and flights shorten the weekend. It’s working for business; it can work for you too. And, make your work life more “livable”. Have Your Cake and Eat It Too Velocity of knowledge is crucial to your success. The more you give away, the more you’ll get back. Spread it, get credit for having known it early, become known as the source of interesting ideas, whether they’re original or secondhand.

18. 10 WAYS TO BLUR YOURSELF Seek Novelty Forever Remember, in BLUR, your skills are obsolete before you wear out, life expectancies are lengthening, but social security isn’t. If you’re not creating something new all the time… (the author leaves the ending of this to your imagination). Moonlight from Strength PreBlur, you moonlighted only when you needed extra money. Now that you’re managing your own stock price, you can’t afford to dedicate yourself solely to the needs of your organization morning, noon, and night.

19. 10 WAYS TO BLUR YOURSELF Sell Your Value on the Web A fine place to spread the word of your worth is on the Web, a great leveler of the meek and the mighty in that it gives an equal shot at a global market to both you and the giant corporations. Let the Market, Not the Company, Determine Your Worth Even if you want to stay where you are and plan to put in some time there, be sure you use the market as the yardstick by which to set your compensation package.

20. 10 WAYS TO BLUR YOURSELF Become a Free Agent While Still On A Payroll You have to stop thinking of yourself as a wage slave – which is how many companies think of their employees – and wake up to your new freedom. For a newly emancipated slave, this way of thinking carries new responsibilities: You, not your boss or employer, are responsible for your future. Brand Yourself; There’s Equity There As a free agent, with a value to market, brand it! You need to have a distinctive brand – a voice, too. This doesn’t mean to become distinctive just within your department, either.

21. 10 WAYS TO BLUR YOURSELF Securitize Yourself You already know that intellectual capital – your intelligence – is your most valuable resource. So capitalize on it, literally. This means take yourself public, just as companies do. Manage Your New Dual Career Whether you’ve securitized yourself or not, you should be aware by now that you’ve really got two careers, not just one. Play the game inside and outside your company. In other words, take both balls and run with them. This is your true chance to act like the free agent you are.

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