The Problem With Definitions

Following on from my Spider Monkey tale, here's another one that's kept me awake many a night over the last fifteen years.

I owe this one to Paul Zane Pilzer, whose book "Unlimited Wealth" I read when I was a skinny 21 year old guy repossessing cars for a living and trying to better myself. In it, he says:

For nearly two thousand years, from Aristotle's day to the time of Galileo, astronomers defined their discipline as the study of the fixed spheres that revolved around the earth. It is therefore not surprising that it took so long until Copernicus reliazed that the earth actually revolved around the sun. After all, the astronomers' definition of their own work precluded this hypothesis from consideration.

It's so easy to put a box around ourselves or our business, via the definition of who we are or what we do, that we prevent ourselves from thinking outside of it.

For example, I remember sitting in a meeting with several senior Telstra executives about four years ago, trying to help them get their heads around what "web services" meant. I was trying to get them to think about what they could do with their Yellow Pages and White Pages assets. I asked them what business they thought they were in with those directories. They replied something like "helping people find phone numbers". I argued that they were actually in the business of connecting people to people, people to business and business to business. Looked at in that light, there was a world of online opportunities to explore to increase the value of their existing directory businesses. Needless to say, they looked at me like I was on drugs. I often wish I was.

Here's a more recent example. For the last year I've been telling people that TPN is in the "citizen media" business. We are trying to harness the rising potential of "citizen media" and create a sustainable commercial model out of it.

But by telling myself over and over again that TPN is "citizen media", am I perhaps missing other opportunities? More exciting opportunities? More lucrative and satisfying opportunities? Is my definition blinding me to other ideas? Is the very name "The Podcast Network" preventing me from re-thinking the business? By picking a literal name such as that, do you paint yourself mentally into a corner where you really don't need to reside?

I used to call myself an "angry young man" and "anti-authoritarian". I described myself as "someone who doesn't like people very much". Do these self-descriptions limit me? You are what you speak, someone once said. "Hung by the tongue".

Mind you, I've also spent the last year calling myself, half-jokingly, "the world's first 21st century media mogul". So it ain't all bad.

Comments

[William Dutton]

so you say you have read Paul Zane Pilzer, have you read The Wellness Revolution. i haven't but you can see where he is coming from atm, for example, all these hoost juice, gyms, healhy maccas and so on. and not to forget trying to get in on the convience industry such as mars bars, the snack on the run, with soy bean and milk based protien that look and nearly taste like chocolate bars without all the fat and sugar.

another example i have is the energy drink market, the big name brands, V and Red Bull have made a monopoly of the markect which smaller healthy brands can't crack into. the strange thing is. V makes your teeth go brown/yellow as well as give you heart problems down the track and Red Bull is no better.

then there is the supplementation area, because woolworths and coles are gasing the fresh food so it looks better and taste nearly the same but keeps for 4 weeks on 3 days at the end of the day, the food as no nutrional value in vitamins and other items the body needs, just fibre and sugar.

hope this brain dump of mine is not to out of order for you.

william

[Paul Montgomery]

You wish you were on drugs? I know a boyo or two down Torquay way who could hook you up.

[Paul Zane Pilzer]

Hi Cameron
Thank you for posting one of my favorite quotes from Unlimited Wealth--several people sent me a link ot your blog.

I like your explanation about why we fail to think outside the box: "It's so easy to put a box around ourselves or our business, via the definition of who we are or what we do, that we prevent ourselves from thinking outside of it. "

Congratulations on your blog and best of luck to you.

Paul Zane Pilzer
Author
Unlimited Wealth

[Cameron Reilly]

Paul, thanks for stopping by and thanks for writing the book. It had a big impact on me. If you're interesting in being interviewed on a podcast, email me and let me know. I'd love to talk with you about your thoughts on what's happening in the economy over the next 5- 10 years.