Full Circle

While surging into the virtual sphere, many businesses are paradoxically returning to their roots. In describing his company's latest strategy, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer says, "In some sense we've decided to go back to what we're good at—software. You've got to start with some fundamental proposition of what you can do, long term, better than the other guys."
Roots are also a matter of geography. True, in today's market, teenagers in Bombay can launch an Internet company with spare parts and start creating and marketing software. The Internet transcends distance. Yet location—not so much location, per se, but community—still matters. Venture capital alone doesn't account for the way that Silicon Valley, Boston's biotech corridor, and Pittsburgh's robotics hub are thriving. Clusters of companies in related fields benefit from the informal flow of information as people circulate from firm to firm, run into each other at the grocery store, and spend time interacting, face-to-face.
People, after all, bring businesses to life and sustain them. E-commerce needs to appreciate human talent and quirky human needs.
"The thing that is in short supply is minds," says EDventure Holdings Chairman Esther Dyson. "I have certainly counseled people out of doing start-ups. The big reason is the people. In the venture capital business, you have to ask yourself, 'I know these guys are going to get into trouble. Am I going to want to help? Or am I going to feel I made a mistake?' There are too many copies of the same, sometimes good ideas and there's almost no one to implement them." Any "two-bit salesperson" can pull in $25 million from venture capitalists "to duplicate the idea" of the guy who pulled the same stunt two days ago.
More and more marketers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to command the public's attention, she adds. But people have no more time at their disposal. Only the supply of choices, and competition between them, is rising.
The way to command attention, Dyson asserts, is to give it back. "Every once and a while consumers want to call up and ask a stupid question and still get a polite answer. They want someone to pay attention. Most online shopping is like going into a warehouse. You get ignored. You can't tell if they have the red one in your size. And no one's going to tell you."
The biggest challenge in marketing today, Dyson adds, is no different than it was before the dawn of the Internet: getting the attention of the people you want to reach.
"Like that guy," she says, pointing to the NBC techie waving his arms to tell Williams that time is up. Because of the spell cast by good conversation, by a little person-to-person contact, the polished anchor just missed his cue. Time on the network may be up, but the human give-and-take keeps on rolling.