Kodak's Failure.

Every once in a while a brand becomes a household name where it is not used to refer to its own particular range of products but to refer to other similar products in the same range. Kleenex did it with tissues where the phrase "Pass me a Kleenex will you" was used to refer to any tissue paper, the Fedex brand was used in mail delivery "Just Fedex it to me" and more recently the ever pervasive Google with internet searches "Just Google this information".
One company, however, managed this in relation to the camera industry. Years after the slogan was first coined, people still refer to "A Kodak moment" as a memory worth capturing forever on camera.
Kodak, a pioneer and heavyweight in the film and camera enterprise, filed for bankruptcy recently due to massive debt.
As analysts examined every nook and cranny of Kodak's history to work out the reason for the failure, one reason cropped up again and again and that was the company's failure to realise and adequately cope with the change from film to digital photography.
The change in technology and the way people run their memory capture hit Kodak hard, and in an effort to compensate they made a few costly and ultimately very bad decisions.
Kodak actually developed the digital camera in the 1970s but, instead of using this early start to propel themselves into an untouchable market position, they chose to focus on film and got relegated to spending the next three decades trying to catch up with the competition.
They forgot that they were helping "capture memories" and focused on trying to just sell an increasingly redundant product. Also in the news a couple of weeks back was the shut down by the FBI of the world's largest internet file-sharing company Megaupload.
Megaupload provides a drop box type service for files that are too big to send by email, or files that you want to share with many others.
They were accused of fostering internet piracy and copyright violations (among several other issues).
Anyone who remembers the Napster debacle a few years ago (the fight over the digitalisation of music) can see the same trend playing out.
Movie companies are probably losing millions to piracy that enables free download of movies, but instead of using the technology to their benefit they are busy trying to sustain an old mode of media transmission.
Movie makers are more content with continuing to sell a DVD at US$30 rather than making it easy to download or live stream an online movie for under US$5.
Technology is offering filmmakers a great opportunity that few seem to want to take at the moment.
Anyone with a 3G compatible phone has probably heard about Whatsapp-the internet based messaging service that can be utilised to cut your communications costs.
Founded by two guys who wanted to build a better SMS alternative Whatsapp chews little of your bandwidth and less of your money.
The question to ask is why the application was independently developed instead of being made by a cellular network.
One answer is that networks are content to charge five to 10 cents for a text (depending where you are in the world) because it makes them more money in the short term than a less lucrative mobile application.
Numerous cash-strapped, local teenagers use the application-not to mention an increasing number of adults.
The most obvious, but not popular, solution for a network wanting to stay on the old money-making-off-texts model would be to block the application.
The downside of such a decision would be to see consumers flocking to a rival network that allows it.
Rather than seeking to destroy the software, find a way to harness its power - the small bandwidth usage multiplied by a couple of million users may add up to some pretty powerful economies of scale.
Offering the most reliable and cheapest bandwidth could guarantee you a lot of happy clients, especially when they start to use all the other communication applications that use a little more bandwidth (think Facebook, Skype, Gmail for phone).
So I guess the real question at the end of all this is "How can I prevent this from happening to my business?"
Technology changes all the time and there is a pretty good chance of you getting left behind - ask bookstores and publishing houses that are facing the e-book revolution.
Keep focused on what you do - your mandate to the world. Make sure this mandate is not based on selling a particular product and is focused on the client.
Perhaps if Kodak can focus on "helping you store and share your memories" rather than selling film and printing they will pull through the current crisis - at least I hope so because somehow "A Canon moment" does not have the same ring to it as "A Kodak moment".
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Isaac Asimov 1974 once said: "I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance . . . and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance . . . to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth.
"Usually the resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, status, money . . . as a result of the change. Although they never advanced this as their reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their hearts."