It’s not going to happen here?

‘That’s not going to happen here’. This is one of the claims I hear a lot here in Mexico: whatever trends are happening elsewhere are not going to happen here anytime soon.

They talk as if Mexico were isolated from the trends that affect society. First of all, if you’re in a country where there’s internet access, you’re going to be affected sooner than later. Saying ‘that’s not going to happen’ here is a clear signal that you or your organization has no point of view whatsoever about the future; you have a no-sight trap. You merely react to what happens, and by that time you’re way behind the times. Also by design, all your strategies will be copycats of others because your point of view stands for nothing more of the same. That’s why it’s important to have your own point of view instead of participating in mindless copycatting and doing what the guy next door does.

Another way to look at this is to do what the ‘it’s not going to happen here’ club won’t do, if they think it’s going to take 5 years for a trend to be adopted here then why not start exploiting it before they do?

The only thing stopping you from doing that is your own point of view, so ask yourself: what’s our point of view about this trend and how can we exploit it before others do?

Standing for nothing more than the same has no value in a world where anyone can copycat successful business models in a couple of months. And most successful business models are increasingly exploiting digital technologies to their benefit.

In countries like Mexico, new ways of doing business don’t get adopted until very late in the game (years later!) where the approach has been turned into a winning algorithm by someone else on another part of the world (See Groupon). Being the first to market doesn’t mean you’ll win the game, building a better business model does. And this depends more on a unique insight you found that feeds your point of view and not someone else’s.

Saying that a certain trend won’t affect you is really saying that you and organization don’t care if you become irrelevant. Your role in the future is simply not important. Why not increase the rate of change where you are and force your competitors to adopt to you? Why not shape the ecosystem and position yourself as the apex? Why wait?

Like I told a friend recently, all it takes for things to change is for someone somewhere to start acting differently. If someone has the ‘cojones’ to take on the culture challenge, has a vision (POV) and is committed to progress then you will see a transformation sooner than later. Then again this might not happen either, and the system will remain stuck until someone does something about it. Why wait?

Think about how you can start exploiting trends right now and not wait until someone else figures it out. Build your own point of view, don’t buy it from someone else.