A very good point being made in the Toronto Star this morning: as part of the new economy that is rising out of the old e-conomy, remember that convergence kills:
Today the firm, whose shares last traded at 19 cents, down from a 2000 high of $26, is effectively worthless. Nine years on, CanWest is still hobbled by a $4 billion debt load and a long-ago grandiose "convergence" scheme to extract synergies merging Izzy's TV network and Black's Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette and other major dailies... "There is no doubt that in this environment, CanWest had too much debt," Asper said. A seismic understatement. "However, you should not confuse operational excellence with our balance-sheet issues."... Leonard drank deep of the convergence Kool-Aid, citing as his model in 2000 the diversified media giant Tribune Co., which, as it happens, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December. As global media convergence plays toppled in rapid succession early this decade – AOL Time Warner, BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc., Vivendi Universal SA – Leonard should have been dumping assets just to reduce CanWest's crushing debt payments. Instead, he chipped away at the debt mountain with a toothpick.
Since I got on-line in around 1995, we have had two economic collapses caused by new thinking. In the first one called the dot.com bubble of the turn of the millennium, people thought that sofas and groceries would be purchased via telephone modems. In the second one called the credit default swap bubble of 2007, people thought that if you gather up a whole lot of nothing and turn it sideways, well, then it was worth millions. In both cases you can clearly see that the internet and other computing technologies are to blame.
Why? What? Huzzabalaba? Calm down but here's the thing. We are worshiping the false promise of the ages - which is that someone else will do all the hard work. The internet and the laptop do not promise you will be smarter but that someone or something smarter than you will do your bidding for your benefit. That is what you think, right? Instead, we have a tool that have been robed in priest's vestments and traded in good sensible work ethic for the rules of the carnival and the midway.
No wonder we look around for leadership and opportunity with puzzlement. No wonder we look strangely at those who would do us harm or take advantage. It's the glowing screen.
