In addition to a play on the world's most famous pangram, the title of my article pays homage to philosopher Isaiah Berlin's "The hedgehog and the fox", in which he categorises thinkers into two camps; foxes, who know a bit about everything and hedgehogs who know a lot about one thing only.
This analogy is handy because in my opinion, it can help us understand the behavioral patterns of the up-and-coming Gen Z consumer - the perfect fox- compared to the previous generations of boomers, Xs and Ys who are reverse-chronologically more hedgehog-like and (more importantly) hierarchically the key decision makers in business. The generation gap is nothing new, but on one subject its effects are exponentially amplified, and that subject is mobile.
The traits of the "always on" foxes, such as being open to and constantly seeking the new, only skim the surface to make quick decisions and their need for instant social gratification are a match made in heaven for mobile. This perfect storm of medium and audience heralds the single biggest change to commerce and culture since the invention of money by the Phoenicians, tipped to overshadow the last 30 years of the information age in less than half a decade.
By the time Gen Zs replace their predecessors; mobile will replace our keys, wallets and credit cards, become the main channel for us to consume media and therefore advertising and most importantly for the first time in history, overlap the "bricks" and "clicks" personas of consumers for retailers.
The tipping point will come when most mobile offerings are standardized and embedded into operating systems via open services and intuitive use of profiling and locality. Imagine being able to walk into any café and order from the menu and pay via your mobile. Imagine self-check-out at the supermarket by scanning products as you go while flicking items to your weekly delivery if they are too heavy to carry. Imagine transferring cash to a friend by a single gesture or never having to fill in a form ever again.
Imagine being able to interact with the world around you in real time, access the information you need, and communicate and share with ease. Imagine doing all this without having to download a specific app, enter a URL or even consciously think about it. Imagine that it just happens as and when you need it. Imagine a medium that is already capable of delivering this and an audience that already consumes it with an unquenchable thirst and without reservations. Now, imagine what this will mean for your business.
On the other hand most of the hedgehog decision makers are yet to recognize that this is the single most important thing that will happen in business in their lifetime, or the true magnitude of it. Some are deep down in their burrows pretending nothing's happening and it won't affect them, some are making a token attempt of sending "we need a mobile app" style superficial briefs out with no long term strategy of "deep implementation" into the core of their businesses.
A few visionaries who try are generally faced by the usual out-of-tune chanting by the internal Greek chorus of bureaucrats and technocrats reciting their favorite scare mongering topics, and things move at the speed of continents shifting as usual. Sure, security and serviceability are crucially important and need to be considered, but not at the cost of being left behind. Unfortunately for them and unlike previous paradigm shifts such as the web, the pace of this revolution will be nothing like before, and its retribution on anyone who fails to act quickly swift and merciless.
Which all makes me think back to the Phoenicians, and I can almost hear a conversation between two merchants. "I don't trust this money thing. That doesn't even look like the king on that coin, what if someone copies it?" says one, the other replies "Me neither, let's stick to bartering. How many chickens do you want for that goat?" as they mutually hope to continue business as usual.
And fast forwarding to the near future; to hear conversations that will take place in boardrooms of businesses who fail to act, I only need to imagine what the music industry executives who were lighting their cubans with hundred dollar bills while slapping each other on the back less than ten years ago must be thinking now, after a "computer company" came and pulled their very expensive rare persian rugs from under their feet.
"What the hell just happened?" comes to mind.
Deniz Nalbantoglu
Director, Webling Interactive
SOAPBOX: The mobile brown fox jumps all over the lazy hedgehog!
28 September 2011