2. We are living in a very unique time period. Innovation
happens faster than we can process it, especially on the
internet. If you literally take a week off, you have missed a
ton. There's a good chance you missed Google's latest
release, Apple's newest iPod, or AOL's legal battle. Take a
few months off and you've probably missed the
introduction of a technology that will be pivotal in the
future (think about how hot AJAX is right now and most of
us hadn't heard of it a year ago).
3. While it can be exciting to just sit back and soak in all of
the amazing things happening, it can also be extremely
stressful as an internet entrepreneur trying to keep up. If
you are like me, you probably subscribe to a bunch of
email newsletters and print magazines. It seems like each
one is talking about how to increase my traffic by doing x
or increase my conversions by doing y, and if I don't do it
now I will fall behind and my business will fail. It can be
enough to make your head explode.
4. What are we to do? For obvious reasons, the worst thing
you can do is stop reading those newsletters and
magazines. You need to stay up to date on what is going
on in your industry. Going into a shell and focusing entirely
on your business without contact with the outside world
will lead to missed opportunities. Learning should not be
considered a finite thing - we should always be growing
our knowledge base. We will never know everything that
we need to know.
5. That said, we also need to understand that we can't
possibly adapt every single change available to us. Any
entrepreneur should have a business plan that conveys
the major goals of the business, and should try to adhere
to it. It will undoubtedly be a fluid, living document that
changes over time, but still maintains the core goals of the
business.
6. In the course of your reading, if you encounter a technique
or technology that will directly help you meet those goals,
then you should certainly pursue it. If not, make note of it
and move on. I keep an 'idea book' where I write down
any ideas I have that are not directly applicable to my
current business. That way the idea isn't lost for the
future, but it also doesn't clutter my mind now.
7. You have two choices - hate change and watch your
business fall behind, or learn to embrace it by
implementing exciting pertinent technologies. After all,
isn't it better to live in a time with rapid change as
opposed to a hundred years ago when major change only
happened once or twice in a life time?
