Power of Perspective

Few days ago I saw last issue of Polish edition of Manager Magazin (btw: why not "Manager Magazine"?), which is described as a magazine for people managing mid-size and big companies. They want be considered as a part of high-end press for high-end managers. I can point only to German version of their web site because English one doesn’t work (but don’t regret – it’s not worth visiting). Nevertheless, a thing that drew my attention was one of the headlines – something about Google being a threat to advertising agencies.

Google being a threat for advertising agencies? Wow! How could they hit on that idea? True visionaries. Yep, they have to be visionaries – they write for high management. But Google as a threat for advertising agencies? No, it can’t be true. I must have been living in some alternative reality.

OK, maybe I’m not fair – I saw only headline and I couldn’t check on their web site because there isn’t any of their articles (did I say that the web site is poor?). However judging only from headline perspective hmm... I’d say my wife knows much more about AdSense than all those journalists.

AdSense became so natural for people working in software business that we tend to forget there’re other media channels, which can be used to advertise. For many of us Google has already taken ads business over. We click on ads when browsing the web, we see ads when reading e-mails with GMail, we advertise using AdSense, we put Google ads on our blogs – they’re everywhere. Threat? What threat? Advertising agencies are dead already; they can only extend the agony. That’s how things look from our perspective.

However, we forget that there’re markets where AdSense isn’t the best possible idea. Bah, sometimes it’s not even reasonable. Think about advertising washing powder with housewives as target group. Think about selling flagstones, yogurt, slaked lime, public transportation services etc on-line. Think about target group’s perspective. Do they think that AdSense already ruled out classic advertising? Do they even know about AdSense?

After a while second thought came about the headline in the magazine. Maybe they’re right. Maybe there’re managers for whom this is news. They don’t write for software business managers only (OK, they don’t write for software business managers at all), but we’re not alone here. What more, we’re minority. And so is our perspective.

It’s very important to remember about perspective. Both perspectives: yours and theirs (whoever they are). It’s so easy to forget that actually not everyone looks at the particular case in the same way I do. It’s so easy to judge quickly basing only on your perspective like I did with the headline (but still, just listen, Google as a threat to advertising agencies...) Another time I’ll try to remember all of that.