Sometimes we forget

It's not about the radio.

It's not about the TV

It's not about the laptop

It's not about blogs

It's not about Twitter

Its not about Facebook

It's not about IM

Its about people - and we often forget that.  We're caught up in technology, web 2.0,  and the internet (and for good reason. . .they are changing the landscape. . .) and we let it slip quietly to the background: individuals and the human experience and condition. 

How do we create the latest and greatest?  How do we make it bigger and faster? How do we innovate? We do this for individuals, people, customers and clients, yet we continuously (consciously or unconsciously) ignore how we as people are.  

What do people like?  How do people liked to be talked to?  What do they think about?  How are people distressed? What makes people content or happy?

When's the last time a VC invested in a human factor?  I mean isn't it people that ultimately make the world go round?  Yet how many products,  services or ways that we do business actually make our lives better, happier, cooler or easier? By show of hands who would pay top dollar for their lives to be better, happier, cooler or easier?

Ladies and gentlemen we get caught up in the tools.  Yet that's all they are. . .simple tools.  And the reality behind that is that tools come and go.  You can have all the the online communities, social networks and cool apps in the world but at the end of the day the question I think worth asking - what is its value to people?

Remarkably transformative ideas and strategies come when you're able to better comprehend and make more sense of the human experience:

How we think.

What we like.

What we hate,

What we love. 

Do this and you can really start setting the table for a huge chunk of the marketplace.