Embracing Change to Continue Survival (and Growth)!

I worked for a rather affluent gentleman as a “handyman” throughout my high school years. His name was Mr. Jorgenson and he had a big house in the rich part of town. I would go to his home every Saturday morning and he would have list of jobs for me for the day. Stock his wine closet (I grew up in Florida and we did not have cellars), take his boats down to get fueled up, clean the spa and pools, and – my favorite job – organize and catalog the books and publications in his library.

He had thousands of books and over a four year period I cataloged them ALL (and without a computer, mind you). And, in his collection he had EVERY single copy of National Geographic from the time he was a child. I still stand in amazement at that accomplishment.

Now, what took him a life time of subscribing, receiving, storing, moving, preserving and cataloging, is being offered up for $199 on a 160GB hard drive (plus every other issues that he did not have prior to and after his life) from National Geographic.

What a bold marketing move on the part of the NatGeo. Newspapers and magazines have known for years that their industry as they have known it has been on the verge of collapse because of the new digital age. They have worked tirelessly to make sure that the change that takes place allows them to survive and not die (see what the world on digital magazines are going to look like in the coming years here). The NGS is a perfect example of an organization embracing change in the way they run and market their publication.

Hats off to you, National Geographic, for giving us one more great example of what it looks like to embrace change!