How To Be An Entrepreneur In The Modern World (1999-2014)…
How to be an entrepreneur in the modern world is a subject close to my heart these days. Just how far we have come in terms of what the Internet, technology and worldwide connectivity has made possible was brought home to me again over the weekend. I was doing some writing for a book I’m putting together. I was writing about some gigs that my band played in Copenhagen about 15 years ago. Using the limited technology at my disposal then I set the whole thing up from our home in Glasgow.
I’m talking dial up Internet connection and an Internet landscape that was still not that far out of infancy. Given what we take for granted today it’s amazing what we were able to do then. What we can now though is nothing short of breathtaking. Entrepreneurship in the modern economy is not surprisingly then becoming commonplace.
Entrepreneurship In The Modern World
Through an eccentric friend/manager we came in to contact with a group of Danish art students who were putting a project together. Their project was actually in support of legalising cannabis and our friend – a big supporter of that – had somehow managed to become the “poster boy” for the project. I didn’t know this when we were asked to be the “poster band” for it but hey – gigs in foreign places weren’t easy to come by!
The gigs were to take place in Copenhagen’s national library where the group had created an installation area for their project, and several student venues in the city. So we needed to get there, find accommodation for the week and hire equipment both here and in Denmark. Taking amps and drum kits with us would have been way too pricey.
So using snails pace email, the limited information available online and a few phone calls I was able to arrange everything. Bear in mind the Danish guys didn’t have computers at home and had to rely on the College kit whenever they could access it. Communication then was slow with days going by for replies to emails. I didn’t know it then but I was learning how to be an entrepreneur in the modern world.
From The Old Modern World To The New
Nevertheless with the exception of a few phone calls (landline – mobiles were then rare) I was able to find and hire flight cases for keyboards and bass in Glasgow, a drum kit and accommodation in Copenhagen, and do all the negotiations for fees and travel. Flights were arranged through a friend whose wife worked for an airline.
Now this doesn’t sound that amazing by today’s standards I grant you but back then it was quite a feat. To give you an idea, one of the Danish students compiled a dossier of the entire process, which was given away at the event as an example of what was possible in the “modern” creative world. With hindsight it could have been titled “How to be an entrepreneur in the modern world”. We signed copies of it at the event. To this day it exists only as a printed and photocopied document: There were no PDFs, Google drives or Ebooks back then.
In fact as mobile phones were uncommon and certainly didn’t have cameras – digital cameras were only coming in to being – the only images we have of the whole thing are prints.
How To Be An Entrepreneur In The Mobile World
Fast forward to today. Everything could have been arranged via Skype, Google hangouts, lightning fast email and Facebook. It could have been done on phones or tablets from almost anywhere. The same devices could have recorded video for the live gigs and sent it to Youtube, taken high quality images that could have been sent to a band Facebook page. Live broadcasts could have been done , video diaries made and archived digitally on websites and a million other things. I could have provided links to all of it in this post.
In today’s mobile world it’s breathtaking what we can do. The experience I’ve described is definitely what gave me the bug. It made me see where things were going but I had no clue just how far they would go in such a short timeframe.
I now run several online businesses and I can do that from anywhere with nothing more than a laptop. I can even get by with a tablet or smartphone. Amazing.
With the technology you have for day-to-day communication you are only a short step away from creating a completely different lifestyle. Thousands of people are realising this and learning how with the help of company’s like Six Figure mentors and Digital Experts Academy.
If I’ve made you think about how far we have come imagine how far we still have to go! If you’re interested in learning how to be an entrepreneur in the modern world take a look at the lifestyle possibilities open to all by getting the free SFM video series on the link below.
