The problem we have right now is credibility. Living in real time, it is extremely hard to know what is true and what is false.  Before, when we learned the news through newspapers, the information was validated and everyone was trying to make sure the informations were  accurate. This is no longer the case.  We have experts and people who think they are experts. What makes you trust someone? How do you verify what is true and what is not ? You can’t. Or at least, it’s really hard, so most people do not check. Thousand of tweets every minute, thousand of people saying different things, whatever they want.

When disasters occurs, people want to feed on information. They want to know everything as-it-happens.  People are more emotional and might believe something not accurate.

In this real-time era, always remember to double check, and remember there is two sides to every story.

For example, when was the last time you were out of stock ? I remember, when I was young, going to the video store. They never had the movie I wanted to see because they only had three copies of it. They had waiting lists and special on other movies, but not what I wanted. Last month, Netflix launched in Canada, which allows you to stream the movies you want, anytime you want for 7,99$ a month. You can also rent movies on iTunes and probably soon on YouTube. So it seems that all those customers’frustrations and disappointments end up in a new opportunity. Now, the video store is gone : a big player at the time, Blockbuster, is just about to close.

Entrepreneur learn that a good business comes from a need. Revolution are started just like that. It only comes from a single disappointment, a single « we are sorry, we don’t have that ». Stop being sorry and start acting now. How much more extra effort are you ready to invest for your customers ? It’s one little thing that my video store should have learned now.

This last piece is really important and it might sounds obvious that nobody should start their project without a plan, some do. I’m pretty sure by now that you understand that I will not really explain how to build a house in this blog. However, it may help you to. I want to start this blog with a strong example to show how planning and strategy are important to any project, no matter how big (or small) they are. This is the first step. Don’t buy or use any tool before having one. Some might say that, in fact, it is really hard to know what kind of tools you need if you have no idea what you are building.  Finally, don’t spend all your money on tools. You need to learn how to use them and make sure that they contribute to your plan and strategy. What are your tools and how do they contribute to your project ?