Why So Glum Chum?
by Jim Carroll

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It a positively depressing time to be in the hi-tech. industry, isn`t it?

There`s a distinct chill in the air. Venture capitalists don`t return your calls, the market is in a funk, stock options are, well, not an option.

Tune into the TV, and you`ve got a reporter who is crowing about the fact that yet another dot.com retailer has shut down. Newspaper reports that trumpet the end of the e-biz revolution.

If you think about it, it is an absolutely dismal time to be looking for an I.T. career! It`s a miserable time to be thinking about technology, the Internet, or e-commerce! Fiber optics? Forget that - investors have soured on the idea. As for manufacturing hardware? What a loser business that is share prices have collapsed!

Layoffs! Recession! Depression! It`s enough to make you want to pull out an old copy of DOS and retreat to the safety and sanity of the world of hi-tech of 1982. A world before the Internet came along and ruined everything.

Well, this calls for a reality check.

As you assess your future, there is one important thing that you always need to keep in mind: the media never reports on reality. Indeed, if you want to understand what is going on around you, listen to what the media says, and then realize that what is really happening is likely the exact opposite. And whatever you do, don`t pay attention to the stock market, since it is even more far removed from reality than the fifth estate.

Hi-tech doom and gloom? Slowing momentum? Lousy prospects for a job?

Not quite.

While the media seems to be reporting with much enthusiasm on the sorry state of e-biz affairs, the reality is that the world of hi-tech moves along, new technologies are invented, code is developed, businesses are built, and applications are implemented. While investors continue their wild and crazy ways, some guy or gal in a photonics lab somewhere is figuring out how to get yet another yottabit through a tiny fiber strand, a fact that will revolutionize our life ten years out. While average folk scream at their computer when it crashes, someone somewhere is coding a better error routine. Well, maybe.

So while the media has its fun with the news angle of the day, while investors continue their insane activities, and as average folk continue to be mystified by the world around them, what is happening right now all around us isn`t real. The fact is, we`ve got a huge and vibrant hi-tech industry happening. Plenty of jobs, massive opportunity, lots of money yet to be made. Hi-tech and I.T. spending continues to be a huge aspect of our economy, and will only increase over time, not decrease.

OK, so things aren`t that bad. What should you do? First off, if you are a young person and are working in hi-tech, you better call your mom. She is probably watching the news, and is convinced that your job, your career, your company are in peril!

But aside from that fact, you should also realize that even though we are continuing our march to a wired economy and a wired future, there are lots people are losing faith. We need to bring them back.

That`s why motivating people to accept the inevitability of hi-tech, e-biz and e-commerce has become extremely important. Motivation is a big problem today, what with the doom and gloom that surrounds us. I speak from personal experience - right now, I`m writing my next Internet/e-biz book. And frankly, I can become quite discouraged when trying to write a book about e-biz strategy and e-biz careers, when I see yet another talking head on CNBC telling me that the tech revolution is over.

Would someone turn that freak off? Enough already!

To keep myself going, I keep reminding myself that while the media reports on the moment of this minute, for a real perspective I`ve got to focus on what is going to happen through the next five, ten or twenty years. And the fact remains that our economy is going to become wired, IP-enabled devices are going to become part of our global infrastructure, fiber optics will rule, and I`ll have plenty of hardware in my life.

To celebrate my attitude, I just went out and bought an 800-Mhz Athlon PC with 256MB of memory and 130 gigs of disk space. Take that, you damned market analysts!

Yet motivation seems to be in short supply. That`s why that I`m finding that companies, both hi-tech and otherwise, are looking for a way to fire up their staff. In just the last few weeks, as a regular speaker on the conference and corporate circuit, I`ve found that my clients are requesting that I spin a motivational theme into my talks. They want to ensure that staff, at all levels, realize that we are in but a temporary decline, and that market conditions don`t reflect reality.

They are indicating to me that we have to encourage both the I.T. staff and the rest of the organization to embrace the opportunity in front of us, instead of just glibly dismissing it.

And so I`m find that somehow, I`ve taken on the role of being somewhat of a hi-tech Billy Graham.

My message to you? You gotta keep the faith, you gotta believe, and you gotta keep going!

Be with me, brothers and sisters! Amen to the hi-tech revolution!

This article is Copyright © 2000 Jim Carroll. All rights reserved. Jim Carroll is the Ontario based author of over 30 books related to the Internet and e-commerce. For more information on Jim Carroll`s expertise and availability contact Speakers Platform: