According to Chris Anderson in his book, Free:  The Future of a Radical Price, free is not going away but there are things people will still pay for.  He says people will still pay to

• Save time
• Lower risk
• Purchase things they love
• Achieve status
• Keep using something you’ve got them hooked on

It’s time to innovate and the real innovation in this economy, Anderson says, is finding new and unique ways to charge for your goods and services.  He refers to two groups of consumers: 

• price sensitive consumers who will like the free version (think Linux);
• risk sensitive consumers who will like the paid version (think service level agreements from Microsoft). 

In other words, when you reach new customers, it doesn’t mean you can’t charge some of them.  But you’ve got to either match the price of free or ensure that the differences in quality overcome the differences in price.

And to my reader from yesterday’s post who hasn’t figured out how to compete with free, you’re in good company.  Neither has YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and many other companies with outstanding reach.  They still lack a business model that actually makes a profit. In fact, Google, the godfather of free, is beginning to be dragged down by the increasing investment in computers and data storage equipment needed to keep up with the 20 hours of video per minute being uploaded to YouTube, for free.

A couple of more gems from Anderson’s book:  he says that you can shift your company culture, or personal mindset, from “Don’t screw up” to “Fail fast”.  This is a freedom of Neptune in Aquarius.  Since effective efforts are not so much personal but collective these days, we are freed from the mental block of thinking it is up to us to find the correct answer to a problem.  The community is there like never before.  I love music sites like Jamglue where you can upload your songs and let the community work out the backgrounds and mixes.   Or Sound Cloud,where you can put up a demo and let people give feedback on your work. 

When the marginal cost of trying new things is zero, we are free to throw ideas against a wall and see what sticks.  Not that the marginal cost of our time is zero.  The time you spend experimenting may be time wasted if the idea goes nowhere.  And in the meantime, there’s that constant requirement of eating and shelter to take care of.  But I like this “fail fast” idea – I think it’s very Neptune in Aquarius.  Seems like a good idea?  Try it.  Another good idea?  Try it.  A totally different good idea?  Try that one too.  An off the wall idea?  Yes, that one too.  Neptune’s inspiration doesn’t always come in familiar forms.  But one way to be successful is to be a conduit for what she is trying to bring into the world today. 

The other gem from Anderson’s book I want to pass along is, “Every abundance creates a new scarcity.”  What has become scarce in this environment of zero cost for marginal bits?    

An excerpt from my blogging mentor, Yaro Starak gives the clue:

… Being open, honest and demonstrating your personality in everything you publish on your blog is the key to developing rapport… I want you to be very open, honest and real with your readers.

This reminded me that what can be scarce with Neptune in Aquarius is the very opposite of the Aquarian energy – the individual personality.  Even in this time of the ascendancy of the group you can find a platform on which to stand out, to demarcate yourself with your individuality.  The quotes above from Anderson and Starak apply to any product or service.  What is in abundance?  Digital bits.  What is scarce?  Face to face personal contact.  And personal responsibility.

My tax clients know they can take their taxes to H & R Block, or do them on TurboTax.  Even my astrology clients can buy computerized, very accurate reports about their strengths and weaknesses, or coming days.  Why don’t they?  Because personal interaction is vital to many kinds of problem solving.   And they know I will consider their unique situations compassionately and with commitment to their personal success.

What are you doing that the internet cannot do?  Let’s create a forum for how to compete with free.

Tags: Aquarius, astrology, business, Neptune

Back to Free, The Future of a Radical Price, the book by Chris Anderson.  I heard Chris speaking with Terry Gross on NPR (Listen) and it was so intriguing I listened twice and started reading the book, which, of course, is free.  His idea/observation is that free can be a profitable business model and the first new business model based on the internet.  And the model is this:  making lots of money charging nothing. 

Free is not new as a business marketing strategy.  It’s long been known that giving away one thing free can create demand for something people are willing to pay for.  But in this internet kind of free, 99% is given away and a tiny majority pays for everyone else.

One example Chris cites is the Wall Street Journal.  Their website is free and is full of useful information.  But the archives and more specific data are only available to those who pay for it.  Google is another example.  Google’s services are available almost completely for free and yet the company is making a huge profit.  How is this possible?

There are some standard economic principles that play into this equation:

• In economics 101, you learn that the entire supply and demand cycle is based on having to make choices in the face of scarcity.  Not in the freeconomy.  Free is driven by abundance.  Abundance of what?
• Bits, digital goods.  Moore’s law says that the digital world gets cheaper, 50% each year.  (Actually, Moore was talking about transistors, but his basic axiom has become applicable to the digital world.)
• Marginal cost – unlike atoms, which are inflationary, based on the scarcity principle, bits get cheaper and cheaper until the marginal cost of producing products digitally becomes zero.  Take this blog for instance.  Does it cost me anything more to have 10,000 people read it than 1 person?
• Barriers to entry – when marginal cost is zero, standard barriers to entry into a market are virtually zero.  Not that long ago, a writer would have either had to self-publish at considerable cost or spend many, many hours submitting manuscripts.  Now, publish on-line, for free.

So, with marginal cost of production down to zero, anything that becomes digital will become free, or available in a free version.

What does this mean for us as business people?  If your product can be digitalized and you don’t make it free, someone else will.  As Anderson says, either you’re giving it away for free or you’re competing with free.

One of my regular readers commented on the Neptune in Aquarius trends.  Some excerpts:

My work (commercial art, illustration) has been seriously affected by the internet, both positively and negatively. Over the past decade or so the computer has allowed me to reach clients all over the world, has introduced me to markets I couldn’t have even imagined, and has streamlined the research I do in preparing my graphics.

On the other hand, competition has gotten more and more fierce, availability and quality of “stock art” has gotten progressively better, and my asking prices are being driven down by this culture of “free.” In the arts, which is the area I know about, the internet has created a situation where “professionals” and “amateurs” can compete on almost-level ground. For example, there was recently a Superbowl ad done for free by an amateur. These usually cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and the sponsoring company in this case basically got the work for free. So we who have been considered professionals in the arts are suddenly threatened by throngs of amateurs, do-it-yourselfers who have access to technology that enables them to make a fine looking product that in the old days only a pro could produce.

So what’s an old pro to do? As you mentioned in your last post, we’ve got to find a way to distinguish ourselves beyond just craft. We have to have better ideas, or a better ability to address the real needs of our clients, or … I don’t quite know what. That’s the problem!

The downside of free.   Have you experienced the downside of Neptune in Aquarius?  Let us know in the comments section below.

More on Free, tomorrow.

Tags: Aquarius, astrology, business, Neptune

I’ve been thinking about Free lately, as in Chris Anderson’s book, Free:  The Future of a Radical Price.  Chris is the Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine, my favorite monthly read.  He is also the author of the megahit, The Long Tail and was previously the U.S. business editor at The Economist.

I did my own research on the word free and found that it has many different meanings.  I’ve decided  to personally append the following meanings to the sign Aquarius.  From the Encarta Dictionary:

1. Costing nothing, a free meal
2. Not restricted in rights, a free country
3. Self-ruling, a free people
4. Not regulated, free to choose
5. Not attached, the free end of the rope
6. Disregarding traditional limitations, free verse
7. Not blocked, free flow of electricity
8. Giving something readily, free with advice
9. Open and honest, a free manner
10. Favorable, a free wind

And then there’s freedom, free will, free lance, free trade, and the newer freemium, and freeconomics.  This word free has some big shoulders!

I went to my The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language because I couldn’t figure out how this same little word could contain meanings as diverse as costing nothing and self-ruling.  What I found was fascinating.  The word free comes from the root pri, which means love, beloved, belonging to the loved ones, dear, precious, peace, noble, joyful.  The etymology cites that the primary sense seems to have been “beloved, friend, to love;” perhaps from the terms “beloved” or “friend” being applied to the members of one’s clan – the people free to come and go through your territory at will.  The sense of free as “given without cost” was first seen in 1585, presumably from “free of cost” to members of your clan.

Isn’t Free a great concept for Neptune in Aquarius?  Neptune is the connector, the urge to merge with a beloved ideal, and Aquarius, the group, the extended clan.  The word free goes right to the root of our time in all of its senses:  costing nothing because you don’t charge your kin, the extended, global community; not restricted in rights, as in open-source software; self-ruling, like the agreements on how to use the social networking sites; disregarding traditional limitations, abbreviate those tweets; giving something readily, the law of reciprocity.

We have utilized this concept for ages, of course.  I don’t charge my son for tax or astrological advice; he doesn’t charge me for computer and internet advice.  He is my kin; we exchange our skills and talents freely.  What has morphed with Neptune in Aquarius is who we call kin: now people across the globe who we’ve never met in person support our endeavors and we support theirs.  There are forums in every imaginable subject in which people freely share with each other the best of their wisdom.  I can call on the community, the global community, to answer any question I have with a simple Google search.

My son uses this often in his work.  When he has a thorny technical problem to solve, first he looks on line to see if anyone else has resolved it.  He often finds the answer or at least a clue that provides the opening for him to successfully resolve it.  If the answer is not online, when he has resolved it, he posts it.  The next person that runs into the same issue can access his best thinking, instantly and free of charge.  Why does he do it?  Reciprocity, certainly, but also for the pure satisfaction of contributing to the advancement of shared knowledge.  This is kinship of another kind, Aquarian kinship, based on a deep understanding of who are our kin:  those who love the same knowledge as we and who share the desire to advance its frontier.

More on free in the next posts…

Tags: Aquarius, astrology, business, Neptune

I found a great quote by Mikal Gilmore in the Rolling Stone Commemorative Issue on Michael Jackson.  Although he wasn’t describing Neptune, these words are particularly descriptive of Neptune’s energy:

In my mind, Michael Jackson, [Elvis] Presley and the Beatles all shared one virtue:  they bound together millions of dissimilar people in not just a quirk of shared taste, but also a forceful, heartfelt consensus that spoke to common dreams and values.”

This is a perfect quote for the activity of Neptune:  a forceful, heartfelt consensus that speaks to common dreams and values.  (To see my post on Neptune, use this link Neptune/) Neptune has been transiting the sign of Aquarius (Aquarius/) since 1998.  What are the common dreams and values that are inspiring us with Neptune in Aquarius? 

The Aquarius common dreams and values are

• the equality of the common man;
• responsibility to the group;
• the ascendancy of man based on knowledge, rather than other types of power;
• the right of humans to progress technologically;
• the right of each person to contribute to the base of knowledge. 

Neptune in Aquarius – connecting, binding together through the dissemination of knowledge and information.  Aquarius is an air sign, so it’s through the realm of thinking and ideas that the Neptunian urge to merge takes root in the world. 

What does this search for connection look like?  Think of internet dating.  This hugely popular and successful way to connect to other people is done entirely through databases of attributes – bits of knowledge about other people matched electronically with bits of knowledge about you.  Mind to mind connection.  The bits of knowledge may be about your likes and dislikes, your beliefs, what makes you smile, how you feel, all little pieces of information that you choose to key into the screen – effectively turning your need for connection into bits of information.  No physical contact, no physical environment for meeting and yet thousands of successful matches. 

How else do we search for connection these days?  Facebook has become a phenomenon during Neptune’s transit of Aquarius, becoming more and more ubiquitous every day.  It has become unnecessary for any physical contact to keep up with friends and family and in fact this electronic connection has allowed more contact with a wider group than ever before.  No need even for telephones to transmit our personalities, we can just reach out and touch each other virtually.  And it really does feel like connection, more connection than ever.

Blogging is also a very Neptune in Aquarius activity.  The right of the common person to contribute to a base of shared knowledge across countries and cultures is a trend that has never been seen on this scale.  And twittering, blogging in fewer than 140 characters, is changing and some would say redefining our communication skills to match the lighting pace of our world.  The right to change centuries of grammar and punctuation rules with the abbreviations and short bursts required for text messaging is a purely Aquarian liberty.  Revolutionize!  Break the rules!

I’m interested in hearing from you.  How are you including these trends in your business plans?  In the comments section below, let’s begin sharing ideas about aligning with Neptune in Aquarius, a very Neptune in Aquarius thing to do!

Tags: Aquarius, astrology, business, Neptune