Contact usI recent managed to get a second hand copy of the Entrepreneurial Challenge worksheets that Paul Pilzer supplies with his set of six CDROMs of the same name. In the worksheets Pilzer give the reader six rules to help leverage technology. Although the worksheets are written before mobile commerce took off Pilzer seems to grasp the fundamentals of how computers, the internet, and mobile phones are revolutionising business as we know it. As such I thought it might be helpful to provide an introduction to Pilzer's laws for using information technology to add value.
Pilzer's first law is that technology is constantly redefining what is considered to be valuable. It is ambiguous what is meant by resource here. However if we take a resource to be an an asset on hand then Pilzer's statement makes sense. For example computers using social media tools such Twitter have made social connections and fragments of one's thoughts a valuable asset that can leveraged in the modern business. We have no doubt heard how mobile phones using the Twitter website were recently used to overthrow corrupt regimes around the world. Initially this may seem to have little significance for the local small business but this would be mistaken. The same tools, a computer, mobile phone, and the Twitter website, can be used by customers to talk to your prospective customers. This may work for or against your business. If your business is good then computers maybe used to send you many more customers. However the reverse is true, if you provide bad service, you may never know the customers you are missing out on.
Pilzer's second law is that technology determines the supply of resources. To clear up ambiguity we will define resources using the same definition. So how does technology determine the supply of resources? Well on the one hand a computer may be used as a tool by the manager that dispatches a plumber to repair a broken pipe. However computers are not only used by the plumber repairing my pipes, computers are also used by the banks that transfer the money from one party to another. Again Pilzer is not saying much here. At this point you may think Pilzer does not have much that to say.
Fortunately the third law raises some food for thought. Pilzer states without evidence that the rate at which technology advances is determined by the speed with which information is distributed. One can see practical examples of this in many fields. For example say you were a software company wanting to build the market for your software. Ever wondered why customers are not adopting your great software? Perhaps it is because they don't know about it. It sounds obvious but what if you could get that software onto your target customers' computers? Then you would really see technology advance. We see this with devices such as the iPhone literally putting mobile commerce into the hands of customers that would never have previously considered buying products using their phone.
Pilzer's first law is that technology is constantly redefining what is considered to be valuable. It is ambiguous what is meant by resource here. However if we take a resource to be an an asset on hand then Pilzer's statement makes sense. For example computers using social media tools such Twitter have made social connections and fragments of one's thoughts a valuable asset that can leveraged in the modern business. We have no doubt heard how mobile phones using the Twitter website were recently used to overthrow corrupt regimes around the world. Initially this may seem to have little significance for the local small business but this would be mistaken. The same tools, a computer, mobile phone, and the Twitter website, can be used by customers to talk to your prospective customers. This may work for or against your business. If your business is good then computers maybe used to send you many more customers. However the reverse is true, if you provide bad service, you may never know the customers you are missing out on.
Pilzer's second law is that technology determines the supply of resources. To clear up ambiguity we will define resources using the same definition. So how does technology determine the supply of resources? Well on the one hand a computer may be used as a tool by the manager that dispatches a plumber to repair a broken pipe. However computers are not only used by the plumber repairing my pipes, computers are also used by the banks that transfer the money from one party to another. Again Pilzer is not saying much here. At this point you may think Pilzer does not have much that to say.
Fortunately the third law raises some food for thought. Pilzer states without evidence that the rate at which technology advances is determined by the speed with which information is distributed. One can see practical examples of this in many fields. For example say you were a software company wanting to build the market for your software. Ever wondered why customers are not adopting your great software? Perhaps it is because they don't know about it. It sounds obvious but what if you could get that software onto your target customers' computers? Then you would really see technology advance. We see this with devices such as the iPhone literally putting mobile commerce into the hands of customers that would never have previously considered buying products using their phone.
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