talkingDigital

Dogwalking service (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every generation since the Baby Boomers has had a nickname. I am 40, that makes me a gen-Xer. I was raised by Baby Boomers who were the mainstream adopters of the VHS, microwave and Atari 2600.

Grand Junction, Colorado, where I was raised, is a suburb without a nearby metropolis. The town is large enough to be self-sustaining without a metro economy, but small enough to have a quaint downtown with parades on the appropriate holidays.

In a vin diagram with one circle representing my socioeconomic status and the other representing my generation, the point where the two circles merged would be called Read the rest of this entry →

English: The impressive Egyptian-themed entrance to the Cinemark Egyptian 24 movie theaters located at Arundel Mills Mall. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The cost of going to a first run movie is roughly the same as tickets to the nosebleed section of a professional sporting event – especially if you get popcorn and soda. The high cost of movie tickets is a better small talk conversation topic than the weather. Some people like rain, some like the heat, but everyone feels that movie tickets are too expensive.

For well under $1500, you can get a great home theater system, including the 65″ television. The subwoofer will shake the house, the floors aren’t sticky, and you can can pause it when the baby cries or you need to pee.

Those of us who pay extra to see a movie in the theaters do it because we love the experience. The smell of the popcorn, that moment when the lights dim, the bad red robot moving through the grass – often the movie itself diminishes the experience. Nobody wants to see the end of theaters. In fact, we want the ceremony of the theater experience to be greater than what it is.

Over the past 20 years, theaters have increased efforts to make the experience that is worth the premium price. Megaplexes have added stadium seats, cup holders, cuddle seats, and even tables with group seating in some hipster venues. The results have kept the industry alive, but they have also muted the nostalgic red curtain experience.

When discussing films, friends often provide opinions of a given movie by declaring it to be worth seeing in theaters, a rental, or wait for it to come on Netflix (or worse television). This is a confession that the theater experience still offers something significantly more special than all of the the amenities of home viewing.

The problem with the current movie theater business model is that it is too rigid. The most avid Adam Sandler fan will pay $20 (including the snack – maybe) to see Grown Ups 6 on opening day. After that week goes by, Sandler begins competing with Avengers 9. Avengers will likely be well attended, even on week nights, for two or three weeks while Grown Ups will barely fill 50 seats all day on the weekends. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo Credit Flickr.com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wlscience/2143293439/

I am about three days into Peter Drucker’s book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It’s a good read provided you skip the introduction that consists almost entirely of understated 1984 prophesy’s about the future of the tech space.

Drucker approaches entrepreneurship as a science centered on confronting new frontiers rather than establishing a new businesses or owning a business. The argument is that a person starting a new hamburger stand where there is a market need for a hamburger stand is not an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur would open a beatnik hamburger bar that plays old movies instead of sports in a part of town that already has hamburger stands, coffee shops and sports bars.

He goes so far as to make the point that companies like DuPont, 3M and Apple (I added Apple to his list) have proven that well established companies can be entrepreneurial. Whenever a person, partnership or company takes a risk by forging into a new frontier, entrepreneurship has taken place. Read the rest of this entry →