Your smartphone keeps getting smarter. In the past 15 years, the brilliant phone in your pocket or purse has absorbed the feature functionality of more than 25 devices. We no longer carry game devices, MP3 players, cameras or books. Most recently our identity cards, payment cards, access controls and keys have been absorbed by the phone. What will be vaporized next?  If your firm does not have a clear plan to contend with the inexorable process of dematerialization, you may be at risk. Contact Rob Tercek to develop a comprehensive strategy for the Vaporized Economy.

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YOUR SMARTPHONE IS THE CATALYST FOR DEMATERIALIZATION

Information is like water. It can exist in three different states: as a solid (think of a book on a shelf), as a liquid (like data moving through a broadband pipe), and as a vapor (such as data delivered wirelessly over the air). If you are still in the business of making or delivering physical goods, then your business is highly likely to be "vaporized". Beware of disruptors who intend to turn your product into a digital service. Dematerialization is a global phenomenon that has driven the valuation of technology firms to historic heights. Contact Robert Tercek to learn more about the process of dematerialization and how to turn a threat into an opportunity.

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VAPORIZED.

Visual memory plays tricks on us. We tend not to notice when familiar things disappear. In the past 15 years, more than 100 national retail chains, along with the products they sold (such as consumer electronics, books, music and maps) have been vaporized. Tower Records, Border's Books, The Warehouse, and dozens of other familiar retail brands have gone bankrupt. Once you learn to notice the process of vaporization into software, you see it all around you!

Photo of person with title Once you become aware of Vaporization you notice it everywhere

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ONCE YOU BECOME AWARE OF DEMATERIALIZATION, YOU SEE IT EVERYWHERE.

Everyone is familiar with the basic economic concepts of supply and demand. When demand rises, prices go up. But the concept of "demand destruction" is different: it used to be quite rare, until the widespread adoption of the smartphone. Demand destruction means that your desire or need for a particular product category has been completely eliminated. The smartphone has caused a wave of demand destruction. We no longer have any need for entire categories of products, such as portable entertainment gizmos, shrinkwrapped software on disks, DVDs, physical maps and books. During the past decade we've lived through an unprecedented wave of demand destruction and it is not finished. Are your company's products on the right side of the future?

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DEMAND DESTRUCTION

Every time you use your smartphone, you are "vaporizing" something that in the past was sold as a physical  item, typically a product packaged in a shrinkwrapped box and placed on a shelf in a retail store. Now it’s all software, delivered instantly over the air to your mobile device.  It's all been replaced by software: the store, the shelf, the box, and the product inside. The physical retail shops are vacant and the physical goods are obsolete. 

This shift to dematerialized services represents the biggest economic transformation and the freshest opportunity in the 21st century. What is your organization's strategy to contend with dematerialization into software? If you are ready to develop a proactive strategy, contact Robert Tercek. He's provided long term strategic thinking to firms like AT&T, PwC, Google, Microsoft, Warner Media, NBC Universal, Sony, AMD, Huawei, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Aetna, EY, Deloitte and many others. And he can help you.

Every time you use your smartphone, you are "vaporizing" something that in the past was sold as a physical  item, typically a product packaged in a shrinkwrapped box and placed on a shelf in a retail store. Now it’s all software, delivered instantly over the air to your mobile device.  It's all been replaced by software: the store, the shelf, the box, and the product inside. The physical retail shops are vacant and the physical goods are obsolete. 

This shift to dematerialized services represents the biggest economic transformation and the freshest opportunity in the 21st century. What is your organization's strategy to contend with dematerialization into software? If you are ready to develop a proactive strategy, contact Robert Tercek. He's provided long term strategic thinking to firms like AT&T, PwC, Google, Microsoft, Warner Media, NBC Universal, Sony, AMD, Huawei, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Aetna, EY, Deloitte and many others. And he can help you.

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DEMATERIALIZATION INTO SOFTWARE.

Familiar retail shops selling familiar products are gone for good, and those retailers that remain have rearranged their stores to accommodate mobile shoppers.

The vaporized economy is re-shaping the real world

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THE DEMATERIALIZED ECONOMY IS RE-SHAPING THE REAL WORLD.

According to economist W. Bryan Arthur, the dematerialized economy grows at twice the rate of the physical economy. In our lifetime the value of virtual goods will surpass the tangible economy. During the past decade, trillions of new value was created in just one category, mobile apps. The companies at the forefront of the vaporization trend reaped the rewards: they doubled and doubled and doubled in valuation, until by 2020 their valuations approached two to three trillion dollars. Find out more about the growth the vaporized economy by contacting Robert Tercek.

Growh of the vaporized economy visualised

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GROWTH OF THE VAPORIZED ECONOMY

Valuable information is locked up inside of every physical product where it cannot be shared or utilized. As goods dematerialize into software, that information value is freed. That's when it turns into a dynamic digital service.  Nearly every physical product can be reconceptualized as a digital service. Whether that new digital service is an adjunct that adds value to the physical item, or a substitute that destroys the value of the physical good, is a strategic decision that requires foresight and planning. Contact us to learn how to master this process.

as goods become information-rich they lose the characteristics of products and gain the dynamics of digital services

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Information-Rich Products Will Be Transformed Into Digital Services

Giant information empires are on the prowl for the next trillion dollar market to deconstruct and rearrange. Is your industry complacent, bloated, and resistant to change?  If so, guess what!  Your industry is probably already in the gunsights of the digital giants. Health care, pharmaceuticals, transportation, education and retail are all potential targets, with trillions of dollars of market cap at risk. Robert Tercek has provided strategic insight to leading firms in each of these industries. Contact him and be prepared for massive change.

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WHICH INDUSTRY IS THE NEXT TO BE VAPORIZED?

New devices teach us new habits. The smartphone is the world’s largest-scale mass indoctrination program in human history. It's taught us more than how to tap, swipe, pinch, and take a selfie. The smartphone has altered our expectations of the world around us. We are no longer content with the world as presented: we demand more insight, more context and instant gratification. Very few organizations are prepared to provide smartphone-wielding customers with the right information in the right context. Learn more about how your customers are evolving by contacting Rob Tercek.

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THE SMARTPHONE IS CHANGING US.

For the generations that grew up with smartphones and tablets, the letters WWW do not stand for World Wide Web. They stand for Whatever, Whenever, Wherever. That’s the consumer experience that they demand and expect. When Rob Tercek broke this news to the mass media industry, they called him an "anarchist." Those who listened soon prospered. The ensuing decades proved his point. This new generation expects to consume on their own terms, however and wherever they prefer. Those who understand that will enjoy a big advantage. Woe betide any firm that fails to meet these new expectations. If your organization is ready to develop a future-proof strategy for the dematerialized and decentralized markets of tomorrow, contact Rob today. He can help you.

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WWW MEANS WHATEVER WHENEVER WHEREVER

What killed traditional media was separating the content from the physical container. We didn’t sell stories, we sold books. We didn’t sell music, we sold CDs. We didn't sell movies, we sold DVDs. But the smartphone wiped out those businesses. When the physical container disappeared, it took the revenue model with it. Now the economy is bracing for a further round of dematerialization, which means that a lot of old-school manufacturing and retail businesses are vulnerable to the same dynamics that disrupted the media business at the start of the 21st Century.

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CONTENT AND CONTAINER

Prior to the 20th century, most people never had their photo taken. Instead, they had family, local community and congregation. Supersized-solipsism is the main theme of Selfie Planet, where you are the focal point and main attraction in your own world.  Learn more about how self-obsession has transformed two generations of consumers by contacting Robert Tercek.

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SELFIE PLANET

Is that a spy in your pocket? Surveillance capitalism makes us all complicit in a global program of eavesdropping. The struggle to preserve personal privacy against the predations of big business and bigger government is one of the defining conflicts of the 21st Century, and we are still in the opening rounds. Big changes are afoot right now. Find out how surveillance capitalism is evolving when you contact Robert Tercek.

Big brother is watching you poster, Little brother is watching on cell phone 

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BIG BROTHER and LITTLE BROTHER

For 50 years, tangible physical items have been getting replaced by information. This process won’t stop until everything has a digital representation. If you think it can’t happen to your business, you are deluded.

For the first time in history, the world’s information is all around us, like atmosphere. It’s everywhere at once, just one tap away on a mobile device. For businesses, the transformation of physical products into digital services has caused havoc and unprecedented opportunity. For consumers, it has created cognitive overload and endless fascination. And for modern information empires, data smog is a free resource to be gathered and converted into a profitable asset. Learn more about dematerialization by contacting Robert Tercek.

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A NEW FREE RESOURCE FOR INFORMATION EMPIRES.

The colonial impulse of conquest is alive and well in the 21st century. Today's imperialists no longer seize  territory, they just seize the information assets. Pundits often refer to data as "the new oil" because it is a valuable resource, but their facile metaphor also exposes something deeper: the smash-and-grab mindset that motivates giant companies to accumulate vast troves of data without permission in order to train their proprietary machine learning algorithms. Stealing somebody else's assets and converting them into profit is the age-old motivation for global conquest. Could this be happening to you?  If your organization does not have a strategy for data assets and data security, then it's quite possible that someone else is leveraging your data for their gain. Learn more about managing digital assets by contacting Robert Tercek, the expert on the dematerialized economy.

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DATA IS THE NEW OIL

Future visioning is not a spectator sport. Get busy. The action that you take today can influence your future trajectory towards far better outcomes than you'll get if you remain passive. Robert Tercek has practiced creative visualization for scenario planning for more than 30 years. He has done visual scenario planning for major media companies, technology firms, telecoms networks, pharmaceutical manufacturers, auto companies, banks, and institutions. He can guide you and your organization towards the construction of an intentional future. A future where you have agency, a defensible business model, loyal customers and reliable channels. If you are not actively planning your future right now, your organization is at risk.

Picture with different titles: The future is something we envision, invent, design, create, build, intend

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THE FUTURE IS SOMETHING WE ENVISION, INVENT, DESIGN, CREATE, BUILD.

The biggest socio-economic trend of our lifetime is the dematerialization of tangible goods into virtual services. It has already created trillion-dollar information empires, and it has destroyed long-established industrial giants. This process is documented vividly in Robert Tercek's book, Vaporized, the definitive guide to the dematerialized economy. Contact Rob to learn how the process of dematerialization, or what he refers to as "vaporization", will change your industry and your career.

The biggest socio-economic trend of our lifetime is the dematerialization of tangible goods into virtual services. It has already created trillion-dollar information empires, and it has destroyed long-established industrial giants. This process is documented vividly in Robert Tercek's book, Vaporized, the definitive guide to the dematerialized economy.  Contact Rob to learn how the process of dematerialization, or what he refers to as "vaporization", will change your industry and your career.

dematerialization - picture of car deconstructed

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DEMATERIALIZATION.

Do your future plans include some provision for wild card scenarios? If not, then you’re definitely unprepared for radical change. Time's up. You need to get ready now. The next ten years will consist of more disruptive breakthroughs and accelerated change than the previous 50. Contact Robert Tercek to learn how to apply creative visualization techniques to scenario planning and foresight practice. Including wild card scenarios!

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WILD CARDS

Social media has polarized society into warring tribes. It warps our perception of norms, erases consensus reality, and it pits one group of true believers against another group with entirely different beliefs. This is a great business for social media companies, but it is not healthy for society and civic discourse. If you haven’t exited your filter bubble, you probably don’t have the whole picture. Let’s talk. For 30 years, Rob Tercek has provided strategic insight into the dynamics of digital media and the impact on society at large.

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TRIBAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Future visioning can be a lively debate, and that’s okay. It should be. With practice and foresight, you can stack the cards in your favor. Learn how to frame a functional hypothesis about the future, and how to defend and debate it, and how to posit alternative scenarios in order to arrive at unconventional insight and an unfair advantage in business. Contact Rob Tercek to learn more about future visioning.

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THE FUTURE IS A HYPOTHESIS

Everybody has blind spots. Every relationship has blind spots. And so does every company, big or small.  In many companies, the worst blind spots typically come from the top of the organization. Charismatic, hard-charging executive leaders tend to stifle the kind of candid feedback that exposes blind spots and unchallenged assumptions. The good news: this can be fixed.  If your organization is ready for blind spot coaching, contact Robert Tercek. He has helped some of the biggest companies in the world confront their hidden vulnerabilities and build strength.

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BLIND SPOTS

Are you ready to use scenario planning as a lens to bring your future into focus?  Now you can learn how. This is the essential tool for strategic planning. It is also incredibly useful for new product design and development. Contact Robert Tercek to schedule a scenario planning and future visioning workshop for your organization.

WILD CARDS

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