On Friday (01/30/09), the Wall Street Journal reported on how "Car-Industry Slump Imperils Role in Spurring Innovation." This is just another warning sign that as times demand change, change continues to look like the same old thing.
Think about this: The only real way that we are going to get out of this economic mess is for people (not banks, not big business, but real people) to spend money. The only way they are going to spend money is to be motivated to want something that catches their eye and stimulates their want and need part of their medulla oblongata, or wherever that is in the brain. The only way that is going to get stimulated is not by selling the same old looking car or truck or SUV, I refer you to the picture of the East German Trabant, you do remember East Germany don't you?
Having lived in what was then West Berlin, I can tell you that these little buggers were all over East Berlin and the East German countryside. They came in various Warsaw Pact colors such as Soviet Grey, Hungarian Green, Yugoslavian Yellow, Czechoslovakian Black, and Romanian White. However, with such a wide array of colors the people of the Soviet bloc had many choices, but for all their colors they all were pretty much the same style that you see here. It is difficult to imagine that at one point there was a six month waiting list to get a Trabi, which explains the fact that "it was in production without any significant change for nearly 30 years." No wonder Communism died a cold and bitter death in early November of 1989. The people wanted change and change meant that it was time to "tear down that wall".
Folks, this is not going to be that much different, I understand that times are tough but cutting funding to those things that will help set one company apart from another is not too bright. I mean there has to be some help from within to help foster change, to stimulate the imagination and ultimately make something that the customer wants.
If those that are making and selling cars are perfectly happy laying-off employees and shut down production for weeks at a time because no one is buying really should not consider going back to Washington, D.C. to ask for more of our money, especially if they have no intentions of making sustainable change with that money. I am talking about the kind of change that moves away from the Trabant mentality of "why change if it sells" to one of "Hey now, let's make something cool!!!"
Trabant image courtesy of KFZ.DE
Here are some Technorati Tags:
• Dave Guerra • Change • Innovation • cutbacks • economy • autombile industry • Trabant • East Germany • Berlin Wall • Die Mauer • Give to the American Red Cross • Hire A Hero
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