Have you been flogging a dead horse lately?

This really funny bit of Western Wisdom popped up in one of my social bookmarking collections. It’s all about this old wisdom that says when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, this article says that in business or in life generally we often try a myriad of other strategies with dead horses.

Some of these are to buy a stronger whip or trying to change riders. Somebody will determine that this is how we have always ridden this horse. There is also the option of appointing a committee, set up a quality control group, convene endless meetings, write a report or get an external consultant.

Or we change the feed for the dead horse, provide more managers, offer an incentive bonus for the jockey, ‘reboot’ the dead horse, rename the horse, increase the budget to improve the horse’s performance or approve more budget for advertising the dead horse.

So what would you consider to be a dead horse in our day and age? First on my list would be the petrol guzzling motor vehicle. This is a definite contender. And as much as almost everyone out there will totally disagree with me on this, the fact that we are running out of oil should be a huge clue that the petrol driven car is a dead horse.

Next on my list would be the DVD rental store near you. Online rentals will be king in the near future. It will be cheap to download a movie, play it a few times before it self-destructs. Talking about entertainment, TV as we know it now will be an old relic in the next few years. Only enjoyed by old timers of all ages who haven’t quite worked out how to consume their entertainment in a more modern way.

Talking about media, newspapers will be history. Definitely riding a dead horse there. And as for books? Book publishing will change. Printed books on demand will change the face of publishing. A book chain in the UK is introducing printers into their stores that can print out a book in seven minutes. Amazon, be afraid.

A further bit on media. Advertising as we know it will have to change. No more TV, remember. Advertising has to move into online and mobile and the approaches need to be totally different to what has been the norm in the past few decades. As it is so easy to ignore ads, advertising, according to the NMA, has to become so valuable as to appear to be a service.

Nuclear energy will be back. Yip, sorry about that dear environmentalists. There will be no option. Other energy sources have not proven to be efficient enough, as yet, to generate the kind of energy required by the global economy.

Talking about the environment, access to water will redefine the concept of scarce resource. Enjoy water flowing easily from a tap, it’s a dead horse waiting to happen. Barcelona has its drinking water shipped in. California has been announced a drought stricken disaster area and as for Australia and Africa — more disaster. Put your money into desalination technology.

Scarce natural resources such as water and food lead me on to wars and weapons of mass destruction. War will be privatised and outsourced. Private security companies that are already providing safety to citizens because the police services are not up to scratch, will expand to provide security services to the nation, and eventually will take over the function of the military. Mercenaries are making a come-back.

In fact it will be the time for outsourcing. Still hanging onto that desk job? Start adding qualifications in new professions to make yourself more marketable. Profile yourself on LinkedIn and avoid silly pictures on Facebook. Most importantly be aware that companies wishing to use your services will Google your name to check on indiscretions and any other information they can find on you.

The face of employment is changing and it will affect you. Spending large sums of money to qualify your children so that they can find a job was already a dead horse ten years ago. Can my child get a job with this qualification? Wrong question. You need to ask the question, will this skillset enable my child to market him/herself in the open contract/consulting market.

That’s just a random list of dead or soon to be dead horses. Some of these horses will be flogged for many years still. And possibly some will be buried quicker than anticipated, such as the US Dollar as the leading international currency. Anticipate some huge changes.