Recently my wife and I participated in the great American Experience, the National Park road trip. We made our way to Yellowstone and Great Teaton National Forests and along the way relearned an invaluable lesson, the power of analog (or the short comings of the digital age).

We found ourselves in western Colorado with no GPS signal and therefore no navigation. You see, the quickest navigation from Google doesn’t take into consideration GPS signals, or maybe it does, and it’s a preference setting I neglected. In any case, we found ourselves stopping in a small town frantically looking for a paper map. You might be surprised how many people under 30 don’t even know the word “atlas”. We were met with blank stares with one person actually questioning why we would ever want something like that, after we described it to him.

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Well, I’ll tell you why. Because sometimes technology doesn’t work as expected, and you need a plan B, that’s why. Of course I started to extrapolate this experience to business. How many digital content providers have learned the hard way that they only rent their audience from Google or Meta? What happens when you have no Plan B?

Another example of Analog Versus Digital

My flight instructor was an evil genius. On my 3^rd solo cross country flight, he set the parameters so that I would likely find myself lost. I was too inexperienced to understand what he was doing, but afterwards he explained his methodology. He wanted his students to become lost, with controlled variables, not after they received their license. I was flying with radar services, which meant that I was in communication with Air Traffic Control(ATC) the whole time. This might seem odd to those not familiar with private aviation, but most places people fly don’t require a pilot to be in communication with ATC. Most smart pilots request flight following (radar services) because it is always good to have another set of eyes. ATC can warn you of other traffic, AND provide navigation guidance when lost.

Sidebar, my instructor was old school. He was an ex airline pilot, but he constantly gripped that anything with electrons was subject to failure. The plane we flew had “steam” gauges. Not actually powered by steam, but manually powered nonetheless. In other words, NO GPS.

So there I was anxiously flying along with my paper map 3,000 feet above the ground, looking for the airport. You see, at 3,000 feet above the ground, you can’t see very much/far. I was manually tracking my time to compare with what I was looking at and the map. This method of navigation is called deduced recognition or dead reckoning. Yes pilots have a strange sense of humor.

I saw the airport ahead about five miles, and I called ATC to confirm. The controller cheerfully agreed that my airport was in fact five miles ahead, and sense I had the field in sight, terminated flight following. In other words, he said goodbye.

As I entered the pattern to land, I realized the airport I was about to land, was NOT my intended airport. Could I have landed, but I had a flight plan, and I didn’t want to deviate, so I exited the pattern without landing. So sitting at 3,000 feet above the ground, I started to panic. Where in the hell am I? What do I do now?

I went back to my paper map, deduced that I hadn’t gone far enough, so I kept going, looking for my airport. Now, if I had GPS, this event would never have happened. If I had been flying higher, it probably wouldn’t have happened. If the controller had looked closer at his screen, he would have realized I was short of my intended field.

So why had my instructor put me in that situation intentionally. Because he wanted me to be lost, panic, and solve my problem in a low risk (relatively) situation. Not when it was night, with bad weather impending. Pilots get lost all of the time, even with GPS, so better to experience now rather than when something worse could be happening.

I discussed this incident with a fellow entrepreneur whose business just happens to be a charter company. He just smiled, and said something about how he sees way too many pilots that need a magenta line (GPS) to find Braum’s (local dairy store).

So What Christian?

What does being lost have to do with business you ask? We as entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly dependent on technology. That is inevitable. Core doesn’t use green bar (13 column ledger paper) to prepare accounting records anymore, although it was ubiquitous 25 years ago, not because it doesn’t do the job. Its tedious and time consuming compare to modern technologies. Of course we use technology, if nothing else to be competitive in our costs.

But I wonder how many newly minted accounting school graduate know why there are 13 columns, and why that is important? My guess would be not many. That is part of my point. You have to have an understanding of what the technology is intended to do, the outcome you expect. You have to have knowledge of the underlying structure of things. Otherwise you have no idea if the technology is working.

You also have no idea of what Plan B should or could be. You’ll be like me at 3,000 feet going what the fuck do I do now?! If you don’t, with today’s technology, you may very well find yourself out of business, quickly.

What do I suggest? Go back to the Profitable Creative Framework, and understand the problem that you solve for your customers. Have a very clear understanding of the value of the solution you provide.

Understand your business model, the flow of money. Where are potential pitfalls if something goes wrong? What if your channel delists you? What if your merchant credit card provider decides to blacklist you? What technologies are on the horizon that could potentially deliver your solution cheaper (even free)?

Then start on your plan B.

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