After the crash of the stock markets and the death of many dotcoms around 2001 we don’t hear the expression of old economy and new economy very often. But both of them still exist. The difference between the two kinds of companies is not that the business model is based on the internet or not, or if the CEO wears sports shoes and jeans instead of a business dress.
The difference now is more how a company handles their relation to customers, business partners and employees. In short, if a company opens up itself or rises some metaphorical firewalls around their boundaries. A way to open up is the internet and what today is called web 2.0.
After reading a lot of books like The Long Tail, Wikinomics or currently the Cluetrain Manifesto I’m more and more convinced, that the kind of communication and collaboration between a company and their environment will change dramatically over the time. Lots of companies, which are not able or not want to follow these changes will die. And all of them are from the socalled old economy. The reasons and many examples are explained in the mentioned books.
Interesting times ahead of us.
