GPS Sugar Beets: Tech Disruptions

Precision Food Inc

Here's something that I didn't know until recently... one of the hidden but potent benefits of global positioning systems involves doing a better job of feeding the planet. It turns out that the tech can be used for something called precision agriculture, where plants are optimally placed and watered, with exceptional control over the yield and livelihood of the crop. For items like sugar beets, which have exceptional fragility to go with delicate needs in terms of the mix of water, food and sunlight, the tech is wildly popular among farmers, because the return on investment is just a constant. All without any of the queasiness of genetically mutated organisms, scary chemicals, or anything else that would bring up moral issues.

Now, if you had seen ahead for this application of tech, you could have made some nice coin, either from starting a company that made the gear, or from providing venture capital at good rates to farmers that were looking to make the change, and so on. And that's how this all pivots back to marketing and advertising, which is what we discuss here.

No one, we can assume, makes mobile tech with the pure and unadulterated interest in impacting something as mundane as email... but, well, that's happened. In a big way. Responsive templates are now table stakes because you can't be sure what kind of platform and screen your lead will use to access your material. Subject lines are now subject to not just ISP filtering, but to truncation from smaller display screens. Geotargeting, once seen as creepy and ineffective because e-commerce plays for brick and mortar weren't going to match an office or home laptop to a shopping situation, is now increasingly necessary to close the last mile of a sale.

By the way? That pace of change is going to just keep growing. Smartphone use while commuting is going to go from text to voice, as laws and social prohibitions against distracted driving kick in hard. (Honestly, look for texting drivers to be treated like drunk drivers very, very soon.) Syncing email across devices and dayparts will be table stakes. Mobile sizes could easily change again, either through different sized screens (I still long for the error-free typing of a full qwerty keyboard and holstered phones, but I'm beyond the event horizon of prospects, I know), or through the inevitable introduction of holograms to more optimal screen sizes, or heads-up VR through appliances.

The point is this: change, even in something that seems mature, is inevitable. Thinking through such things, and keeping an eye out for trends that could impact your business, is just required.

After all, these sugar beets aren't going to grow themselves, Neither is your business.

* * * * *

Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.