Kodachrome

I’ve got the Paul Simon song “Kodachrome” floating around my head this morning. I’m not exactly sure why although I’ve had a fondness for it since it was released. It starts with the line “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all” and I was a senior in high school at that time so there was a natural affinity I guess.
The song got me thinking about Kodachrome itself, which was the film of choice for serious photographers for many years. Of course, it’s gone now – Kodak stopped making it in 2009 – but the lesson it teaches goes on.

Eastman Kodak started selling film in 1885 or so.  Over the next 100 years they built a huge business around that film as well as the chemicals needed to process it, the paper needed to print from it, and the cameras needed to take photos with it.  In 1975, they invented something that sometimes I wonder if they wished they’d kept locked up – the digital camera.  No film needed.  Or paper.  Or chemicals.  Of course, at that point the personal computer hadn’t been invented yet and cell phones were years away so the notion that everyone would be carrying around enough storage in their pockets to show thousands of photos was probably not on their radar.

On the other hand, someone was smart enough to realize that Kodak wasn’t in the film business.  As the company description says, they’re “engaged in the sale of imaging products, technology, solutions and services to consumers, businesses and professionals.”  The world had changed enough that by 2003 they were selling systems that had nothing to do with film.

I wonder what that conversation was like when the digital camera was presented internally.  It could have been an immediate realization that the invention could destroy a hundred years of history as well as billions of dollars of revenue.  Instead, it seems to have been a realization that the imaging business was what they are doing and film, chemical, and paper were just means to an end.  Since the day it was invented, Kodak has improved upon the invention, enabling progress instead of standing on their existing business models which were rapidly crumbling beneath their feet.  Bravo!

How do you, your business, and your industry look at potentially disruptive events?  We saw the music industry sue their customers when digital music emerged – pretty much a total fail.  What’s out there on the horizon now that should have you rethinking what your business is about?