Everyone remembers the beginning of the pandemic when there was a panic about shortages in resources. For some reason, the top concern was TP (toilet paper). Looking at it in retrospect, I think everyone was worried about the wrong TP.
With the far reaching impact of virtualization today, we as managers and owners of small businesses have some new concerns. With no on-premise, face-to-face business, we fear losing the most important TP. Trusted Peers. From the dictionary definitions; Trust is an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone/something and a Peer is one that is of equal standing with another, especially in the same societal groups.
This fear will not be relieved by some magic bullet in the form of Artificial Intelligence, or any other emergent technology. The only cure at this stage is interaction on a personal level. Sure, we have the internet, small business federations, forums, government bulletins, etc. but in the information world, the government obfuscates, the internet misinforms and federations and forums serve as containers to accommodate like minds. They all lack some of the personal nuance that is best served up in a phone call or a cup of coffee.
We all have trusted family and friends; who share no interest in where small business is headed. We can have 100s of connections on LinkedIn but that’s little more than a directory than it is a community. At the end of the day, as small business managers and owners, we need to find the trusted peers in our actual communities. They’re at the root of all good business relationship, alongside good leadership and fair management.
