Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
But some made the transition successfully. Eg Karl Benz went from running a bicycle repair shop to successfully manufacturing motor cars.
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Reinvention requires a desire to move forward and adapt rather than pining for "the good old days" and an ability to look forward instead of backwards.
Quiet a few carriage builders from the 19th century adapted nicely to the automobile era and at least one, FISHER BODY, survived into modern times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_Body
It's really a mindset thing, rather like the difference between the ancient Greeks' view of time and the more common modern view. The Greeks saw time as a river where people ride facing backwards; the future unknowable, the present crystal clear, the past fading in the mist of distance. The more modern view allows for the boat's passengers' willingness to turn around to face the approaching future and even occasionally use binoculars.
It would not surprise me that when flying cars finally, ahem, take off, some will have bodies from the Fisher Corporation.
Big corporate publishing resides in a very parochial world very different from the real world of smaller publishers and international publishers. And very different from the tech world where constant change is the norm, both expected and desired. The publishers quoted in the NYT report may or not welcome the transition to Ebooks but they do seem to appreciate the need to adjust for it.