In a departure from our normal output, Fully Charged Show CEO, Dan Caesar, talks about something that really grinds his gears.
We work in an industry that bristles with innovation, but when compared to the automotive artists, battery boffins and software wizards we’re surrounded by, we’re not all that innovative.
Well, maybe we are, a bit.
When Fully Charged founder, Robert Llewellyn, launched a YouTube channel on ‘everything electric’ way back when, in 2010, we would humbly suggest he was (way) ahead of his time.
What’s more in 2017, when we announced we were going to bring Fully Charged to life as an event – a global format that’s still going strong 8 years and 20 shows later – we were (very) early.
And as the only major YouTube x Exhibition crossover we’re aware of, in this, or any other market, we’ve taken risks and broken barriers. Whether it’s our Electric Drive-in Cinema, our Home Energy Advice Team, our Zero Carbon Kitchen, or our latest initiatives – B2B EV DAY, Electric Vehicles UK & Zapheap, which all collide at our Farnborough show in a fortnight – we’ve consistently reinvented, re-engineered, and rewired ourselves to keep current.
I’ve beaten myself up a bit of late for not innovating enough in recent years, but having reread the above, perhaps I’m as insane(ly driven) as ever.
And the best is yet to come, we are working on a number of other modifications at the moment that will ensure we are fit for the future (more on that in 2 weeks). Because my theory is that, in the digital age, a great business updates and iterates as often as its software. Efficiency and effectiveness are everything, especially when it comes to a mission-based business like ours.
Robert as our ever generous founder and our incredibly talented team, have inspired many memorable moments. It’s my fervent hope that we will all still be working together in another 10 years, and that we will have broken the back of making #EverythingElectric, but there’s one thing I could really do without; all of the idiots.
Investor & Philanthropist Warren Buffett said this on innovation:
“First come the innovators, who see opportunities that others don’t and champion new ideas that create genuine value. Then come the imitators, who copy what the innovators have done. Sometimes they improve on the original idea, often they tarnish it. Last come the idiots, whose avarice undermines the very innovations they are trying to exploit.”
Over the years we’ve worked with, and seen the rise of some truly brilliant YouTubers. Individuals that bring something relatively unique to the world, and some that are closer kin to us, but nonetheless, do what they do with breathtaking aplomb. We have no issue at all with our fellow creators, some of whom have surpassed us for subscribers. In fact, we hold our hands up in applause, to the innovators, and imitators alike.
Similarly, when it comes to live events, we sure as sh*t didn’t invent them, and for decades, event organisers have been the most marvellous magpies. So when another event bursts into life in our sector, we don’t begrudge it, although we do occasionally think, ‘why didn’t we think of that?’ Once again, we have welcomed new events, both innovative and imitative.
But buoyed by our more conspicuous successes and the successes of others, another breed arrived. ‘The idiot.’ And as Warren Buffett articulated those idiots undermine the good work of innovators everywhere. And finally, I’ve arrived at the point… well done if you’ve made it this far!
We’ve witnessed some aggressiveness from ‘rivals’ over the years, but our philosophy has been let’s do our own thing and deliver results for our audience and clients alike; that there is room for everyone – although a post-Brexit British economy has tested that tenet at times – diverse creativity is necessary, and it’s the world view of a megalomaniac to believe you can be everything to everyone anyway; however, we’ve seen some behaviours from one of the idiots over the last year or two that have made me believe that we should show some additional transparency. To make people aware that we are aware of the disingenuous actions of another.
For those in the industry and due to the timing of this blog, I have to make it crystal clear that this is not about a UK business that has just gone bankrupt – in fact our sympathies go out to those that find themselves suddenly out of work – or about any business in the UK market at all. But for obvious reasons I don’t wish to be more specific than that.
In any event, we do have an ‘idiot’ competitor that has created rival products – absolutely no crime in that – but that has adapted such a ‘scorched earth’ policy that they are ‘undermining’ what we (and others) have built. This individual is making such unbelievable claims, undercutting prices, and under-delivering to such an extraordinary degree that they are having to change the name of their products on a regular basis to just to try to hang on. Dragging down the market, making it harder for those of us with a much longer track record, an amazing audience, and for whom it’s mission-first (money second).
To use a car analogy, when someone has sold a car over the odds, having rolled back the odometer, and put sawdust in the gearbox, they make it much harder for the honest salesperson to get the value that his inventory merits, or in fact, to sell anything at all.
I’m not going to call this individual out by name, but I sincerely hope that they read this, and I do hope that they realise that we see them for what they are, we see their laughable online claims, and above all to say that most of the companies in the market they ‘serve’, see it too.
Anyway, enough of that unpleasantness. Let’s get back to doing what we do best – #LetsMakeEverythingElectric
And please standby, for our imminent, new innovations.
