FUTURE earnings

Entrepreneur,  Dec, 2000  by Rieva Lesonsky,  Janean Chun,  Cynthia E. Grffin,  Michelle Prather,  Amanda C. Kooser,  Nichole L. Torres,  Peter Kooiman

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Tiffany Shlain

Founder and director of The Webby Awards, an annual Web site awards ceremony

Services and television: I think those are going to be two real growth areas. We're really going to start seeing integration of television and the Internet. It won't be sites just saying what the programming is; it'll be actual interactive experience.

[There will also be a] redistribution of weight and design from the actual Web site to the user, so the Web sites become more like blueprints. The users know how to use the Web now and they understand what they get out of it, and designers and developers are relying on the user's ability to use the Web. So it becomes more a blueprint for the users to create the Web site. Instead of something precreated, with the users clicking in, it's much more the users creating their experience.

I think people have heard about [the, Web] a lot, and they're going to understand how it's changing the way they live. Service Web sites will grow and affect the way people live. Entertainment sites will be used more. People are going to know the people behind the Web a lot more, so that just as they're getting [Web browser] "Favorites," they're going to care more about the people that make those sites.

Spencer Johnson

Author of Who Moved My Cheese? (Putnam)

What's changing is the speed of change. I see it accelerating. It sounds funny, but I think we'll look back on the year 2000 and think, Wasn't that a wonderfully, peacefully slow-moving year? I think the major challenge in the 21st century will be not only to adapt to change but to enjoy change and view it in such a way that it works to your advantage.

The other half of that coin is to keep things in balance and slow down a bit and ask ourselves, Is this change really necessary? I think the best managers [will] be those who quickly adapt to major changes and [who] balance that with thinking things through--realizing that all change is not good. Knowing when to change and when not to will call for good judgment, and those who have it will win in the 2lst century.

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