Tom Post, Forbes Editor, Recap at UTC Members Meeting

I had the opportunity to hear Tom Post speak, and meet him, at the Annual UTC Members Meeting in SLC today. Tom’s speech was very powerful and not something you would normally hear coming out of a successful businessman’s mouth: prepare for disaster. He cited his own industry as the background for his pronouncement. 100s of newspapers and magazines have been going out of business; journalists have been laid off right and left; the shift in how people consume information (on mobile devices; which he called a grenade with the pin pulled out)

He posed the question to the crowd: What is going to disrupt your industry in 5 years? He then proceeded to walk around the room with a mic and ask people point blank if they were the best at what they do; who was going to steal their success (out of their current competitors) and how they were going to prepare for it.

I think the greatest opportunity for someone to make a lot of money from Forbes right now is the person who can monetize their mobile traffic the best. That’s Tom’s (and Forbes’) biggest headache right now.