Posted October 20, 2009
At
Richard Gottlieb's conference on the
Future of Toys, I realized how nearly impossible it is to envision the future, and yet how we all need to do just that. We need to retain a collective memory of the past as a guide to the future, as the past is doomed to repeat itself.
As individual companies and as an industry we were not prepared to deal with the safety crisis that befell us in the last two years, and yet such crises have occurred in the past. The
Tylenol scare stands out as one of the most memorable - the Tylenol makers stepped up fast and comprehensively to manage the crisis and survived admirably as a result.
This is easy to say and hard to do, perhaps, but crisis management needs to be a topic for major toy companies. With Walmart and others
shrinking their toy departments, we may already be hip deep in crisis at this moment.
This needs to be a conference topic at the next ToyCon. The industry has many possible futures, and we need to prepare for good and bad, status quo and radical change. All are coming down the pike toward us one day.
Any pilot can guide a craft under fair winds and blue skies, but only one such as the heroic Captain Scullenberger can safely navigate his or her vessel in stormy seas and through catastrophic surprises such as the loss of both engines.
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