短视的短人
The railroad did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that htey were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented.
—— Theodore Levitt 《Marketing Myopia》
很喜欢Theodore Levitt在1960年发表的这篇《Marketing Myopia》（营销近视症）里的例子。
记得有一次买花送给人，因为想特别一些，所以买了几个棒棒糖插在花之中。当要求花匠帮我们插花，并把棒棒糖插在里头时，得到的回复是：“我可以帮你插花，不过我不会插棒棒糖，那不是我提供的服务。如果你们要插你们自己插。”听到这样的回答，双颊登时灼热，脾气差点就控制不住爆发出来。
同样的反应在不少店听过，只是觉得这些人是正白痴，只是想说‘我只可以做什么’，而不是‘我还能做什么’。 这种短视的人打工者居多，如果是创业者，注定是要失败的。信教的常说不要问上帝为你做什么，而是问你为上帝做了什么。虽然顾客不是神，但如果没有顾客，那生意也自然就没有了。
Herbert Jack Rotfeld在《Imitation as the sincerest form of ignorance》里写过：“Wisdom and insight are more reliable than luck.”虽然原文是讨论盲目模仿成功的例子，但那句话我觉得在很多情况都适合用。
