By Brooke Glasford
According to the Oxford dictionary the phrase avant garde refers to new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature. Being avant garde means you are cutting edge and ahead of your time. As with everything in life, there lies the good and the bad – and while being ahead of your time can be incredible, it can also be incredibly bad for business.
Timing in business is much like timing in any aspect of your life, it is the ‘be-all and end-all”. Just ask the young couple who met in the wrong moment, or the parent who is just moments late, and misses their child’s winning moment. Bringing something to market well before the market is ready can be detrimental to your business – in 2015 you launched and it fell flat, but in 2020 someone can come with the same idea and execution, and it blows up. The difference is simple, the market wasn’t ready, it was not the right time.
When I was in school we had to learn a concept that just took me ages to understand – the Zeitgeist of the time. The Zeitgeist is a term from German philosophy, meaning “spirit of the age” or “spirit of the times”. It refers to an invisible agent or force dominating the characteristics of a moment in time or history.