Imagine you are working in an industry that has been battered by the recent recession and rapid advances in technology. Instead of paying for teams of professionals, people are going online to find new content like yours or create their own. The Internet has opened the door to thousands of competitors, all offering content that appeals to just about any niche or taste.

Meanwhile, your legacy company is burdened with an outdated distribution system and is trying desperately to adjust to a new world in which having a local monopoly is not an option.

Sound familiar? Well if you have been working in the adult entertainment industry for the last few years, then this isn’t really news.

An imperfect perfect game
Steve Buttry’s Workplace lessons from an imperfect perfect game

A lot of men my age draw too many life lessons from sports. But I’m a man my age, so I drew three career lessons from last night’s Detroit Tigers game:

• Don’t let complaints about the things you can’t control distract you from focusing on what you can control and finishing your job.
• Take responsibility for your work and admit your mistakes.
• Tradition is no excuse for failure to innovate.

via Steve Buttry

A recent story in the L.A. Times takes a look at the struggling porn industry, which, like the newspaper industry, has been deeply affected by both the downturn and the changing technological landscape. DVD sales of porn have ground nearly to a halt, pay-per-view is down by nearly 50 percent, and websites behind pay walls are suffering as more and more amateur pornographers offer their work on the Internet for no cost. “We always said that once the Internet took off, we’d be OK,” the co-chairman of adult-industry giant Vivid Entertainment observed. “It never crossed our minds that we’d be competing with people who just give it away for free.”