Vaporized

Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World

By: Robert Tercek

Narrated by: Tim Welch

Brace yourself for enormous changes ahead. Familiar fixtures of the economic landscape, including retail stores, physical products, corporations, and even human workers, are about to be vaporized - replaced by digital information. A novel combination of new technologies - mobile, cloud, crowd, artificial intelligence - are reconfiguring every economic sector and industrial system on the planet. Even industries that were long considered immune to digital transformation are suddenly vulnerable to rapid dematerialization: now automobiles, hotels, health care, and higher education can be replaced by an app-enabled marketplace. The process of vaporization is relentless and all-pervasive. For consumers this change is as bewildering as it is exhilarating. But for the CEOs of old-school firms, the change is terrifying. And for startup Internet companies, it's the greatest landgrab since the Gold Rush. In Vaporized, innovation expert Robert Tercek shows us how this process works and takes us to the front line of digital transformation. Tercek provides an essential guide to this vaporized world, with proven strategies for those who want to master the process.

©2015, 2016 Robert A Tercek (P)2016 Robert A Tercek

Critic reviews

"If you're in the information business (and we all are in the information business), Tercek's urgent manifesto will help you see the future, so you can prepare for it." (Seth Godin)

Very thorough

I loved this as it got me thinking a lot about my business and what may happen in the future in my area. Maybe tries to cover too much even in the last chapter but that is pure brain food.

Took my time to get used to the voice with me being from the uk but once that happened it was bearable ;-)

Talking about today

Robert Tercek did a phenomenal job describing the ever changing social landscape of todays society. What stuck out to me the most was how he described society moving from a product driven world to a service driven world. Today, you see more specialized jobs where as in the past, it was expected of you to be almost a jack of all trades, especially as a male.
Tim Welch did a great job keeping me engaged with this audio book. I prefer reading over listening but he sounded invested in the topic which in turn drew me in.

Frankie Fusco

Mr. Tercek has the right of it.

The digitization of everything is coming. Anything that can't be digitized will be distributed and replaced.

Brilliant Book, brilliant insights

I'm a college professor, and love learning. I cannot of learned more than from this book. The insights and points of view that Robert Tercek gave you are nothing short of brilliant. I honestly feel as though this book should be required reading for all university professors, CEOs and entrepreneurs. The book is read by narrator Tim Welch and eight fast, informative style that makes this very dense content easy to listen to. Clearly I recommend is highly.

Tercek Emphasizes the Truths About Vaporization

What made the experience of listening to Vaporized the most enjoyable?

The most enjoyable part of listening to Vaporized was the way that Tercek kept referring back to the 1980s, when technology was just beginning to flourish in many aspects of people's everyday lives.

What other book might you compare Vaporized to and why?

A book that I find to be similar to Vaporized is The Inevitable. Like Vaporized, The Inevitable illuminates many trends that are continuing to change our society. Vaporized highlighted the changes that are taking place in workplaces. People are losing jobs due to down sizing, because corporations are always trying to "do more with less". Similar to Vaporized, The Inevitable goes into depth about the many reasons that technology is changing the way that all people work and communicate with one another. Both books explain how these changes are ultimately inevitable.

What about Tim Welch’s performance did you like?

I absolutely loved the way that Tim Welch read each chapter. His tone of voice, as well as the use of emphasis on certain words, kept me very eager to listen to each chapter. When I found humor in certain parts of the book, I enjoyed the way that I would also hear the humor in Tim Welch's voice. Every word that Tim Welch spoke sounded very clear, which also made it pleasant to listen to. Overall great performance.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

The most interesting portion of this book was the part about Amazon and Youtube, and how both of these sites have, and continue to control many aspects of shopping, reading and music. The part where Amazon was referenced as a "school yard bully" in its "own yard" specially grabbed my attention, because that made it notable how easy it was for Amazon to control customers. Furthermore, I found it interesting how Youtube threatened to block channels by independent artists, unless they agreed to provide music to MusicKey, which happened to be a subscription service from Youtube. Both of these cases show how competitive the digital businesses are becoming.

Digitization: A New Age

Reading this book really opened my eyes to how much today's society relies on digital media. According to Robert Tercek, vaporization is not strategic, that it is a change of lifestyles driven by access to all. That it is humanity's ability through technological advancements to do more with less until you can do everything with nothing. That in today's day and age, we are able to replicate any business function with software! That in today's business world, data centers will be replaced with codes! To me, the whole point of Tercek's book is to understand that every aspect of our economy and society is set to be reconfigured by technological forces that only a handful of increasingly powerful companies have mastered. It is important to learn and understand that digital media and technology is taking over the business world, and we better be ready because it waits for no ones.

Vaporized

Vaporized talks about the fact that physical things can be replaced by software replicas. I believe that this is extremely relevant to life today in 2020 because due to COVID-19, the process of digitalization has come much sooner than anyone expected. For example, we are seeing how many business and services have been replaced by digital media or software’s, and who knows if things will ever go back now that it is proven how easily things can be replaced. This was a very eye-opening book in so many ways. I enjoyed listening to the book through Tim Welch’s voice. He made it very easy to listen to and kept me engaged throughout it. Sometimes with audio books they feel almost like “lectures”, or they feel as if you are being talked “at”. However, Tim Welch did a very good job with conveying emotion through his tone of voice, which made it so much easier to listen to without getting distracted. This was an overall very insightful book and I would highly recommend it.