Clouds vs Dirt
Decide whether your business lives in the borderless digital cloud or the geography-bound dirt
Priestley frames the modern economy as dividing into 'clouds' and 'dirt'. In the cloud — the digital space — anyone anywhere can be your customer if they can click a link, so you have global reach, mobility, and leverage. In the dirt — the world of geography — you can only serve local customers, carry physical constraints, and are tied to a place. Local, geography-limited businesses are structurally losing to global digital ones (the high street losing to Amazon). The model is a lens: markers of 'old technology' are going to an office, selling time for money, fixed start/finish times, and geographic limits on who you can sell to. Use it to choose the cloud and design for reach and mobility.
- In the cloud, anyone who can click a link can be a customer
- In the dirt, you can only serve local geography
- Selling time for money and fixed hours are 'old technology'
- Digital businesses have reach, mobility and leverage the local ones lack
- Locate your businessAsk whether your customers can be anyone anywhere (cloud) or only local (dirt).
- Audit for 'old technology' markersFlag fixed office, fixed hours, selling time for money, and geographic sales limits as dirt-side constraints.
- Assess reach and mobilityJudge whether you could pick up and rehome the business anywhere, as a fully digital company can.
- Redesign toward the cloudShift the model toward products and channels that serve customers anywhere and aren't tied to a place.Pro tipA fully remote team with no office can relocate the whole business at will.
Priestley: local high-street shops close while 'one big American company looks after all the geographies for all the things all at once, 24/7'. The dirt loses to the cloud.
A mental model articulated by Daniel Priestley to explain the digital-vs-industrial divide in the economy.