A few nights ago I was reading the latest issue of Fast Company magazine, and came across something that spoke quite loudly to me. I’m one of those types who will read an entire book or magazine and will only take away one sentence from them. As I read through Fast Company, I really try to find inspiration from the stories that are written – which are primarily about young people who’ve built successful companies around the world.

In fact, my addiction started when I read this article about Gina Bianchini and Ning’s viral expansion loops. For some reason things made so much sense after reading it, although the difficulty is always in application of knowledge.

Anyway, there’s an article in the March 2009 issue called The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, and #9 on that list is Amazon. CEO Jeff Bezos was asked, “Is it harder to take risks now that Amazon is so big?”

Here’s how he responded:

It’s actually easier. You’re not betting the whole company. You’re doing new things, and if they don’t work, you can change direction. What’s difficult is not to evolve.

Doesn’t that make you quickly take a look into your own business? I know for a fact that many times I resisted the idea of evolving, even dating back two years ago when I didn’t want to spend the time to make my themes widget-ready.

Yes, it sometimes requires us to slow down for a period of time, but I believe that one of the major causes for evolving is the demand we receive from our clients or customers. The reality is that our competitors might be doing something better, or more efficient, and our customers want us to basically step up to the plate and provide.

This will happen in all businesses and areas in our life, so I wanted to open up some conversation about our experiences with this concept, and how we responded.