An Industry in Search of Meaning
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Is the recreational diving industry rebuilding itself after the recent global pandemic or is it still on the slippery slope of decline?  Your answer and the eventual outcome of the industry will depend on what you believe and not necessarily on what you do.    For the past two years at least, I’ve been working with a group of Dive Industry Planners and Industry Historians to define our past and present situation, in order to develop a blueprint for the future growth and success of our industry.   A number of us have been discussing how to build a pathway that could be followed, to reverse the decline of the industry and change its trajectory to a path of growth and success.  There is a lot to learn by doing a deep dive into our industry’s history.  Many of us can personally look back and see things that we did very successfully, and also things that failed beyond measure.  Either way, I think we all learned from both our past successes and failures.  But in our deep dive, I wasn’t looking for things that worked in the past that could be resurrected and used again.  I wasn’t looking for a magic bullet that could solve our modern-day industry problems.  I was looking for something deeper, and I think I found it.

A habit I got into a long time ago was to have a few new books on my current reading list, to keep my mind active and fresh with new ideas.  Without going into specific details about the first three books I’m reading, they deal with how we all are looking for meaning in our life to justify our existence, and how having a defined purpose to our life brings joy, fulfillment, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. They also talk about how the numerous decisions we make during each and every day that have a compound effect on the quality and purposefulness of our lives.  When you look at the psychology of how we make decisions and where our decision making process is rooted in, we begin to realize that for the most part, we are living a life, and a professional career, based on incomplete data, from limitless, fragmented sources, and circumstances that are as unique to us and they are to the billions of people living now and in the past.  It was in reading The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, that made me realize the complexities of circumstances that lead up to an eventual outcome or event.  The challenge we all have is to look at our history and try to make some common ground connection with the future.  Can our knowledge and understanding of history help us to repeat our past successes and eliminate our former mistakes in the future?  I don’t know if Historians are reliable Prophets.  But it’s worth a try.

The other set of three books that are on my current reading list came from Adobe and Microsoft.  When you see how much Windows 11 has changed from Microsoft’s previous operating systems and you see the intricate details in the current versions of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Dreamweaver, you realize that regardless of what existed in the past, this is the way into the new future.

When we look at the psychology of human behaviors and the historical events of our industry’s beginning, growth period, and present-day situation, we find many things that we liked about our history that can be incorporated into our 21^st century lifestyle.  We also know that technology has changed dramatically but the good news is that technology is much better than it was before.  To move forward, as never before, our industry leaders have to find our industry’s reason for being.  What is our purpose?

The Dive Industry Association has been serving the Global Diving Industry for 23 years now.  Our purpose has always been to Build a Better Industry for the good of the Global Diving Community.  Our Mission is to bring buyers and sellers together by building a strong and unified Global Diving Business Network that paves the way for increased sales of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products for our member businesses and dive industry professionals.  Our mandate for existence is to build programs, products, and services that are not currently available in the Global Diving Business Network.  Since our inception, the Dive Industry Association has created and still maintains a Business Blog, Weekly News Press Release Service, a monthly trade magazine The Dive Industry Professional, an annual Trade Directory that is updated monthly, and numerous websites that promote our members and the Global Diving Community.

In our continual Search for Meaning, our Industry Purpose is to serve our Members and the Industry they work in.  We don’t create marketing vehicles and sales opportunities to sell products, training, travel, or advertising.  We create them so that our Members can.  That is our Mission.  That is our Purpose.

Do new dive businesses have meaning?  Do they have a legitimate purpose for their start-up?  If it’s just to make money or sell advertising, I don’t think that is a good enough reason in the 21^st Century Diving Industry.  Granted, the industry has changed in the past 80 years, and will continue to change and evolve in the future.  What worked years ago may or may not work in the present or the future diving industry.   Whatever the typical 21^st century diving business looks like will be reflective of the customers they serve.  The diving industry as we know it today has branched off into a number of specialties.  Under the “big tent” of diving, we have recreational diving, commercial, scientific, military, public safety, medial, and maybe soon, aerospace diving?  Even in the recreational diving industry we have sport, technical, rebreather, freediving, spearfishing, and mermaiding, to name just a few.  Not only is the type of diving unique to the specialty, but so are the businesses that serve their needs.

To grow the recreational diving industry in the future, we have a unified message to the Global Diving Community.  That message is to: Learn to Dive, Buy your Gear, Go Diving, and Stay Active.  To better serve the needs of the diving community, we need to organize our industry to make it easy for people to get involved and stay involved in diving as a recreation.  We do that by creating Local Diving Communities that are serviced by Local Dive Stores, Dive Boats, Dive Clubs, and Dive Instructors.  And finally, we actively integrate members of the Global Diving Business Network who sell Diving Equipment, Dive Training, Dive Travel, and Lifestyle Products in Local Diving Communities across the globe.

That all gives our Industry meaning and each diving business a purpose.  I believe this plan cuts down on industry fragmentation and a considerable amount of channel friction.  The idea of dive businesses operating with a purpose and continually looking for meaning in a united industry is not just wishful thinking.  It is a concept that has been changing the diving industry for 22 years and is currently in process.  Is this the year you decide to join our Global Diving Business Network?

This is an exciting time to become part of the Global Diving Business Network.  For more information about global marketing opportunities, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director of the Dive Industry Association, 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL 32904.  Phone: 321-914-3778.  Email: gene@diveindustry.net  Web: www.diveindustry.net

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