Archive for March, 2005
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 29 Mar 2005, 11:14 PM - 1 Comment
Come to think about it – life would be pretty boring if there was
certainty every step of the way. Unfortunately life is not boring and
we have uncertainty about several things in our life. However, most of
us can’t handle uncertainty very well. In fact, many of us panic
when there is uncertainty although the same people are smart enough to
know that there is no way to get certainty on everything. There are no guarantees.
Life presents us with a series of situations and challenges almost on a
daily basis. If there is a problem that will affect us (in other words,
the solution to the problem is of interest to us) we are eager to
respond to it quickly (most of the time) and we want to be certain that
we come up with the best response to the problem. None of us are
interested in giving a mediocre response to a problem whose solution
matters to us deeply. Let us think about this for a minute. I am sure
that in many cases we don’t know what the right response is. The right
question therefore is “Do we have the courage to admit that we don’t know the answer?”
Most often, we are self-conscious and we may make up something or
provide a diplomatic response. What’s really going on in our mind is
something like “May be I should know the answer”, “This is part of my
job and I know I am good at this” or “What would others think if I say
I don’t know” and so on.
I urge you to take the challenge and next time you are presented with
such a problem or situation respond with “I am not certain about how to
handle this.” and watch how new ideas will flow in. May be you will
decide to call someone and discuss the situation or you will go the
library and pick up a book on a particular topic or you will go to the
web and research. You may decide to respond totally different this time
around.
One thing that I have realized is that there is more help than you ever need only if you are humble enough to ask. For that you need to develop an attitude to embrace uncertainty with ease.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 28 Mar 2005, 11:06 AM - 4 Comments
If we ask a kid “What are you doing?” the response you will get is
something like “playing”, “reading”, “watching TV” etc. The time
horizon for kids are very short. If we ask “What do you do in school?”
again the response will be about what they will do on that particular
day in the school.
When we grow up, unfortunately (for most of us) the time horizons don’t
extend much. When we ask “What do you do?” to someone, most often the
reponse will be related to their job and their role in the company.
Very rarely, we will hear a passionate answer about how someone is
going to change the world. Very rarely you will hear an answer that
will cover the time horizon of a lifetime.
I continue to believe that we are becoming a world of “short term thinkers.” My good friend Vallal told me a few months ago that “we over estimate what we can achieve in a day and we underestimate what we can achieve in a year”
This is so true. Take a look at some of your daily “to do” lists. Very
rarely you will check off everything that you planned to do that day.
Now, take a look at your annual plan (if you don’t, please create one
right away) and see if that’s the best you can do in a year. You will
be amazed at what all you can pack in a year with some discipline and
commitment.
We can distinguish ourselves just by refusing to give in to the temptation of “short term results.”
Next time, when someone asks “What do you do?” think of your lifetime
as the time horizon and try to answer the question. Again, if you have
not thought through this, please don’t try to get an answer to this
question in the next few minutes (short term) it may take a while to
figure this out (long term)
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 27 Mar 2005, 8:39 AM - Leave Comment
I love this quote. It was clear even then that to achieve anything significant, it takes time. There are no shortcuts. This has not changed a bit over the years.
“Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.”
- Benjamin Disreali
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 26 Mar 2005, 1:49 AM - Leave Comment
The concept behind MovieLink and CinemaNow intrigues me. I love their business models, don’t get me wrong. When I recently (yesterday morning) visited MovieLink website using my firefox browser, I got this error message
The point to note here is that most prospects of MovieLink will be early adopters having broadband connections. Chances are that the same folks will be early adopters of Firefox.
Do you really want to alienate 26+ million prospects? Sorry, I forgot to add Netscape users too…
Something for MovieLink to think about.
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 25 Mar 2005, 9:32 AM - 1 Comment
A few months ago, I wrote an article titled “Innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage” Here are some of the excerpts:
The video rental business was dominated
by Blockbuster and Hollywood (plus a large number of local and regional
players) until 1999. Netflix entered the scene with an innovative (at
that time) way of renting videos in DVD format. Netflix basically
changed the rules of the game forever. While the traditional rental
stores were determining response to this new kind of assault (and many
of them ignored that this was a passing fad), several other companies
sprang up emulating the Netflix model. Internet levels the playing
field for all. While it is easy to change the rule of the game, it is
difficult to defend a pure internet business model for a long time
(there are exceptions though!). The initial success of Netflix
did not make a significant impact on the bottom line of Blockbuster for
quite some time. However, observe some of the events that have happened
in the recent past:
Blockbuster:
Introduced “Blockbuster Movie Pass” at $24.99 per month for rentals
with no due dates. For $2 more, you can rent a few more movies per
month as compared to Netflix. Also, Netflix can never satisfy the
instant gratification quest.
McDonalds: Announced in May 2004 that they are going to test the DVD rentals at about 100 of their stores in Denver.
Walmart: Offers a similar service for $13 a month
Blockbuster: Announced that they are going launching their own online rental service (now launched!!)
Broadband movie rentals: The two key players in this space are CinemaNow and and MovieLink. You can download a movie instantly if you have a broadband connection. Rentals begin at 99 cents per movie.
In the past few months what has happened:
Netflix: Cuts it prices drastically. Now rentals will start at $9.99 per month
Blockbuster: Cuts its monthly price to $14.99 per month. Plus you can rent a couple of videos from the store as well.
Media Center PCs are becoming popular and will make MovieLink and CinemaNow attractive alternatives. Watch out for one more post related to MovieLink soon.
The point is just to prove the need to innovate like crazy and keep
ahead of the game. If any of you would like to read the complete
article, please send me an email with subject “Innovation article”
(that’s the way I setup my filter) “rs at lifebeyondcode dot com”
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 25 Mar 2005, 6:52 AM - Leave Comment
Everyday there is so much to do. But if we look back at the end of the week, most of us have a problem identifying a few things that got accomplished. The culprit – planning by activities and not focusing on outcomes.
Granted, an activity or a set of activities will produce outcomes. However, during a week we may perform a number of activities and not produce any outcomes. If this by design, it may be OK but most often it’s NOT! We get carried away by a number of activities (planned and unplanned) and a week passes by with no outcomes.
What we should all be aware of is that we get rewarded for producing outcomes and not for participating in activities. If all the activities that we are participating are leading to no outcomes, there is a problem, a serious problem! That needs to be fixed asap.
The solution may be as simple as planning our week by outcomes – what do we want to accomplish this week? It can be only one outcome or a few outcomes but the deal is to know what results do we want to produce this week. End of the week, we can do a quick analysis to see where we are and design the next week accordingly.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 24 Mar 2005, 10:46 PM - Leave Comment
I can’t thank you all enough for supporting me by voting for my proposal on the topic “25 ways to distinguish yourself” at ChangeThis.
While it is a great delight to see this proposal at the top spot, I am aware of the kind of responsibility that you all have given. My promise to you is that I will work hard on this and pick the best from the Distinguish Yourself series for the manifesto.
My inspiration for this series is from Tom Peters and Seth Godin. Tom has been talking about this topic for years. Seth recent book Purple Cow talks about the same topic as applied to companies rather than individuals.
Thanks again for all the support.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 23 Mar 2005, 6:03 PM - Leave Comment
I was changing planes at Chicago O’Hare airport and saw at least three life size ads of online web conference company Webex and thought that it’s a clever way of “target” marketing. After a few minutes, I was at the United terminal and saw an ad that almost was a counter to Webex ad with a title “You can’t participate in life via conference call” Interesting.
Both airlines and online conference companies are in a way commodity businesses and it felt like they were competing for attention from the same set of folks. Webex urging folks not to fly and United urging folks that a handshake is better than an online conference.
Webex won’t lose it’s customers to United or United won’t lose it’s customers to Webex. They both have different competitors. In fact, one wild thought would be - an airline partnering with an online conference company to allow users to redeem frequent flyer miles to pay for online conference calls.
I love the Webex technology but running a startup, I figured out that a combination of Glance and Free Conference will work just great and at a fraction of the cost. May be this combo does not come with all the bells and whistles but it’s almost there. Gets the job done!
Commoditization is everywhere and the only way to get off is to innovate like crazy and keep changing the parameters of comparison. It’s not easy but it’s better than becoming irrelevant.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 23 Mar 2005, 12:42 AM - 4 Comments
They say all leaders are readers. From what I have seen so far, it’s true that most successful people read a lot. Most people don’t read. My friend Tim Sanders tells me that from the statistics he has, a manager reads about 0.75 business book in five years. That’s dismal.
My goal is to read about a book a week and that practice has has served
me well in my life. I have seen people reading a lot more than that.
Each person is different. You can set your own goals based on your
priorities and need. What would definitely work is to have a reading
plan for the year. Whatever is the case – 1 book a quarter, 1 book a
month, 3 books in a year – you choose but have a plan. Most people that
I have an opportunity to mentor start with one book a month plan and we
come up with a list of 12 books for the year. The choices are based on
variety of factors but the underlying theme is that these books should
help in taking them to the next level. Every month they may not fulfill
the promise of reading a book but the idea is to make up in a year and
complete reading 12 books.
If we choose the right books, there will be enough that we can take and
apply in our lives. Once we start seeing results, no other motivation
is required.
Although the temptation may be to look at the Bestseller lists and
create your reading list, what might be better is to ask some of your
role models about the books that helped them in their journey. You will
be amazed at what you will learn.
Happy reading!
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 21 Mar 2005, 10:18 PM - 3 Comments
It is interesting how many of us hoard information and knowledge.
Knowledge used to provide competitive advantage a while ago, not
anymore!
I have seen this time and again in the IT services industry where if
you ask for help, rather than providing the source and explaining how
to solve the problem, the tendency for a fellow developer is to
actually go and solve the problem. That helps but remember the old
adage “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” People are happy when their problem is solved but they will be delighted when they learn how to solve it themselves.
One doubt you may have is that if you share everything (including the
source) why would anyone come to you again? Would sharing make
you dispensable?
My point is that with all the resources that are available, most often,
people can find the information all by themselves. By helping people
help themselves, you are taking the road less traveled. Next time, when
people ask for help, see if you can provide enough information so that
the person can solve the problem himself or herself. He or she will
thank you for that. You will have the satisfaction of growing someone
rather than just solving a tactical problem.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
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