IT Conversations – Service at the core
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 06 Apr 2005, 7:29 PM - Leave Comment
I really enjoyed the OSBC 2005 conference. Met a lot of people. If I write about everyone that I met, the next few weeks will be only about this topic 
My meeting with Doug Kaye, the founder of IT Conversations was very very interesting. IT conversations puts together recordings from conferences such as OSBC 2005 and makes it available to the masses. As always, my question to Doug was about the business model.
The answer that Doug provided was what makes him special, I think.
Doug said that the funding for this effort happens through sponsorships and making money was secondary to him. His main goal as he put it – “I want to get all this good content into the hands of folks that are unable to attend such conferences. There must be about 700 folks here but I am sure there are 70,000 folks that are out there that will benefit from the content from this conference”
I could clearly see the “service” component standing out. There is a lot to learn from what Doug has done and his attitude. I wish IT conversations will be hugely successful. IT conversations is listener supported and it’s a great cause. If you like what you see there, please support Doug and that will help all of us.
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
Commoditization – Car rentals (courtesy: Doc Searls)
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 05 Apr 2005, 10:15 PM - 2 Comments
I am attending the Open Source Business conference today and tomorrow. Open source is a key focus area for our company CIGNEX and it was definitely a good decision to attend OSBC 2005.
One of the highlights of the conference was that I met with Doc Searls.
I wanted to meet Doc for a long time it was exciting to spend a few
minutes with him. It was an experience! We met for a short time but in
that time we talked about a topic that is of great interest to me:
de-commoditization.
Doc talked about this in his weblog today. The topic was commoditization in car rental companies.
Doc was talking about the “sameness” in the way all the rental
companies operate. Doc’s preference is to rent a Ford Focus from
Budget. Apart from the fact that Doc likes the car, one other reason is
that Ford Focus has a radio that can play MP3s. Interesting. It’s a
small change but what a way to distinguish and stand out from the crowd.
Here’s my $0.02:
The car companies, I am sure know that they are in a commodity
business. What if they learn a bit more about why their clients rent
what they rent and go out of their way to ensure that they get what the
car they like. I think there would have been other folks who didn’t
have a preference for Ford Focus and would have been happy with any
other car. If they had reserved a Ford Focus for Doc, I am sure he
would have been happy. Of course, Budget had to walk the extra mile to
get there and they didn’t 
Posted under Main Page.
Ways to distinguish yourself – #17 Engage with a coach
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 03 Apr 2005, 12:19 PM - Leave Comment
Let me see. What I really mean is we should seriously engage with one
or more mentors or coaches for our life and business. Sports people
have figured this out long back. It works and we just have to
experience it to believe it.
In my last post, I talked about the need to ask the right questions.
The right coaches are great at doing that. I have three mentors/coaches
and I am fortunate to have been associated with them for years.
Every interaction I have had with a coach has been fascinating to say
the least. Many times the the issue that I started the discussion with is not even the real issue that I was supposed to address. Coaches are great at getting to the bottom of things by asking the right questions.
The beauty of a good coaching relationship is that coaches have no
agenda of their own in this relationship except to make us more
effective. If you observe any other relationship, there are multiple
agendas at play.
Many of my friends who were skeptics and cynical about what a coach
could do to their life today say that the relationship with the coach
has made a significant impact on their lives.
Once again, this is one of the long term projects that you should undertake. Although possible, don’t expect to see instant results the day you have a meeting with your new coach. It takes a long time, but the rewards are sweet and substantial.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
Ways to distinguish yourself – #16 Ask the right questions
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 01 Apr 2005, 7:41 PM - 2 Comments
Questions have great power. One right question asked at the right time can change the direction of our lives. Hence, the quality of the questions that we ask ourselves is VERY important. It is for the same reason that we need to choose our company very carefully. With the right people around us, for some reason if we miss asking the right questions, someone in our group might.
If we are not going in the direction that will ultimately lead us to our goals, one of the problems may be the questions that we ask ourselves. It may be time to reframe some of the questions. Here are a few examples
#1
Original question: What am I getting?
Reframed question: What am I becoming?
#2
Original question: Why is this happening to me?
Reframed question: What can I learn from this?
#3
Original question: Why can’t he/she understand me?
Reframed question: How can I communicate so that he/she can understand me?
I urge you to look at some of the common questions that you ask yourself and see how you can reframe them to make them more effective. I have a few more examples and will post them in the next few days. You are welcome to comment with your set of original and reframed questions.
Good luck!
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
Details matter
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 01 Apr 2005, 12:25 AM - Leave Comment
The other day I was trying to download my credit card statements into an excel sheet from citibank’s online service. It was an interesting experience. Whatever date range I specified, the service kept refusing to “serve” me and the only thing that was consistent was the error message
“We are sorry. You can only retrieve activity for the past 90 days. Please enter a date from 12-25-2004 to 03-24-2005″
After spending a few minutes, I got to the bottom of the problem and had to think of a workaround to solve the problem. Because of my programming background, I understood where the problem was but let us think about this for a moment
I am sure Citibank has spent a fortune to build this wonderful self-service tool. One objective is to reduce the # of calls to their call center. Errors like this can annoy people and stop trusting the online service. The simple conclusion many people will reach is that “online does not work, let me call them” or “let me go to the branch and get this work done” Imagine losing trust a few people because of a small oversight.
The fix for this problem is simple but someone out there did not pay enough attention to the details. Details matter, really!
Posted under Main Page.
Quotes worth recording – Tony Robbins
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 01 Apr 2005, 12:00 AM - Leave Comment
The following quote is simple and demonstrates the power of asking the right questions
Successful people ask better questions,
and as a result, they get better answers.
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
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