Archive for August, 2005
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 18 Aug 2005, 11:03 AM - 1 Comment
Last weekend I was at the new Nike store in Great Mall
in Milpitas. I picked up two items – one for me and one for my friend.
As the person at the cash register started packing the purchased items,
I asked her whether I could have two bags as one of the items was for
my friend. The response from the person was very interesting. She said “Sorry sir. We are running out of bags here. I can only give you one bag”
It’s these small things that count. First of all, if I had purchased
each item individually (a few minutes apart or something) they had to
give me two bags. So, the excuse was funny at best.
Every conversation a company has with its customers is important. You
are letting the customers create an impression of you as you have the
conversation. As you can see, the conversation spreads.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 16 Aug 2005, 6:57 PM - Leave Comment
In my earlier life I used to run an eBusiness consulting practice. One
of our areas of specialization was personalization. We used to work
with partners like Broadvision
implementing personalziation solutions. The deal with personalization
was simple – give us some information about yourself and we will keep
sending you information (and some ads of course) that will suit your
needs.
I posted earlier about Salon.com sitepass
approach employing a win-win-win (salon.com, advertiser and reader) for
circumventing the mandatory registration issue. I had a few emails
related to that post. The most interesting one came from Manisha (thanks Manisha for the link) pointing me to a site called BugMeNot
which has an interesting way of solving this problem. For sites with
non-premium content, registered users can share their username/password
with other users so that everyone does not have to register to access
some information on the site.
It is a game changing move and while I don’t want to comment on the
business model etc., I am just thinking about what this means to folks
that are implementing mandatory registration systems to access their
site information. John from Atlanta may be using the username/password
for Jeanne from Nebraska. Since Jeanne is sharing her username/password
from the site, I am confident that all information about Jeanne is fake
(which is not a surprise) and if this trend continues what good is junk
registration data anyway.
This is what happens – when you make it hard for people to do simple
things (like reading an article) people will come up with solutions
that will find loopholes in the system. I am not going to speculate
what happens to BugMeNot (that’s
food for thought later) but for now, sites that have registration
systems, please take notice and re-evaluate your own approach.
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 13 Aug 2005, 6:12 PM - Leave Comment
When I clicked on a link that directed me to a page on Salon.com
I was just hoping that the site won’t ask me to register myself before
I was allowed access to the article. What I found there was
interesting.
One option was to register and get access to information (which most
people avoid – how many username/passwords can we remember anyways) but
the other option (termed as sitepass) was to watch a sponsored
advertisement for a few seconds to get a day pass to access content on
salon.com. That was the option I chose and in the process also
discovered some other cool articles over there.
There are several approaches to this problem and San Jose Mercury News
at our backyard follows a sliced approach – meaning a small percentage
of articles are free for all but most others need registration.
There is no one right solution but Salon.com approach was definitely
different than many I had seen. I think everyone (salon.com, sponsor
and the reader) wins with this approach. I wish them the very best.
Posted under Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 12 Aug 2005, 9:48 PM - 2 Comments
For those of you who are new to this blog, I posted a story challenge a couple of days ago where my request to the readers was to find the flaw in the story. So if you have not read the story yet, please do so here before you read the solution.
I want to thank all of you who responded to the challenge. There were two folks who got it right the first time:
a) John Brothers, Atlanta, GA
b) Jekke Bladt, New York, NY
The rest of the folks had very interesting perspectives and I must say that I enjoyed reading all the responses.
Here is my solution to the challenge:
This is a fine example of masterful story telling. The story teller paints a great picture with two scenarios:
1. Scenario A: fisherman continues to do what he is doing
2. Scenario B: fisherman follows the path shown by the Harvard MBA
What the story teller does very well is to paint a picture in a such a manner that scenario A and scenario B are just the same making readers get a feeling that if both the scenarios were same, why should the fisherman follow the advice of Harvard MBA?
This is exactly the flaw in the story – scenario A and scenario B are very different. In scenario B, the fisherman would be rich and financially independent and fishing would be one of the many options that are available to him. If he wished, he could take a world tour for the next three years for his family or engage in charitable work for the rest of his life or become an investor or continue to fish or just do nothing.
In scenario A, however, the fisherman will continue to do what he was doing but with a twist. If some misfortune strikes – like a serious illness, weather problems, hurricane or something else, he is in serious trouble. In other words, he is only a few days away from serious trouble all the time.
In summary, where the fisherman will go if he follows the Harvard MBA’s advice is very different destination than what is painted in the story.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 12 Aug 2005, 10:00 AM - Leave Comment
We had David Thomas as the TEC
speaker in August. It was a pleasure listening to him. One of the
quotes that I clearly remember was the one listed below. It is
definitely food for thought
“We have the strongest opinions on the things that we have the least knowledge of”
- David Thomas
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 11 Aug 2005, 7:50 AM - Leave Comment
Picked this up at the TEC
meeting today. Shows the importance of speculating multiple options.
Most often, we are tempted to do what everybody around us would have
done in the situation. It is important to stretch our minds and think
through other options.
“The two most powerful words in any language are: What If”
- Kraig Kramers
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 09 Aug 2005, 9:47 PM - 4 Comments
Yesterday I posted about the power of story telling and how it can
mislead us. Here is a quick challenge. Here is the story (I am
confident that you would have read this story)
An American tourist meets a Mexican fisherman resting on the shore. He asks him how long he goes to fish everyday”Not very long,” answered the Mexican.
“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.
The Mexican fisherman explained that his approach is to only catch how much ever he and his family needs on that day.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I
sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta
with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends,
have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs…I have a
full life.”
The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from
Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every
day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra
revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger
boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on
until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your
fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing
plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this
little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York
City. From there you can direct your huge enterprise.”
“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.
“Ten, perhaps twelve years,” replied the American.
“And after that?”
“Afterwards?
That’s when it gets really interesting,” answered the American,
laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start selling
stocks and make millions!”
“Millions? Really? And after that?”
“After
that, you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast,
sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta
with your wife, and spend your evenings having a few drinks and enjoy
your friends.”
Possible conclusions:
a) MBA is useless
b) Enjoy life right now
c) Don’t go on a wild goose chase
d) Goals are absurd
e) many more..
Challenge:
The story has a serious flaw. If you think through this for a few
minutes you will identify the flaw. The first ten (US residents only)
people that will send me an email [ rs "at" lifebeyondcode "dot" com]
with the flaw will get a discount coupon [50% off] for my upcoming book
“Beyond Code” (due to be
released early October 2005). My only request is that if you like the
book, post a review on Amazon.com or blog about it
I have already posted the answer to this..
PS: If
someone posts the solution in the comments, I won’t consider any emails
that come in after the comment was posted. Sorry.
Hint: I am
receiving a lot of emails supporting one of the conclusions. Remember,
the temptation is to go with the flow in the story and accept one or
more of the conclusions. If you discover the flaw, you may question the
conclusion. Hope this is helpful.
Aug 8 – 2:13 pm Update:
I have so many email responses but only one entry that identified
the flaw so far. Congrats to John Brothers at Atlanta, GA
Sep 7 – 6:37 pm
Update: I am still getting emails with solutions. Thanks for the
overwhelming response but I have already posted the solution here
Posted under Compelling Offers, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 08 Aug 2005, 10:53 PM - 1 Comment
Here is a classic problem that most of you would have heard from your childhood days
Three men go to a restaurant and have dinner. It costs them $30. They
pay the bill and continue talking. The manager realizes that he has
overcharged them on an item and asks the waiter to give back $5. The
waiter is not happy as they had not tipped him. So, he keeps $2 and
returns $1 to each person. Here is the problem: Each person actually
paid $9 ($27) and the waiter got $2 ($27+$2 =$29) so what happened to
$1?
Wait and think for a few moments before you read the solution
wait..
wait..
Solution: This is not
a mathematics problem. It is powerful story telling. Each person paid
$9 ($27) out of which $25 went to the restaurant and $2 went to the
waiter. That’s it. What the story teller did was to make you believe
that you need to add $2 to $27 and then the confusion started.
My point: This looks
like a joke. But there are hundreds of story tellers that are out there
telling powerful stories that have flawed logic and it’s easy to fall
into their trap. Next time you hear a powerful story, please look for
logic. Many times there is no logic but the story is powerful and will
make you believe the story and the ensuing assessment based on the
story.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 05 Aug 2005, 7:00 AM - Leave Comment
I have had this question posed to me multiple times, especially after
my book “Beyond Code” got blessed with a foreword by Tom Peters.
I made up this quote as an answer
“When you have something good to write, the write time has come”
- Yours truly
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 04 Aug 2005, 6:00 AM - Leave Comment
Picked this quote from a newsletter my friend Pete Schneider (Discover
Solutions) sent me. Makes us re-look at our goals and priorities.
“True discontent comes from holding onto the same goals that never made us happy
in the first place. In other words, true discontent may come from the
expectation that MORE money, a bigger house, or more recognition at work will
make us happy in the future when our current lives are rich with evidence to the
contrary”
- Ben Dean
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
Recent Comments