Archive for June, 2006
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 04 Jun 2006, 10:58 PM - Leave Comment
Today we went to Brentwood for cherry picking. This is almost our annual ritual. Brentwood is about 60 miles from my home (Sunnyvale, California) and takes more than an hour to reach there. The three of us (Kavitha, Sumukh and myself) had a really good time. We picked cherries and strawberries. The quality of both the fruits was just awesome. Just for fun, I went through what we spent to get a few pounds of cherries and strawberries:
1. Gas – $25.00 [yes, its the minivan 
]
2. cherries – $ 7.50
3. Strawberries – $ 7.00
4. Miscellaneous – $ 8.00
That totals to $47.50. The total time investment was about six(6) hours
Was it all worth it. You bet! Would I do it again? You bet!
After all, it was a small price to pay for the experience. What we got back was definitely not a few pounds of cherries and a few pounds of strawberries but a few good memories. That experience was the ROI for us.
Now, coming to the business side of it, when you create a situation where the experience is the ROI, people are willing to pay a premium. Let’s take an example – Look at “Build-A-Bear Workshop” where kids get to create bears and other stuffed animals from scratch. What gets created is very special. As an alternative, could the kid have gotten a stuffed animal from somewhere else? Of course. Would it have created a memorable experience? Probably but not of the magnitude of what the kid got at Build-A-Bear Workshop. It is worth paying a premium for that experience.
We all can think of other examples where companies strive to create a phenomenal experience. They may sell a product or a service too but really – experience is what they are selling.
Have a great week ahead!
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 04 Jun 2006, 7:04 AM - 12 Comments
My hero Seth Godin has compiled a list of cool strategies and tactics to increase the traffic to your blogs.First read his post, before reading the following please. Its a great piece of education for FREE.
However, I think the list is incomplete (IMHO, of course)
Seth’s list covers a broad range of strategies, approaches and tactics but leaves behind another important aspect – who you become and what to do outside of your blog to increase traffic to your blog. Here is my list in addition to Seth’s list. I used the same format to keep it consistent
1. Establish yourself as an expert in one or more domains
2. Build your personal brand. Who you are will add or subtract a lot of weight to what you write.
3. Write a good book (and of course get it published)
4. Speak well at conferences
5. Develop long-term relationships with people all over the world
6. Be a columnist in the magazines in your area of expertise
7. Include your blog link wherever you participate in conversations
8. Give away your wisdom mostly for FREE
9. Help people reach their goals (whenever possible)
10. Maintain Integrity. Be Nice. Respect people
11. Make every piece of writing linkworthy – be it off the blog or on the blog.
12. Have a plan to leverage all kinds of new media to drive traffic to your blog
13. Teach. Share knowledge freely. Don’t hold back anything.
14. Respond to your emails, especially the ones looking for guidance promptly
15. Participate in charities that do great work. It is good in its own sense and it also helps your blog
16. Have a great purpose in your life and work relentlessly towards it.
17. Volunteer for a causes that are meaningful (global warming, poverty eradication, education etc.)
18. Read great books like crazy
19. Follow thought leaders even at the expense of your breakfast
20. Know that what you do outside of your blog will impact your blog.
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Note:
1. A few more tips over at my Squidoo lens:
Squidoo Lens: Blogging Starter Checklist
2. For those interested in Personal Branding, he is a FREE 40 page eBook
Link – PDF: Personal Branding for Technology Professionals
Have a great weekend.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 03 Jun 2006, 7:51 PM - 1 Comment
Be it in winning or be it in losting, timing plays an important role. One of the reasons why you should not try to duplicate somebody’s success. While you may be able to copy the actions by this successful person, you can be certain that you can’t recreate the timing of those actions.
The other events to watch out for is when you are wildly successful in something (too good to be true) or you fail miserably (too bad to be true) that’s a sign that timing has played – positively in the former case and negatively in the latter case.
For those of us living in the Silicon Valley for a while, we got to witness the importance of timing in a glaring fashion between 1997 to 2000. It was a wild ride dubbed as the “dot com boom”. Almost every company with or without a reasonable business model was making money. The circumstances were clearly a demonstration of the old saying “the rising tide lifts all.”
The point I want to make here though is different. For those people who succeeded in that frenzy, some of them succeeded because they were smart and some of them succeeded just because they existed at that point in time. For those that succeeded because of their merit won’t have a problem although they may get carried away a bit. However, those that got success because they “existed” during those times should clearly understand the value of “timing”. Some of them didn’t. And that was ONE of the reasons for a lot of failures in the valley in the post “dot-com boom”. Some of these people thought that for most part their success was because of their merit and got involved or started other ventures. They failed once – did not get the message (or thought they were just unlucky this time) and went and got involved in another venture. Six years later, now, I am sure many of them have realized the truth (although they don’t feel good about it) and have moved on. If they only had realized the value of “timing” a bit earlier, the pain would have been reduced.
When I bring this up in my talks, there is typically an argument stating that I am stretching this to an extreme. May be I am. But the point I am making is that when you succeed splendidly or when you fail miserably, please take note of what role “timing” has played in those events. This will help you to determine whether to try and replicate (or not replicate in case of failure) the actions to repeat the success or just learn from what happened.
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Note: For other articles in the same series, please see my Squidoo Lens on the same topic
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish Yourself
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 03 Jun 2006, 8:08 AM - Leave Comment
You can wish that office politics was not there or it just disappears one day from your office. The chances of that happening are the same as you winning a lottery. Office politics won’t affect you if you are not on the wrong end of it.
The key is to learn to deal with office politics even when you are not on the wrong end of it. So, if you do end up in the middle of something you are very well prepared.
Many people that I talk to go about saying why office politics is not good and how their company – they debate, argue and try to prove that the office politics should be eradicated. What they fail to observe is that their own line of thinking and arguments will make no difference to the situation whatsoever. So, rather than dreaming about a new world where there is no office politics, spend the same time strategizing how you willd deal with office politics. The latter has a better return on investment of your time 
Each situation is different. Rather than offering tips or techniques, here are some ideas to consider while you craft your own plan:
1. Observe conversations (read: Observe rumors)
Everything starts with a conversation. I also said “observe” and not “participate”. Observing and participating are very different. Sometimes you may have to participate in an conversation to observe but it is not always necessary. Ignorance is definitely not a bliss here.
2. Build personal relationships
Very rarely will you be on the wrong end of office politics if you have strong personal relationships with people that matter. They say business and personal relationships are different. You can subscribe to that view and suffer or not worry about semantics and build personal relationships to flourish. The choice is yours.
3. Contribute
If you are contributing in a meaningful way day-in and day-out, chances are that you are valuable to the organization and your team. So, most people won’t want to bother you. There is a small sub-set of people who may not like this and these are people whose positions are threatened because of your endless “contributions”. There is no easy way to deal with them because they are not wanting to compete on merit – most often “entitlement” is what’s on their mind.
4. Watch your blind spots
You should move ahead in your careers but you should not step on anyone else on your way to the top. You should not do this intentionally and you should not do this un-intentionally. The former is easy but the latter requires that you constantly watch who is on your blind-spot. Also, make sure that you are not treading in other people’s
blind spots
Of course, the above is not a complete list. But should give you a good start to start thinking on this seriously.
Have a good weekend.
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Note:
For other articles in the same series, please see my Squidoo Lens on the same topic
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish Yourself
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 02 Jun 2006, 4:44 PM - Leave Comment
When you do what you are extremely passionate about, you don’t feel like it is “work.” When I am getting ready for a trip, people ask me “Is this for business or pleasure?” and that totally confuses me. I can answer something and escape from the question but the fact that the question was posed makes me think that both these items “business” and “pleasure” can’t exist together. We all know that that is not true. In fact, this question won’t arise if you are passionate about what you do.
The price that someone will pay for what you do will typically depend on the “current needs” at that point in time and the availability of skilled people to meet those “current needs.” If what you do is not taking care of any “current needs” you might as well not expect a premium for what you do. However, if you just focus on taking care of the “current needs” even when you are not passionate about what is required to take care of them, you will generally feel tired at the end of that exercise.
The solution: Constantly be on the lookout of the intersection point where your passion and the current world needs. When you find it, latch on to it as if your life depends on it. The trick though is to remember that there is not “lifetime contract” associated with this. Both parameters might change. You may say that your passions won’t change. Well, even if it is true, the “current world needs” obviously change – forcing you to lookout for another intersection point. As long as you are willing and ready to make the change when required, you will have fun doing whatever you will do. The bonus is that since you don’t feel like this is “work” you are not stressed out and people around you will thank you for that.
Have a great weekend.
–
Note:
For other articles in the same series, please see my Squidoo Lens on the same topic
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish Yourself
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
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