It’s a magnificent book (527 pages, full of beautiful pictures) about what happens inside elBulli in one day.
elBulli is supposed to be the world’s most famous restaurant. Owned by Ferran Adria and Juli Soler, they have had an amazing run for the last two decades. The restaurant is open only from April to September. They serve only 8,000 people in a season. But the number of reservation requests they get: 2 Million. There is no waiting list as it would take years to get through the waiting list.
This book is a brilliant introduction to this fascinating place and the people behind them. It is an inspiring story for ANYONE and EVERYONE – not just the people in the restaurant business. As a starter, please watch this 10-minute video about elBulli (from YouTube)
So I have compiled a few notes from elBulli to serve as an inspiration as you start the new year.
1. “You don’t have problems if new ones arrive every minute”
Ferran is so busy setting himself challenges that he does not have the time to stop and see them as problematic. In fact, solving them is essential to helping him keep an active and creative mind. Seen this way, his problems are not problems at all.
2. “Ambition without patience is a dangerous thing”
Forcing things gets you nowhere and patience is essential. This is the attitude elBulli has tried hard to adopt over the last twenty years.There is a painstaking process of trial and error behind the development of every dish, and the creative process cannot be hurried.
3. “Ideas are easy – you just need to have some”
It is impossible to say where ideas come from but it helps to be curious all the time, and to keep trying.
4. “A concept is an idea that can open new doors”
A concept is the set of essential qualities that characterize a dish, not the recipe itself. One concept can lead to many different elaborations and new dishes.
5. “A creative person tries to do what they don’t know how to do”
6. “Being innovative is much harder today than it was ten years ago”
After many years of creative development, it becomes harder to push the boundaries, and now there are many more chefs striving to invent new techniques. This is why Ferran , Oriol and Albert continue their creative sessions until 19.30. They dedicate nine hours a day to creating.
7. You have to find the balance between what you want to do, what is possible and what the guests would like.
8. The Challenge: Maintaining the intense concentration needed to server 1,500 dishes over five hours is as challenging as ever.
Creative methods of elBulli
1. Association: This consists of making lists or tables of ingredients, cooking methods, sauces and finished dishes as an aid to the chef who is trying to think new ways of cooking an existing ingredient, or new ways of putting ingredients together. The lists of association are built up over time, and those at elBulli are the product of many years of creating dishes. They can provide a starting point to which chefs will add their own imagination and knowledge.
2. inspiration: This requires a reference from any field – art, fashion, music, gastronomy, architecture, native – to form the starting point of a dish, which then emulates in some way the form or spirit of the original dish.
3. Adaptation: In its most basic form, adaptation means taking a dish that already exists, which could be an icon of classic French cuisine or a traditional spanish dish, and remaking it according to one’s own tastes, style of cooking or aesthetic vision.
4. Deconstruction: In deconstruction, every part of the original dish, including its form, is modified, whether in appearance, texture or all the above. Deconstruction depends even more on the guests knowledge of the original dish, as without a reference point the dish is a construction based on nothing. In order to work, the game being played by the chef needs the participation of the guest.
5. Minimalism: Difficult to define with a culinary context, minimalism as a creative method at elBulli has come to mean the method by which maximum “magic” or sensory appeal, can be created with minimum ingredients.
Although the context is a culinary business, there is a lot for all businesses and individuals to learn from elBulli.
What if your passion is to create names from a strand of wire?
Could you make a living out of it?
Yes and probably more. Take a look at the work of Dave Maskin at WireNames. Answering a question in LinkedIn, Dave says that his biggest professional regret was “not starting WireNames sooner”
Think about it:
If you are REALLY good at something, all you have to do is find a problem or an opportunity in the marketplace that will intersect with your passion and off you go to the races.
I saw this advertisement from Wachovia Bank at a gas Station in Santa Clara. The Ad Agency wanted to make it relevant to the consumer buying gas by asking the question “Do you want to save the gas money?”
While Wachovia Bank wanted to save us money, I thought they could have used their money more wisely on this.
Here are a couple of problems as I see it:
1. What should I do to save that money? I am thinking I should open an account or something but I don’t know exactly what to do
2. They tell me that they are now open at 7270 Bollinger Road. So what? First of all, Bollinger Road is in San Jose. Why should me at Santa Clara worry about a branch being open in San Jose and how is it relevant to me?
I can go on but a simple solution could have been to explain “what someone should do exactly” to get back $75.
And, they could also have integrated online and offline marketing by adding a simple line asking people to visit a landing page:
Recession opens up many opportunities – one of them is the ability to find good bargains from other companies. You might be able to get a great deal from a company that BADLY needs the deal.
You might even be able to strike a deal which is unfair to the other party.
But the question is should you do it?
One approach is to view this as “all is fair in war and love and business” and go ahead and take advantage of anyone and everyone you can take advantage of. The problem is that you will gain this bargain at the cost of the mindshare. The moment situation changes with the other person or company, you are no longer their favorite customer.
In the changed situation, you will really get what you paid for.
Summary: Bargains are good but not those that come at the expense of mindshare.
I bet you do but I am sure you like them only when they are positive.
Your clients, partners, friends everyone will like a positive surprise. So why not plan for them?
You want a bit of inspiration, watch this short video clip. This is a clip from the show (“Britain’s Got Talent”) and the star is Suleman. Enjoy the week ahead!
Be it for a commodity (like gas) or for something new like Apple iPhone or Amazon Kindle.
In case of a commodity offering, the baseline is always the price for a period in history. So if the price of the gas was hovering around $2 for a while and touches $5 and then goes back to $3, the increase from $2 to $3 is forgotten. What is remembered is the decrease from $5 to $3 – sounds like a bargain.
In case of new offerings like iPhone and Kindle, there is no precedence. So the best would be to set a higher price first and then get all the early adopters to get in the game. The people on the fence are waiting for the price to drop and after some time give them what they want – drop the price. Make it look like a SWEET DEAL and expand the reach.
Think about it. Apple says “iPhone 3G is twice as fast and it is half the price”
Or, in other words, the earlier version of iPhone was “twice the price for half the speed” as compared to this version ????
What can we do?
Actually, nothing. That is the way mind works.
The real question is whether you need any of those products. The reason to buy them should not be because there is a DEAL there but because you need it. If you can prove the ROI, then the price differential really does not matter…I think!
For the first time in the history of the company (Jiffle) we will be advertising. So we had to come up with an ad. I tried to work on a number of comps myself and was not happy with anyone of them. So much to the point that I was about to give up.
Then I realized that the best would be to ask for help – since I am not an an expert in that domain.
A friend who is in the advertising space took less than an thirty minutes and came up with something that was simple and elegant. I have posted the early draft below.
I had spent a few hours and gone nowhere. Just proves the need for “good” help (again).
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