There are only two ways to catch up a “market leader”:
1. the leader makes very bad decisions that eventually comes back to haunt him and leaves him vulnerable.
or
2. you buy a startup or small company that has the innovation, but lacks the resources, giving you a better possibility of catching up.
Either is very hard, just look at Microsoft. Vista really sucked, but still they are the “market leader” operating systems. Or see at Google, they bought Android and see where they are today, still on the hunt for iPhone and trying to be the dominant mobile platform.
So, what to do? Stop playing the game of others and play your own. The catch game is like gambling in a Vegas casino, you will win enough to continue betting, but will never win against the house or break even. Do something different, which makes you the leader since you are the first to come up with it.
For example, Asus and the netbooks (eventually everybody was able to catch up). More interesting, instead of trying to play catch-up, Apple did something different, the iPad, which is a device that is between the tablet, eBook reader and netbook.
Another example is the Puma Phone, just freaking cool stuff.
At the end of the day is like convincing people to not follow the conventional patch and follow, therefore making you the leader.
Yesterday, I spent my day at Startup Day 2010. There I got to meet new people, catch up with others, listen to interesting stories and practice my pitching skills. No, I didn’t participate the pitching competition. However when you meet somebody, generally they ask what do you do. This conversation goes something like this: “Hi, how are you? What have you been doing?” or “Hi my name is Lalala. So, what do you do?”. Most of the time, my response was:
Currently I’m working with startup called Yanzi. We sell a product that helps owners mange their business, through cameras and sensors. You can do this through the web or a mobile phone.
By the time I said the word “sensors”, they were looking for the cookies. And those that paid attention, were wondering what is special about Yanzi. That made me realized that I was doing something wrong.
When developing any product or service, “test early and often”. The same applies to pitches, there is no way to find out if the pitch delivers the message, until you try it with different people. So, if the pitch sucks (like mine) you will find this out, before the cookies are gone. Or, if you have a good pitch, it will help you refine it.
You can refine it by tweaking details of it and see what works and what doesn’t, until you have a great pitch. And it becomes a great pitch, when people receive the message you intend to deliver and feels natural to talk about it.
To solve my issue with the bad pitch, I turned to using a framework called the Golden Circle: Why, How and What. This is a simple idea developed by Simon Sinek. He states that to deliver a inspiring message, one should start by the Why we do things, instead of starting with How or What. So, based on the Golden Circle, here is my pitch:
[Why]
Business owners should focus on the important things: customers and families. Instead of trying to control every part of their business.
[How]
24/7 remote access to your business, through a computer or mobile phone. In addition, providing history of camera recordings and sensor data.
[What]
A plug and play, solution with data recorder, cameras and sensors that can be connected, that can be access from anywhere that has a internet connection.
As Sinek states, making money is not Why, that is result. So, ask yourself: Why to you make what you make? Why to you blog? Why to you dance? Why to you work? Why do you study?
I invite you to try it and you will see that your message will be much better, it will have more substance and will be less boring.
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- Tags: Golden Circle, pitching, Simon Sinek, Startup Day, TED, Yanzi
I was chatting with a professor (mentor and friend) from my University in Honduras. He was telling me that now the University became a “Javaschool”: a university were programming is taught using Java. This lead me to think of a couple of common mistakes that students might commit, since they don’t understand what is happening behind the scenes. Here is an example:
String patito = “javaschool”;
if (patito == “javaschool”){
//will never enter here
}
if (patito.equals(“javaschool”)){
//always enter here
}
The difference between using a == and equals method is that the operators == compares references to the object. Since “javaschool” is an object (even if you may see it as a value), it doesn’t reference the same object as patito. That is why the first if is always false. To compare or find out, if a String object has the value “javashool”, they will need to use the method equals.
They will make the above mistake, due to them learning to program using primitives like boolean, int, double, float, etc. Which is natural to conclude that everything in Java, works like comparing primitives, when is not the case.
int x = 90;
if (x == 90){
//woohoo! we are in
}
In the above example, int is not an object, but a primitive. A primitive is just a block of memory, no methods or others stuff. Just the value and a way to reference that block in memory containing the value.
If you need to read more about equals and == in Java, I recommend you go here. And if you want to read more about primitives, you can go here.
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- Tags: java, objects, primitives
On the first week of march, I started to listen to a recompilation of Antonio Vivaldi’s work on Spotify. My curiosity for Vivaldi was triggered when Google changed their logo to commemorate his birth date (on the 4th of March). I didn’t remember much about him so, I thought it could be interesting.
While enjoying the music and working I suddenly felt goose pumps when I started to listen to Winter 1st Movement of The Four Seasons.
Maybe is because I’m a big fan of the violin and maybe is why I felt how I felt. When I saw which piece was, I decided to go through the other four season pieces. I started from spring to winter, while I was trying to map my memories of the seasons. At this moment I had understood the four seasons. Before I had the knowledge about them. I had read what they represent the four seasons of a year: what people do and climatic events during each season. Each piece reflects this through the melody, tempo and a rhythm.
Because, I had experience them more than once, so they stuck to me, which lead to understanding them. To know is different from understand, therefore once we feel it and experience that feeling more than once, we will understand.
Since, I lived most of my life in Honduras where there is no clear manifestations of the the four seasons, I did not understand them. Until now, that I’m in my third winter in Sweden, I had the experience them, therefore I understand why Vivaldi’s four season sound as they do.
You can know that being a father is difficult, however until you experience it you will understand it.
You heard countless times and read even more, how hard is to have a business, but until you run your own, you will understand.
You might know or have an idea of what your customers want, however until you are your customer, you will understand them. Why do you think (37 signals’ book), “Getting Real”, recommends that you solve your own problems and therefore you will have great web applications? Because, you will become the customer, feel the pain and there understand what it is really needed. However this is sometimes difficult to do. Sometimes we just need to solve other people problems. That is why, in addition, developers that build the web applications should receive the tech support emails. Not as a punishment for writing buggy software, but because they will never be the customer. So, they need (somehow) feel the pain of the customer. That way they will understand what it is really needed.
Once we feel something we will understand it, other than that is knowledge. just theory.
Drop the clichés, forget about what a engineer and a artist are suppose to do and don’t judge based on the university title or gender.
This is the information revolution, where anybody with the will power to learn, can be anything they want. Sure the revolution hasn’t reach everybody on the planet, but is on it way. In the meantime, just remember that you can wear any hat you wish and more importantly, anybody can wear the hat the want, even yours.
So, my proposal is that in those workplaces, companies and startups where project managements: “are managing the resources of a software project”, ditch them (or if you are nice give them a chance to get a new hat).
Management of people kills creativity, instead provide mentorship: guide instead of dictating. Get people that can lead by nurturing the skills of the people around them and help them focus, instead of “try to put off that fire or cure the itch”.
Let the artist write software and the engineer design, it might not be appealing but, it is a start of something different and sometimes different is good.
Universities and corporations develop software with a “hangover” (of classical concepts) from the days of punch cards and mainframes. Today we don’t need to control computer resources, since they are widely available. The access to information about programming is available on the instant and to anybody with access to Internet. However, universities still teach concepts that where design to control scarce resources, when there not scarce anymore. IT departments still try to use these concepts, to manage the projects and comply with internal politics.
There is a belief that everything needs a project plan, progress reports, Testing Procedure Specification (TPS) documents to make sure that everything is on budget. I find it ironic that we spend money on making sure we don’t go over budget. What is the point of writing stuff that nobody is going to read.
Cure for the hangover? Embrace chaos! Give some liberty to people to work without reporting or detailing everything. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how you did it, the point is that you did it right.
Like my mom used to say:
All roads lead to Rome
Just because is different, doesn’t mean is good or bad, the point is to get where we want and on time.
Flattr is a new service for paying or “rewarding” creators of digital content on the internet. Below is a video describing how it works.
I liked the video and I found it appealing to the eye and well produced, still they failed to deliver the message correctly. Which is a shouldn’t be the case when you are trying to change how people pay for content. Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea is awesome and disruptive, however it could have been presented in a better way.
Note the reader: Following are my thoughts on how should the idea been presented and will try to avoid talking about if it will work or not. that will be for another post.
When it starts running the first thing you will se is the following image:
Even if it is only shown for around 2 seconds, this is most important piece of information, due to this two words presented: social micropayments. In my case, the first thing that came to my mind was that this was a service like kiva.org (given it uses similar colors). Then I realized I was wrong when the video mentions content and consumers, the flattr button and the cake.
If the service is about showing appreciation or love to content creators, then they should remove “social micropayments” and replace it with some other message. The problem is that the service is about showing your love and appreciation to the artist or create, while the word payment is related to something more cold such a commercial transaction. Second, micropayments has been widely use hand by hand with microfinance in third world courtiers, which is out of context of where flattr will be used.
Instead of using social micropayment, they could have use something like:
rewarding content creators, flat rate love or flattering creators
In addition I will have change the way the cake analogy with a story, which will be of somebody using the service, while keeping the black graphics used (we don’t want it to look like a “revolutionary” vacuum cleaner commercial ).
Here is an example:
Tom is 29 year old web designer, that spends his day working, reading blogs and posting on twitter.
In the past year or so, Tom has found an interest for mashups of music. Most of the mashups are given for free by the DJs, so he just downloads them. Recently he found a mashup album of Jay -Z and Marvin Gaye called Brooklyn Soul, that he loves. He tells all his friends about it and enjoys to play it while commuting or just walking. So, he decided to show his appreciation to the producers of Brooklyn Soul with a Flattr.
Tom has 2 eruos in his account and in the past 3 weeks he has given a Flattr to Xaphoon Jones for his Mixtape and to a couple of writers for their free ebooks. In total it has been 4 flattrs and the month will end in two days. By then the 2 euros will be split in the four flattrs equally.
Why did Tom decide to give 2 Euros? Well he figured out that if he didn’t drink a latte a month, instead he could use the money to show his appreciation.
Why a story?
Is less abstract and is more down to earth. Also, by mentioning what is the give and get, the audience has a better understanding of the service.
If you want to now little bit more about why using stories to pitch an idea, check my previous post.
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- Tags: Flattr, stories
Got to love the remake of the 1993 McDonald’s Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird commercial, this time it features Lebron James and Dwight Howard. Although they are not as accomplished as Jordan and Bird, they are representative of the NBA today and are possibly the future, so we have the star power.
The new commercial shows how the game has change, by instead of just going with jumpshots (like in the 93 version), they just go with dunks. As well as some taunting or trash talking.
The interesting thing here is that commercials generally are not remade or remastered as movies. Doesn’t make sense to copy a old idea, sure we have campaigns like Apple’s “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC” or Master Card “priceless”, that keep the same concept, however in this case it works masterfully.
In case you didn’t remember the o1993 commercial or just want to compare you can see it bellow. (By the way, Jordan’s outfit reminds me of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air)
Yeap. things have change a lot in the last 17 years, still athletes eat fast food before a work out.
There is rhythm when: it is “recurring at regular intervals” and a flow when it is “moving continuously”.
You can be in rhythm without flow. For example when you are continuously repeating an action, but it feels forced or “not right”. Is like one of those days when you feel like working, but nothing gets done. Think of somebody in a karaoke forcing the lyrics, it just doesn’t sound right and sometimes can be painful. Or writing a blog post but it just feels like crap.
Now, as you can have rhythm without flow, you can have flow without rhythm. This is case when you have the ideas flowing, the energy and all the intentions of doing your work, but you get interrupted, again and again. Following the music example above, is like somebody singing at the same time that little kid plays with a drum set, doesn’t matter how good the singer is, the sound (or noise) generated by the kid will win over you trying to sing.
Finally, rhythm and flow is when you have the ideas – and for long periods of time – work on them. It doesn’t mean you work for a whole day non stop. By long periods I mean that you can work for a couple of hours, stand up, stretch and have some coffee. Then with a small warm up (like reviewing what you have done), you get back to what you where doing.
When in rhythm and flow, it feels natural and things just get done. There is a level of focus that only meditation can surpass.
So how did I got into this topic about rhythm and flow? Well, I wanted to get back to blogging around 8 posts a month. In the past months I been posting less and less, and is not that I don’t have something to say. I just was out of sync.
Although many people see it as a habit, when it is time to create, write or program: I need to “warm up” my mind. Is not enough just to get inspired or get an idea, there is need to a jump start with some energy for things to roll. Most of the time that “warm up” proceeds a lot of junk and might be a waste of time, but is necessary to get rolling. Think of a steam locomotive starting up, see video bellow. At the beginning there is a lot of noise, it looks forced and slow, however when the locomotive gets rolling, it gets rolling to the point that maybe.. and just maybe superman can stop it.
So, this post is my warm up, don’t how much time it will take for me to get into rhythm and flow. Right now is not about the quality, the important thing is to continue doing it and letting it come to you. That is why when a shooter [in basketball] is in a slump, they shoot, writers just write until they get into it, programmers program, people live and when is there.. is there and only yourself can stop it.
[sorry no superman video stopping a locomotive, however roll back into your childhood, if not then just check the Spider Man 2 Train scene here, just awesome.]
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- Tags: Blogging, flow, rhythm, work
About this blog
A personal blog where I write about my current projects, work and interests. The posts are a reflection on my current self, varying over time, since change is the only constant.
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- Spam filter effectiveness: Hotmail vs. Gmail vs. Yahoo! Mail | E-Mail Marketing Tipps: [...] be surprising if you consider the many things running in the background. Like the “Junk [...]
- Alejandro Padgett: Que buen articulo. Estoy de acuerdo que Design Thinking es algo que se aprende y que entre mas lo ha [...]
- kaylee: Hmm i'm on windows xp and i've tried searching for the other steps in my user and 'all users' but i [...]
- Sylvia: Go, go, goooo! :) [...]
- Geries Handal: Thanks :D [...]
- When to go native or HTML based App
- The pain of transfering domains
- The value of brainstorming
- Last day at Yanzi
- Objects as a hashmap in Javascript
- Emergence of patterns in mobile app design
- Executive Insight on data from Google’s Think Quarterly
- is Today method in java (and python)
- My favorite Super Bowl XLV (2011) commercials
- The bad side of Interfaces