May 2006 Archives
This is a great article by Ralph Block on fool.com - the Motley Fool website. It introduces guidelines along which the different asset classes - bonds, commercial real estate and equities are "priced", and offers that REITs are of modest risk and have the same return on capital as equities. Although the earnings season of REITs in the US have ended, the first game has just begun in Europe. Hello Germany :-) It's a simple article, requires a small bit of arithmetic to understand, so I recommend you to go and read it.
Aziz Ridouan, a high school kid advises the French Government on music piracy/copyright law, and presents the consumer side of the argument against Digital Rights Management (DRM). He is seen as an icon by many. Here's a pic as seen in this New York Times article.
He's shown holding a HP laptop. It's the "common citizen turned advocate advertiser" product positioning HP like this, who will be the best advertisement for HP: HP by association to him will be seen as believing in citizen's rights to enjoy the data that is purchased/downloaded in any format they choose.
Folks who share that worldview will also buy HP equipment since they seem to stand for the same ideas. Cool eh?
He's shown holding a HP laptop. It's the "common citizen turned advocate advertiser" product positioning HP like this, who will be the best advertisement for HP: HP by association to him will be seen as believing in citizen's rights to enjoy the data that is purchased/downloaded in any format they choose.
Folks who share that worldview will also buy HP equipment since they seem to stand for the same ideas. Cool eh?
You really need to listen to this mp3 (Download from Guy's blog). It is truly truly awesome. If you're a startup, and you're plagued by doubt, and you need that push to keep you going - or generally enjoy listening to stories of triumph over adversity, listen to Jim.
The lessons I picked up:
1) The summit is optional, getting back down is mandatory
2) It’s not about how hard you fall, its about how high you bounce back up
3) Success is sweetest for those who have tasted defeat
4) The biggest problem in achieving your dream is the fear that you cannot do something. Get over that fear, and you'll be amazed at what you can achieve.
Jim Whittaker wrote a book called "A Life On The Edge: Memories Of Everest And Beyond" where he details his life. He's a mountaineer and entrepreneur and he seems to be a genuinely nice person.
Tags: Jim Whittaker, Everest, Guy Kawasaki, Garage, mp3, motivation
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Here goes:
Passion rules
Find your passion. the more passionate you are about something, the more you will work at it, the more you will learn about it, and the more you will enjoy the inevitable slog at being the best at it. This will show in your work, in your presentations and in your professional success.
The thing is, if you're like me, your passion may change after a while. :-) If that were to happen, find a fresh passion and work at it. Who knows - you might become the ultimate renaissance man/woman
Your performance at work is more important than your degree
You may have the greatest degrees known to man, but if you cannot do the work on time, and at really good quality, you are not good! I learnt this the hard way.. I have a degree from an excellent engineering school. I was working for this telecom software company, and had no clue of Perl. I was trying to learn Perl, do the work and produce zero defect software, and I failed to meet the deadline. The upshot: A couple of weeks later, I was moved from my position as a developer to a position as tester.. Oh well.. A few months later, I left the company as well.
Read Read and Read
It is incredibly crucial, that you read up as much as you can about your field of expertise - say process control, and the markets where your work is used. If you need to work 50 hours a week at your job, spend another 15 - 20 hours reading up and keeping up with the latest.
Also read about areas which don't have anything to do with your work. Get a subscription to a financial newspaper such as the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal. Also get a subscription to the Economist. It's a great publication, and gives a commonsense take on world events and business. All these are great learning sources.
Start a blog
Blogs are good. Having a blog with your best content helps other people looking for information. That helps build your reputation as a guru in your field. And as any good engineer knows, gurus get a hell of a lot of respect and a ton of money.
Work at companies in growth markets
Markets which are growing are markets where you need to be! So scope out which companies are in those markets, and join those. Growth markets are not the markets with the most hype. They're markets/locations/industry combinations which
Startups are better than established companies
A startup allows you to learn so much more than at an established company. An established company will have a product development process. This means that they have fixed roles, you're pigeonholed into a specific area in a specific role and are expected to specialise in that area, gain knowledge and perform. Now in a startup, you're encouraged to participate in as many areas as you can. That means that you can learn on a lot of broad fronts, and you form a bird's eye view of how everything fits together. The upshot: You learn more.
Using the least effort produces the best quality
I am not advocating that you should be lazy. Rather, think of it in this way. If you do something with complete concentration, you do it sooner. Less distractions, less diversionary work, and you're doing just the thing you have to. You're 'in the zone'. Now you'll use the same effort per unit time no matter what you do. Why do I say this? I feel tired at the end of a day, whether I've worked that day or not. Usually, I'm more tired when I have a free day, and I lazed around. Strange, but true. So...
1) When you work with full concentration
2) You work faster
3) So you use the least effort.
Write a business plan for every good idea you have
Engineers are smart. They get ideas. But they do nothing about it. When you have an idea, write it down in a pocket book. Every month, look at your ideas and see if you can make them better and simpler. Once you have chosen the best idea, you can write a business plan around it. There are more than enough resources online where you can get template plans. Get a friend in Accounting to draw up a draft financial plan. The next time you write a business plan, just use this draft financial plan 'template' for the new plan. The more plans you write, the better you get at it. Some day you may write a business plan so well that you actually start a business based on that.
Tags: engineer, lessons, business, plan, reading, quality, effort, blog, degree
Passion rules
Find your passion. the more passionate you are about something, the more you will work at it, the more you will learn about it, and the more you will enjoy the inevitable slog at being the best at it. This will show in your work, in your presentations and in your professional success.
The thing is, if you're like me, your passion may change after a while. :-) If that were to happen, find a fresh passion and work at it. Who knows - you might become the ultimate renaissance man/woman
Your performance at work is more important than your degree
You may have the greatest degrees known to man, but if you cannot do the work on time, and at really good quality, you are not good! I learnt this the hard way.. I have a degree from an excellent engineering school. I was working for this telecom software company, and had no clue of Perl. I was trying to learn Perl, do the work and produce zero defect software, and I failed to meet the deadline. The upshot: A couple of weeks later, I was moved from my position as a developer to a position as tester.. Oh well.. A few months later, I left the company as well.
Read Read and Read
It is incredibly crucial, that you read up as much as you can about your field of expertise - say process control, and the markets where your work is used. If you need to work 50 hours a week at your job, spend another 15 - 20 hours reading up and keeping up with the latest.
Also read about areas which don't have anything to do with your work. Get a subscription to a financial newspaper such as the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal. Also get a subscription to the Economist. It's a great publication, and gives a commonsense take on world events and business. All these are great learning sources.
Start a blog
Blogs are good. Having a blog with your best content helps other people looking for information. That helps build your reputation as a guru in your field. And as any good engineer knows, gurus get a hell of a lot of respect and a ton of money.
Work at companies in growth markets
Markets which are growing are markets where you need to be! So scope out which companies are in those markets, and join those. Growth markets are not the markets with the most hype. They're markets/locations/industry combinations which
Startups are better than established companies
A startup allows you to learn so much more than at an established company. An established company will have a product development process. This means that they have fixed roles, you're pigeonholed into a specific area in a specific role and are expected to specialise in that area, gain knowledge and perform. Now in a startup, you're encouraged to participate in as many areas as you can. That means that you can learn on a lot of broad fronts, and you form a bird's eye view of how everything fits together. The upshot: You learn more.
Using the least effort produces the best quality
I am not advocating that you should be lazy. Rather, think of it in this way. If you do something with complete concentration, you do it sooner. Less distractions, less diversionary work, and you're doing just the thing you have to. You're 'in the zone'. Now you'll use the same effort per unit time no matter what you do. Why do I say this? I feel tired at the end of a day, whether I've worked that day or not. Usually, I'm more tired when I have a free day, and I lazed around. Strange, but true. So...
1) When you work with full concentration
2) You work faster
3) So you use the least effort.
Write a business plan for every good idea you have
Engineers are smart. They get ideas. But they do nothing about it. When you have an idea, write it down in a pocket book. Every month, look at your ideas and see if you can make them better and simpler. Once you have chosen the best idea, you can write a business plan around it. There are more than enough resources online where you can get template plans. Get a friend in Accounting to draw up a draft financial plan. The next time you write a business plan, just use this draft financial plan 'template' for the new plan. The more plans you write, the better you get at it. Some day you may write a business plan so well that you actually start a business based on that.
Tags: engineer, lessons, business, plan, reading, quality, effort, blog, degree
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Guy Kawasaki of Apple Computer, Garage Tech Ventures and the Art of the Start fame, gave the keynote speech to the Tech Coast Angels Fast Pitch Competition†at Andersen Business School at the University of California Los Angeles. It's really good, and I urge you to watch it. He starts speaking 10 minutes and 48 seconds into the video.. :-)) So if you're short of time, move the slider to that point and enjoy his talk..
If this is what I could expect from a Seth Godin seminar, I want to experience one of them.
Rick Segal attended one of them, and by most accounts was blown away.
Seth has a new seminar coming up. Sign up if you can make it there and think you need it. Details here: Tiny whiteboard seminar
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From the 6th year of every century to the 13th year, there are 8 magical moments.
These are moments in time - fleeting, yet significant, when one wishes that time stood still for just another second. Tick-tock, the second is gone, the moment is gone.
TONIGHT there's the first such moment.
The time: 01:02:03 04.05.06
or rather 01:02:03 AM on the 4th of May 2006
Why is it so important: Well, just look at it - the time is the first 6 numbers. A numerically perfect time!
Try and savour the moment if you have the time.
The next moment is next year
The time: 02:03:04 05.06.07
or rather 02:03:04 AM on the 5th of June 2007
These are moments in time - fleeting, yet significant, when one wishes that time stood still for just another second. Tick-tock, the second is gone, the moment is gone.
TONIGHT there's the first such moment.
The time: 01:02:03 04.05.06
or rather 01:02:03 AM on the 4th of May 2006
Why is it so important: Well, just look at it - the time is the first 6 numbers. A numerically perfect time!
Try and savour the moment if you have the time.
The next moment is next year
The time: 02:03:04 05.06.07
or rather 02:03:04 AM on the 5th of June 2007
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&otWhen I started my Executive MBA at the Learning the innovative way
Tags: process, six sigma, dabba, dabbawalla, Mumbai, Bombay, efficiency
Tags: process, six sigma, dabba, dabbawalla, Mumbai, Bombay, efficiency
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If you liked reading about what I learned in 3.5 years of entrepreneurship, you'll love to read these nuggets of highly useful information from his view as a Venture Capitalist.
Here's the post: The Art of Bootstrapping
Tags: entrepreneurship, strategy, venturing, bootstrapping
Here's the post: The Art of Bootstrapping
Tags: entrepreneurship, strategy, venturing, bootstrapping
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The new way of developing anything - be it software, or creatives or even documents seems to be - create a quick prototype, then get people's opinion on it - i.e. get them to mark it up, then create changes to accomodate all these opinions, and review it. This review then suggests further changes - perhaps because someone who hadn't given too much input before decided to do so the second time around. These changes are again incorporated for a final approval phase when the work is signed off by everyone.
Does this sound familiar? Yes.
Does this work? Absolutely.
Is this slow? Sure, but other methods are slower.
Is this the best we can do? Certainly not..
So what do we do then?
Reduce rework
In the previous example, we saw that the same "document" was "rewritten or modified" 4 times. By itself it's bad. Repeated modifications don't really add too much value to the document. Conventional wisdom suggests that the last 10% take 90% of the effort, and most documents are obsolete by the time they're ready. So why the urge to produce perfect documents? I can see how that's important if you're writing up a contract, but most documents are internal documents written to get people on the same page. People in general scan documents. They don't read them. Here's a suggestion. Tell people that the document will be written in this form- 2 people will write the prototype document.
- This will be reviewed once to get other opinions. This is preferably done by using track changes and done serially. One person reviews, and then passes it on to the next guy, who reviews it again. By the time the third guy has reviewed it, most errors are out. The remaining folks will just read the document. :-)
- Once this is done, get people together again to approve it. If there are any changes to be made, the one who suggests the first modification collects the other requests for modification, updates the document and sends the document around. That's all
Reducing approval phases
It's a good idea to get approvals ;-) They save you when things go wrong. But the approval process begins to take a life of its own if too much attention is paid to it. I'd suggest that you don't need more than 2 levels of approval anyway.- The first level of approval should be the folks that manage you.
- The second level of approval should be the folks that control the budget.
- If those two sets of people are the same, well, you don't need the second approval.
Fix a certain period every week - say Thursday afternoon for a couple of hours to go through several approval decisions at a stretch. (Fridays are bad for this activity. Most people want to get things done before the weekend, and have no time on a Friday.) This would mean that if something wasn't approved this week, because of a delay, then it would get approved the next week. On the average, people would have to wait half a week for any approval.
These two common sense suggestions can shave at least 30% - 40% off the time involved in a process.
Tags: process, rework, approval, phases, cost reduction
