The Flywheel

To blog or not to blog...

OK, it is time to come out clean. For the past 2 months and more (76 days to be precise) I have been using Typepad on a free trial basis. The decision time is approaching soon and I have 3 options:

1. Stop blogging altogether
2. Pay a minimum of $9 per month and continue with Typepad
3. Migrate to a free provider like Blogger.

Now, I loved the functionality, service features and the sheer user friendliness of Typepad. But,  I noticed that in the past few weeks I have been increasingly tardy when it comes to publishing something. Blame it on work, blame it on laziness or whatever, but the fact is, I am not posting as regularly as I used to. Therefore, I do not want to pay more $100 to Typepad and then feel guilty about not posting regularly.

So, I tried migrating to Blogger. For some one who is as customer savvy as Google, it is disgusting that there is no way I can import posts into Blogger! Typepad allows you to export all posts into a file, but there is no way you can import them into Blogger! I have to do it one by one and then deal with all kind of editing, formatting hassles.

Man, this is frustrating; and I have no clue what I should do now. I am quite certain that I will not be paying Typepad. That leaves the other 2 alternatives I mentioned earlier...

In praise of the boring (in) businesses

Way back, when I still smelled of baby powder, an ad for a clothing company used to be aired quite regularly on Indian TV. It was about this young man who discusses his career options and his contempt for dad’s business. His point is that his dad wants him to join the family ball bearing business, which he finds oh so old fashioned. “Me? Selling ball bearings?” is his refrain. He wants to get into fashion designing! Isn't that cool? What comes through is not that he loves fashion, but that ball bearings are passe. I cannot imagine a more stupid attitude. What is this hunt for the cool, in business. Not cool, as in, "wow, my products really solve customers' problems!" but "wow! I want me and my company to be featured on Page 3!"

Now, 10 years later and 6000 kms away, I see that nothing has changed. Recently, we were looking for some really aggressive, intense sales leaders for our company. In all the interviews we do, majority of the people want warm, cushy jobs that require them to be in office and leave at 4 PM sharp. For the others, health products are not “cool enough”. The refrain goes: "Health products? No way! Gimme IT and I will try! Working in the field? Getouttahere!" Why is it that as long as an industry, company or job looks glamorous, fun and crazy, people are queuing up to get a piece of the action? Is it because they think cool, glamorous and visible equals attractive? Is searching for a partner and searching for a job fundamentally different? Do they really look deep into what makes a business tick? What separates successful businesses from failures?

What is the ultimate goal of a business? To create profits? To create a fun workplace? To create customers? If your answer is something like the above, you are probably right. But what if you dig deeper? Just what exactly is a business? I am sure all of us have our pet definitions about what exactly we mean by a business. Some look at it from anthropologic perspective and say that it is a collective of people trying to achieve some common goal; some look at it from economic perspective and say that a business is a deployment of resources in the most efficient manner. My favorite is a physical science perspective; a business is a violation of 3rd law of thermodynamics. You know the 3rd law: the law that says all systems in the universe move from ordered to chaotic state. That entropy always increases. Machines break down; people die; energy dissipates; all because of entropy. In a deeper sense, all human endeavors are a struggle against entropy. That is why, businesses like P&G, GE strike a deep chord within us. They have defied entropy far longer than a majority of human institutions. We might revile them; we might mock them as "old economy"; but the fact is deep down we hold them in awe because they managed the entropy creep successfully for so long. How did they do that? By imposing an order on the chaos of marketplace. By making the art of making money a science or at the very least, a boring, routine craft.

Do we want the process of delivery schedules to be exciting? exciting as in uncertain? or do we want them to be boringly predictable? Do we want the companies where we hold the shares to be predictable in their earnings? or do we want to hold our collective breath every time the earnings season draws near? Do we want our products to work with predictable efficiency? Or do we want to wake up every day and wonder if our car will start this morning?

I had enough of this celebration of glamor and fun and excitement. I want to stand up and celebrate the boring. I want to make my company the most boring company when it comes to its ability to deliver results, deliver products. I want my company results to become a cure for insomnia among my shareholders.

Now, that is an exciting challenge!

Flickr - Do you want customers?

This is kind of an open letter to Flickr.

I started using Flickr a few days back. Within a few hours, I was really hooked. The functionality was good, learning curve was not at all steep and the promise of posting photos through email, mobile and blogging was irresistable. However, the space and bandwidth provided for free users was too little. I have about 300 pictures of my daughter and I would like nothing more than showing off how lucky a dad I am! So I decided to upgrade.

Now, 5 years after ecommerce started, you would have thought it should be a walk in the park right? Well, I got news for you. Especially, if you live in one of the smaller countries of the world. I live in a small country in central Europe. Flickr and their ecommerce provider Paypal think this country does not exist. They do not recognize this country and therefore, if I live in this country, I cannot pay online. The only possible option is that I go to bank, draw an international pay order to Ludicorp for $42, mail it by Fedex or DHL to Canada, wait for a week or so till it gets there; wait for another week till it gets processed and then pray everything is fine and my account is activated.

Ludicrous. No thank you.

Is Sony losing it?

I love Sony’s products. The first time I saw Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz, I was amazed by their design capabilities and design outlook. But now I hate what it is trying to do to itself. Its responses and actions these days smack of a deadman swinging in wind. First it moves confidently into content by acquiring Columbia. The it shoots itself by not aggressively monetizing the content. Now it says it will move more of its component production in-house; at the same time, its executives go out and claim that the cyclical nature of electronic components is hurting their pricing power and hence their bottomline.
When it acquired Columbia, it appeared to be a good move since it will now have content to put into all the containers (walkmans, tvs etc.) and through the channels it was building. Now it says that going forward, a larger percentage of the components that go into its various hardware will be made internally. This seems a bit like spitting into the wind to me. It is a given that electronics is getting commoditized; it also a given that electronics is highly cyclical in nature. By bringing more compoenents inhouse, they will only be more vulnerable to price volatility. On one hand they are creating a verticalized, silo-based mentality inside the company by moving more and more components in house. This in turn opens them upto price fluctuations in global markets. Lightweight competitors like Apple, Panasonic or Dell run circles around Sony while it is busy trying to figure out which end is where. On the other hand, their content division is pusing for more open, more collaborative approach to revenue generation. Does anyone see the inherent tension in managing these 2 imperatives within the same organization?

Today, the hard reality is that the hardware or container division of company has become a liability. It is the content that is driving growth and bottomline. Is the tail wagging the dog? Or, more importantly, has the tail become the dog?
At some point Sony has to make a choice whether it will be a content driven company or a container driven company. Unless that choice is articulated and imposed,  I fear that Sony will not get it right.

Social networking websites. Do they work?

A few days back I mentioned Slacker Manager in connection with LinkedIn and social networking websites that seem to be gaining a lot of exposure. As a new adopter of the service, I wasn't quite convinced that people joining networks would do so for the social cachet of being the most networked person. However, some of my recent experiences make me think otherwise.

I joined LinkedIn a few days back and tried inviting and connecting with various good people. Most of them have graciously agreed to connect with me. This was very nice because when I log in, I get the warm fuzzies when I see that my network is growing. I wish I could have been satisfied with that and went back to my routine. But no, I had to go and put the network to test. So I decided to send mail to a few persons I connected on LinkedIn about what my company is about, what our dreams are  and suggested we should spend some time figuring how we can best put these connections to use. Talk about being naive! Most of them backed off  claiming they are too busy and do not have the time.
Now this really got my goat. I started thinking about networks in general and these so-called networking websites in particular. I understand that no one should have the right to demand time or favors from one's network. But then again, what exactly are the obligations of my network to me? If there are no obligations, then why should we connect at all?  Why should we go through the whole charade? Is it only to show that I have 250 connections in LinkedIn?

Does that make me cool?
I get the point that LinkedIn can work only if I invite freinds and trusted contacts and they in turn do the same. But then, it will take a long time for netowrks to clump together and really start adding value!

This becomes especially relevant when I invite connections from total strangers in order to make it faster and they oblige me. By connecting with total strangers I am saying in effect "I am interested in building bridges with anyone out there; I might not have the expertise or the time, but if you ask me something, I will do my best to help you in some small way. If I cannot be of help to you, I might know someone who can help you".  if I am not prepared to honor this covenant, I should not invite  connections from strangers at all!

If  my network should have only friends and business partners to be effective, then there is no need for websites like LinkedIn. On the other hand, if websites like LinkedIn are to exist, then they should make it easier for strangers to meet, dialogue and figure out if they should connect. This means the job of LinkedIn does not stop at attracting and policing its users, but also in actively encouraging users to make connections. I believe that the website that can figure out how to enable networking without infringing on personal freedom is going to be the winner in networking space. Is LinkedIn doing this? I don't know. It certainly hasn't for me till now!

Update: Here is more grist to the mill.
NY Times has an article on how networking sites like Friendster are not cutting it anymore. (sub required)

Mr. Pincus, the investor, drew an analogy between the rollout of social networking sites and television, where a few must-see new shows emerge each fall. "Friendster had their season, they were the hot new kid on the block that everyone wanted to check out, but you need to build long-time utility for people to stay there."

Update 2 (5th Feb): A relook at the value of networking websites.

Product Warning Overkill

Maybe you have already seen this. I find this both hilarious and sad.

A toilet brush with a tag that says "Do not use for personal hygiene" has taken top prize for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year, according to an anti-lawsuit group.

The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, whose main mission is to reveal how lawsuits and anxiety over lawsuits have created a need for overly obvious warnings on products, sponsors The Wacky Warning Label Contest each year.

Other top finishers this year include:

-- A scooter with the warning "This product moves when used."

-- A digital thermometer with the advice "Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally."

-- An electric blender used for chopping and dicing that reminds users to "Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating."

-- And a three-inch bag of air used for packaging that read "Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device."

Thanks  to Marginal Revolution for posting this.