Proud sewing club member
I never thought I’d see the day:
Yes, I am a card-carrying member of the Fabricland Sewing Club. The shame, the shame!
Here’s the deal: I’m building some prototypes for a new product. For inspiration, and for product design, I needed fabric. Lots of it. Apparently, you get a 40%-off discount when you’re a member.
The rest is history.
The future belongs
Eleanor Roosevelt said that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Do you dream?
Do you believe?
I think that dreaming is an essential survival skill in business, in work, in life.
I’ve just come through a month without dreams. A month of projects, tasks, requests, work. Basically, stuff.
The problem with stuff is that stuff happens. Stuff accumulates. And then stuff obliterates.
Passion dies. Enthusiasm fades. Curiosity subsides. Joy flees: stuff has conquered. We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.
In case the problem for business, for work, is not perfectly clear, here it is: creativity depends on all those good things I’ve just mentioned. Just try to be creative without passion, enthusisasm, curiosity, joy.
Good luck.
Without creativity, nothing new and exciting happens. Without creativity, you are just one more drone in the faceless masses. Without creativity, your business is just one more me-too nothing-new ho-hum big stinking deal.
You need dreams.
You need big beautiful dreams.
And then you need to believe.
When a company has no dreams, there is no belief. Without belief - in something, anything - the company has no soul. Without a soul, it’s a dead man walking, an empty automaton … a skeleton that’s still, somehow, stubbornly, moving.
But don’t expect anyone get excited about it. Not the people who work there - to them the company is a payment on a car, on a mortgage. And if not the people who work there, why the wider world?
You must have a dream. They must be beautiful dreams. And then you must believe. Otherwise, what’s the point? Go flip burgers, and ask would you like fries with that.
This morning, at 6:07, I found a dream. It is beautiful.
And I believe.
Tired
Up at 6:20 this morning (late), skipped breakfast. Left house at 7:20.
At work at 8:10 - working in Bellingham today. Juggled projects and priorities until noon, then had lunch with my boss, Kevin. Worked until 4:45.
Home at 5:45 (border lineup was huge). Eating until 6:00. 15 minutes of hockey - Buffalo Sabres beating the Carolina Hurricanes 1-0, then out with Gabrielle, Aidan, and Ethan to Ethan’s baseball practice.
While Ethan was practicing with his team, I threw the ball with Gabrielle and Aidan - they’re both getting better at catching and Gabrielle is really starting to throw well. Some hitting practice too - Gabrielle straightens her arms a little too early on some of her swings, but she’s working to avoid that and had 3 or 4 big, big hits.
Home at 8:00. Kids have to get ready for bed. Aidan needs to be changed; the older kids have their ‘reading time.’ (The choice is: go to bet at 8:00, or read and stay up until 9:00.)
8:30. Aidan’s in bed, Ethan and Gabrielle are reading. I can start to relax. Teresa reminds me of some work that I need to do in the gutters. I promise my Saturday away.
Tired.
(But, it is a good tired!)
Making business beautiful
Is your business beautiful?
That sounds like a strange question - mostly because it is. But it’s a good question. It’s a question more people should ask of their business, processes, strategies, marketing, and products.
Why?
Well, think about it: what is beauty?
Beauty is the marriage of structure and function. It’s elements in careful but dynamic balance. It’s symmetry and simplicity. And above all, beauty is memorable.
Structure and function
Structure is only present where it is functional. All that is not functional is not structural. It has been abstracted out. All that is functional grows out of the structure. There are no missing pieces, and nothing is glued on as an afterthought.
Functions that are structural are solid; they are embedded in physical reality or organization. Structures that are functional are needed; they are not waste or empires or holdovers from a previous age. Are all the structures in your business functional? Are all the functions in your processes structural?
Balance
Is your business in balance? Example: your product portfolio. Do you have a mix of products at varying stages in their life cycles? Some that are new and still incurring product development costs. Some that are in young and still growing, finding their feet. Some that are in middle age: cash cows that will must be milked to the fullest before they dry up. Some that are tottering around on crutches that need to be put out to pasture.
Symmetry
Symmetry is an attribute of processes. If you mapped your workflow, would you find dangling loops? Winding paths? Dead ends?
The more symmetry, the better flow. The more loops, the more cost you’re building into your model.
Simplicity
Simplicity is as much as needed and no more than what is required. Simplicity is as simple as possible and complex as necessary. Are all your moving parts radically simple? If your company is more than two years old, and if you are not married to continuous process improvement, the answer is no: stuff happens.
Stuff accumulates. Over time, stuff overwhelms. Stuff is money, because stuff burns time. Which means that stuff is also lost opportunity. Getting rid of stuff is giving yourself the gift of focus.
Memorability
Is your business, marketing plan, product, division, whatever, memorable? Memorable things make an impression on people. Things that make an impression on people have a chance to matter. Things that do not make an impression on people do not, by definition, matter.
You want to matter. You want your business to matter. The only way to matter is to do something remarkable. What do you do that is remarkable?
. . .
. . .
Making your business beautiful is making your business lean. And focused. And proportioned.
Is your business beautiful?
If not, surgery is the only option.
Tags: business, process, improvement, beautiful, simplicity, john koetsier
Ideavirus penicillin
I’ve been following Seth Godin’s blog lately.
He’s the extremely clueful author of Ideavirus, among other books.
So in a recent post on cargo-cult marketing I found it pleasantly surprising that he states “we have no idea why some ideas spread and others don’t.”
The post is about copying things you see successful companies doing, just like Pacific Islander cargo cults blindly copied US Army procedures like making an airstrip, creating a air traffic control hut, etc. The problem?
… just because you copy the elements that apparently made something work before doesn’t mean that you’re going to be guaranteed that it will work again.
Good point.
More interesting, though, is his admission that we just don’t know why some ideas spread and others don’t. I mean, he’s the expert.
We know something about how ideas spread, through Godin’s work, as well as Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.
But why?
Some things catch. Some things don’t. Perhaps the best explanation is a Biblical one:
The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
Which is not to say, as Damon Runyon observed, that you shouldn’t bet that way.
Just don’t expect to win every hand.
Tags: seth godin, ideavirus, marketing, innovation, ideas, malcolm gladwell, john koetsier
Strawberry Frog
A company with a conference table this cool:
And one that is still bold enough to put a Flash movie as the first thing you see on their site (remember skipintro?):
… must be a pretty cool company. And indeed, if you check out their guiding principles (aka ‘frogism’), they are:
1. StrawberryFrog means working SmarterFaster.
2. We are humans - everyone is entitled to fun in their lives.
3. No one is big enough to be independent of others; none of us are as wise as all of us.
4. Ideas can come from anywhere.
5. Ideas need time and space to grow.
6. We spend other people’s money as if it were our own.
7. The best research is subjective, creative, informs and inspires.
8. Be honest.
9. Don’t mistake comfort for good work.
10. When we develop work we ask ourselves: is it wonderful? Does it move you? Does it make you curious? Is it a simple idea? Is it culturally authentic?
11. Keep it simple, not simplistic.
12. Trust your instincts.
13. Take chances.
14. We don’t have to be big; we have to be good and profitable.
15. No excuses.
16. Smile.
I think I would like to work at a company like that. Wouldn’t you?
Tags: strawberry frog, advertising, business 2.0, netherlands, john koetsier
2 reasons Chapters Indigo sucks
I sometimes shop at Chapters Indigo. But only when I have too … like when I get a gift certificate from IDC Canada for participating in one of their research studies.
I hate shopping there, because the site is always, without exception, slow. I have never had it respond quickly. Double plus annoying. Plus, the selection is never what you get at Amazon. And you can never find as much information about what you’re buying as at Amazon.
But 25 bucks is 25 bucks, so every month or so after dutifully filling out my survey, I head on over to Chapters to find something to blow it on.
And here are two things I particularly hate:
- the never-changing email address requirement
See that - you can’t change your email address. And yup, that’s the one I had three years ago. Yay. - the buy-more-or-we’ll-gouge-you-on-shipping shipping charges
Yes, that’s $8 in shipping for a DVD and a CD. In other words, almost 50% shipping. You can get free shipping, but only if you spend $40 or more … which I usually end up doing, thereby encouraging the perpetuation of the system I am now whining about. Hmmm.
Please, please, IDC: move to Amazon gift certificates.
. . .
. . .
You know, I guess if you actually count all the reasons above, there’s actually 5 reasons why Chapters Indigo sucks. What can I say - bonus day at Sparkplug 9.
You know you’re in beta when …
… you’ve left the boilerplate text in your website after launching.
Tags: fortuitous, beta, launch, web 2.0, funny, john koetsier
Memories of La Jolla
OK, the title is accurate. But that’s not really why I’m making this post.
Actually, what’s going on here is that I’m testing Apple’s iWeb.
Teresa mentioned that she’d like to have something from time to time that would help her create a digital scrapbook, and so I said I’d look for something for her. It needs to be simple, needs to tie into all our digital stuff (which mostly means iPhoto), and needs to be fast.
So I gave iWeb a shot. Here’s the result: some of the pictures we took in La Jolla this spring.
Total time: about 15 minutes, most of which was picture selection.
Drag and drop, baby!
Why Apple sold PowerSchool
The rumors had been around for some time: PowerSchool was on the auction block. Now it’s official.
But why? Why did Apple sell PowerSchool? It appears that the division was not profitable enough for Apple, and there were always rumors of issues around the development of new versions of PowerSchool.
But I think there are two key reasons.
One: Not selling more Macs
One is that PowerSchool did not actually help Apple sell more Macs.
When Apple bought the company, PowerSchool had about 10,000 school clients, if memory serves. (I did a research project on student information systems (SIS) for my company about 5-6 years ago.)
The theory was that with PowerSchool as the foot in the door, Apple would be able to sell more Macs to education. And the magic of bundling would also make selling PowerSchool easier in schools that already had a significant Mac prescence.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, unfortunately, there is.
Apple’s penetration in education has at best held even over the past 5-6 years. More likely, it’s trended down. In fact, PowerSchool didn’t help Apple sell more Macs.
In retrospect, it’s not too hard to see why.
First of all, schools make buying decisions on SIS systems maybe every 10 years. It’s like buying Oracle. You don’t switch to DB2 next year just because somebody gives you a 10% off coupon.
Secondly, they are purchases made with two significantly different audiences. The people making buying decisions on SIS systems are principals, districts, and states. On the other hand, classroom teachers often have significant input into instruction computer buying practices.
And third, it’s not a works-better-together scenario. Because it’s web-based, PowerSchool will work for anyone with any modern computers: Windows, Mac, Linux, you name it. Have web browser, will travel. Same thing for most of the other modern SIS systems on the market. That’s as it should be: back-office and front-office applications are de-coupled and independently upgradable.
Two: Educational content on iPods
But the piece of the deal that’s most intriguing to me is the committment on the part of Pearson to bring their educational content to iPod.
There is no bigger company in educational technology than Pearson. They already have the leading SIS software in the market, SASI xp. But that’s not all they do.
Pearson is a quintessential international megacorp, with businesses all over the world. However, they’re biggest in publishing. In educational publishing, they make textbooks, they publish novels for age-targeted audiences, and more - particularly, curriculum-related products. As they so modestly state:
We are the leading pre K-12 curriculum, testing, and software company in the US, reaching every student and teacher in that country with one or more of our products and services. We offer a wide range of solutions that integrate our instructional, assessment, and reporting capabilities. These instructional offerings include basal and supplemental programmes, and technology-delivered adaptive learning solutions.
Well.
What if you were a company that had a strong historical prescence in education with slightly declining market share, but also had an incredibly hot product in the general consumer market that can display text, play audio, and show movies?
You might try to make that incredibly hot product the basis for an educational trojan horse. If so, you’d probably be a well-known fruit-flavored company.
In fact, that’s just what I predicted three weeks ago. After, just for the heck of it, I put one of my company’s courses on my iPod, the lightbulb went on and it became clear to me that the iPod is a perfect vehicle for mobile, personalized course content delivery.
Not so good for interaction, necessarily. And not something that will take the place of discussion, teachers, and all the other needed accoutrements of school. But certainly an excellent way to distributed course text, images, audio, and video.
Education has been looking for e-books for some time now. Maybe the iPod … particularly a next-generation model with a larger screen … is precisely that, but we never realized it until now.
Hmmm. Starts some bells ringing, doesn’t it?
If you were Apple, wouldn’t that be something you wanted? You bet. And how would you get it? You might start by partnering with one of the largest education curriculum and supplemental materials producers out there.
You might start, in other words, with Pearson Education.
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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