1. PSS World Medical
from an interview with its CEO David Smith...
...when you dance with elephants you're either quick or you're dead...
...you can't just be a regular company, or you won't survive. You'll get out-resourced, out-priced, out-maneuvered and squashed...
...you really must have something unique that you bring to the table...
...You have to be able to do things differently from everyone else and do them in a way that really brings value to the customer...
...We...looked at the individual customer and his business and clinical issues...
...we looked at our core competencies--what we were really good at...
...We started rebuilding our business to be back to focusing on our customers...
...I set principles with my management team and team leaders, but I don't have preferences on how things are done....
...I ask a lot of questions. I give ideas. But I'm not wedded to any one of my ideas...I let them figure it out, because they're closer to the customer and to their people...
...give everybody a simple, understandable matrix to make decisions with...
...when I'm not there and people want to know how to make a decision, they don't have to call me. They know that I'm going to ask them how it fits into that matrix...
...We are all about not being comfortable with the way things are...
2. e-text editor
It recently decided to push beyond open source code...to become an Open Company...it's experimental, it's adventurous, it's curiosity with a spark of idealism...it's Huge. Check out the story here.
Monday, 13 April 2009
Something meaningful from what I read recently...
"Your customers don't care about your story. The care about their own stories.....focus on a way to make it easy for your customers to bring your brand story into their lives." -- Tom Peters
"What do you want your customers to think about you?" -- Tom Peters
"Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control)" -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
"I don't like you all the same...I love you all the same, and I'll give you the treatment that you earn and deserve..." -- Coach John Wooden to his players
Plus: fill in the blank...
"Our business is the only ______ that ______"
"We are the best _____ in the world"
"What do you want your customers to think about you?" -- Tom Peters
"Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control)" -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
"I don't like you all the same...I love you all the same, and I'll give you the treatment that you earn and deserve..." -- Coach John Wooden to his players
Plus: fill in the blank...
"Our business is the only ______ that ______"
"We are the best _____ in the world"
"Dramatic Leadership" to "mobilize the board..."
Summarized below useful points by an interesting McKinsey Qtrly article "The crisis: Mobilizing Boards for Change"
* Expect major change. Conduct fundamental review of strategy. [John: Reinvent]
* Disrupt the rhythm
* Force New Conversations/ Create Confidence to Express "Stupid" Opinions
* Follow-through: where's the plan & budget?
* First-hand Frontline (Visceral) Experience
* Dramatic Leadership to Shake Things Up
Well for those of you who read Tom Peters'(and the like), these are nothing new...
..."the hottest U.S. investor" (covered by Fortune some months ago) once said "I don't wait for Morgan Stanley to tell me where the market is moving..." (or something like this, just recall from memory)
Yes I'm simultaneously quoting a valuable McK Qtrly's article and telling you we can't count on big guys like McK for truly inspirational world-changing ideas...
* Expect major change. Conduct fundamental review of strategy. [John: Reinvent]
* Disrupt the rhythm
* Force New Conversations/ Create Confidence to Express "Stupid" Opinions
* Follow-through: where's the plan & budget?
* First-hand Frontline (Visceral) Experience
* Dramatic Leadership to Shake Things Up
Well for those of you who read Tom Peters'(and the like), these are nothing new...
..."the hottest U.S. investor" (covered by Fortune some months ago) once said "I don't wait for Morgan Stanley to tell me where the market is moving..." (or something like this, just recall from memory)
Yes I'm simultaneously quoting a valuable McK Qtrly's article and telling you we can't count on big guys like McK for truly inspirational world-changing ideas...
The Wrestler II
About the movie, again. The backstage scenes reminded me of a Fortune article on Meredith Whitney (the Wall Street Analyst who made her name for correctly predicting the banks' losses & writedowns early in the crisis and wife of a professional wrestler) said...
Her insider's view has given her great respect for pro wrestlers' work ethic and their willingness to lay everything on the line as performers, athletes, and stuntmen...
Another eye opener for Whitney has been how gracious most wrestlers are - at least when the cameras aren't rolling - in comparison with the viper-pit culture on Wall Street. It sounds absurd - the world of high finance being less collegial than an industry in which employees belt each other in the face. But based on the time I spent backstage before the Great American Bash, Whitney has a point.
Her insider's view has given her great respect for pro wrestlers' work ethic and their willingness to lay everything on the line as performers, athletes, and stuntmen...
Another eye opener for Whitney has been how gracious most wrestlers are - at least when the cameras aren't rolling - in comparison with the viper-pit culture on Wall Street. It sounds absurd - the world of high finance being less collegial than an industry in which employees belt each other in the face. But based on the time I spent backstage before the Great American Bash, Whitney has a point.
The Wrestler
Watched a movie called The Wrestler. Felt sad. Being the so-called most intelligent creature on earth, somehow, we keep creating within The System/Civilization things that destroy ourselves & our fellows...
I have been talking about "you never know who's going to change your life; & you never know whose life you are going to change"...same thing...we never know how the ocassional disrespect & mean attitude we show (out of bad mood or our mean self) may impact others' lives...
"Treat all people with dignity and respect" thus spoke Coach Wooden.
He said this for a reason.
I have been talking about "you never know who's going to change your life; & you never know whose life you are going to change"...same thing...we never know how the ocassional disrespect & mean attitude we show (out of bad mood or our mean self) may impact others' lives...
"Treat all people with dignity and respect" thus spoke Coach Wooden.
He said this for a reason.
ViSuAl & ASSociAtion & Journey: lessons from world memory champs
(Read the story "How a memory champ's brain works" here)
Background: World Memory Champion Ben Pridmore...10 minutes to memorise seven packs of playing cards and then recite them in orderan hour...an hour for 27 packs - 1,404 cards...Other records...memorising a single pack of cards in 26.28 seconds; memorising in 15 minutes an 819-digit number; memorising in 30 minutes a binary number of 4,140 digits; Dominic O'Brien, eight-time world champion.
so what did they say?
"Think in pictures, because the brain remembers images better than it does anything else,"
Mr Pridmore's suggested strategy for remembering people's names involves picturing them in a scene made up of associations to their names.
“In effect, you are tricking your brain into believing it is experiencing something ”
"Memory is made up of associations...strawberry might prompt thoughts of tennis at Wimbledon, pick-your-own farms and everything but the dictionary definition of a strawberry"
"Think visually....Fill in as many little details as you can..."
"...method of loci...journey technique...imagining a familiar journey, and placing along that route the pictures associated to the information being memorised - a person should then only have to replay the journey to recall the information."
last but not least...
Loci systems, peg systems and number / image systems were taught in schools and academies up until the time the Christians took over Europe and decided that such practices were akin to black magic...
It's no big deal if someone tells you we human beings are not on a one-way progressive path, there are plenty of supporting evidence out there...
Background: World Memory Champion Ben Pridmore...10 minutes to memorise seven packs of playing cards and then recite them in orderan hour...an hour for 27 packs - 1,404 cards...Other records...memorising a single pack of cards in 26.28 seconds; memorising in 15 minutes an 819-digit number; memorising in 30 minutes a binary number of 4,140 digits; Dominic O'Brien, eight-time world champion.
so what did they say?
"Think in pictures, because the brain remembers images better than it does anything else,"
Mr Pridmore's suggested strategy for remembering people's names involves picturing them in a scene made up of associations to their names.
“In effect, you are tricking your brain into believing it is experiencing something ”
"Memory is made up of associations...strawberry might prompt thoughts of tennis at Wimbledon, pick-your-own farms and everything but the dictionary definition of a strawberry"
"Think visually....Fill in as many little details as you can..."
"...method of loci...journey technique...imagining a familiar journey, and placing along that route the pictures associated to the information being memorised - a person should then only have to replay the journey to recall the information."
last but not least...
Loci systems, peg systems and number / image systems were taught in schools and academies up until the time the Christians took over Europe and decided that such practices were akin to black magic...
It's no big deal if someone tells you we human beings are not on a one-way progressive path, there are plenty of supporting evidence out there...
David Kelley
This guy really is an inspiration, even if you are only reading a 3rd-party written article about him...
...we moved from thinking of ourselves as designers to thinking of ourselves as design thinkers...
...creative confidence that, when given a difficult problem, we have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before.
on how thinking about his daughter helped him pull through his fight against cancer...
"At first, you think, 'I don't want to miss her growing up.' That's motivating, but not that motivating," ... ... When you think, I don't want her not to have a father -- then you want to stay alive."
"I really do believe I was put on the planet to help people have creative confidence,"
"I don't have 27 agendas. I'm not the sustainability guy, or the developing-world guy. My contribution is to teach as many people as I can to use both sides of their brain..."
"If the goal is to change the world, the business part changes the world faster."
"Our dent in the universe doesn't mean we have to do all the digging," ... "We empower our clients. We teach them to fish."
Ideo's largesse is in sync with Kelley's mission -- and with his confidence in his own company's ability to reinvent itself.
"I can give our methodology away," he says at a staff meeting on Ideo's future, "because I know we can come up with a better idea tomorrow."
...we moved from thinking of ourselves as designers to thinking of ourselves as design thinkers...
...creative confidence that, when given a difficult problem, we have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before.
on how thinking about his daughter helped him pull through his fight against cancer...
"At first, you think, 'I don't want to miss her growing up.' That's motivating, but not that motivating," ... ... When you think, I don't want her not to have a father -- then you want to stay alive."
"I really do believe I was put on the planet to help people have creative confidence,"
"I don't have 27 agendas. I'm not the sustainability guy, or the developing-world guy. My contribution is to teach as many people as I can to use both sides of their brain..."
"If the goal is to change the world, the business part changes the world faster."
"Our dent in the universe doesn't mean we have to do all the digging," ... "We empower our clients. We teach them to fish."
Ideo's largesse is in sync with Kelley's mission -- and with his confidence in his own company's ability to reinvent itself.
"I can give our methodology away," he says at a staff meeting on Ideo's future, "because I know we can come up with a better idea tomorrow."
Thursday, 9 April 2009
What'd you do in a ****ed-up day?
A ****ed-up day. No illustration needed, you know what it's like.
I just had two.
As a kind of outlet (somehow), I consumed more than needed, it made things worse.
I danced, it didn't really make things better.
I reluctantly turned to things that I should do (from reading/study to house chores to disciplined diet & schedule), it made things better. Somehow.
In retrospect, if you had a ****ed-up day, there's something else I suggest you do...
Tell your spouse/parent/kid/dog, your loved one, you love him/her.
Plus a hug of at least one full minute.
Do it twice.
Then you realize you didn't waste the day, then there's something memory-worthy, something you can be proud of,something your loved one appreciates...
All in a ****ed-up day.
I just had two.
As a kind of outlet (somehow), I consumed more than needed, it made things worse.
I danced, it didn't really make things better.
I reluctantly turned to things that I should do (from reading/study to house chores to disciplined diet & schedule), it made things better. Somehow.
In retrospect, if you had a ****ed-up day, there's something else I suggest you do...
Tell your spouse/parent/kid/dog, your loved one, you love him/her.
Plus a hug of at least one full minute.
Do it twice.
Then you realize you didn't waste the day, then there's something memory-worthy, something you can be proud of,something your loved one appreciates...
All in a ****ed-up day.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Paola Antonelli on Design: a scrapbook post
“design”...the process of making things for other people...
...it maximizes the available means to achieve the most satisfying outcome, and produces culture in the process.
Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life.
They’re able to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and society and convert those changes into objects and ideas that people can understand.
Design is looking for a unified theory — or maybe just for a theory tout court — for, in spite of its permanence and inevitability, it is still a rather unexplored region of human creativity.
The act of making things has forever existed, but it was not always called design...
...design has been paired with more established disciplines, from fine arts and architecture to engineering, or cabinetmaking, even illustration, in order to align it with more traditional categories...
...But design’s field of action, whose breadth is wonderfully articulated by the Italian motto dal cucchiaio alla città (from the spoon to the city)…
...focus on innovation and consider objects as gateways to information and services; as means rather than mere commodities.
A new pack of designers, entrepreneurs, anthropologists, and consultants are working worldwide to bring beauty and common sense not only to the design practice, but also to policymaking, management, and, very simply, to life.
Designers find themselves today at the center of an extraordinary wave of cross-pollination.
...their role as intermediaries between research and production, they often act as the primary interpreters in interdisciplinary teams, called upon not only to conceive objects, but also to devise scenarios and strategies...
To cope with this responsibility, designers need to set the foundations for a theory of design and become astute generalists.
...they will be in a unique position to become the repositories of contemporary culture’s need for analysis and synthesis, society’s new pragmatic intellectuals...
***
the secret to Italian design was that there were no Italian design schools
Design really sucks in all the blood from the other disciplines, so you cannot think that you can learn about design just by learning about art... You have to learn about business, you have to learn about chemistry, about engineering...
...artists can choose whether to work for other human beings and be responsible towards other human beings or not...designers...Even when they’re mean...they still have the progress of mankind in their hearts...
It is truly about making sure that when you put something else on earth, it adds something to the world.
"Design and the Elastic Mind." It’s about the changes in scale, in rhythm, in pace, in resolution that we go through every single day, and the objects of design that help us cope with them...
...help us cope and move from adaptability....to elasticity, which is "adaptability plus acceleration"...about being able to bounce back very fast and not get stressed out, not get stretch marks...
...These two levels - the children and the design community...Which means you have to create an exhibition that is multi-layered, the same product but it has two levels of messages.
...the designer as the intellectual of the future, the ones that teach people how to live fully.
...be able to look at things from far enough to really get perspective
...design is about curiousity, philosophy, synthesis, observation, and perspective. So, truly it’s about rethinking what they do as opposed to just starting to make things.
My idea of fun is to be in a city I don’t know and to be on a bus with a window seat and look out.
It’s really about it being something that comes easy.
I don’t undestand why they feel they need to churn out more money in order to have good design. I don’t understand why they don’t trust their own American design, and feel that they need to get an European name of some sort...
...it maximizes the available means to achieve the most satisfying outcome, and produces culture in the process.
Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life.
They’re able to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and society and convert those changes into objects and ideas that people can understand.
Design is looking for a unified theory — or maybe just for a theory tout court — for, in spite of its permanence and inevitability, it is still a rather unexplored region of human creativity.
The act of making things has forever existed, but it was not always called design...
...design has been paired with more established disciplines, from fine arts and architecture to engineering, or cabinetmaking, even illustration, in order to align it with more traditional categories...
...But design’s field of action, whose breadth is wonderfully articulated by the Italian motto dal cucchiaio alla città (from the spoon to the city)…
...focus on innovation and consider objects as gateways to information and services; as means rather than mere commodities.
A new pack of designers, entrepreneurs, anthropologists, and consultants are working worldwide to bring beauty and common sense not only to the design practice, but also to policymaking, management, and, very simply, to life.
Designers find themselves today at the center of an extraordinary wave of cross-pollination.
...their role as intermediaries between research and production, they often act as the primary interpreters in interdisciplinary teams, called upon not only to conceive objects, but also to devise scenarios and strategies...
To cope with this responsibility, designers need to set the foundations for a theory of design and become astute generalists.
...they will be in a unique position to become the repositories of contemporary culture’s need for analysis and synthesis, society’s new pragmatic intellectuals...
***
the secret to Italian design was that there were no Italian design schools
Design really sucks in all the blood from the other disciplines, so you cannot think that you can learn about design just by learning about art... You have to learn about business, you have to learn about chemistry, about engineering...
...artists can choose whether to work for other human beings and be responsible towards other human beings or not...designers...Even when they’re mean...they still have the progress of mankind in their hearts...
It is truly about making sure that when you put something else on earth, it adds something to the world.
"Design and the Elastic Mind." It’s about the changes in scale, in rhythm, in pace, in resolution that we go through every single day, and the objects of design that help us cope with them...
...help us cope and move from adaptability....to elasticity, which is "adaptability plus acceleration"...about being able to bounce back very fast and not get stressed out, not get stretch marks...
...These two levels - the children and the design community...Which means you have to create an exhibition that is multi-layered, the same product but it has two levels of messages.
...the designer as the intellectual of the future, the ones that teach people how to live fully.
...be able to look at things from far enough to really get perspective
...design is about curiousity, philosophy, synthesis, observation, and perspective. So, truly it’s about rethinking what they do as opposed to just starting to make things.
My idea of fun is to be in a city I don’t know and to be on a bus with a window seat and look out.
It’s really about it being something that comes easy.
I don’t undestand why they feel they need to churn out more money in order to have good design. I don’t understand why they don’t trust their own American design, and feel that they need to get an European name of some sort...
Efficiency = Leverage?
An interesting view I'm still trying to grasp...anyway...an excerpt below for your consideration:
(from Mr. Taleb goes to Washington)
We cannot have both debt leverage and a hyper-efficient system—the volatility is just too great. What Taleb explains—which no one else does—is that efficiency is already a form of leverage. A highly efficient system removes slack and magnifies small changes. Think of the efficient system as a high-performance aircraft. Each minute of steering input creates a rapid and violent shift of course, speed, or altitude. The system itself is souped up even before you add the debt. Once you do, the pilot is equally jacked up and twitchy, creating an explosive combination. Now imagine that fighter jet trying to fly in a 1,000-plane formation, and you get an idea of the world financial system in the 21st century
(from Mr. Taleb goes to Washington)
We cannot have both debt leverage and a hyper-efficient system—the volatility is just too great. What Taleb explains—which no one else does—is that efficiency is already a form of leverage. A highly efficient system removes slack and magnifies small changes. Think of the efficient system as a high-performance aircraft. Each minute of steering input creates a rapid and violent shift of course, speed, or altitude. The system itself is souped up even before you add the debt. Once you do, the pilot is equally jacked up and twitchy, creating an explosive combination. Now imagine that fighter jet trying to fly in a 1,000-plane formation, and you get an idea of the world financial system in the 21st century
lessons: the power of grassroots...
1.
Into its 3rd year, we just witnessed the influence of Earth Hour spread far & wide...this year it was sponsored by WWF...my understanding: it grew big enough to gain the interest of mainstream org. like WWF...
2.
There is a high-school-student-founded NPO in Guangzhou City (southern China) that I respect a lot...initiated by no ex-director/manager of any mainstream NGO or large companies with network of powerful contacts...just a bunch of enthusiastic students who want to make changes happen with their own hands...(allow me to skip the details, i just remember they had a site 'privatebbs'...)...to me these young kids dwarfed many other NGOs that I knew about...those founded by experienced people & with lots of corporate sponsors & sophisticated marketing influence but essentially, very few individuals who are ready to contribute their efforts on the front line...
By the way, they grew influential enough that Asian Animal Fund teamed up with them...
3.
Pass on this blog article, spread the message, help the fight against pneumonia gain momentum...to get the mainstream's attention...like the fight against malaria did in the past few years...
Into its 3rd year, we just witnessed the influence of Earth Hour spread far & wide...this year it was sponsored by WWF...my understanding: it grew big enough to gain the interest of mainstream org. like WWF...
2.
There is a high-school-student-founded NPO in Guangzhou City (southern China) that I respect a lot...initiated by no ex-director/manager of any mainstream NGO or large companies with network of powerful contacts...just a bunch of enthusiastic students who want to make changes happen with their own hands...(allow me to skip the details, i just remember they had a site 'privatebbs'...)...to me these young kids dwarfed many other NGOs that I knew about...those founded by experienced people & with lots of corporate sponsors & sophisticated marketing influence but essentially, very few individuals who are ready to contribute their efforts on the front line...
By the way, they grew influential enough that Asian Animal Fund teamed up with them...
3.
Pass on this blog article, spread the message, help the fight against pneumonia gain momentum...to get the mainstream's attention...like the fight against malaria did in the past few years...
interesting readings about how we think
1. Why we can't count on the experts & experienced in forecasting (read the full article here)?
...the only consistent predictor was fame — and it was an inverse relationship. The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones. That had to do with a fault in the media. Talent bookers for television shows and reporters tended to call up experts who provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites. People who shouted — like, yes, Jim Cramer!
...Hedgehogs tend to have a focused worldview, an ideological leaning, strong convictions; foxes are more cautious, more centrist, more likely to adjust their views, more pragmatic, more prone to self-doubt, more inclined to see complexity and nuance. And it turns out that while foxes don’t give great sound-bites, they are far more likely to get things right.
This was the distinction that mattered most among the forecasters, not whether they had expertise. Over all, the foxes did significantly better, both in areas they knew well and in areas they didn’t.
The conclusion: make a forecaster think like a fox & hold him/her accountable
2. how to make toddlers listen? (read the full article here)
Just remember their little brains react, not plan.
"For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside," Chatham explained. "You might expect the child to plan for the future, think 'OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm.' But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it."
"If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective," Munakata said. "What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don't do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like 'I know you don't want to take your coat now, but when you're standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom."
...the only consistent predictor was fame — and it was an inverse relationship. The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones. That had to do with a fault in the media. Talent bookers for television shows and reporters tended to call up experts who provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites. People who shouted — like, yes, Jim Cramer!
...Hedgehogs tend to have a focused worldview, an ideological leaning, strong convictions; foxes are more cautious, more centrist, more likely to adjust their views, more pragmatic, more prone to self-doubt, more inclined to see complexity and nuance. And it turns out that while foxes don’t give great sound-bites, they are far more likely to get things right.
This was the distinction that mattered most among the forecasters, not whether they had expertise. Over all, the foxes did significantly better, both in areas they knew well and in areas they didn’t.
The conclusion: make a forecaster think like a fox & hold him/her accountable
2. how to make toddlers listen? (read the full article here)
Just remember their little brains react, not plan.
"For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside," Chatham explained. "You might expect the child to plan for the future, think 'OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm.' But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it."
"If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective," Munakata said. "What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don't do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like 'I know you don't want to take your coat now, but when you're standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom."
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