Tag Archives: business thinking

October 1, 2013 · 9:50 am

Any Road

TunesDay, and today it’s one from my favorite Beatle, George Harrison. I was reminded of this song the other day (listening to Further’s version of it) and I knew instantly it was something for today on the screed.  The song is “Any Road” which was written in the late 1980’s but not released until 2003 after George’s early passing in 2001. In case you’re not familiar with it, have a listen:

This one speaks to me both on a personal level as well as to me as someone who works with businesses.  Let’s see if it does to you as well.

But oooeeee it’s a game
Sometimes you’re cool, sometimes you’re lame
Ah yeah it’s somewhere
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there

That’s sort of it on a personal level.  We all have our ups and downs and probably need to focus more on the journey than on the destination.  I went through school knowing I’d be a high school English teacher.  40 years later, I’m a teacher of a very different sort.  I wasn’t quite sure where I was going (and I’m still a trifle confused) but I’m very happy about the road that took me here.

But oh Lord we pay the price
With the spin of the wheel with the roll of  the dice
Ah yeah, you pay your fare
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there

Thinking about that with respect to business, my immediate response was  “well, that won’t work – businesses need far more focus.”  Then I thought of all the great businesses and products that were born out of not knowing where they were going.  The microwave oven, the Post-It note, penicillin, Teflon, the Slinky and others were all accidents.  The inventors didn’t quite know where they were going but the road took them there.  Today we call it “pivoting” but I like George’s notion of it better.

Maybe that’s the point of the song.  Staying calm and focused despite a sense of not exactly knowing where the journey ends is a far better idea than a stubborn adherence to something that might not be working.  Open minds about destinations can erase doubts since the doubts surface when we’re thinking we’re lost.

What’s your take?

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September 23, 2013 · 10:11 am

Crazy

I like crazy.  Not in the clinical sense since that’s kind of disturbing once you’ve seen it.  I like crazy in a couple of the other senses of the word and I think craziness is actually a desirable characteristic in most businesses.  You might think I’m encouraging strange behavior and wild rants.  I’m not, unless “strange behavior” encompasses pushing back against the status quo.

The Jetson family (clockwise from upper left) ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First, I think our goal in business is to get our customers to be “crazy” about our brands.  That might sound easy but if so, why don’t we see more brands with fan bases as engaged and passionate as that of, say, Apple?  The newest iPhones went on sale to so-so reviews and yet there are lines to buy them.  Apple fans are so crazy for the brand that competitors make commercials about it.   That’s the kind of crazy we want.

Second, most of us are very afraid of the crazy idea.  We use crazy as a pejorative.  That’s…crazy!  All great ideas began as someone’s crazy concept.  Put a human on the moon.  Humans flying.  Driverless cars.  When I was  kid watching the Jetsons, that was all just someone’s crazy imagination.  Today, it’s reality for the most part.  What slows us down as businesses is resistance to the crazy idea, not the idea itself.  Look at the what the music business went through as digital emerged.  Had they embraced the crazy idea of separating songs from albums and distributing the product digitally they would have prevented years of piracy, the need to sue their customers (now THAT’S crazy), and lost revenues.

Finally, there are the offshoots of crazy – crazy like a fox – or crazy as a word to add positive emphasis – crazy smart.  Personally, I’m a fan of what others might call “crazy talk” – what Steve Jobs was referring to when he talked about those who push the human race forward.   “While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

So call me crazy, but I’m with him.  You?

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September 20, 2013 · 8:35 am

Skirt Steak

It’s Foodie Friday and I want to blog a bit about skirt steak.

English: uploaded for an infobox

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m a big fan of it and have been for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I remember when it was hard to find because it was so inexpensive and so underused that most butchers put it in with the trimmings from other cuts to make ground beef. Then again, many of them took the skirt steak home for supper which is how it came to be known as a butcher’s cut. Other steaks of which you might be aware – the hanger steak, the tri-tip, and flap meat (which they sell as sirloin tip here) used to be hard to find and very inexpensive.

Then the fajita craze hit. Skirt steak – the best cut of meat for fajitas – became more in demand.  What was once a downright cheap, delicious protein became as expensive as all but the high-end steaks such as porterhouse and rib eye.  While it remains so, one other thing has happened.  There are two parts to the part of the steer that’s skirt steak (the plate).  One (the outside plate) was rarely sold since it’s chewier and less tasty.  With the increase in demand, suddenly stores would have sales of skirt that was the lesser cut, confusing consumers and offering a lesser experience.  Consumers moved on.

It’s happened with fish too, as we can see with the monkfish.  Once a “trash fish” and known as the poor man’s lobster, it grew popular because it was tasty and inexpensive.  That led to it becoming very expensive and overfished.  In some cases, other fish were sold as monk that weren’t.  Consumers moved on.

The business point is pretty simple.  People are drawn to high-quality, low-cost products, whether they’re proteins or electronics or services.  The ebb and flow of the market will make some price increases happen and demand will support that up to a point.  What the market won’t support is a changed, lesser product or a price point that makes other products viable options.  I’d rather eat a porterhouse that’s on sale for what it costs for skirt, as an example.

We need to be cognizant of why people came to our products in the first place and not undercut those fundamental reasons.  That’s business suicide.  Thoughts?

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