Tag Archives: business thinking

July 23, 2012 · 11:27 am

The DC-6 Of Digital

I had a long conversation with someone oer the weekend about the Internet and how an entire economy has grown up around it.

English: A Douglas DC-6B of Balair at Basle Ai...

English: A Douglas DC-6B of Balair at Basle Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Think about all of the jobs and businesses that didn’t exist in 1995.  SEO manager (or firm)?  Social Media Expert (or software)?  Web designers – it’s a long list.  Many of the companies with the highest valuations owe much of that value either directly or indirectly to the Internet.  If this was a blog about politics I could go off here on a tangent about government investment (the digital economy owes a lot to the government both in terms of the space program and DARPA) but I’ll leave that for another time.  Instead, I want to take the rest of today’s screed to remind about the Wright Brothers.

In the early days of flight there were lots of crashes and air travel was not for everyone. It took roughly 25 years before the DC-3 made it a broad business and until after World War II and the introduction of several airplanes based on bombers that flying was for the masses.  That brought about changes in tourism and other businesses.  The world became a much smaller place. The early crashes were not forgotten but they were seen as key learning opportunities, not just failures.

The DC-6 was disruptive. It affected steamship and rail travel and both businesses took a hit from which they really haven’t recovered (do you know anyone who’s used a cruise ship to take a business trip?).  I’ve been asking myself what is the DC-6 of digital? We’ve gone from an environment of text to graphics to rich media to video to social. It’s become more mainstream for consumers and it’s getting there for businesses.  Devices are becoming smaller, more personal (even wearable).  I still think we’ve yet to see the thing that changes it all.

Businesses – and marketing of those businesses in particular – don’t like to take massive chances.  In hindsight, it seems hedging your bet when it comes to new technology is not really “playing it safe.”   When the digital DC-6 takes off, we all want to be on it.

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July 20, 2012 · 10:35 am

Chopped

I went to make dinner the other night and was scouring the refrigerator for inspiration.

Chopped (TV series)

Chopped (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eggplant, chicken thighs, some leftover San Marzano tomatoes were what greeted me. What would you have made? I did a chicken/eggplant curry – it took all of 25 minutes and was delicious. I thought about that as a topic for our Foodie Friday Fun and was reminded again about it as I watched “Chopped” on the Food Network. That show is a cooking competition where the chefs are given a basket of ingredients and told to make something using all the ingredients in the basket, generally in 30 minutes or less. The twist is that there’s always something in the basket that doesn’t go with everything else – flounder, lemons, capers, and olive loaf, for example. Perfect for business thinking, right?

The key to being successful in this sort of improvisational cooking is to step back and think more broadly – and very differently – about the ingredients.  Olive loaf as a seasoning, for example, and not as a protein.  It’s how successful companies think about their businesses.   The iPhone wasn’t thought about as a phone per se but as a communication device with the Internet as an important form of communication.  I suspect it was thought of in an even more broadly way – a handheld computer with voice connectivity, perhaps.

We live in a non-linear world these days.  Thinking in straight lines may move us forward but it may mean we’re missing some fantastic opportunities.  You might think of your company as being in the tech business.  Maybe you need to focus on being in a solutions business.  How does that change how your technology performs or is designed?  The folks in sports realize they’re in the entertainment business – that opens up many new challenges but a ton of new opportunities.

I like Chopped.  Improvising solutions under pressure with seemingly incompatible ingredients is what business today is all about.  It’s inspirational to me.  You?

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July 17, 2012 · 9:26 am

The 4’7″ Door

We’ve done a bit of work around Rancho Deluxe over the years, including turning an attic into a master bedroom suite many years ago.

Grand View Ship Hotel "castle" bluep...

(Photo credit: brianbutko)

We hired a local architect to design it and due to our budget constraints he asked if we’d mind letting a young associate turn his designs into the actual plans. He assured us that the kid was certified and knew what he was doing.

Fast forward to the construction. One afternoon as the framing took shape, our contractor asked us why we wanted a door that was less than 5 feet high. Not being sure which door he meant, he pointed to an area and said “that one.” It was the main door in and out of the room. He made adjustments to the plans and we’ve lived in the space ever since.

I raise this today because you might every well be in a similar situation.  Think about how many times you hire a contractor  – coders, accountants, lawyers, consulting project managers, etc. – to build what others have designed.  Or ask yourself how often you give an employee instructions on what you what them to do.  The bad ones do just that – they execute the instructions they’re given.  You get exactly what the plans called for, even if the plans were screwed up.  The good ones think as they go – they ask why you want a short door.  You get a product free of errors and that’s a slight improvement on what might have been planned originally.

The great ones figure out what you ‘re trying to accomplish and tell you how to get there faster, more cheaply, and with a better result than might be in the plans.  Not only do they see the short door but they think about the door in the context of the traffic flow through the house and the room and point out options you might not have considered.  Those are the contractors (and employees) you need to hire, since the best laid plans might just have doors that don’t suit you needs.

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