Hiring the most creative people

This is a nice article on how you should go about hiring employees like you for your company.
One point that is repeatedly stressed is: The most creative and enthusiastic people’s prime motivation to join a company is not just money. Money in fact is at the bottom list when compared to other aspects like complete freedom, an avenue to vent out their creativity, an opportunity to be a part of a passionate team with great ideas, work while having fun, etc.


Read here for the 10 reasons why you should join Mind Valley.
The rules are put in such a way; it would be tough to resist their offer.

Steve Paslina: Habit change is like chess

Steve Paslina has an insightful post on how to break habits and create new ones. He compares changing a habit to a game of chess.

There is an early game, where you don’t directly work on the habit in the beginning but set yourself up for the change.

In the middle game, you analyze what you need to successfully go to the end game. Such as researching about people who already made this change, knowing the difficulties you are going to face and preparing alternatives to make it easy.

In the end game you sail through, if you have executed the early game and the middle game perfectly.

Comparing it to my GMAT preparation, I can find some similarities that I implemented.

Long before I started preparing, I read through the experiences of previous exam takers.

Then read through the problems they faced and how confidence plummets in between, how frustration creeps in, etc. Made up my own ways of how I thought I would face all these tides.

In the end game started my preparation based on other’s experiences. Though I faced all the same problems at least I was not taken by surprise.

Read the whole post here.

Guy Kawasaki

"Guy Kawasaki", every technology entrepreneur must have heard his name at least once. He is one of the original Apple employees in 1984. He is a venture capitalist now and a great speaker. Click here to know more about him. This is his blog.

I have read a lot about him and wanted to read his famous book, "The Art of the Start".
Today started watching one of his videos, to actually forget one of the most dreadful chores in an office-going guy's life. Yeah, you have guessed it right, its "ironing clothes". (Just waiting for the day when some genius would invent a portable machine to iron my clothes. )



This video of Guy Kawasaki is one of the best videos for a budding entrepreneur.
Its both incisively informative and humorous. He just throws out pearls of wisdom, one by one in the most simple yet humorous way.

.If you are not into entrepreneurship, you should watch this video to analyze how to make your presentations effective and interesting.
Some of his pearls are:

• His famous 10-20-30 rule for an effective presentation. Your presentation should have less than 10 slides, should be less than 20 minutes and have a font size greater than 30.

• Always ask a woman about your business model. Don't waste time asking men.

• Always hire a person who is more intelligent than you. If your employees hire less intelligent people than you and the cycle repeats down the chain, soon you will see dumb people all around you.

I don't want to spill all his pearls. I'll let you watch the video and have some fun.

Remember, the time spent watching this video would be one of the best things you did since the last time you read a good book.

TED

End of a boring day, you feel an uneasiness in you. Feel that the whole day has passed off, without even having to switch on your brain. All day it was feeding on beautiful babes on VH1 and those larger than life hollywood homes, which try to make you believe that sometimes elephants do fly.

Wanna switch on your CPU(brain) for a bit? Switch off the TV for a moment and watch this video while your having your dinner.

I bet, it would give you something to chew on.. and make you feel a bit better than what you were an hour ago.

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is an annual conference held in California, USA. It defines its mission as "ideas worth spreading". Its lectures cover a broad set of topics: science, arts, design, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology, and entertainment.

For a start, try watching this video:

His product designs are both simplistic and innovative.
In between "Product Design is my new fad.

Viktor Frankl

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself."

Scarcity and its effect

Seth Godin, one of the present day’s marketing gurus, is the author of one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Was reading his blog today and one of his tip, set my thinking bells tinkering.


* “Scarcity creates fashion. People want something that others can't have.” (Refering to iPhone)

Recollected a conversation I had with a friend from Hyderabad a month ago. Presently owning a BMW does not necessarily put you above your social peers. Because it is no more scarce. Audi is the Zing thing now.

It has happened with Benz also. 7 years back, when Mercedes was just entering Hyderabad, owning any model of Benz put you way above your peers. But slowly Merc was not so scarce with every one’s dad(rarely), uncle or at least having a friend whose uncle owned one. (It automatically becomes as good as your uncle owning one ;) )

So how would it be if Mercedes or BMW played the scarcity game and created an aura around their brand??


* “Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the first buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.”


You can read the whole post here.

Business Incubators in India

Came across this interesting video of how Business Incubators are empowering the young guns with nothing but a powerful idea. Kudos to Mr. RMP. Jawahar and his team.

Here is the description of the documentary on TREC-STEP:
Business Incubators help to improve the survival and growth of innovative start-up companies by providing facilities, management advice and support services.

Since 2002, infoDev has supported more than 60 business incubators in over 40 developing companies around the world.

InfoDev is a global grant program managed by the World Bank to promote innovative projects on the use of information and communication technologies.

STEP is a model interface institution, which delivers innovation, science and technology and entrepreneurship through training, development and consultancy initiatives. It was established in 1986 in the sprawling environs of Regional Engineering College, Tiruchirappalli is the first STEP in the country. It has been continually engaged in promoting a new genre of entrepreneurs and many new initiatives for ushering in technology based growth.

World Bank - InfoDev

Protect your idea

IT has happened umpteen times and it still happens again and again. People have great ideas. They are not sure, if the idea is commercially viable. They make a prototype, their well wishers love it as if its the next big idea after Edison's bulb invention. But they are still unsure. They make more models. The models start selling. This phase is so exciting that they forget everything else. They pump in money and start production. The market enamors the product. The sales keep on growing exponentially month after month…!!!! Suddenly they notice a blip in the numbers. They attribute it to some external factor. It repeats the next month and the numbers start plummeting….!!!
What has happened?
They look back and see a blunder!!!
They had not bothered about protecting their idea with a patent. And now, everyone in the market is making one. Now they are back on earth and are no more coasting amongst the clouds.

Like a bike (Kokua) is one such product. A bike without pedals, so that kids can cruise along without having to worry about their balance. Here are some cool pics.

Read the full story here in Financial Times.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done."

Statistics, Correlation and Kids behavior

I wanted to touch base upon a point from Freakonomics.

Was listening to the radio the other day, driving from work. Heard that a study has discovered that there was a high correlation between waking up early in the morning and getting good grades.
This was concluded by saying, early birds achieve good grades. Sounds logical right..!!

But after reading Freakonomics, there is an other way of looking at it.
When you are speaking of correlation, consider this statistic about the cities with most number of cops had the highest crime rate i.e; Washington DC and Denver. If we conclude it by saying that cops are causing all that crime, we've certainly goofed up.
Consider this tale about a Czar who found out that the most people died in the cities with the most doctors and decided to shoot all the doctors to increase the mortality rate.

By now you must have understood the folly in the correlation between early birds and their grades.
Speaking of correlation:
When we see a correlation between X and Y, it could be one of three possibilities:
X causes Y, Y causes X or X and Y are caused by an external factor Z.

So the reason for the higher grades could be any of three possibilities:

1. The students who get up early in the morning to study, get more time to study (X causes Y).
   
2. Actually, the students who are interested in studies tend to get up early in the morning. Obviously these students who are interested in studies are going to have good grades (Y causes X). It could be foolish to wake your son up early in the morning, just expecting his grades to catapult upwards.
   
3. It could be their genes. Studies have shown that a child inherits 50% of his IQ from his parents. (Didn't say which parent, so I am assuming that both the parents are well educated.) So most of the time, the parents may be early birds themselves, which the child eventually imbibes. (External factor Z causes both X and Y)

Digressing here a bit.
It is interesting to read more about how much do parents really affect their kids. Studies show that 50% of the behavior is in the genes itself. Interesting to note a study of the children who were adopted into well educated families. The study found out that the IQ level of the adopted kids was most similar to the IQ level of their biological parents than their adopted parents.

I always wanted to find out a solution to what makes some kids enamor books while others don't. Heard from my sister that a lot of parents read books to their kids at a young age, which helps the kids form a fascination. Believed I had an answer.

Was speaking to my CEO the other day. He has read books for all his kids, while they were growing up. But only 2 of the 5 kids have enamored books. He thinks that it's more in the kid's personality. Its not easy to change that.
Hmmm.... wanna do more research on this, will update you

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Bring the Class to the Masses

Was researching on new product ideas, and in the meantime was reading "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt. Stopped reading just after seeing this line, "DuPont had pulled off the feat that every marketer dreams of: It brought class to the masses.

The background: "In 1939, when DuPont introduced nylons, countless American women felt as if a miracle had been performed in their honor. Until then, stockings were made of silk, and silk was delicate, expensive and in ever shorter supply. By 1941, some sixty-four million pairs of nylon stockings had been sold - more stockings than there were adult women in the United States. They were easily affordable, immensely appealing, practically addictive. "


Further research on DuPont's miracle revealed that, "After the II World War ended the, the demand for nylon stockings grew so exponentially that the demand greatly exceeded supply for the next two years. The shortage led to several riots by impatient women who had stood in line for hours for stockings. Newspapers ran stories with headlines such as "Women Risk Life and Limb in Bitter Battle over Nylons." Nylon became far and away the biggest money-maker in the history of the DuPont company.

The basic business lesson to be learnt is that when you can create a product which brings class to the masses, you are going to revolutionize the market dynamics in your favor.

Looking back at some case studies,
The product that overnight revolutionized the Indian consumer market in 2000 was the Softy ice-cream. It based itself on the same idea of bringing the class to the masses. Pre 2000, quality ice-cream was a class product. Priced at Rs.25, it was a luxury for middle class. Students, middle class and lower middle class couldn't afford it as a regular recreation. It was considered a class product.
And then, the Softy happened. It brought the class product of ice-cream to the masses for just Rs.5. The people loved it and embraced it with frenzy. It brought money to everybody involved, from the equipment manufacturers,distributors, raw material suppliers to the mom-n-pop stores. The idea was such an instant hit, that every mom-n-pop store bought an equipment. My dad also wanted to buy one.
An other example, was the shampoo packaging. Pre 1990, shampoo was a class product. It was sold in bottles and they were expensive. Then the sachet packaging revolution happened. It brought the class shampoo to the masses for just Rs.1 It was a huge deal for the aspirer and the deprived class (Household income less than Rs.200000 per annum) who constituted 90% of the population in 1990. (The Bird of Gold: The Rise of India's Consumer Market. May-2007)
The recent case using the same principles are contact lenses. In 1999, contact lenses catered to the elite class. But starting 2000, competition entering the market and technological breakthroughs saw the prices coming down to meet the masses. And the sales just grew exponentially. (Tried getting solid numbers on this, but the report costs $3950.00. You can try one here.)


In the same breath, I would like to point out the other extreme point.
Any product that can bring class to the masses is going to enjoy huge consumer embracing, as long as it provides the core value of the product, which the consumer expects. It could be quality, reliability, service, etc.
Softy ice creams, provided good quality ice-cream, which was its core value devoid of its frills. The shampoo sachets provided the core value of the shampoo.
But a Chinese motorcycle manufacturer did not enjoy the same success. In 2002, they introduced a 100 CC bike for just Rs.20,000. Surely aimed at bringing the class to the masses, but failed miserably as they could not provide the core value which bike owners expect. It did not provide them reliability and after sales service.

Indian infrastructure hurdles

Read an interesting article in Financial Times on the realistic infrastructure situation in India and the issues which could burst the growth bubble, if not addressed. I've just added the highlights of the report. If interested, you can read the article here.

• India’s infrastructure is stretched close to breaking point.

• In the near term, India’s economic growth is going to hit a speed limit.

• India’s Planning Commission, in its approach paper to the 11th five-year plan, acknowledges the gravity of the problem and calls for infrastructure spending to rise to 8 per cent of GDP in the period 2008-2012 from 4.6 per cent. Link for India's 11th five year plan: http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/11thf.htm
  

• The peak electricity deficit this year rose to an eight-year high of nearly 14 per cent, according to Morgan Stanley, leading to blackouts that forced companies to install costly private back-up systems. This is a huge disadvantage for our manufacturers, trying to compete in price with international producers with good infrastructure.
  

• Mumbai has not added a single new generating plant for more than a decade.

• India has just one per cent of the world’s vehicles but 10 per cent of global road fatalities. This owes to the fact that "The national road-building programme has slowed in the past two years, falling to just over 500km last year from 2,500km in 2005, despite soaring sales of trucks and cars."

• Indian manufacturing, despite pockets of excellence, is on the whole struggling to become competitive: India’s share of global goods exports stood at just 1.2 per cent in 2005, compared with China’s 9.9 per cent.

• Small and medium-sized businesses, which generate the bulk of new jobs in any economy, are suffering most from the lack of high-quality public infrastructure. Unless this is resolved, economists warn that India’s demographics – half the population is under the age of 25 and 40 per cent under the age of 18 – will prove a liability rather than an advantage.

• With India’s working age population set to increase by 71m to reach 762m in the next five years, the Asian Development Bank has warned that the country faces a potential employment crisis.

• As the telecoms and aviation sectors show, where private capital and management disciplines have been introduced, the results have been remarkable. It has become one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world.

• Poor infrastructure is India’s Achilles heel. But it is also the area that is receiving the most attention from policymakers and one that offers significant opportunities to private investors, both domestic and foreign.

Unless the infrastructure issue is placed high up in the priority list for the government at the expense of short term fall in GDP, many of our advantages like young population and huge size of domestic consumption could turn into a bane rather than a boon.

Leadership

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
~Colin Pow

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.

Henry Ford