Porcupine X

Took a combined shopping and photo trip to Malmø in Sweden. Only used 500 Swedish Kroner (app. 65USD) and didn’t really catch any good pictures but besides that it was a pretty good trip

Here is a couple of shoots to get you in the the Malmø mood!?

George F. Colony (founder and CEO of Forrester Research) blogs about how he thinks the recession will affect the IT/Tech industry.

His five bullets:

1. Tech will be down, but not out.
2. Transformation and innovation will lead recovery.
3. Tech is everywhere.
4. Customers live on tech.
5. Tech issues are burning.

His conclusion:

Tech suffers when GDP growth stalls — that is always the case. But the tech environment has transitioned since the 2001-2002 hurricane — meaning that this time around will not be as severe.

Read the interesting article at http://blogs.forrester.com/colony/2008/10/my-take-on-the.html

In the book ‘The contrarian effect’ Michael Port and Elizabeth Marshall writes about why It Pays (Big) to Take Typical Sales Advice and Do the Opposite.

The typical old sales tactics we’re all familiar with no longer work. Cold calling gets you nowhere, door-to-door selling is a nonstarter, and today’s consumers are too savvy for most traditional scripts and closing techniques. With those tactics, it takes more time and effort to reach fewer and fewer clients. If you’re still doing it the old-fashioned way, you’re probably barely keeping your career afloat.

High technology and instant communication have put customers firmly in control of the sales process. They don’t answer calls from unknown numbers; they demand honesty and transparency in the sales process; they are well informed about your product before they deal with you; and they have no patience for pressure tactics like closing questions. No wonder traditional sales methods no longer work.

The book ends with a contrarian primer with 9 ‘rules’ here are 4 of them:

1. Build relationships and make connections.

   Each potential customer is a human just like you. He is not a ‘prospect’, a ‘commodity, a ‘potential sale’, etc. Seek to understand their needs and make a sincere effort to connect with the person.

2. Respect your customers and honor their wishes.

3. Make relevant and timely offers.

   When you listen to your target audience and understand their needs - you know what they want to buy and know what you sell - make the ends meet.

4. Practice radical transparency.

   Be honest!


Book idea! It could be fun to mix the contrarian approach with the ‘old school’ sales books like ‘Advanced Selling Strategies’ (Brian Tracy):

• Wear dark cloth (dark blue/black) vs. funky green t-shirt with the slogan ‘Anti Mistadobalina Mr. Bob Dobalina’
• No facial hair (hints that you want to hide something) vs. grow a beard like Santa Clause everyone need to believe in him with the bad stock market.
• …

"The man who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before."

Albert Einstein

The law of unintended consequences states that any purposeful action will produce at least one unintended consequences. This is not a scientific law but I have a hard time finding actions that do not have a unintended consequence.

Robert K. Merton listed five possible causes of unintented consequences:

1. Ignorance (It is impossible to anticipate everything, thereby leading to incomplete analysis)
2. Error (Incorrect analysis of the problem or following habits that worked in the past but may not apply to the current situation)
3. Immediate interest, which may override long-term interests
4. Basic values may require or prohibit certain actions even if the long-term result might be unfavorable (these long-term consequences may eventually cause changes in basic values)
5. Self-defeating prophecy (Fear of some consequence drives people to find solutions before the problem occurs, thus the non-occurrence of the problem is unanticipated)

An example:

In 1990, the State of Victoria (Australia) made safety helmets mandatory for all bicycle riders. Together with a reduction in the absolute number of head injuries, there was also an unexpected reduction in the number of juvenile cyclists. Research by Vulcan et al. found that the reduction in juvenile cyclists was because the youths considered wearing a bicycle helmet unfashionable.

Try to think about the actions you have executed in the last 24 hours and what unintended consequence(s) you (could) have created

Lars Pind at coachtvblog.com made this nice video about goals. It is called “Why buddhists don’t vacuum their corners”:

He refers to the Steve Jobs video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc.