OK so there is this dude from Silicon Valley called Guy Kawasaki and he worked with Steve Jobs. It's almost an embarrassing business cliche to talk about Apple but I have just spent 40 mins watching this Youtube video so to save you time I will write out the 12 things he learned from his chum and then add my own notes (maybe skip those to save time). Or you could watch him here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR_wX0EwOMM&list=PLSj6wd-HGGyW6uslb4kSzpxQheY22Ee6c
but it is long......so he says;
1. Don't listen to experts!
So the guy...actually he is called Guy, I have been listening to an American accent so I am thinking in American....anyhoo he says in his example that if someone says that they are a social media expert then keep away from them.
When I had my sights on being a dotcom grillionaire I went to Channel 4's start-up fund to ask for money. 4IP was looking at digital start-ups. We went to them with Doosport our social networking site for sport. What pees me off now is that on second...or third meeting....we spent an hour arguing with this digital investment expert, not about Doosport but about social media and about Facebook and whether Facebook made any money or would ever be worth much. I have since called the chap a cnut on his Twitter page. Experts are followers.
2. Customers cannot tell you what they need
Guy talks about phones and operating Systems and mice and all sorts of stuff but this is an old message from Henry Ford - "If I had asked customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses".
I like this one. I'm working as a Business Analyst and people tell me what they think they need all the time. The difficult thing is to actually get them to think of what they are trying to achieve and why, rather than what they are currently doing.........and even then they say something related to their current way of operating......worst of all your department will want to play safe and build what they asked for.
3. Biggest Challenges Beget the Best Work
It certainly hasn't always worked but my best chat up lines were presented to the best looking women. Actually I can't think of anything to back that up.......come back on that one.
4. Design Counts
It really does....I don't know where to begin with this one because it really does count. People don't like working with crap software that looks ugly. Yes it might work but humans need more to engage their motivation and energy. I have seen so much in-house functional software that works but just renders the human operator a functioning cabbage. When you are next at a garage lean over and look at the poor guys computer screen.
5. Use Big graphics and Big Fonts
People feel safer when they deliver a word count but people just don't read long documents. The irony of this statement amongst this wordy drivel is not lost on me.
6. Jump Curves
This was stuff about jumping to another curve rather than moving up it....stuff about ice factories and fridges...........example of Autotrader comes to mind, maybe relevant. I used to work for a TV company and everyone in TV land wanted, and still wants to protect their old business model. Newspapers are similar and they are struggling. The internet looms large. Autotrader was just a publication (every 2 weeks I think), they jumped right into the internet and now just look at how many car ads they have on their website at about 40 quid a throw to the customer.....actually let me see....they have 380,020 cars on there. The internet helps you to jump curves.
7. Something works or it doesn't work
This is so awesomely ignored in the workplace, probably because it is such a fundamental question that your mind moves past it to more trivial considerations! Guy talks about open source or closed, you can believe in anything at the time but if it works that is the important thing. It's worth checking that the stuff you have running works too.
8. Make something 'unique' and 'valuable'
If your offering is not unique then you will at some point have to compete on price, and you don't want that. If your offering is not valuable then....er
9. 'Value' is different from 'Price'
Basic Marketing. Sometimes takes customers a while to get this one too! But they get there.
10. 'B' players hire 'C' players - Avoid the bozo explosion! Hire people better than you
Congratulations to my boss.
11. Real CEO's can demo their product
It's fun to demo your product if you understand it, and if you don't understand it why are you there? Watch Dragons Den and once you get over wanting to Tazer the dragons you will notice that the presentations that are the best are where there is a strong affinity with the person and the idea rather than just a polished performance.
12. Real Entrepreneurs Ship!
Here he is saying get it out there! Your first version will not be the best but get it out there, get it working and learn from it.........there are always people who will give you reasons to delay something.
Thanks for reading!
As my 12 year old son said to me yesterday "you could work anywhere on your salary"
No comments:
Post a Comment