Check out the following article “Economic Theory and IT” at “Pivot Point”.
It’s a nice comparison between the old ways in the Soviet Union and the reluctance to change within our current IT market.
Karim Vaes
Random thoughts on various topics
Filed under Insightful …
Accept every offer!
A while back Garr Reynolds posted an article about the “Tips for creative success from Pixar“.
An interesting quote from this article is the following statement :
Accept every offer. Don’t judge it, you’ll stop it. It becomes a dead end if you judge it, but unlimited possibilities if you go with it.
To be honest, when being a junior engineer, you accept a lot more tasks without judging it. It’s a zen saying that one must approach things with the child’s mind. So approach it without judgement. Creativity & openness is something we have to maintain, as it’s something we loss over the year due to our prejudices & the context we’re accustomed too.
The teachings of Budo in Business
Source of inspiration : Wisdom from the principles of BudÅ: Lessons for work & life
The article from Garr states that the teachings of Budo are based upon the following pillars :
- The Three Prohibitions
- (1) To give up
- (2) To misbehave
- (3) To be clumsy
- The Three Joys
- (1) Vicissitude (change)
- (2) Honesty
- (3) Skillfulness
- The Three Evils
- (1) Fear
- (2) Doubt
- (3) Confusion
When going through this list, one can see that these points are also valuable for any business.
Drive!
After “What drives motivation?“, check “Drive” from Dan Pink!
You think your business has it rough?
Macworld features an article called “Ten business lessons from ‘Battlestar Galactica’”
A summary
- 1. Tech isn’t always the answer. : Totally agree… IT-ers tend to always go for a tech solution where a human solution might suffice!
- 2. Don’t neglect training. : I guess nobody will disagree here, but companies often don’t see the hidden cost of neglecting to do so.
- 3. Some things can’t be outsourced. : I’ll repeat it again; Outsourcing is good, but don’t do it on stategical areas!
- 4. Update your antivirus. : Personally I’d like to see this one renamed to “keep your organization up-to-date”
- 5. Democracy doesn’t always work. : A simple Project Management lesson; It’s a democracy until the scope is set, then it’s dictatorship!
- 6. Some problems can’t be killed. : Indeed, not all problems can be killed, just learn to cope with them.
- 7. Seek strategic alliances with competitors. : So true! Being a stategic game fan, I found that alliances either make or break any outcome of a game. The numerous time I’ve “won”, is always due to making (and breaking!) stategic alliances.
- 8. Don’t store all your backups in one place. : Better renamed to “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.
- 9. The mission can change at any time. : A bit like 4., the world keeps evolving, incorporate that in your strategy.
- 10. Beware of visionaries. Zealots make bad leaders. – Awh, crap, that’d be against me…
Business modelling in lesser times…
A lot of business models are known:
- Brokerage
- Advertising
- Infomediary
- Merchant
- Manufacturer (Direct)
- Affiliate
- Community
- Subscription
- Utility
Yet you still have to get to the point where you can say… this is it! That’s where Alexander Osterwalder has created a good method to define your business model.
Slideshare Slideset
Out Cold
Even the best of us get sick sometimes… and so do I! Yet this post isn’t for pitty sake but to share a bit of knowledge I did not know before. The term “common cold” doesn’t have the “cold” as a cause. Neither heat or cold makes you get a “common cold“, but it’s a pure viral infection. The reason why it’s called this way, is because people tend to stay more inside during colder weather. This increases the infection rate as people are crowded into “small spaces”.
The 3 kinds of free models
Logic+Emotion featured an article called Visualizing Chris Anderson’s “Free” Model.
- Free 1 : Kinda like the concept often used by Telecom operators. Buy a subscription and get the mobile phone for free. (Too bad this concept isn’t allowed by law in Belgium…. “Koppelverkoop”)
- Free 2 : The concept where the whole web 2.0 is running towards… Offer something for free to your community, but let an external party pay for their “subscription” by means of advertising.
- Free 3 : Shareware meets web 2.0… Get a limited version for free, but pay for the premium version.
You might also want to read the original article…
