This is it! 2009 is almost over. I remember I wondered this time last year, how the hell am I going to beat 2008!? After all, not every year one gets to meet Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, wins in a business plan contest and gets a job at Apple’s flagship retail store. How was 2009 then? Hit “Read more” for the highlights.
Often these days I hear people say that companies exploit us by introducing products that we don’t need, creating the culture of consumerism. It makes sense, but is it really so?
The definition of marketing is something along the lines of “identifying consumer needs and creating solutions to them in a profitable way”, the key word being “identifying”. You see, on the individual basis we don’t know as much as companies do. These companies commit huge resources to consumer research and so by default must know more than each of us does. With so much information at hand, they will be in a much better position to understand and see through our collective thoughts, while we have only our own heads, with their limited “processing power”. Caught up in the struggles of daily life, we simply have no time to analyse every single issue that comes in our way. What follows is that we often have a need but simply don’t realise that it’s there. Businesses on the other hand have the advantage of looking at us from the distance, in the sort of big picture way. It should then not come as a surprise that they know things before each of us does. And this is where all the confusion comes from: we don’t realise any of that, and so when companies bring out new products, it appears that they do it out of nowhere and then make us buy it.
Now, with that said, the real question is not whether we need those products, because we obviously do. The real question is, whether we really need to lead that sort of lifestyle that makes us want all those things. Hmmmm...... this is getting deeper and deeper!
Last week at university we did the Markstrat Online simulation. It is a game in which you have to manage a company, competing with other students. While usually it is played from home, at Erasmus we had designated class time to play it. This made a very social experience and so I really enjoyed it.
Working in a good team is fun
It was so much fun to do this exercise. I liked the competitive thrill of it, as with each round we were eagerly waiting to find out the results, comparing them with others soon afterwards, and jumping straight to work to come out on top next time. I must say the whole experience wouldn’t be the same had it not been for the awesome group members I was lucky to work with. I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them, and I know that one day they are really going to be some of the best in our field.
Best teammates ever: Jorien, Alex and Erik.
Three takeaway points
Three things I learnt from the simulation:
Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. This is the most important element of success. If you cannot work together, you will work against one another.
Clarity, consistency and concentration. In business (and in life as well, actually) you have to have a clear vision, it will greatly help you with decision making, steering you in the right direction. Once you identified what is it that you want to do, stay with it, this is the only way to master it. Then, do not branch out too quickly, rather concentrate - remember that your resources are limited, so set off to achieve the second objective only when you do not have to significantly sacrifice the first one.
Watch out for competition. Never neglect the competition, keep your moves secret (be humble), outmaneuver them before they outmaneuver you, and mercilessly exploit their every mistakes and weaknesses.
So how did we do eventually? We won!!!! And what a joy it was to celebrate our first place in the industry with my teammates! It was a truly awesome experience!!!
Just came across this quote by NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. I totally love the cockiness behind it and just had to share it:
Apple uses the best technology for their [computers]. Apple says to their customers: if you buy a computer from us you can be sure we have selected the best technology inside for you. That is their promise to consumers. Their promise to consumers isn't we've selected the best technology for you with the exception of what Intel allows us to use. That's not their promise. And that's why Apple uses the best technology where they want whenever they want. And that's why I'm all Apple! At home it's just Macs everywhere. It's NVIDIA's technology in all of them but I use Macs. My son has two Macs, my daughter has a Mac, there's an extra Mac just in case and my wife has a Mac. It's just Mac, Mac, Mac! Because I know it's got the best stuff inside.*
Aside of the cockiness, this is such a powerful statement about the Apple's marketing. What Mr. Huang is saying is that Apple simply provide the consumer with the best solution possible with no compromises made. Consequently, Apple simplify the decision making process for consumers by removing the issue of hardware from their considerations. This is so crucial because most consumers will not be proficient enough to make these considerations themselves. As a result, Apple provide consumers with what they really want - a computing platform tailored to their needs. Doing this naturally creates an impression that Apple respect their customers. And this is the approach to business that I respect the most.
Last Monday I went to the Entrepreneurship Seminar organised at my university and it was great. Really, it was so inspiring that I am still so energised it feels I could run a marathon!
A nice surprise
What happened then? Basically, a bunch of entrepreneurs showed up and each gave a little speech followed by a Q&A session. I didn’t expect much to be honest. Just a few businessmen with some bits and pieces of advice on how to succeed in the world of commerce. But to my surprise what I witnessed was an outpouring of enthusiasm, unbeatable spirits, and such tremendous passion that soon I was completely overwhelmed by what I was seeing and hearing. After just a few moments I was sitting there listening, fiercely writing things down, putting them out on Twitter and thinking about what questions to ask at the same time. Totally loved it.
Interviewing Rob Heilbron, co-founder of O’Neill
Live your life to the fullest
While there was a multitude of things I learnt, the overall lesson was that to live life to the fullest you have to really go for it, try things out and constantly challenge yourself. Of course it is not always easy to do just that (humans are overwhelmingly creatures of habit), but perhaps the key to it all is not to be afraid of failure - “every failure brings you one step closer to success” - said Kevin Eyres, CEO of LinkedIn Europe. Once we accept failure as a natural part of life then it is not that big of a deal to fail anymore. In this context each failure can be a valuable lesson for the future. When you understand your mistakes, the next time you have an opportunity comes along, chances are you will not screw it up again.
With that said I feel much better equipped to drive through my fears now and to take the opportunities in life when they come along, to be the entrepreneur of my own life! Hope that after reading this, it will be similar for you as well!
One million times I’ve seen ads proudly boasting about proven formulas and guaranteed results. So naturally, when I saw the cover page of the book Advanced Selling Strategies by Brian Tracy I was little sceptic when I read “The proven system of sales ideas, methods and techniques used by top salespeople everywhere” written on the front cover. But there was another thing that caught my attention, too — a perfect five star rating on Amazon! Interesting, I thought, and soon afterwards I was filling in my credit card details...
July has been an amazing month. First and foremost, I got accepted to do a master’s programme in business administration at Rotterdam School of Management. I am very proud of this result because RSM is one of the best institutes of its kind in Europe. I booked my ticket just a few days ago and will be going back to The Netherlands on the 25th of August.
It is very sad to leave London. After almost four years here it feels like this is home. I am not sad though! Studying in Rotterdam will be yet another amazing experience: rich, colourful and full of flavour. I am especially excited about meeting my fellow students, working and having fun together. Something is telling me I will meet some very special people there.
Today we got the new iPhone 3.0 firmware. The new features are really helpful, the phone's usability being improved substantially. My favourites are: the landscape keyboard, notes sync, and the spotlight search.
Now the update is here, it makes me wonder what will the next generation of the software look like? It seems that with every update the iPhone OS more and more resembles desktop operating systems. Well, time will tell.
In related news, we are launching the iPhone 3G the 'S' this Friday and I will be working on Regent Street. Wonder how crazy is it going to be? Should be fun anyway.
Apple brings copy and paste to the iPhone
In UNrelated news
Meanwhile, in unrelated news I'm preparing (or at least I wish I was) for the GMAT test. For those who don't know, it is a test to get onto an MBA programme. It is difficult, mainly because the questions are VERY tricky.
Why I am doing this? Yes, you guessed it, I am applying for an MBA! I chose Rotterdam School of Management, one of the most reputable business schools on the Continent and hope they will reciprocate and choose me. The GMAT is the final step in getting my application ready and so I am really looking forward to having it done. The requirement is a minimum of 600 out of 800 points, which seems reasonable, especially when looking at the requirements of some American schools - usually in high 700s! Hold your horses though, I have seen quite a bunch of really intelligent people getting it wrong for the first time. Anyway, the test is going to take place on Tuesday and then all will be clear; now, I'm going to sleep.
It’s finals time. My course at university is drawing to a close, and I must say it is tough. Had two exams already - Managing Business Organisations and Business Strategy - and, well, what can I say, we’ll see.
What’s left? Here is the list:
International Marketing - 29 April
Social Organisations of Organisations - 1 May
International Trade and Finance Law - 7 May
Marketing Communications - 11 May
Consumer Behaviour for Marketing - 12 May
Approaches to E-business - 14 May
When I first realised I am going to have 8 exams I was like ‘!@£$%^*’!!! Now, after having sat two most difficult ones I am trying to have fun with it, I mean this is my topic area after all. Well, we’ll see how it goes.
Favourite pastime: books
Meanwhile I finished the Warren Buffett book. I am a fan, that’s all I am going to say at this stage.
Now I’m reading 'Napoleon: The Path to Power' by an Australian author Philip Dwyer, one of the two books (along with De Oratore by Cicero) I didn’t manage to complete last summer (in large part courtesy to the massive Buffett biography). So far it is an amazing read. I mean Napoleon is such a fascinating character, you have to love him.
Napoleon: Path to Power Philip Dwyer
Jogging along the Thames
What else? I haven't been to the gym for like a month now, in stead I started jogging along the Thames. I do that whenever I can and I must say it is way more relaxing and a fun thing to do than going to the gym. I miss Soho Gyms, though.
In this post I want to share my experience in conducting an experiment for the Social Psychology of Organisations class that I took last semester. Together with four friends at Westminster Business School we attempted to measure conformity among fellow students.
We chose to research conformity because we thought of the huge role it plays in our daily lives. Just think about it, how many times have you dressed, ordered something to eat or drink, or said something only because you wanted to match the environment? We definitely saw it in our behaviour and wanted some answers.
What is conformity?
Kiesler & Kiesler (1970) define conformity as ‘change in behaviour or belief toward a group as a result of real or imagined group pressure.’ It is a type of social influence and is one of the underlying features of human psychology and a basic fact of social life.
As indicated in the definition above, the fundamental aspect of conformity is the notion of group pressure. Defined by Kiesler & Kiesler as the ‘psychological force upon a person to fulfil other’s expectations of him’ it is a process by which a group attempts to exert influence over an individual.
Where does the pressure come from? Broadly speaking, the pressure to conform stems from various social norms, the rules of how every individual ought to behave in the society. These do not necessary have to be explicit - consider such customs as leaving a tip in a restaurant or arriving just a little bit late to a party.
Not all conform: Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso
According to Baron et al., we conform to social pressures predominantly because of our desire to be liked and accepted by others and our need to be correct. Respectively, these are known as the normative and informational social influences.
Experiment
Our experiment was fairly simple. We were going to invite, one by one, ten unsuspecting students to take two tests, each consisting of eighteen questions. They would have to do it alongside four of the members of our group (pretending that they, too, were genuinely taking part in the study), all seated in one room, facing the moderator (fifth member of our group) who was going to ask them questions. These were to be answered out loud and in turns, by everyone.
Test 1 required open answers, whereas test 2 was “true or false”. While test 1 questions were varying in the level of difficulty a bit, e.g. “What is the biggest country on Earth in terms of population”? or “What is Chaplin’s first name”?, test 2 questions were plainly trivial, e.g. ‘Pyramids are located in Morroco, true or false’? We did this 10 times.
Now the trick was that in each of the ten sessions, the four of us who were pretending to be participants would provide unanimous answers to every question asked. More so, our answers would most of the time be incorrect – sometimes appearing to be simple mistakes but very often strikingly wrong! We hypothesised that the subjects would nevertheless go along with the group’s wrong answers. In other words, they would conform to the group!
Results
Honestly, we did not really expect amazing results, especially considering the informal nature of the study. It was hard for us to believe that people could say something they knew was incorrect. We were soon to prove wrong!
The first session kicked off, and a couple of questions passed without any signs of success. We felt kind of strange to say such nonsense like ‘It was Warner Brothers who invented Donald Duck’ or that ‘Australia is a former Canadian colony’. But what was our surprise when suddenly we had our participant agreeing to it! Overall results were pretty dramatic, as 9 out of 10 unsuspecting students yielded to group pressure and went along with our plainly wrong answers at least once.
Check out this short clip with some examples. Bare in mind that our subjects are always seated on the second seat from right.
After each session we interviewed our subjects and it was incredible to see how the theory matched practice. Students that conformed the most stated that it felt strange to say something different and that they did not want to step up to the front of the line.
Order! Order!
Conformity can be trouble. An interesting quote illustrates this:
“More crimes are done in the name of obedience than in the name of disobedience. It isn’t the rebel, the disobedient, the deviant or the maverick who is a threat to society - the real threat is the mindless masses who follow any authority without questioning” C.P. Snow, English physicist, 1905-1980.
Yes, indeed, conformity means that often individuals may find it difficult to raise their concerns or propose new and fresh ideas - and so, break the order. This can be particularly dangerous if the view held by the group is an erroneous one. On such occasion, with the threat of rejection at the doorstep, the one individual that can see the problem will more likely remain silent and the group will continue operating in a corrupt way.
It would be misleading to say that conformity is a bad thing. There are many advantages to it, most notably without conformity it would be very difficult to lead and manage others, and so to maintain order in organisations, as well as in the society as a whole. In this context, restrained individualism seems like a small price to pay.
With that said, ‘think different’ anyone? Come on, don’t be shy!
References
Baron, R. A., Byrne, D., & Watson, G. (2005). Exploring Social Psychology (4th ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.
Kiesler, C. A., & Kiesler., S. B. (1970). Conformity. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Just read the news about the new version of the iPhone OS - 3.0! This is so exciting that I just had to put this info over here!
The official artwork looking promising.
I am wondering, what sort of improvements will Apple's engineers add to this iteration? I am sure some of you already heard about the crazy iPhone OS omissions, such as the lack of copy & paste, video recording, text message forwarding and perhaps the lack of integrated inbox for all e-mail accounts. Are these issues finally going to be fixed? Time will tell but from the marketing point of view it would certainly not make sense for Apple to withhold from implementing these improvements. Not anymore.
Now, such additions are certainly going to get people talking. Sales are likely to go up. But these changes will not make the iPhone look much cooler. And in the end, this is what Apple want. With competitors stepping up to the challenge every day, it seems like being ‘the best iPod ever’ is no longer a guarantee for success.
What can we expect then? It is likely that there will be some major new features introduced. I cannot offer any specifics, but if it was me to lead Apple I probably would get into gaming with the device. Apple could potentially bring some game developers on board to work almost in-house on some new titles. This has already been done with Sega and their game Super Monkey Ball. The other area would definitely be business. Here I would probably introduce some sort of integration with iWork – the productivity suite by Apple.
These are my own thoughts only. No insider knowledge, or anything of that kind. All said from a perspective of a business student and a gadget enthusiast.
I have been reading this book, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. It is the biography of Warren Buffett, in my opinion, the greatest investor of all time. A hefty read — over 800 pages — but well worth it. I’m interested in investing so the book is a great resource of ideas.
The Snowball Alice Schroeder
But investing is only one side of the book. The other is, as suggested by the title, the business of life. And as a young and very inexperienced in life man I must say this side of the book has had the biggest impact on me. Just recently I have been going through another chapter and I came across a fascinating passage. The passage consisted almost entirely of a direct quote from Warren Buffett. This quote I want to share today...
I remember the day I bought my iPod, it was the 30GB 5th generation video one. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait and went out to the nearby electronics shop during lunch break at work to get it – I couldn’t wait until after I finished. When I finally got the shiny little thing I just could not stop playing with it. I mean I was a music addict already, but it played video as well!
The same week I kept wondering, what will the next iPod look like? Speaking with one IT engineer at work we concluded that it would probably have a touch screen, just like the phone that this engineer had. The PHONE you idiot! We were close, yet we didn’t get it. Anyway, that was three years and one month ago. Today, ladies and gentleman, I got the iPhone!
But why?
I wanted to buy the Phone-of-the-i for a as long as the general public has known about it. The unbeatable functionality (let’s face it, one and a half years after the launch and there is still not a device in this world to beat the iPhone’s user interface) combined with incredible looks was what I have longed for in a mobile device for as long as I can remember. I was tired of having phones that could do this, but could not do that etc. I wanted an all in one device. Most of all, however, I wanted the access to information whenever and wherever I needed it. The fact is that living in a huge city like London is stressful enough by itself and the iPhone, with maps, internet browser, e-mail and up-to-date weather forecast among others, pretty much solves a lot of logistic problems, more so, it does it better than its rivals.
Happy iPhone owner
Luxury item
Whatever rational justifications I have given it, the fact remains that the iPhone is a luxury item, an item that I can perfectly live without. And this single argument was probably the most important reason why I had waited for so long to get it. What made me change my mind then? It was The Big Boss himself – Apple CEO and founder, Steve Jobs.
Stanford speech
In 2005 Steve Jobs delivered a commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University. In this speech Mr. Jobs tells three stories from his life giving an incredibly inspirational message to the audience. Among many very interesting points he makes, a somewhat dramatic remark struck me the most. He said that “remembering that you were going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose” and “there is no reason not to follow your heart” in what you do in life. He concluded his speech with the words – “stay hungry, stay foolish”.
After watching the video I thought to myself – wow! I want to test this thing! I am going to do this! I will wake up each day and try something new, something I have not done before! Yes, EACH SINGLE DAY!
So one day, I came back from work and suddenly this idea struck me – why the hell don’t I get an iPhone? Go for it, I said to myself. It wasn’t that easy, though. I kept reminding myself – you cannot afford it, you need to save money. Then I realised that the more rational arguments I was making the more foolish the decision was becoming. BINGO! I made it! Ramming through the final bits of hesitation I rushed to my Apple Store and bought the phone. I was foolish and so happy.
The lesson
What this whole thing taught me was the same idea that “I shouldn’t have club” embraces (see one of the posts below). It is the idea of going for it, the idea of getting up, jumping out of a helicopter and diving through the sky! Well, yes, buying an iPhone wasn’t exactly as risky but there was a financial component that made it a bit unsafe. Going through that barrier made me much more confidant, and now, I feel much more secure with a lot of other, much smaller decisions that I make. As a result, my life is better now, not just because I can find my way around London easier or because I know the weather for the next couple of hours. It is better because now I know that whether it rains or snows, whether I can’t find the place I have been looking for or I am completely lost, I will handle it and will make it through! I know I will!!!
