Courtesy is King

In times of the “customer is king” mantra we, the customers, tend to look down on those who serve us. Customer service clerks, phone operators, cabin crew, bus drivers all get paid for serving us and ought to put up with all we say and do. We complain, therefore, frequently and vociferously, presumably to get better service next time. But ironically, it’s positive reinforcement that tends to produce the most improvements, not negative one. Yet giving compliments each time we are happy with the product / service that we receive is often overlooked. If we really feel so strong about helping shape a better experience for ourselves, courteousness and gratitude should be the order of the day. Not criticisms and complaints. And not via a survey, but personal, face-to-face “thank you" each time we feel delighted. Customer may be king, but courteous customer is a happy one.

Say Hello to CooCoolu

Explaining something to someone is often easier with a drawing of the concept, idea, issue etc. than just talking about it. A chalkboard used to be a great way of doing that but with the advent of new technologies and the Internet it has been gradually wandering into obscurity. Tools used today are mainly presentation software, drawing and diagramming applications, or infographics apps. Technologically advanced and feature packed but performing tasks that should at most take us a few minutes usually requires more time than we would have wanted it to.

We started working on CooCoolu to solve this problem. By offering a simple, social and fun product we aim to make it a one stop solution to graphically explaining stuff online. But CooCoolu won’t be just a fancy version of PowerPoint with sharing features. Similar to web mapping applications such as Google Maps, CooCoolu's canvas will an interactive matrix revealing more detailed information only when needed, using size, distance, colour and simple illustrations of key concepts to guide the understanding of the viewer. 

See CooCoolu as a one-slide interactive presentation that you can create and publish online in minutes for anyone to play with.

Get your invite for the beta at coocoo.lu

Steve Jobs — 10 Take-away Points for Business

Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Walter Isaacson

The biography of Steve Jobs offers enormous amounts of insights into business and entrepreneurship. Surprisingly enough, these are not, per se, covered in the curricula of your typical business schools. One would ponder why that is. After all, as of few days ago, Steve Jobs built the most valuable business in the world. That is not to say that business schools do not honour his achievements (for the most part they do), but somehow they rather inconspicuously seem to use him for their own ends i.e., exemplify what they already lecture. So here are my ten take-away points from Steve Jobs’ biography that as obvious as they may appear are not what you will usually hear in a typical marketing class. There is a little bit of strategy, a little bit of vision, but, as you might have imagined, mostly it is all about the product.

1. Push for uncompromised simplicity in product design.
2. Release the product only when you are perfectly happy with it.
3. Aim to build an organisation that will outlive you.
4. Make products that you and your friends would love to use.
5. Employ only “A-players”.
6. In a product’s design emphasize the most important feature.
7. Focus on the features that make a real difference for the customer.
8. Make your “insanely great” products affordable.
9. Control the complete customer experience.
10. Use one product to drive the sales of others.

AMAZON: Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

Is marketing evil?

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!

Entrepreneurship of Life

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!

Great Success!

Last week the Business Plan Contest ended and guess what? I won the “Best New Technology Product” award for Integrain Technology!!!

It was really an amazing experience. Not only I learnt about the difficulties (cost!) of starting up a company, but also had a great time, challenging myself everyday to find new and innovative ways of making it all work. The presentation I had to give in the final round taught me a great deal as well. I learnt so much about the art of rhetoric (Yes, one of the judges could easily replace Simon Cowell on the American Idol jury board!) and about the importance of enthusiasm in presenting to others.

I would like to thank all the people that had an input to this work as well as those who supported me in what were sometimes difficult times. Thank you! You are really a great bunch!

And of course, thank you America! You are the greatest!

Click on the image to follow the link to the Keystone Innovation Zone website (sponsor of the contest)

Click on the image to follow the link to Lycoming College News website

PS. You can see my professors, Dr Bonita Kolb and Dr Mehrdad Madresehee on the left and right hand side of the picture respectively. I will miss them so much...

Spring Contemplations

The spring break is long over, but it is only now that the first signs of spring start to appear. Indeed, it seems that the world is returning to life. Interestingly, the best evidence of spring this week was my professors' performance, as they all delivered exceptionally good lectures. It is amazing what effect the arrival of spring can have on us!

Fed arrives

An important event took place this week, namely the guest lecture by William H. Stone Jr, the vice president and COO of Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. It was probably the first time that I had an opportunity to meet such a prominent figure and will definitely not forget it. Mr Stone spoke mainly about the responsibilities of the Federal and Central Bank, the difficulty in balancing free market policies and regulations and of course the subprime mortgage crisis.

Bleak economy could use some spring colours

I will be honest, the lecture was very hard to follow. One of the things I learnt was the incredible complexity of financial systems in the market economy. I also realised how many years of practice it takes to develop the level of expertise that Mr Stone has. I can learn about the recession of 1991 and how it was handled from the books, but by no means I can learn what it really takes to handle it well in a real life situation. That is because only experience can utilise knowledge. Or is it the other way round? Or maybe both?

Well, towards the end of the talk I asked Mr. Stone what where his thoughts on the steps the US should take to maintain its economic leadership in the world. In response I heard that the US has gone through many periods in the last decades when similar concerns were raised. Nonetheless, the country always emerged from these battles, becoming stronger at each time. Mr. Stone had no doubt the story would repeat itself this time and after. And it makes sense, considering the cyclical nature of the economy.

The greater danger

But whatever is the true answer one issue here must not be missed. Namely, that, too much experience can cause people to “stick to the script”, neglecting the possibility of things going in way they never went before. That’s where the greater danger may lie. As with anything, having too much of experience seems to have downsides as well. Therefore, I would argue that knowledge is the key to experience, not otherwise, as it allows people to think perceptively, and in a truly innovative way. And it is the common truth that innovation is the only way forward. Additionally, as argued in the previous post, how much we learn from experience is determined to a large extent by how much we know prior to it.

It is a tough subject, hopefully this summer I will be able to put my hypothesis into test and learn more about it. Stay tuned!

Spring, we love you!

PHOTO: By annia316, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license

Integrain Technology - It's Alive!

I needed a break from all the market research I was doing for the business plan. So I created a logo for the company in stead. It is considerably different from the original idea, but I like it much better. I used Illustrator CS2 by Adobe – they make truly great products. Anyway, what do you think about the logo? How do you understand it? Thank you for your comments, much appreciated!

There are some more promotional materials I developed for the project, click here to see the wallpapers. What do you think?