Mar
24
2008
via the Economist - an objective summary of Social Networking and its business potential circa 2008. Their verdict? Social Networking is a great Internet success story with clear utility but may or may not be a sustainable business model. The article also notes ..”Historically, online media tend to start this way. The early services, such as CompuServe, Prodigy or AOL, began as “walled gardens” before they opened up to become websites. The early e-mail services could send messages only within their own walls (rather as Facebook’s messaging does today). Instant-messaging, too, started closed, but is gradually opening up. In social networking, this evolution is just beginning…”
I am curious about MingleBox and TechTribe and other high profile Indian social networking startups - how much will they scale by 2010? They seem to have a sound business model and a reasonably better and consistent user experience as compared to the run of the mill Indian social networking sites…
Mar
21
2008
Is there a direct relationship between a company’s design investments and its stock market performance? Can PE firms and venture funds use such a relationship to select winners just as they use environment friendliness and carbon footprints?
The British Design Council which first came up with the ‘Design Index’ and ‘Emerging Index’ seems to think that there is. In a comprehensive study first released in 2005 (and updated in early 2008), they showed how an index of 61 top design-award winning companies had outperformed the FTSE by 200%.
The Design Council primarily used prestigious design awards (including by Interbrand). I think if someone wanted to take this research ahead, they could additionally look at:
- Media coverage of customer reactions to the ‘design’ or ‘user experience’ of the company’s products and services
- The company’s resource (human and infrastructure) investments in building core design competencies
- The company’s global footprint (in case of multinationals)
- The company’s history of using quantitative design and usability metrics to track improvements longitudinally
In these volatile financial times, I would be personally happy if someone could prove a ‘strong corelation’ between Design and stock market performance – at least then companies in India and China would ‘get’ the value of design and invest in building world class design teams and infrastructures.
Oct
17
2007
A few days back I finally finished the Black Swan - a rigorous and empirically skeptical (and darkly humorous) take on randomness, stock markets, experts, and life. I enjoyed the contents of the book as much as trying to read into the genius mind of Nassim Nicholas Taleb - a practitioner with sound footing in theory. Mr. Taleb is a genius no less and also bold and relentless with little tolerance for fools and financial ‘experts’.
I won’t belabor here - go ahead and get yourself a copy of this book. I’ll end with Carine Chichereau’s quote: “Had Nassim Taleb been born in any other period, he would have certainly been put to death”
Mar
30
2007
Business Week has a timely article in its April 2007 issue on areas of work where different industries in different geographies are facing a severe human resource shortage. The article notes that the supply for several key professionals including engineers, plumbers, electricians, lab technicians, accountants(!), skilled manufacturing workers, equipment operators, and other such hands on professions is very squeezed. The list is topped by - guess what - the Sales Representative :-)
I was reminded of a thought experiment i once did that if there were a Third World War, and we went back to the stone age, what kinds of ‘professional’ skills would I need to be able to survive? I suspect story telling, teaching, cooking, and playing some kind of music that crowds can tolerate might be somewhere on top of that list…
Regarding the labor shortage in India, the article notes that ” The labor squeeze in India gets lots of attention. Oddly, though, Manpower’s survey found that employers in India reported the least problems filling jobs: Just 9% said they had difficulty, vs. 41% in the U.S. and 82% in Mexico. The explanation? Manpower’s staff thinks turnover is so rapid in India that employers figure if they really need to fill a job, they’ll lure someone away from another company. But stealing scarce talent from rivals isn’t a strategy for the long run. That’s why employers are on an all-out campaign to increase training and raise education levels. While India produces 400,000 engineering graduates a year, few have the skills and language abilities to work in an advanced multinational corporation. Some 1.3 million people applied to tech-services giant Infosys Technologies Ltd. (INFY ) last year, for instance, but the company says only 2% of those were employable. For business, it seems, there’s no shortage of work involved in easing worker shortages.”
Jan
15
2007
The December edition of the Economist has a neat article on how economists have traditionally measured ‘happiness’ and how that measurement has evolved over the years. Invoking references from Thomas Carlyle to Mihali Csikszentmihalyi, the article argues that all is indeed well and good in the free market world, and that having a good experience, a discerning audience that is ready to pay for that experience, and a clear mechanism to both get paid and be able to spend that money works better than any other alternative system. It also states interestingly how people’s common perceptions of what causes happiness (or pain) is remarkably subjective and skewed.
If you havent’ yet read it, Mihali’s book ‘Flow - the Psychology of Optimal Experience‘ is a delightful and statistically grounded account of what causes ‘flow’ or ‘peak experience’ in people. Turns out that activities such as driving, spending time in your garden, and enjoying hobbies give a much greater sense of flow or of being in the moment as compared to watching TV or eating out!
