Some advice on inspiration

(1) Never apologize for your enthusiasm, passion, or vision.
(2) Never apologize for being inspired by another human being.
(3) Seek out inspiration (don't wait for it).
(4) Inspire others by sharing your talents and time.
(5) And no matter what: Don't let the bozos grind you down, ever.

From zenpresentation.

Career Advice from Dilbert

Scott Adams, the creator of the wonderfully funny (and scarily accurate) Dilbert comic strip shares his advice on how to have a successful life.

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary... become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

Harry Potter and the Death of Bookshops

It probably hasn't escaped your notice that the final Harry Potter book is out this weekend. Looking a bit harder at some of the reporting around this there's considerable grumbling that Harry Potter is the death of independent bookshops and the death of literature and the book industry. I'm not going to argue with facts and figures presented by experts (largely because I can't be bothered) and I'm going to skim over the fact that Harry Potter has brought millions of pounds to it's publisher and all manner of bookshops and even managed to do wonders for film making in the UK. It's a fair point that independents can't compete on price with the bulk sellers like Waterstones and supermarkets that sell at a loss just to get people through the door. So they'll just have to compete on other fronts that big shops can't manage - quality, personal service.

Here are my top 10 hints for getting the most out of Harry Potter (some of which are admittedly a bit late)

1. Throw a Potter Party - lots of the big shops are doing this, but local shops can make even more of it. Build a community who cares about you and they won't mind paying a little extra to buy from Rita or Chris vs. buying from faceless corporation.
2. Throw an anti-Potter Party - if you really don't like the book, or don't think you're going to sell many otherwise, make a point of it. Throw a party celebrating other books. Maybe you have some Potter's available at full RRP for the desperate, you can take the high ground *and* take their cash if you advertise it with some humour.
3. Vouchers - give away books of vouchers with the book for future discounts, you could even have date ranges on them to keep people coming in for the next few months.
4. Discounts - give people a discount for buying other books, Borders are doing 20% off all books other than Harry Potter before midnight on Friday.
   
5. Rely on your locality - independents are saying they can't compete with supermarket prices. If you can't/won't take a hit on your profit margins rely on the fact that people might not want to trek to get a copy of the book and will pay a premium for convenience
6. Deliver - take your locality even further and jump on your bike. Take pre-orders and a promise to deliver the book to their doorstep.
7. Reward Schemes - For 3 months before the release of the book offer a stamp scheme, every time you buy a book you get a stamp which will give you a pound off the rrp Harry Potter when it comes out. If you have to give it away free do you really care if it means you've sold 18 books to someone?
8. Sign people up - if they're pre-ordering, make sure you make the most of having their contact details. Send newsletters, offers and information before and after the event.
9. Reading groups - just 'cos kids love Potter doesn't mean their parents do. Use Potter to start a reading group that kids can join while their parents browse for their own reading material, or have a coffee. Once you've finished reading the Harry Potter books, slip straight on to something else and keep going.
   
10. Potter Support Groups - for the more grown up readers extend the life of the book, have a series of discussion meetings before the launch re-reading the old ones, then discussing the final book, then discussing other similar books.
    

BOOK: Let My People Go Surfing

Let My People Go Surfing
by Yvon Chouinard
The Penguin Press HC
ISBN 978-1594200724

The subtitle of this book is "The education of a reluctant business man" and Yvon Chouinard definitely falls into this category. He practices MBA, or Management by Absence which has meant that everyone in his company has to have a strong idea of what they are trying to achieve. It's difficult to ask your boss for guidance when he's halfway up a peak in the Himalaya.

The first half of the book deals with the history of Patagonia, from its start in the back of his truck through to being a multinational equipment and clothing manufacturer.

It should be a tale of how not to do it, with itinerant climbers promoted to senior managers and a staff that has permission to disappear when the surf gets big. However the tale reads as an adventure yarn, with a real feeling of teamwork, tolerance and 'out-of-the-box' thinking. Instead of despairing at the ineptitude of the participants, you realise that this may be an alternative way of doing business.

In the late 80s, Patagonia started struggling and Chouinard realised that they had overreached themselves. When he had to lay of 250 of his workers, he decided that he needed to clarify in his own mind why he was running a business. The book goes on to explain the "philosophies" that were created to guide the company onwards.

The philosophies are like a 50 page mission statement, split into categories like "Product Design" and "Environment" and are there to guide any member of the company in making the best decision for the company. While his goals won't be applicable to anybody else's company, the process of setting those goals will be. If you want to see how important the environment is to Patagonia, look at their philosophies. If you want to know how they expect their suppliers to be treated, looking at the philosophies.

Every business person who aspires to create, run or work in a business that isn't a nine-to-five, cubicle farm, sweatshop should read this book.

Links to buy Patagonia amazon.co.uk

Let's get rid of management!

Why do we need management in the first place? The following message was published in the Wall Street Journal by United Technologies Corporation, Connecticut. As someone who leads in the outdoors and then "manages" in the office, I couldn't agree more.

Let's get rid of management!
People don't want to be managed.
They want to be led.
Whoever heard of a world manager?
World leader, yes.
Educational leader, yes.
Political leader, yes.
Business leader, yes.
They lead. They don't manage.
The carrot always wins over the stick.
Ask your horse.
You can lead your horse to water, but you can't manage him to drink.
If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself.
Do that well and you'll be ready to stop managing. And, start leading.

web 2.0 vs management 1.0

Today I went to the Internet World conference at Earls Court which was free but pretty awful on a number of levels. It was atrociously badly organised, the stall holders were generally pretty useless and the presentations were just plain poor. All except one guy. Dorian Harris from skoosh

I'd settled into a seat in the Web 2.0 area and was basically killing time until lunch. I almost ditched his speech because I'd already sat through 2 poor talks introducing me to the concept of social networking (use it to network... ooo...) and being told how wonderful BT something or other was. The next session was described as "5 ways to make your site 2.0" and if I hadn't had a seat I'd have given up. A guy I'd seen loitering around the other talks shuffles up to the front of the area, he's wearing jeans and a non branded tshirt and has a messy pony tail. Then he switches the laptop and the projector off.

No presentation.

He stood there with a scruffy bit of paper and a bottle of water, pacing up and down and gave one of the best talks I've ever heard.

He spoke of the fact that a website is an extension of a company, there's no point being web 2.0 if you are still on management 1.0, there's no point asking other people to talk if you're not prepared to listen. You need trust; trust between employees and management, trust between customers and sellers, readers and bloggers, search engines and sites, technical and marketing. The trust has to go both ways and if you can't do that, then there's no point trying to be 2.0.

He concluded by apologising that he didn't actually have the advertised 5 points, that as he'd been writing the talk he realised that it just didn't make sense to then give 5 easy steps. There are rarely "4 quick ways to create a marvel", that sort of thing trivialises the issues and stops you thinking about *why* you want to do something.

It was a 20 minute talk in a crappy little theatre set up in the middle of a noisy exhibition hall with no flashy slides and an awful microphone setup and there were people standing 5 deep around the edges trying to hear him. It was wonderful.