Archive for the 'Blog' Category



Edge cases

Edge cases are the points at which a process stops working. It’s the customer that tries to enter via the exit. Or wants to pay on card when you are cash only. Or someone that adds 20kg to a container that only holds 10kg.

Edge cases are helpful, they help you find the bounds or ranges of your process. Addressing them can further these bounds. Or constrain them. They are tactical real feedback.

How you address that feedback – sets the tone for future edge cases.

And most often the lens is, do we want to increase the addressability of our process? Or is this the limit we want? Both can be right. And both communicate to your customers.

July 26th, 2019

Zero carbon

Loved this, NZ to introduce zero carbon bill.

Target is 2050.

I wonder what I’ll be doing in the years 2050. Hopefully enjoying zero carbon!

What makes New Zealand an ideal test bed is that it is a completely cut off country. It’s discrete. Everything that comes and goes can be identified, tracked. I imagine there is some leakage but a lot lower that say a country in Europe.

It makes a perfect scenario for measuring it.

July 19th, 2019

Time to value, how far can you take it? Amazon knows

Amazon upped the ante reducing two day shipping to one day.

But even so, they are still looking at other ways to get value to the end consumer faster.

And I liked this, I bought a book in the weekend, and they let you give it a read BEFORE it arrives. Not sure how they handled the digital rights on this, maybe it is a book where they have both rights. Or maybe it leverages the free sample. Either way, there is an option for me to get started on a new book.

How deep do you have to be in the customer experience to go, lets do this.

That’s the standard for the rest of us to exceed.

July 17th, 2019

Podcast vs radio and the sense of accomplishment

Growing up, adults listened to radio. I didn’t do (or know of) the books being read aloud for kids, maybe it was a bit before my generation. So radio was background noise, with music and DJs I liked as I grew up. It was just there. All the time. Like a river flowing and you turned the tap on.

But with podcasts, you seek them out, you start, you finish. I’ve listened to that one, right lets listen to another. Or you binge a bunch. Then once they’re done they’re done. There’s a psychological reward for finishing, it’s a sense of accomplishment.

In essence both are the same thing, audio storytelling. In fact much of the top downloaded podcasts are radio shows republished to podcast directories.

They are different in substance but that’s dictated by the medium, radio shows are made for mass appeal whereas podcasts are ok in the niches. The one thing that does separate them is the sense of accomplishment. TV is the same.

Maybe it’s not that people don’t like TV or radio. It’s just that in a world of endless content, people like making progress. OTT and podcasts offer that. A sense of accomplishment.

July 16th, 2019

You should know when you’re hot or not

Another kicker from the Druckenmiller interview I shared in the last post.

(for context he is a fund manager)

Skip to 49:00 minutes to pick this chat up.

They get in to, what do you do, after you’ve had a bad year? The analogy is the same with betting after you’re down.

As an aside, the investment principle: if you’re down 20%, you now need to make 25% on your principle to get back to where you were. Or if you’re down 80% you need to make 500% on your principle to get back to where you were. This is when people tend to get irrational and make bigger and bigger bets. Only to lose.

Druckenmiller goes on..

When you know you’re hot, make bigger bets. When you’re not, make smaller bets to find your groove.

It’s when you make big bets when you’re not hot, that really hurt, and create bigger losses.

A good fund manager should know when they’re hot or they’re not. And calibrate accordingly.

I like this simple approach.

July 9th, 2019

Friends & family

Was listening to this interview with Druckenmiller – and he talks a lot on, how friends and family, create the environment and support to do great things.

Give it a listen in the background, it is excellent. What I tend to do, is open on phone, put AirPods on.

And I couldn’t agree more, we are as strong as our weakest support.

httpv://youtu.be/G-MlrpoMig0

Thanks to Noah for sending it my way.

July 3rd, 2019

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