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Showing posts from January, 2012

The problem with mass mailers is

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that they are "MASS" mailers. They are not written to me, they are not written for me and yet they land up in my inbox day after day, week after week, month after month.  So here is a solution: I need these mass mailers to be renamed as -mailers where denotes my name I need -mailers to talk to me Don't ask me how for #2. After all every time I transact with your website, your Facebook page, your Twitter profile; I leave so much of my critical information there like my name, browsing history, demographics - go and use that Make me partner in crime - use my information to benefit me.  See which city/country/hotel/airline I book and get deals on those for me at my -mailer See what do I read and publish that for me at my -mailer. Don't give all the junk authors I don't care about When you will do all this, may be our relationship can finally get better!

"That's how organizations work"

"But I have never done this before, so why should I do this?" "But my business unit uses different tool, then why should I use your tool?" "But it is working fine, so why do we need it!"  As soon as we get overly tied to the lessons we are taught in business school or elsewhere, we start doing things the way it’s been done in the past. And then we’re going to have a company that’s like those that existed in the past

Faster Horse or Car

Henry Ford, after "invented" the car and the process around it was asked if he asked around for what his customers want - in other words did a market research? He said, "If I would have asked them, they would have asked for faster horse, not car!" A lot of organizations with their razor sharp focus on their stakeholders requirements get into what I call a "faster horse" trap, where they just end up building a better version of what their stakeholders have used/already been using. What's more. at times, it backfires and "faster horse" ends up being "pooped horse". Then there is other side of the spectrum where data rules and whatever stakeholder wants in as a requirement, she has to substantiate with data. Sounds great and works great (most of the time). It becomes an Achilles heel when there is no data to substantiate a requirement, an ambitious requirement  which needs people to be intuitive and only people who have gone thro