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kottke.org posts about business
There’s a rumor that Blockbuster may stop offering online rentals
There’s a rumor that Blockbuster may stop offering online rentals. The folks at Netflix must be beside themselves with glee.
Kansas man is renting out his prairie
Kansas man is renting out his prairie land for people to burn; $100 a pop. Having lived in a rural area and burned grass like this, I can tell you that it’s great fun.
Teams are successful when they’re made up
Teams are successful when they’re made up of a mixture of old and new members. “You need someone new to get the creative juices going so you don’t get trapped in the same ideas over and over again.”
Design and the art of bullshitting
Design and the art of bullshitting. In my experience, a designer’s job entails coming up with a solution that works (which takes 20% of the time and energy) and then selling it to the client (which takes the remaining 80% of the time/energy, sometimes more).
Pixar’s profits tripled since last year
Pixar’s profits tripled since last year. And it sounds like a Disney reconciliation might happen as well.
The Economist on the Long Tail, the
The Economist on the Long Tail, the current buzzphrase du jour. It’ll be interesting to see if the Long Tail idea will be “over” by the time the book comes out or if it’s got legs. Either way, it’s still an interesting way to think about your business.
Hire different…diversity is important in your workforce
Hire different…diversity is important in your workforce. She mentions Google as an example…I’ve always thought that their Ph.D hiring fetish is a little worrying.
Profile of Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet
Profile of Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet. The Lonely Planet guides are changing to cater to richer folks while their original “shoestring” series makes up a tiny portion of their current sales.
A list of US-based spyware companies and
A list of US-based spyware companies and the investment firms supporting them.
Michael Moore made himself and Disney lots
Michael Moore made himself and Disney lots of money by stirring up controversy for Fahrenheit 9/11. I’m confused though…where’s the link between Disney and Fellowship Adventure Group? Surely the Weinstein’s didn’t purchase the film from Disney for the $78 million? How did Disney get that money back?
A quick take on Apple’s control freakishness
A quick take on Apple’s control freakishness. “Running a tightly controlled company has worked well for Jobs. But being a little out of control can pay dividends, too - by fostering creative freedom, not to mention goodwill. Jobs need only look at his own slogans. Life Is Random. Enjoy Uncertainty. At Apple, this is marketing, not a way of life.”
How Sprint PCS loses customers
How Sprint PCS loses customers. Sprint wanted Cam to sign a 2-year contract just to switch plans, even though he had been a customer of theirs for 7 years. He switched to T-Mobile and got a new phone in the process.
John Gruber’s plain English version of the
John Gruber’s plain English version of the Adobe/Macromedia Acquisition FAQ. “Please also note that PDF is an excellent format for sending out resumes.”
Whoa! Adobe to buy Macromedia?!!?!?!
Whoa! Adobe to buy Macromedia?!!?!?!. Wow! ??!!?!??!! I don’t think there’s enough room in my MT database for all the question marks and exclamation points I want to use here.
Both Starbucks and Nike are on the
Both Starbucks and Nike are on the Business Ethics 100 list this year.
Study: tall, slender, beautiful people get paid more
Study: tall, slender, beautiful people get paid more. “They showed that women who were obese…earned 17 percent lower wages on average than women [of recommended weight]”. 17%! That’s quite a disparity.
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai at a fake restaurant. That reminds me, I should write up my Beijing CD-ROM shopping experience sometime.
Venture capital is flowing back into Internet companies
Venture capital is flowing back into Internet companies. “It is too early to say whether the flush environment heralds another tech investment bubble, but there are echoes of the dotcom boom.”
Michael Lewis on social responsible business practices
Michael Lewis on socially responsible business practices. I have so much to write about this issue, but a quick link will have to do for now.
Business Lessons From the Donut and Coffee Guy
“Next!” said the coffee & donut man (who I’ll refer to as “Ralph”) from his tiny silver shop-on-wheels, one of many that dot Manhattan on weekday mornings. I stepped up to the window, ordered a glazed donut (75 cents), and when he handed it to me, I handed a dollar bill back through the window. Ralph motioned to the pile of change scattered on the counter and hurried on to the next customer, yelling “Next!” over my shoulder. I put the bill down and grabbed a quarter from the pile.
Maybe this situation is typical of Manhattan coffee & donut carts (although two carts near where I work don’t do this), but this was the first business establishment I’ve ever been to that lets its customers make their own change. Intrigued, I walked a few steps away and turned around to watch the interaction between this business and its customers. For five minutes, everyone either threw down exact change or made their own change without any notice from Ralph; he was just too busy pouring coffee or retrieving crullers to pay any attention to the money situation.
If you were the CEO of a big business — say, a movie studio, music company, or multinational bank — you’d have been tearing your hair out at this scene. He lets his customers make their own change?!?!! How does he know they’re making the correct change? Or putting down any change at all? Or even stealing the change? Where’s the technology that prevents the change from being stolen while he’s not looking? Surely there’s a machine that could be invented to keep track of it. Bad, bad, bad! Unclean, unclean! Does not compute…
Hold on there, Mr. CEO, don’t go all HAL 9000 on us. Ralph probably does lose a little bit of change each day to theft & bad math, but more than makes up for it in other ways. The throughput of that tiny stand is amazing. For comparison’s sake, I staked out two nearby donut & coffee stands and their time spent per customer was almost double that of Ralph’s stand. So, Ralph’s doing roughly twice the business with the same resources. Let’s see Citibank do that.
It’s also apparent that Ralph trusts his customers, and that they both appreciate and return that sense of trust (I know I do). Trust is one of the most difficult “assets” for companies to acquire, but also one of the most valuable. Many companies take shortcuts in getting their customers to trust them, paying lip service to Trust™ in press releases and marketing brochures. Which works, temporarily and superficially, but when you get down to it, you can’t market trust…it needs to be earned. People trust you when you trust them.
When an environment of trust is created, good things start happening. Ralph can serve twice as many customers. People get their coffee in half the time. Due to this time savings, people become regulars. Regulars provide Ralph’s business with stability, a good reputation, and with customers who have an interest in making correct change (to keep the line moving and keep Ralph in business). Lots of customers who make correct change increase Ralph’s profit margin. Etc. Etc.
And what did Ralph have to pay for all this? A bit of change here and there.
The joy of cereal
I’ve rediscovered the joys of cereal. It’s the perfect food for me and my go-go lifestyle: fast, easy, and fun! Backslash dot com all day long, you know.
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