Passion & Attention to detail

Something i read today which made me ponder how many bosses have i had who have eexcruciating made me go through 27 versions of the same content in one presentation ... :-) But this story below is something which i would like revisit as often as i can to remind me to get into detail ....
But there's one story, perhaps, that's piercing because it portrays the exacting nature of Apple's former CEO. Vic Gundotra — the man behind Google +, the company's entree into social media — posted a story about an interaction with Steve Jobs.

He writes that on a Sunday morning in 2008, he received a call during a religious service. He didn't answer, but Jobs left a message saying he had something "urgent to discuss." Gundotra returned his call almost immediately:

"Hey Steve — this is Vic," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn't pick up."

Steve laughed. He said, "Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".
I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?

"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow," said Steve.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

The CEO of Apple — the tech visionary who revolutionized personal computers, the way we listen to music and the way we think of mobile devices — was worried about the yellow in the second "O" in Google. Needless to say the problem was fixed, and Gundotra says it taught him a lesson on leadership and "passion and attention to detail."

"It was a lesson I'll never forget," wrote Gundotra. "CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday."

Collaborative-innovation

In today’s world, the speed of technology evolution along with its pervasiveness, morphing of the world to an inter connected human network and the ubiquity of the classic 3Cs (communication, connectivity and consumer) is a technological marvel to reckon with. This thriving, though relentless age has brought about an exponential increase of data. Data is being generated and captured at the time stamp an event occurs. The challenge now is to tap on this humungous data and sort and assimilate it into useful information which can be leveraged upon in a timely mode.
If an organization were to work in isolation, it may potentially make itself capable and efficient enough to manage this data. However no single company can survive in today’s world as an island of know-how and expertise. It works and thrives in an eco-system - and this is where the biggest challenge for data extraction, management and utilization lies. An organization cannot but depend upon its partners, suppliers, customers and other members of the supply chain for this effective data management. So how does an organization compete in such an inter-linked, fast paced and competitive market place? One of the answers to this lies in Collaborative-Innovation.
Collaborative-Innovation.is the extension of scale and scope of external collaborations, alliances and partnerships to access and exploit new technologies, markets and customers. It leverages on the niche competencies and the individual strengths of the member entities. It enhances the sum capabilities of an organization and its relevant co-innovation partners from the ecosystem through an integrated network of domain expertise, leading edge technologies and platforms.
Key benefits of Collaborative-Innovation. include
• Acceleration of technology adoption and enablement.
• Facilitation of targeting new markets – especially where trade barriers are insurmountable by any one single entity
• Cost reduction and improved efficiency
• Increases options for biz development
• Helps in better management of uncertainties – market, technology&competition
• Generation of innovative ideas, new product concepts and development and testing of prototypes
• Profitable innovation

The process of Collaborative-Innovation. involves formulating strategic intent, assessing capability for innovation, building strategic alliances and partnering agreements etc. – all with the objective of selling and delivering value to the customer.

Collaborative Innovation

In today’s world, the speed of technology evolution along with its pervasiveness, morphing of the world to an inter connected human network and the ubiquity of the classic 3Cs (communication, connectivity and consumer) is a technological marvel to reckon with. This thriving, though relentless age has brought about an exponential increase of data. Data is being generated and captured at the time stamp an event occurs. The challenge now is to tap on this humungous data and sort and assimilate it into useful information which can be leveraged upon in a timely mode.
If an organization were to work in isolation, it may potentially make itself capable and efficient enough to manage this data. However no single company can survive in today’s world as an island of know-how and expertise. It works and thrives in an eco-system - and this is where the biggest challenge for data extraction, management and utilization lies. An organization cannot but depend upon its partners, suppliers, customers and other members of the supply chain for this effective data management. So how does an organization compete in such an inter-linked, fast paced and competitive market place? One of the answers to this lies in collaborative-innovation.
Collaborative-innovation is the extension of scale and scope of external collaborations, alliances and partnerships to access and exploit new technologies, markets and customers. It leverages on the niche competencies and the individual strengths of the member entities. It enhances the sum capabilities of an organization and its relevant innovation partners from the ecosystem through an integrated network of domain expertise, leading edge technologies and platforms.
Key benefits of Collaborative-innovation include
• Acceleration of technology adoption and enablement.
• Facilitation of targeting new markets – especially where trade barriers are insurmountable by any one single entity
• Cost reduction and improved efficiency
• Increases options for biz development
• Helps in better management of uncertainties – market, technology and competition
• Generation of innovative ideas, new product concepts and development and testing of prototypes
• Profitable innovation

The process of Collaborative-innovation involves formulating strategic intent, assessing capability for innovation, building strategic alliances and partnering agreements etc. – all with the objective of selling and delivering value to the customer.

Services Marketing & Social Media

While it can be argued that IT Services Organizations in the current Context of highly competitive environment and extensive cost pressures tend to lean more and more towards products based philosophy . Every services organization in the quest of adding more and more value tend to focus on building packaged service offerings which at times could be actual intellectual property (IP), but most times will be nice packaging of the conventional services creating a perception of it being a IP. Many a time the recipient of the services might not be mature enough and in such cases , the neatly gift packed service offerings will be passed of as frame works , close to an IP etc.
Quintessentially Services Organizations are "People Based" Organizations and hence the quality of the value zone being created between the Service recipient and the delivery provider is highly dependent on the "ingrained DNA" of the organization. A mature recipient will be able to see through a superficial attempt or just a PR focused perception creation.
Could GE be known for Six Sigma with it out it being ingrained into every business and every part of GE ??
Leave alone the conventional marketing mechanisms being practiced in Services oriented organizations, which include targeted marketing , focus on creating one on one relationships , building mindshare , wallet share etc . Tectonic shifts are occurring in the age of Social media , which has the power to either RESET , RECREATE or "Destroy" the fallacies of the so called high level thinkers who are intent on only creating a perception and they are hardly giving any emphasis on the actual implementation and execution of the culture you want the organization to espouse. The execution and implementation of this in a "People based" Services organizations is the toughest and hardly any CEO can claim that he is close to perfection .
An example i came across was to do with Starbucks of whom i am a very Loyal fan with at least one visit per day to any of the establishments . It is a well know fact that Starbucks as a organization after the string of success it has enjoyed is going through trying times with the state of the economy and also the onslaught and proliferation of the McDonald cheaper premium coffee brand . Howard Schultz who has returned as the CEO and in his analysis of the organization brand , in his second stint talks about how the bloggers , twitterers and face bookies put holes in the brand equity of Starbucks which was carefully cultivated over decades of handwork.

A simple sensational unfounded story on "dipper well leaks" which claimed that Starbucks was insensitive and was wasting millions of liters of freshwater which had all of the conservationists up in arms . This essentially happened courtesy a huge viral campaign launched on the Social media.
Services industry is all about "People" and Social media is all about "People in Communities" which can dramatically amplify the effects both positively and negatively about the perception you are trying to build . A warning to all the so called "high level" thinkers, focus on controlling the negative and give emphasis on execution and implementation of the culture you want the organization to be known for.

Building a Perception Far Ahead of Reality ! think twice ..

Back after a long hiatus to the world of Blogging :-) READ as " Basic laziness to construct long sentences and paragraphs" . Being a marketer I often wonder whether building a perception far ahead of reality is the way to go. There was a time or it was often joked most American companies launch the product as soon as the design spec's are ready on a PowerPoint , let alone developing the product, beta testing etc. For instance Microsoft surely learnt a costly lesion with the disastrous results of the much hyped Windows vista platform. No wonder they were doubly sure and on the basis of the lesson learnt, came up with a much more stable and rock solid platform in Windows 7. On the mobile platform Windows 7 is still slated for late 2010 Commercial launch. They must be testing, testing and testing with the fright apple has given them with iphone platform. While the example chosen above has been more relevant to a product , this more or less holds true when a CEO is building a identity or cultural statement for an organization. For instance if Tata's stand for trustworthy brand , this has been achieved over many decades. For sure JRD meant believed the same with his heart and spent a lot of his energies in ensuring successful execution of the thought to reality amongst the thousands of employees across the conglomerate. There are stories within the Tata group about senior management being sacked for not believing in it and not going all out to execute trust worthiness and it was not just building hype and wishy washing away with flimsy execution.

Coming to the moot point of building perception which leads reality which is often driven or conceptualized by the so called Gurus or visionaries who often get carried away by the blind passion that the unique idea they have is perfect and ideal for the rest of the world or for that matter the company or division or any entity they run. The zeal with which they would want everyone else to see beyond the normal is often driven due to a few unique thoughts they have. While the thoughts per se are revolutionary they sometime fail to understand that execution of the thoughts is equally critical. Execution to the last mile and many a time it requires the masses to believe passionately the very thought you espouse. For the masses to believe with the same passion the unique idea will require perfecting the execution process to the extent it becomes a movement amongst the masses. This at times might take a complete decade. The shorter the time it takes if the great unique idea is thought through to an extent that every step is carefully managed and the original intent is maintained and passionately transmitted from one to another without any loss in the intensity original idea. The idea obviously needs to be real in all ways. "Thinking" , "doing" and " "communicating" all these three dimensions need equal amount of attention by every individual in the organization. Gone or the days of the army culture , that there is one part of the organization which will do higher level thinking another part will just be executers and another part will focus on information dissemination. Every individual / manager will have to spend nearly equal amounts of time for each of the above dimensions. In conclusion Building perception which is ahead of reality is a great idea and should be done but only to the extent it is sustainable and stands by its merit. Do not build a perception which is far ahead of reality but slightly ahead of reality is fine , so that each one of us will do the extra stretch to reach close to it or even achieve the same.

Catch-22 & The New World Order ( couple of articles from Fortune)

In the precariously positioned Economic Global Bipolar world, any changes by the Central banks to either lower the interest rates to foster growth further or increase the interest rates to control the inflation which will result in higher fuel prices etc leads us to a perfect CATCH-22 .  

The Global corporations would love to see the Indian and Chinese middle Class go up dramatically as it means they will buy more mobile phones, toothpaste, homes , electricity etc . It is estimated by 2020 China alone will have close to 700 million in middle class and India would go up to around 580 million . But double digit growth in especially  smaller markets and even in India and China also means raising living costs. Inflation in India has doubled to 8% and China has gone up from 1% to & 7.7% since 2006.

The "New World Order" being that 54 developing markets will post a 6.7% increase in GDP ( though last year it was 7.5%) versus 1.6% from the 31 developed countries. US is no longer the spear head for growth , which also means many markets which are very heavily USA dependent need to braise up for tough times ahead. While USA will still be an enormous 13.92 trillion dollars by 2008 and while other markets coming quickly on the radar are still small but sizable. (  China at 3.7 trillion and with India , Brazil and Russia ranging from 1.14 to 1.29 trillion )

For the first time ever in over a decade , did we see a drop in American based  Fortune 500 companies to 153 total in number. Less then a ten years ago India , Mexico and Russia posted just one company on F500 . This years list includes 7 from the subcontinent and five each from Mexico and Russia.

China steals the show this year by an unprecedented total of 29 companies , which is as many as from Italy , Spain and Australia combined. Lenovo  entered the spot at 499. Global Giants grew a phenomenal 13% up by approx. 23.6 trillion dollars  and profits of the complete F500 went up by 3.9% amounting to 1.6 trillion dollars. 

Australia has around 8 Companies in the F500 list while Britain has 34 and Canada around 14. China the Non English speaking market stands at 29 while France and Germany are at 37 and 39 respectively .  India's 7 , Brazil's 5 , Japan's 64 and while  USA is  still the largest contributer with  153 F500 corporations, there does not seem to be a doubt on where the "NEW WORLD" is going to be in the future .