Casino: The Pledge. Quantum: The Turn. Skyfall: The Prestige. The third James Bond film featuring Daniel Craig comes out in November. This is also the 50th anniversary of James Bond movies and given the known ingredients should be spectacular.
Culture, Priorities, and Hiring
Over the weekend I discovered some excellent thoughts on growing a company from someone who worked on the growth team at Facebook. The author describes some of the key components of the strategy to grow as much as possible as fast as possible. Not surprising was that people and culture were the foundation that strategy and tactics were launched from.
Most companies get this wrong. They have a strategy but no clearly defined goal to measure it against - Or they keep changing the goal which is worse. Company culture is often too far down on the list for managers to be able to engage any meaningful support from the troops.
It’s never been harder to be a great company or a great manager. Understanding people and culture as the yin to a framework and execution yang is only part of the greater puzzle. Resisting the natural inclination to make things more complex is another. The keys to the castle are a simple and easily understood goal.
It’s simple but it’s not easy.
The 800 Pound Gorilla
A lot of work is being poured into attempting to make mobile phones replace plastic cards for transactions. However, the real battle in the mobile payments isn’t on either side of the transaction but the transaction itself - that is being able to execute and facilitate the exchange of currency.
I originally got excited about using my phone as a wallet but came to realize that the real disruption in payments had already taken place. The distribution of plastic cards as well as terminals to accept payments nearly everywhere will take much longer to disrupt than many technologists realize.
That’s why Square is drawing so much attention, investment, and competition. PayPal, Intuit, and now Verifone realize that a newcomer is not only pushing into areas that the incumbents weren’t able to, but eroding their business at a speedy clip.
Founder Jack Dorsey is focused on the exchange of value as a foundational part of our civilization and wants to move the technology out of the way. It’s a great place to start and Mr. Dorsey’s attention to all of the little details of the transaction should continue to serve him and his company well.
Infinity Plates and Beyond
Nevada politicians and officials did a great job moving on this law and opportunity. It’s noteworthy at a time when other states over complicate and under deliver.
Stop Selling
If you’re selling I’m not buying, and it’s been that way for a while now. Maybe it’s because I’m part of a younger generation that watched selling descend into the toilet over the last decade or maybe I’m just one of the lucky people who “get it”. In either case, for me and mine it’s all about relationship and value.
"I'm sure your victory will be great..."
Insanely great.
Just Knock
Doing some research this morning and came across @KNOCKinc. Looks great, and smart.
Last month, I talked to Amazon customer service about my malfunctioning Kindle, and it was great. Thirty seconds after putting in a service request on Amazon’s website, my phone rang, and the woman on the other end—let’s call her Barbara—greeted me by name and said, “I understand that you have a problem with your Kindle.” We resolved my problem in under two minutes, we got to skip the part where I carefully spell out my last name and address, and she didn’t try to upsell me on anything. After nearly a decade of ordering stuff from Amazon, I never loved the company as much as I did at that moment.
Remember, this was a customer-service call, so I was fully prepared for it to suck. Like most American consumers, my experience with service interactions is largely negative, whether it’s on the phone, in the murky depths of a commerce site, or in the aisles of an electronics store. I’m accustomed to the company being in control, and for our communication to be cold, scripted, and inhumane. Barbara’s congenial but no-nonsense approach was part of what made this experience different, but more important, she had access to exactly the right data about me, and that made the favorable exchange possible. The fact is, Amazon has been collecting my information for years—not just addresses and payment information but the identity of everything I’ve ever bought or even looked at. And while dozens of other companies do that, too, Amazon’s doing something remarkable with theirs. They’re using that data to build our relationship.
Read more about How Companies Like Amazon Use Big Data To Make You Love Them
Curling Physics Unraveled
Researchers know why ribbons and hairs curl, but few have examined the dynamics of an object going from straight to curled up. A study in Physical Review Letters looks at the simple case of a curved metal strip that is straightened and then released. Using a combination of experiments, numerical simulations, and mathematical analysis, the research team has performed a complete study on the shape and speed of the strip as it curls. The work provides a basic framework for explaining curling in future micromachines or in the splitting open of a red blood cell.
Image by P.-T. Brun & B. Audoly/CNRS
The End Of Hulu
It was (sorta) fun while it lasted.
Actually, it wasn’t all that fun. Plus, I always felt like there was the very real possibility that in the end, stupidity would win out. As it will.
Can’t believe it lasted this long. Still in disbelief that it worked at all.
Exactly what I was thinking, but by a better writer.
