Is the Education System Failing?

Are we teaching our children outdated skills designed to feed a factory based system when many jobs that exist today were not around 20 years ago? Perhaps we should focus on teaching them how to acquire new skills rather than remembering and regurgitating boring facts.

Kodak's Failure.

Every once in a while a brand becomes a household name where it is not used to refer to its own particular range of products but to refer to other similar products in the same range. Kleenex did it with tissues where the phrase "Pass me a Kleenex will you" was used to refer to any tissue paper, the Fedex brand was used in mail delivery "Just Fedex it to me" and more recently the ever pervasive Google with internet searches "Just Google this information".
One company, however, managed this in relation to the camera industry. Years after the slogan was first coined, people still refer to "A Kodak moment" as a memory worth capturing forever on camera.
Kodak, a pioneer and heavyweight in the film and camera enterprise, filed for bankruptcy recently due to massive debt.
As analysts examined every nook and cranny of Kodak's history to work out the reason for the failure, one reason cropped up again and again and that was the company's failure to realise and adequately cope with the change from film to digital photography.
The change in technology and the way people run their memory capture hit Kodak hard, and in an effort to compensate they made a few costly and ultimately very bad decisions.
Kodak actually developed the digital camera in the 1970s but, instead of using this early start to propel themselves into an untouchable market position, they chose to focus on film and got relegated to spending the next three decades trying to catch up with the competition.
They forgot that they were helping "capture memories" and focused on trying to just sell an increasingly redundant product. Also in the news a couple of weeks back was the shut down by the FBI of the world's largest internet file-sharing company Megaupload.
Megaupload provides a drop box type service for files that are too big to send by email, or files that you want to share with many others.
They were accused of fostering internet piracy and copyright violations (among several other issues).
Anyone who remembers the Napster debacle a few years ago (the fight over the digitalisation of music) can see the same trend playing out.
Movie companies are probably losing millions to piracy that enables free download of movies, but instead of using the technology to their benefit they are busy trying to sustain an old mode of media transmission.
Movie makers are more content with continuing to sell a DVD at US$30 rather than making it easy to download or live stream an online movie for under US$5.
Technology is offering filmmakers a great opportunity that few seem to want to take at the moment.
Anyone with a 3G compatible phone has probably heard about Whatsapp-the internet based messaging service that can be utilised to cut your communications costs.
Founded by two guys who wanted to build a better SMS alternative Whatsapp chews little of your bandwidth and less of your money.
The question to ask is why the application was independently developed instead of being made by a cellular network.
One answer is that networks are content to charge five to 10 cents for a text (depending where you are in the world) because it makes them more money in the short term than a less lucrative mobile application.
Numerous cash-strapped, local teenagers use the application-not to mention an increasing number of adults.
The most obvious, but not popular, solution for a network wanting to stay on the old money-making-off-texts model would be to block the application.
The downside of such a decision would be to see consumers flocking to a rival network that allows it.
Rather than seeking to destroy the software, find a way to harness its power - the small bandwidth usage multiplied by a couple of million users may add up to some pretty powerful economies of scale.
Offering the most reliable and cheapest bandwidth could guarantee you a lot of happy clients, especially when they start to use all the other communication applications that use a little more bandwidth (think Facebook, Skype, Gmail for phone).
So I guess the real question at the end of all this is "How can I prevent this from happening to my business?"
Technology changes all the time and there is a pretty good chance of you getting left behind - ask bookstores and publishing houses that are facing the e-book revolution.
Keep focused on what you do - your mandate to the world. Make sure this mandate is not based on selling a particular product and is focused on the client.
Perhaps if Kodak can focus on "helping you store and share your memories" rather than selling film and printing they will pull through the current crisis - at least I hope so because somehow "A Canon moment" does not have the same ring to it as "A Kodak moment".
boardmilkshake@gmail.com

Isaac Asimov 1974 once said: "I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance . . . and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance . . . to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth.
"Usually the resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, status, money . . . as a result of the change. Although they never advanced this as their reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their hearts."

The way to live

Don't be conformist...let your work create the art that makes people cry without embarrassment.

Get Seth Godin's Lynchpin!

Where do your values lie?

The word "hustle" in business circles is often used to describe an aggressive use of borderline methods to gain additional business or money. In an emerging and healing market like Zimbabwe, "hustle" is an accurate thesis of most people attending meetings, seizing opportunities, and making a killing in the market. Coffee shops are seen as the most convenient places to discuss deals by dignified personas all hungry and intrigued with what each opportunity holds.
However, there is need to be cautious of the people you do business with.
The saying, "Don't go hunting with someone who's never shot a bear" is an interesting phrase that illustrates what I am talking about.
Basically, it means that if you go after an opportunity with someone who's never really accomplished anything before, he or she may take the shot themselves if they get the opportunity.
Part of this hustle and opportunistic mindset is being propagated by the numerous opportunities in this emerging economy.
Part of it is a culture that sometimes sacrifice moral and relational capital. I met a man this week who has built and run his retail business over the past 50 years.
Everyday for the past 50 years he has woken up, opened up his shop and created a personal business experience for loyal clients.
What struck me the most as he related the story was the sense of contentment that he had.
Contentment! His business has helped him educate his children right through university.
He has since helped his children to start their own companies, buy their own houses while he has travelled the world and at a time when most are thinking of retiring, he continues to work.
These were goals he set out to achieve and he managed to achieve them.
This "contentment" state of being somehow rivals the "hustle" mentality, which often seeks to spin every opportunity and eat as many "Opportunity Apple Pies" as possible.
Sure, perhaps this retailer could have developed a chain of stores and franchised out his experience.
He could have skyrocketed his prices as he had the opportunity to do so and also bought other businesses that he never had an interest or passion for in the first place.
Instead he chose to do what he loves and at the end of 50 years he is satisfied with what he has achieved and content with his inner being.
He has enough to meet his needs and is not going out of his way to milk his customers rather he fondly tells of regular clients who come in and discuss their families and diverse lives with him like old friends.
This man has an incredibly high value tagged onto his relationship capital.
Satisfaction and contentment are words that perhaps seem alien and elusive in our hectic societies.
Money, cars, impacted lives, legacy for the kids, social change . . . What is enough for you? Where do you stop hustling? Where do you start feeling content?
Comparing prices between Zimbabwe and South Africa probably gives you an insight into some people's train of thought.
The 40-inch HD screen radiating sleekness in my sister's UK lounge got me imagining what it would like in the empty space in my home.
So I went shopping here in Zimbabwe. The cheapest equivalent was three times the price she paid on Amazon.co.uk, and considerably more than twice the retail price in South Africa.
In one shop it was cheaper to fly to the UK and bring one back (never mind the saving if I went on the cheaper flight to South Africa).
Duty, transport and overheads aside -what is a reasonable mark-up? This is comparing retail prices mind you - not the warehouse or factory prices that the goods are procured at (well at least they should be - if you are buying for resale from a retail store and if this is not the case you should probably re-examine your source).
In the Zurich Axioms: Investment Secrets of the Swiss Bankers, Max Gunther outlines that you need to decide on what you want as a return before you invest, and when you reach that level you pull out.
No staying in to get an extra quick buck. No seeing if the upswing will continue.
If you set 10 percent as a target when you reach 10 percent you liquidate and reinvest in new targets.
Now this needs to be applied in the scope of all the axioms if you want to make his system work, the principle helps you avoid the emotional responses of greed that may land you, and others in trouble later.
It has to do with deciding what you want and what you are content with. If you never reach a place of contentment, with your financial goals, you will sacrifice your relational and moral capital banks.

Developing Your Company Image

Recently I wanted to check how much Internet cap I still had left this month but the online portal to my ISP account was down (on reflection I am not sure if it has ever worked) so I tried the helpline.
After five attempts at the automated system, I finally got put through to someone who informed me that she could not assist over the phone but if I was to pop down to the nearby office they could assist me in person.
When I visited the office I was greeted by chaos. There were four different queues with no indication as to which served what.
There was no signage, no receptionist, just milling customers trying to have their problems resolved.
I quickly joined the shortest line (which turned out to be the cashier's - obviously business was not translating into sales) and asked where I should go.
I was directed to the wrong queue. Fortunately, a switched-on client informed me of my error and suggested I try one of the others.
After a 20-minute debacle I eventually made it to the front of the correct desk and was assisted by a young lady, who had to ask one of the other staff how to check my account status (this was after she completed her urgent personal call).
I did, to their credit, finally get the information I asked for, but left with the subtle feeling that perhaps I should change Internet Service Providers.
At the exit I gave a wan smile to the people being turned away by the security guard because it was now lunchtime. A poor image of the service provider was generated in my mind.
People sometimes talk about a company's image as if it should be this kind of facade projected to the unsuspecting public that hides the true nature of a business.
I am talking about something along the lines of "Yes we are an environment-wrecking oil-drilling business but let us project to the world that we are friendly and interested in green fuel and hope they never discover the truth."
Happy adverts and clever marketing campaigns put forward a picture in the public eye that cannot be filled in reality.
The true company "image" is the emotional residue left in your clients every time they encounter your product or use your service.
The closer this is to the adverts and slogans you display the less people will think you are a hypocrite (and deep down no one likes those).
You can desire to alter my world, but unless you do so for the better I am going to think twice every time I hear your name or see your billboard.
So how can you avoid this disparity from developing? Well, for a start take part of last week's article to heart and think a little less about "Me" and a little more about your clients.
Think more about how they feel when they interact with your company (either through your staff, your product, your website) rather than thinking about how you can empty their wallets.
If you have not done it recently, have a walk though your company from a client's perspective or hire someone to do so.
I know a restaurant that routinely gets people to eat at their establishment in order to get feedback on service issues.
Try calling your own help desk - especially if it has an automated component and do not do the obvious "this is the boss checking on how the help desk is running", create a problem and phone in anonymously.
Second, do not over promise and under-deliver. Doing so makes you a liar (they are not too popular either).
At the very least do exactly what you committed to - that will enable you to satisfy your customers.
Work on going one step beyond that and you will create raving fans. People like it when things go according to plan but they love it when confronted with a positive surprise.
The Ritz Carlton has your personal letterhead placed in your room - not just the generic hotel stationary, now that is a surprise for the first time guest.
What does your environment at work say about your service? Is the grass cut, the toilets clean, the windows sparkling?
Not as some "window-dressing" attempt to con, but because your company has a culture that says "we take care of stuff hence our offices look good".
At one of the schools I attended, pot plants would be put out only on days when there were large numbers of visitors, the rest of the time they were stored in a nursery some place far from potential schoolboy attacks.
As students we could never work out why such beautification was not part of the routine landscape, after all the plants grew, needed water and care regardless of where they spend most of the year.
You could buy the occasional new magazine for your waiting room (doctors take note here) or how about a dollar a day on a newspaper?
Finally, social awareness. Nearly every list on building a positive company image contains this one-community responsibility (which includes the giving of donations).
Starbucks happily spends a fortune on campaigns highlighting how they improve the lives of coffee growers in Third World countries.
That is praiseworthy and long may it continue, but it does detract a little from the real community change that they bring the provision of good-quality beverages in a clean, friendly environment where ever you find one of their stores.
The provision of a place where people can meet, chat and physically interact in a world that is increasingly electronic as a point of contact is surely as commendable as providing clean water to a village.
The smell and sensation of drinking a well-crafted, tall, hazelnut latte leaves a better impression in my mind than reading the small print on where their bean comes from.
By all means help the impoverished, but also remember to ask yourself how your product is helping change people's lives directly.
I am all for bettering the world, but is that not what we should be doing anyway.

Stupid Post-Christmas Service

Wanting to check my Internet cap yesterday I went to visit my ISP (no they could not do it over the phone and their online platform does not work). Walking in I found a mass of people who were facing post-Christmas issues (mainly with new cellphone settings)-there was no signage to show me which of the 4 queues I should join. I had time so I engaged in a little experiment-I joined a queue at random and waited to see what might happen. Finally after 10 minutees a staff member came down the queue checking if we were in the right one.

This was in the offices of a large international cellular provider: quite frankly I expected better service.

Two quick pointers. Either a reception desk/point or very clear signage. Second point, if you know you are expecting large numbers of people with new cellphones after the holiday then manage your staff leave better to make sure there more than one person operating the IT desk (or create some VERY CLEAR 'do it yourself' instructions for different phones).

Optimise Your Product Instructions

"The inverse flow of the anti-linear advance of the pivotal device must be accurately advanced in order to facilitate the realignment of oneself with current chronology."
What was that again? Who cares anyway? You may as well be talking Russian.
Incomprehensible instructions, poor tag line creation, and sheer incompetent use of English frustrate and confuse clients.
The influx of Chinese goods into Zimbabwe has seen a number of great examples of poorly translated (often literally) English pamphlets arrive with your new purchase.
Consider these instructions from a recently obtained water dispenser.
"With freshing (sic) keeper cabinet of water dispenser can be put fruits, tea appliance. Need preservation, cleaning, rotating boards regularly switch on the preservation, preservation work at the end of the regular switch automatically return to the 0 position. At this time, the doors still closed 1-3 hours, until the cabinet automatic decomposition of ozone."
This is a real quote I promise (I can't make up something that bad)!
Needless to say my model does not possess a "freshing keeper cabinet" anyway. Perhaps they mean refrigerator and it got sent with the wrong model?
I guess I will never know. Other than that the water dispenser works fine, thank you very much.
Last week, I walked into the office of a reputable local firm to pay a bill. At 1630 hours I walked through their still open doors, was directed to a queue and spent 10 minutes waiting to be served.
Greeted by an attractive sales assistant, I stated my desire to pay. Wait, no they did not want my money as banking was done at 1630 hours even though they only closed at five.
There was no sign to indicate this, in fact no opening hours displayed anywhere. I had wasted a good 15 minutes of precious time that could have been saved by a simple notice. I wonder how many people go through the same process day after day at the same shop without anything changing.
Correct and concise communication means everything. Use clear and simple diagrams if you have to (my water dispenser has a red handle and a little logo of a cup with steam coming out it to indicate the hot water outlet).
Airports are often very good at this with their signage designed for slightly lost, first-time flyers to use. The symbols for baggage, immigration and customs are basic if not almost universal in design to aid those who may not speak the local language.
The London Underground and Hong Kong MTR rely heavily on simple diagrams to help millions of tourists navigate their cities along with the massive local population who need to get to work. Programmes like Skype have simple ‘1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .' set-up instructions to get you signed up and logged in.
When it comes to operating instructions, get the spelling, grammar and translation checked and double-checked.
Then find some ignorant and, preferably, technically challenged person and get them to follow the instructions. Or better still, invent something that is so obvious in its function that does not need instructions-merely a small diagram on the front of the packaging (think the paper-clip).
Remember that the font on the manual may need to be read by an 80-year-old with fading eyesight (drug companies could learn something here).
The best directions in the world do not work if they are unreadable. Have you ever seen an elderly person trying to read the numbers on a "Buddie" card? I appreciate that there is only so much information you can fit on a small space, but small, complex fonts are unreadable-on text cards and on your product.
While our population is skewed in the young direction the rest of the world is not. If you are marketing a product to the older portion of the consumer base please do them a favour and increase the font size a little.
Finally, bear in mind the old joke of the woman who presents to the emergency room with severe burns on her feet. In her hands she is clutching a tin of tomato soup.
On being asked what happened she explains that she was merely following the instructions on the tin. It said "Stand in boiling water for 10 minutes."
For some people there is no help.