Sui Generis

Only one Google

Jun 14, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

Thanks for visiting! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to by RSS, or by Email. And if there's anything else I can do for you, feel free to drop me a line.

clipped from pulverblog.pulver.com In a speech I gave last week in Tel Aviv, I suggested to employees of a very successful and established Israeli company that they should embrace the creative spirit and once again embrace innovation and change. I even went so far to suggest that the company should consider “…forgetting about ARPU and EBITA” for 12-18 months and see what happens. When the people said that “they are not Google” I suggested that maybe if they took the time to embrace innovation and change that they could try thinking like Google for a change.

Do What You Love

Jun 14, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

I think you all know that I believe in doing what you’re passionate about.

Leo from ZenHabits wrote a very good article about that topic.

Claudia Bayr also writes on the power of dreams.

Making a dream come true isn’t easy though. Sometimes it’s can even seem to be more of a nightmare. But if you survive through the nightmare, you’ll be the best.

Masking

Jun 13, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

In audio, there’s an effect called masking. Basically, masking is the effect when a softer sound is made inaudible by a louder sound. The masking effect is the most significant when two sounds have similar frequencies. Sounds that have been masked are inaudible, and are of no use to the listener. It merely takes up sonic space.

Musicians (good ones) know this, that’s why they attempt to play in different ranges, to not clash with each other. Audio engineers know this, and that’s they mix sounds accordingly, equalizing sounds to make them sound different enough to be heard clearly.

To be heard, to be of use, you either have to really be the best (loudest sound) or you have to be different enough to be heard. If not, you’re probably just making things noisier.

Fear

Jun 13, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

Karl Moore tells us that fear is merely a label.

I believe everyone has great potential, the potential to change the world. And if we truly understand that fear is nothing, that’s when we can truly fulfill it.

Simpsons and everyday life

Jun 13, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

clipped from blog.wired.com I’m sure the Simpsons enthusiast knows all of this already, but I had no idea Matt Groening based the Simpsons off his own family. In The Story, a young Matt Groening is recorded by his father Homer as he tells his little sister Maggie a bedtime story about the various animals he and his sister Lisa met while out on a walk. Adorable.

Aerial Navigation

Jun 12, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

Paleo-Future is an interesting blog. It mentions various ideas and predictions about the future that didn’t come true.

One example is the belief from 1906 that “Aerial Navigation Will Never Be Popular“. Even the 1996 New York Times was very far off when they predicted 2006 (merely 10 years).

It shows us how we are inept in predicting the future. Ideas that we think will not succeed - more often than not - do. Technologies that we have high hopes for don’t always go as far as we expect.

Why? A couple of reasons, I think. Firstly, I believe the expectations have a negative impact on the innovation. With high expectations, more people are watching the progress of the technology, and more major corporations enter the market. The problem with that is that major corporations tend to take less risks. With higher expectations, people are more afraid of failure, and as such don’t take the risks required for true progress and innovation. When you have nothing to lose, you’ll be willing to take more risks and try more new ideas, and eventually you’ll probably win.

Secondly, and this is a point I’ve touched on before (and it’s something I learned from Seth Godin’s blog), we tend to predict the success of an idea based on our current world view and mindset. This fails because revolutionary ideas change our world view. More on this can be read here.

So what can we learn from this? Don’t be afraid to take risks - don’t be afraid of failure. Go for broke. Don’t let the current world view limit you, be willing to go out on a limb and change that world view. And you may just change the world.

Impossible

Jun 12, 2007 Moved from Blogger Comments

“The impossible is often the untried.”

– John Goodwin

And along the same lines, a slogan I’m sure we’re all familiar with, “Impossible is Nothing”.

What seems as impossible now often isn’t. People thought that airplanes would be impossible. They thought that cell phones were impossible.

Impossibilities are just undiscovered land. To really make a difference, to make progress, we have to explore that land and try the impossible. We shouldn’t be afraid of what seems impossible.