Data is Business - The attention seeking kid

While traditional business processes get automated once and are tweaked periodically for enhancement, Data is more like a constant attention seeking kid.

Even in an agile world, the business processes change at a slow pace. But a data driven business changes almost daily. Why?

• Everyday there are new insights to be found,
• new data sources become available,
• new signals to be targeted,
• new experiments to be tried
• and the feedback comes in a 24 hour cycle or less.

This makes data driven businesses to be constantly tended to, try mutliple things in an iterative fashion to get to better results all the time. ‘ Use as needed’ Cloud resources make this easy and almost imperative since the competition must be doing this all the time.

When booking.com does 20000 experiments in a year to tweak everything to see what will move the needle in desired direction, it is thanks to the cloud based data driven business that makes it possible. There is no set business process /specification to be automated.

It is a continuous discovery of better business outcomes, powered by data driven insights!!!

Failing in the 'Right' things

When you try something first time, failure is a given. What matters is if you are failing in the Right things.

Now what is the right thing?

One that is impactful and strategic. You do not want to fail on things that are neither impactful nor strategic. While every failure has a learning, failing on the wrong things means the failure is not worth it.

When someone asked Einstein why he failed 1000 times in making the light bulb, he said “ i did not fail 1000 times. There are 1000 steps to making a light bulb!”

One of world’s most successful hotel booking company Booking.com does about 10000+ experiments annually to see what works and what will improve the key business outcomes. while some of those actually improve the outcomes, there are 1000s that fail. But without those, you will never know what works!!!

Suits and Sheets

Your first reaction to the title? Suits is self explanatory and sheets are spreadsheets!

Here is a story. A brilliant innovative idea starts taking shape in real world. Products are created , offered ,fine tuned and they find traction. First customers, word of mouth and a business is born. As market grows, copy cats emerge and price realization drops. Bottom line pressures kick in. The sales teams are now pushing. More features get added to get incremental dollars from the same customers. Costs get added to cover the surplus.SUITS and SHEETS push for more revenue and margins.

The genius of the original ideas is replaced by factories and numbers. Customers are now bombarded with a fat product that they don’t need , mostly.

An upstart reads the scenario well. Radically better alternative in a new business model has taken shape and has changed the rules of the game.The original firm first ignores and then wants to either buy or copy the upstart. But it’s no longer the lean/ mean creature it used to be.

The cycle repeats.

Gross Domestic Nothing ( GDN)

In the movie 'The Hummingbird Project’, the waitress wants to know how the new fiber pipeline that goes from Kansas Electronic Exchange to NYSE ( enabling data transfer times of 16 milliseconds) will help the lemon farmers in Zimbabwe whose shares are being traded. The project owner responds that the ‘ Zimbabwe farmers are irrelevant variable in the equation’!

A great many human endeavors of the current age tend to result in nothing concrete. The examples are many:

1. The huge number of derivative products cooked up by the Wall Street only seem to create high trader bonuses and market volumes while resulting in huge losses on balance sheets (e.g. Deutsche Bank) , big bank failures and job losses
2. The multiple social media platforms like Snapchat,Facebook, YouTube, OTT platforms like Prime, Netflix et al keep people busy watching inane videos and posts which they would have otherwise spent in being productive.
3. Billions of selfies do not seem to generate anything concrete either except traffic accidents and depression
4. Ultra cheap data plans are causing people to glue themselves to the pocket screens without any purpose.
5. Fake news,fake products and fake posts are resulting in fixed elections, wasted money and emotional outbursts.

As George Carlin says, is this the best we can show to aliens when they visit us , as proof of our evolution???

Skill a Robot cannot master

As algorithms start creating news stories ,movie story lines and other seemingly creative pursuits, it is important to look at specific skills that a robot cannot master , at least anytime soon.

Here is a skill/attribute that transcends age, geography and other traditional barriers. It’s a skill that comes to humans at a very very early age and unfortunately we tend to lose it over time.

Since there is no formula to execute this skill, it must be difficult for a robot to master this.

Enough of prelude. We are talking about curiosity. The innate trait to question the current, explore ,try alternates , find new answers and blaze a new path.

Child is never afraid to discover, explore and satiate the curiosity. As a child grows society conditions it to routines, expectations, boundaries,traditions and the set ways of doing things.

Over time the individual loses the energy , ability and interest to be curious. This makes the individual actions routine, predictable and automatable. That’s a downward spiral.

Never stop being curious. It helps you enjoy Disney movies, discover new ideas and things ,helps you find answers and the truth!

When was the last time you got curious???

Frustration Tolerance

What do Innovators , Rocket launchers and Sales people have in common ?

Number of setbacks.

While Politics of sale, market actions, client dynamics give nasty surprises to sales people, complex technologies/ideas, market timing, money challenges frustrate the innovators. Best scientific brains work for years on a rocket launch only to see it fall into the waters /explode for reasons not known/factored in.

Do you need a bigger case for frustration tolerance? Is it a skill or an attribute? How does one develop/acquire it?

While nobody wants a setback, they are a given. They happen more often than people expect and can derail the passion in an instant. While the first one might be tough, one must plan/expect/ be ready for the subsequent set backs. Just look at the numbers.

Whats the ratio of a sales call to a signed deal ?

Ratio of Startups to survival to Unicorns?

Ratio of rocket launches to success?

These are not odds. They are the reality one needs to be prepared for.

Every setback provides you learning opportunities but still is a setback that you need to recover from. And that needs the disposition called Frustration Tolerance. The attribute almost calls for dispassionate analysis and pivoting that is so critical not just for you but for everyone else involved.

When you plan a project or an idea next time, plan for few setbacks at the minimum. Otherwise you are daydreaming!

What do Innovators , Rocket launchers and Sales people have in common ?

Number of setbacks.

While Politics of sale, market actions, client dynamics give nasty surprises to sales people, complex technologies/ideas, market timing, money challenges frustrate the innovators. Best scientific brains work for years on a rocket launch only to see it fall into the waters /explode for reasons not known/factored in.

Do you need a bigger case for frustration tolerance? Is it a skill or an attribute? How does one develop/acquire it?

While nobody wants a setback, they are a given. They happen more often than people expect and can derail the passion in an instant. While the first one might be tough, one must plan/expect/ be ready for the subsequent set backs. Just look at the numbers.

Whats the ratio of a sales call to a signed deal ?

Ratio of Startups to survival to Unicorns?

Ratio of rocket launches to success?

These are not odds. They are the reality one needs to be prepared for.

Every setback provides you learning opportunities but still is a setback that you need to recover from. And that needs the disposition called Frustration Tolerance. The attribute almost calls for dispassionate analysis and pivoting that is so critical not just for you but for everyone else involved.

When you plan a project or an idea next time, plan for few setbacks at the minimum. Otherwise you are daydreaming!

Easy vs Urgent vs Right - Part II

This is a continuation of my earlier article on the same topic. Lets dig deep into the rationale for obsession with the Easy / Urgent answers.

1. All tenures have become short : Thanks to Gig economy, Millennials and the instant gratification trend, tenures have become short from CEO down to the lowest level. Everyone is out to an easy answer quickly.
2. Curiosity : The innate desire of curiosity to explore/experiment the unknown, questioning have become a rare commodity.
3. Abstractism: Abstractism as a skill is not being cultivated . Reusable modules/libraries/models/ideas, pre-cooked youtube videos for every topic, wikipedia and social media generated content means many neurons are not being activated.
4. Business of ‘Busy’ness : The need to be busy/’seen to be busy’ has overtaken what is really important.
5. Lack of imagination : And thats simply in short supply.

Unless one is able to overcome the above, one tends to always settle for the easy or the urgent answer and not necessarily the right one!This is a continuation of my earlier article on the same topic. Lets dig deep into the rationale for obsession with the Easy / Urgent answers.

1. All tenures have become short : Thanks to Gig economy, Millennials and the instant gratification trend, tenures have become short from CEO down to the lowest level. Everyone is out to an easy answer quickly.
2. Curiosity : The innate desire of curiosity to explore/experiment the unknown, questioning have become a rare commodity.
3. Abstractism: Abstractism as a skill is not being cultivated . Reusable modules/libraries/models/ideas, pre-cooked youtube videos for every topic, wikipedia and social media generated content means many neurons are not being activated.
4. Business of ‘Busy’ness : The need to be busy/’seen to be busy’ has overtaken what is really important.
5. Lack of imagination : And thats simply in short supply.

Unless one is able to overcome the above, one tends to always settle for the easy or the urgent answer and not necessarily the right one!