Most of us think that scalable ideas have some “silver bullet” feature, some quality that bestows a “can’t miss” appeal. That kind of thinking is fundamentally wrong. There is no single quality that distinguishes ideas that have the potential to succeed at scale from those that don’t.

The rise and fall of Kmart

Most scaling failures are complicated. Identifying a list of potential problems before you scale up can improve the odds of success: <ul><li>Use incentives that can scale. This applies to creating healthcare or education policy, trying to grow your startup, or just helping your community get along better.</li><li>Make all of your decisions on the margin. Don’t be a prisoner to looking at averages, as data is always presented in averages. Instead, a marginal way is to pick the low-hanging fruit right away, then scale over marginal people, not over the million people who have already consumed it in the past.</li></ul>

The world of scaling needs a “common sense checklist"

Kmart used to be a highly successful discount department-store chain with over 2,300 locations in the U.S. Their famous in-store promotion was the BlueLight Special, where a great deal would be announced at unknown times. This helped them clear out unwanted stock and gave shoppers an adrenaline rush that made them spend more money. Kmart headquarters tried to scale it up by deciding where, when, and what product would be placed on the BlueLight Special across all stores. But customers in one store had different needs than customers in another store. Centralising the special ruined the brand.

Example of scaling problem

Moving from creating evidence-based policy to one of producing policy-based evidence is a call to researchers, policymakers and business people to consider the following: If scaling an idea, what constraints should be taken into account when doing the original research? For example, in the Chicago Heights Early Childhood program, researchers created a pre-school in a low-income Chicago neighbourhood to see what would produce the biggest educational gains. They hired the best teachers for their pilot program, but at scale, they’d have to hire 30,000 less-good teachers to stay within the budget.

Creating evidence-based policy vs. producing policy-based evidence

The voltage effect describes what happens when you move from the small to the large. Most ideas experience voltage drops, when a seemingly great idea loses power as it is scaled. How to fail at scaling<ul><li>You scale a program that was never tested.</li><li>Humans don’t scale. Any time there is a human at the centre of the program, it will fail.</li><li>Experts in their field assume that everyone else thinks hyper-rationally as they do, but people seldom think clearly in an area that is unfamiliar to them.</li></ul>

Voltage drop is shockingly common

When a small startup firm or institution has some success and wants to get bigger, they should consider the following: <ul><li>Be as diverse as you possibly can, as early as you can. </li><li>Types of diversity are observable characteristics, like gender and race and the socioeconomic status of how you were raised. </li></ul> This will allow for a much deeper and more diverse set of ideas and solutions to problems and, consequently, a more productive organisation.

Scaling considerations

The best example of a product that scaled unbelievably well is Jonas Salk and the polio vaccination. He had an innovation, tested it out on his own kids, and then he ramped it up to test all kinds of different kids. It worked well and then leveraged the healthcare system. The worst example is the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) program of Nancy Reagan. Police officers would go into school classrooms and teach kids about the dangers of drugs. The drug use didn’t fall and, in some cases, actually increased. The program was ineffective because it never had voltage to start with.

The best and worst examples of the voltage effect

False positives arise for many reasons such as bad measurement, wishful thinking or simply because the world is messy and it can be difficult to establish cause and effect. One reason why we don’t make as big an impact as we should is:<ul><li>We’re not really sure that this is going to ever scale.</li><li>We are unsure that this is the correct result.</li></ul> Results should be tested with, for example, Benford’s Law, to see whether the data have been fabricated.

False positives are a common cause of scaling failures

The secret to high-voltage scaling is understanding when to quit. People generally don’t quit soon enough. Usually, when someone wants to quit, it is because something went wrong. But, you should think more about the opportunity I’m giving up if I stick with it. If the opportunity changes for the better, I should quit more often.  If you’re considering quitting, force yourself to compare your performance with your peer group. Consider if you have a comparative advantage in this particular activity.

The upside of quitting

Economist John List is trying to start a scaling revolution. He discusses avoiding false positives, the cause of a given success and optimal quitting.

In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized how his profession does research — is trying to start a scaling revolution. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, List teaches us how to avoid false positives, how to know whether a given success is due to the chef or the ingredients, and how to practice “optimal quitting.”  

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

business

Business

startup

Startups

podcasts

Podcasts

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than drive a car? How do we decide whom to marry? Why is the media so full of bad news? Also: things you never knew you wanted to know about wolves, bananas, pollution, search engines, and the quirks of human behavior.

Freakonomics Radio

494. Why Do Most Ideas Fail to Scale?

Society is on the leading edge of a technology tsunami. Advances in artificial intelligence, the internet of Things, virtual reality, robotics, nanotechnology, deep learning, mapping the human brain, and biomedical, genetic, and cyborg engineering will revolutionize how most of us live and work. Technology will be able to learn, as well as teach and program itself. We call this next big step the Smart Machine Age, or SMA. The SMA has the potential to be as disruptive and transformative for us as the Agricultural Age and Industrial Revolution were for our ancestors.

Smart Machine Age

In the last few decades, the American worker has been outsourced, off-shored, and automated on many factory floors and in many routine tasks. Up next is broader and more encompassing automation that will likely affect many more workers, including many professionals.While automation has been happening for decades, now technology is even beginning to replace knowledge workers—accountants, business managers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, researchers, architects, higher-education teachers, and consultants.

Get Ready For The Next Ride

Smart technologies will become ubiquitous, invading and changing many aspects of our professional and personal lives and in many ways challenging our fundamental beliefs about success, opportunity, and the American Dream. The best research to date indicates a high probability that technology will replace 47 percent of US jobs or displace as many as eighty million US workers within the next ten to twenty years.

The American Dream

In the Smart Machine Age or SMA—operational excellence may well become almost totally technology-driven, making human innovation the key to value creation. Organizations will need their people to be hyper-learners who can adapt to rapidly changing environments. These needs are unlike what was required in the command-and-control style organizations of the Industrial Age. Agility, adaptability, and responsiveness also will be required for most, and thus organizational efficiency will be necessary but no longer sufficient.

The Smart Machine Age: A New Game Requires New Rules

NewSmart is a measure not of what you know or how much you know but of <ul><li>- the quality of your thinking, listening, collaborating, and learning. </li><li>- how good you are at “not knowing” and decoupling your beliefs (not values) from your ego. </li><li>- how good you are at being open to continually stress-testing your belief about how the world works. </li><li>- how good you are at trying out new ideas and ways to accomplish your objectives and learning from those experiments.</li></ul>

A New Kind Of Smart

Humility is rarely associated with intellectual aptitude or professional success in Western societies, especially in the United States. Synonyms for Humility often include lowliness, meekness, and submissiveness—characteristics that would seem to be the antithesis of achievement and success. Our definition of Humility comes from our study of it as a philosophical, intellectual virtue and psychological construct. We define Humility as a mindset about oneself that is open-minded, and selfless.This enables one to embrace the world as it “is” in the pursuit of human excellence.

Humility: The Gateway to Human Excellence 

That doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself, but it does mean thinking about yourself less (e.g., how you look, what other people are thinking or saying about you; how you’re coming across; how you’re being judged). It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs.

The Meaning Of Humility

The outward focus that follows from a Humility mindset is what’s in our best interest. Truly effective teamwork, collaboration, and innovation can’t happen when we’re defensive or when we’re too tied up in looking or feeling superior to our colleagues, teammates, clients, or customers.Humility is the gateway to human excellence in the SMA. It’s necessary in order to excel at the foundational NewSmart Behaviors which underlie the highest levels of thinking, learning, and emotionally engaging with others.

Focussing Outwards

You must slow down and make daily, thoughtful choices and exert effort to engage in the behaviours that will allow you to develop the skills you’ll need to survive and thrive.Quieting Ego is how we can deliberately work to reduce our reflexive emotional defensiveness; have empathy and open-mindedness; engage in reflexive Listening, and proactively seek other people’s feedback and perspectives to stress-test our own thinking.

Good intentions and Quieting The Ego

The most effective way to quiet our ego is through practising mindfulness. Quieting Ego through mindfulness results in heightened attention and awareness to experience and reality—in the present moment—that is open and receptive without bias or distortion. Meditation is one way to improve mindfulness, to quiet our egos, and to behave with humility. Another way to practice Quieting Ego is through gratitude. Studies of gratitude have discovered wide-ranging physical and psychological benefits associated with it.

Practising Mindfulness

A fundamental component of managing ourselves is the simplest to understand but not always the simplest to do: Slowing down. This seems counterintuitive to the cultural pressures in this day and age of doing more and more, faster and faster, with fewer and fewer resources. What we are talking about, again, is being mindful; slowing down to pay adequate attention and curbing our reflexive cognitive and emotional ways.

Managing Self: Thinking and Emotions

Managing our emotions and behavioural reactivity is also important to managing ourselves, and so is our ability to understand and react appropriately to other people’s emotions—which together constitute emotional intelligence (EI). This is so very important because so much of the value-added work humans will do in the SMA will be done in small teams. Sensitivity to other people’s emotions has been found to be a key to effective collaboration.

Managing Yourself

It’s hard for any of us to critique our own thinking and truly think critically. We’re just too wired to confirm what we already believe, and we feel too comfortable having a cohesive simple story of how our world works. We need to have thinking “partners” who force us to confront those biases, and we need to listen to them. The most effective way to think innovatively is to think with others in small teams made up of people who have experiences and training different from us.You need to listen to others to open your mind and push past your biases and mental models.

Reflective Listening

Listening is the way most of us learn. To be a good listener you have to be totally focused on the speaker with an open mind. You have to listen in a non-judgmental way, with the only goal being to try to understand what the other person is saying before you prepare and deliver your response. Good listeners ask questions to make sure that they understand before responding, or they paraphrase and repeat back what they believe that the person said and ask if they’ve understood correctly.

Listen To Learn

Accepting NewSmart and Humility as well as practising Quieting Ego, Managing Self, and Reflective Listening lays the groundwork for relationship building with others. What else can you do to help yourself better focus on and connect with other people? Here are five keys to connecting with others: (1) be present, (2) be genuine, (3) communicate affirmation, (4) listen effectively, and (5) communicate support. Trust doesn’t just happen—it takes hard work, and it requires slowing down and taking time to be genuine with and care about other people.

Otherness: Emotionally Connecting and Relating to Others

Old Cultural Ways:Individual wins, Play cards close to the chest, Highest ranking person wins, Listen to confirm, Telling, Knowing, IQ, Mistakes are bad, Competing, Self-promote. New Cultural Ways:Teams win, Transparency, the Best idea wins, Listening to learn, Asking questions, Being good at not knowing, IQ & EQ, Mistakes are learning opportunities, Collaborate, Self-reflect.

The NewSmart Organization

To manage and lead a team, you need to meditate so that you dissolve your ego. Buddhism for the corporate world.

Humility Is the New Smart Your job is at risk—if not now, then soon. We are on the leading edge of a Smart Machine Age led by artificial intelligence that will be as transformative for us as the Industrial Revolution was for our ancestors. Smart machines will take over millions of jobs in manufacturing, office work, the service sector, the professions, you name it. Not only can they know more data and analyze it faster than any mere human, say Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig, but smart machines are free of the emotional, psychological, and cultural baggage that so often mars human thinking. So we can't beat 'em and we can't join 'em. To stay relevant, we have to play a different game. Hess and Ludwig offer us that game plan. We need to excel at critical, creative, and innovative thinking and at genuinely engaging with others—things machines can't do well. The key is to change our definition of what it means to be smart. Hess and Ludwig call it being NewSmart. In this extraordinarily timely book, they offer detailed guidance for developing NewSmart attitudes and four critical behaviors that will help us adapt to the new reality. The crucial mindset underlying NewSmart is humility—not self-effacement but an accurate self-appraisal: acknowledging you can't have all the answers, remaining open to new ideas, and committing yourself to lifelong learning. Drawing on extensive multidisciplinary research, Hess and Ludwig emphasize that the key to success in this new era is not to be more like the machines but to excel at the best of what makes us human.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

creativity

Creativity

books

Books

Smart machines are replacing more and more jobs. Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig show how to develop abilities that machines don't have so we can thrive in this Smart Machine Age. Underlying them all is a sense of personal humility: honestly recognizing our limitations and working to mitigate them. In nearly every industry, smart machines are replacing human labor. It's not just factory jobs-automated technologies are handling people's investments, diagnosing illnesses, and analyzing written documents. If we humans are going to endure, Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig say we're going to need a dose of humility. We need to be humble enough to let go of the idea that smart means knowing the most, using that information quickest, and making the fewest mistakes. Smart machines will always be better than we are at those things. Instead, we need to cultivate important abilities that smart machines don't have (yet): thinking critically, creatively, and innovatively and building close relationships with others so we can collaborate effectively. Hess and Ludwig call this being NewSmart. To develop these abilities, we need to practice four specific behaviors: keeping our egos out of our way, managing our thoughts and emotions to curb any biases or defensiveness, listening to others with an open mind, and connecting with others socially and emotionally. What all these behaviors have in common is, again, humility-avoiding self-centeredness so we can learn from and work with other humans. Hess and Ludwig offer a guide to developing these NewSmart abilities and to creating organizations where these qualities are encouraged and rewarded.

Edward D. Hess

Katherine Ludwig

Humility Is the New Smart

Culture is a system of behaviours that you hope most people will follow, most of the time. No large organization ever gets anywhere near 100 percent compliance on every value, but some do much better than others. It’s actually a minor miracle if a culture isn’t dysfunctional. Our aim here is to be better, not perfect.

What Culture Is

Culture is not like a mission statement; you can’t just set it up and have it last forever.There’s a saying in the military that if you see something below standard and do nothing, then you’ve set a new standard. This is also true of culture. If you see something off-culture and ignore it, you’ve created a new culture. Meanwhile, as business conditions shift and your strategy evolves, you have to keep changing your culture accordingly. The target is always moving. Culture isn’t a magical set of rules that makes everyone behave the way you’d like.

What Culture Is Not

Creating a culture is more complex than just trying to get your people to behave the way you want them to when no one is looking. Remember that your employees are far from uniform. They come from different countries, races, genders, backgrounds, even eras. Each one brings to your organization a different cultural point of departure. To get all of them to conform to and be reasonably happy with a common set of norms is a challenging puzzle.

Creating A Company Culture

Culture clearly has a powerful effect. So how do you shape it, how do you set it deep in people’s minds, and how do you fix it when it goes wrong?The right answer for your company depends on what your company is, what it does, and what it wants to be. Your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake.

The Effect Of Culture

<ol><li>Keep what works.</li><li>Create shocking rules</li><li>Dress for success.</li><li>Incorporate outside leadership.</li><li>Make decisions that demonstrate cultural priorities</li><li>Walk the talk.</li><li>Make ethics explicit.</li></ol>Culture is a consequence of actions rather than beliefs, so it almost never ends up exactly the way you intend it. This is why it’s not a “set and forget it” endeavour. You must constantly examine and reshape your culture or it won’t be your culture at all.

The Seven Key Tactics

Here are the rules for writing a rule so powerful it sets the culture for many years: <ul><li>It must be memorable. If people forget the rule, they forget the culture. </li><li>It must raise the question “Why?” Your rule should be so bizarre and shocking that everybody who hears it is compelled to ask, “Are you serious?” </li><li>Its cultural impact must be straightforward. The answer to the “Why?” must clearly explain the cultural concept. </li><li>People must encounter the rule almost daily. If your incredibly memorable rule applies only to situations people face once a year, it’s irrelevant</li></ul>

The Rules Of Writing A Rule

The Bushido code enabled the Samurai to rule Japan from 1186 until 1868—nearly seven hundred years—and their beliefs endured long after their reign.  Bushido looks like a set of principles, but it’s really a set of practices. It is a code of action, a system not of values but of virtues. A value is merely a belief, but virtue is a belief that you actively pursue or embody. The reason so many efforts to establish “corporate values” are basically worthless is that they emphasize beliefs instead of actions. What you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are.

The Way Of The Warrior: Bushido 

The Samurai code rested on these eight virtues: rectitude (or justice), courage, honour, loyalty, benevolence, politeness, self-control, and veracity (or sincerity).Each virtue was carefully defined and then reinforced through a set of principles, practices, and stories. They all worked together as a system, balancing one another in a way that made it very difficult for any individual virtue to be misunderstood or misused. The Samurai required everyone to study the code, commit it to memory and live it every day.

The Samurai Code: Eight Virtues

Your view or your executive team’s view of your culture is rarely what your employees experience. The relevant question is, what must employees do to survive and succeed in your organization? If you’re a leader, how do you know what your culture is? The best way to understand your culture is not through what your managers tell you, but through how new employees behave. What behaviours do they perceive will help them fit in and get ahead? That’s your company’s culture.

Your Own Perspective on The Culture Is Not that Relevant

Genghis created a remarkably stable culture by founding it on three principles: Meritocracy: Genghis abolished inherited aristocratic titles and eliminated the steppe tribes caste hierarchy. All men were equal. Loyalty: Genghis viewed loyalty as a bilateral relationship that gave him significant responsibilities.  Inclusion: Rather than treating conquered aristocratic leaders with special care and enslaving the rank and file, he executed the aristocrats and incorporated the soldiers into his army.

Genghis Khan: How He Conquered The East

The first step in getting the culture you want is knowing what you want.  With seemingly infinite possibilities to choose from, how do you design a culture that gives your organization the advantages it needs, creates an environment you are proud of, and most importantly, one that can actually be implemented.

Design Your Culture

All cultures are aspirational. No company ever achieved total cultural compliance or harmony.While you can draw inspiration from other cultures, don’t try to adopt another organization’s ways. For your culture to be vibrant and sustainable, it must come from the blood, from the soul. You cannot just copy and paste a culture you like.

Culture Is Always Relevant

Culture begins with deciding what you value most. Then you must help everyone in your organization practice behaviours that reflect those virtues. If the virtues prove ambitious or just plain counterproductive, you have to change them. When your culture turns out to lack crucial elements, you have to add them. Finally, you have to pay close attention to your people’s behaviour, but even closer attention to your own. How is it affecting your culture? Are you being the person you want to be? That is what it means to create a great culture. That is also what it means to be a leader.

Bottom Line: Creating A Great Culture Is Real Leadership

Culture isn't what you say, it's what you do.

Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you’d expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised often shapes them—yet a few leaders have managed to shape their times. In What You Do Is Who You Are, he turns his attention to a question crucial to every organization: how do you create and sustain the culture you want? To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions. It is the set of assumptions employees use to resolve everyday problems: should I stay at the Red Roof Inn, or the Four Seasons? Should we discuss the color of this product for five minutes or thirty hours? If culture is not purposeful, it will be an accident or a mistake. What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building—the leader of the only successful slave revolt, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who ran the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture. Horowitz connects these leadership examples to modern case-studies, including how Louverture’s cultural techniques were applied (or should have been) by Reed Hastings at Netflix, Travis Kalanick at Uber, and Hillary Clinton, and how Genghis Khan’s vision of cultural inclusiveness has parallels in the work of Don Thompson, the first African-American CEO of McDonalds, and of Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO who led Frontier Communications. Horowitz then offers guidance to help any company understand its own strategy and build a successful culture. What You Do Is Who You Are is a journey through culture, from ancient to modern. Along the way, it answers a question fundamental to any organization: who are we? How do people talk about us when we’re not around? How do we treat our customers? Are we there for people in a pinch? Can we be trusted? Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meeting. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do. This book aims to help you do the things you need to become the kind of leader you want to be—and others want to follow.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you’d expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised often shapes them—yet a few leaders have managed to shape their times. In What You Do Is Who You Are, he turns his attention to a question crucial to every organization: how do you create and sustain the culture you want?To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions. It is the set of assumptions employees use to resolve everyday problems: should I stay at the Red Roof Inn, or the Four Seasons? Should we discuss the color of this product for five minutes or thirty hours? If culture is not purposeful, it will be an accident or a mistake.What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building—the leader of the only successful slave revolt, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who ran the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture.Horowitz connects these leadership examples to modern case-studies, including how Louverture’s cultural techniques were applied (or should have been) by Reed Hastings at Netflix, Travis Kalanick at Uber, and Hillary Clinton, and how Genghis Khan’s vision of cultural inclusiveness has parallels in the work of Don Thompson, the first African-American CEO of McDonalds, and of Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO who led Frontier Communications. Horowitz then offers guidance to help any company understand its own strategy and build a successful culture. What You Do Is Who You Are is a journey through culture, from ancient to modern. Along the way, it answers a question fundamental to any organization: who are we? How do people talk about us when we’re not around? How do we treat our customers? Are we there for people in a pinch? Can we be trusted? Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meeting. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do. This book aims to help you do the things you need to become the kind of leader you want to be—and others want to follow.

Ben Horowitz is the cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs building the next generation of leading technology companies. The firm's investments include Airbnb, GitHub, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Previously, he was cofounder and CEO of Opsware, formerly Loudcloud, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Horowitz writes about his experiences and insights from his career as a computer science student, software engineer, cofounder, CEO, and investor in a blog that is read by nearly 10 million people. He has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Fortune, the Economist, and Bloomberg.

Ben Horowitz

What You Do Is Who You Are

The word “ritual” is thrown around colloquially today, but sometimes it still carries the weight of religious ceremony. For supermarket supershoppers, as we might call them, these stores themselves, with their floor-to-ceiling shelves and flickering freezers brimming with food that’s available for purchase, are a sanctuary that transcends faith, race, and economic status. Grocery shopping is an intimately personal act—deciding what to put in your body and what to feed the people you love—performed in public.

Grocery Shopping As A Ritual

Grocery shopping can be a uniquely pleasurable experience, and it’s a squarely American invention. Before the turn of the century, people got their groceries from general stores, where a clerk gathered your items while you waited and placed them on the counter to ring up. There was no way to compare the costs and relative virtues of, say, Crest or Colgate toothpaste; toothpaste was just toothpaste.

Grocery Shopping; A Pleasurable Experience

But for some, rooting for bargains taps into ingrained opportunism. For being clever enough to pair a coupon with an item that’s already on sale. For holding off on buying a tempting pint of ripe blueberries at one store before getting it for half the price at the next. There is a devilish sense of satisfaction at having gamed the system enough to get an extra six-pack of Gillette razor blades to store in the bathroom cupboard.

Bargain Hunting

Customers are so excited about spending only $8 on a rotisserie chicken that they happily buy many other items at a modest-to-steep markup.That makes the business work, but it also makes supermarkets compete in a race to the bottom on prices.

The Feedback Loop

An online magazine for today's home cook, reporting from the front lines of dinner.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

The Case for the Supermarket Supershopper

“Life is growth. You grow or you die.”

Phil believed in the power of learning. Learning can take many forms :• Reading• Traveling• StudyWhat is important is that you are constantly improving and that goes for life in general and in your profession.GROWTH, GROWTH, GROWTH !!!

Life is GROWTH

Phil pursued his calling in making athletes better by providing them with the best performance equipment they'll need.As an athlete himself he had a passion for sports which he believes was his purpose- a life of meaning and creativity.YOUR WHY WILL TRUMP ANYHOW!!

Chase Your Purpose

In an industry dominated by the likes of Adidas and Puma, Phil believed in providing high-quality for lo-cost products and he would have to import these products from Asia - a risky business plan but Phil pursued it nonetheless. It was not all smooth sailing with bankruptcy lurking in Nike's early days however he persevered.

Chase your " CRAZY IDEA"!

With failure comes WISDOMNothing can take away the invaluable lesson taught by failure. Failure is painful and pain is temporary.• choose to learn from your situation, you can take what you've learned and become better.

Fail

Phil recognizes that although hard work and focus are required to succeed one must also persevere to find opportunities for success. Keep going, keep searching and eventually, luck finds you in the most unexpected places.

Luck: an ingredient for success

Act successfully until you are successful. Success is a mindset this is why success means different things to people. Success is defined by the individual and how you define success is based on your perspective of life.Phil would often be in a room with business people much smarter and more experienced than him but he could only be in the same room with these people because he and his business projected confidence and success.

Success

• Has a mission that the public agrees with and can support.Nike's mission: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.”Your mission projects your values and beliefs.

A brand that inspires

A inspiring story from an inspiring man and his company - Nike

'A refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like ... It's an amazing tale' Bill Gates 'The best book I read last year was Shoe Dog, by Nike's Phil Knight. Phil is a very wise, intelligent and competitive fellow who is also a gifted storyteller' Warren Buffett In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the boot of his Plymouth, Knight grossed $8000 in his first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of start-ups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all start-ups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognisable symbols in the world today. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, he tells his story. Candid, humble, wry and gutsy, he begins with his crossroads moment when at 24 he decided to start his own business. He details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream - along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls how his first band of partners and employees soon became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything. A memoir rich with insight, humour and hard-won wisdom, this book is also studded with lessons - about building something from scratch, overcoming adversity, and ultimately leaving your mark on the world.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed 50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed 8,000 his first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top 30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business--a business that would be dynamic, different. Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream--along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.

Philip Hampson Knight, whose nickname is "Buck", is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and current chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., and previously served as chairman and CEO of the company.

Phil Knight

Shoe Dog

Usability: the ability of a user to accomplish a task successfullyUX: entire interaction of a user using a product, including thoughts, feelings, perceptionsMetric - way of evaluating a particular phenomenonMyths:<ol><li>Too much time to collect data -> Data can be collected in a few extra mins during an interview or testing session</li><li>Too much money -> Even free tools offer reliable insights</li><li>Not useful when focusing on new improvements -> Improvements need to have a baseline when measured throughout the change</li><li>Data doesn't help understand causes -> It can if done properly with qualitative data</li></ol>

Introduction to main definitions and myths

5.Too noisy -> You don't need to measure everything, only what is important6.You can trust your gut -> No, you cannot, we are biased7.They don't apply to new products -> They do because they set baselines for future improvements8.No metrics for our specific issues -> There is a metric for everything9.Not appreciated by management -> If presented properly it should be10.Small sample size -> You don't need a big sample size to use UX metrics, even <20 users is enough

More myths about collecting UX data

Independent variables - you can control in your studies (e.g. age of participants)Dependent variables: you cannot control, you get as a result of the experiment (e.g. success rate)Data types:<ul><li>nominal/categorical: unordered groups (e.g. gender). Cannot be compared against each other</li><li>ordinal: it can be compared against each other but the distance between the values is not meaningful (e.g. excellent, good, fair, poor)</li><li>interval: differences between values are meaningful but there is no 0 point (e.g. freezing point of water is not the absence of heat)</li><li>ratio: they have an absolute 0 (e.g height)</li></ul>

Types of data in UX metrics

You cannot improve what you cannot measure.

Measuring the User Experience was the first book that focused on how to quantify the user experience. Now in the second edition, the authors include new material on how recent technologies have made it easier and more effective to collect a broader range of data about the user experience. As more UX and web professionals need to justify their design decisions with solid, reliable data, Measuring the User Experience provides the quantitative analysis training that these professionals need. The second edition presents new metrics such as emotional engagement, personas, keystroke analysis, and net promoter score. It also examines how new technologies coming from neuro-marketing and online market research can refine user experience measurement, helping usability and user experience practitioners make business cases to stakeholders. The book also contains new research and updated examples, including tips on writing online survey questions, six new case studies, and examples using the most recent version of Excel. Learn which metrics to select for every case, including behavioral, physiological, emotional, aesthetic, gestural, verbal, and physical, as well as more specialized metrics such as eye-tracking and clickstream data Find a vendor-neutral examination of how to measure the user experience with web sites, digital products, and virtually any other type of product or system Discover in-depth global case studies showing how organizations have successfully used metrics and the information they revealed Companion site, www.measuringux.com, includes articles, tools, spreadsheets, presentations, and other resources to help you effectively measure the user experience

product

Product & Design

Measuring the User Experience was the first book that focused on how to quantify the user experience. Now in the second edition, the authors include new material on how recent technologies have made it easier and more effective to collect a broader range of data about the user experience. As more UX and web professionals need to justify their design decisions with solid, reliable data, Measuring the User Experience provides the quantitative analysis training that these professionals need. The second edition presents new metrics such as emotional engagement, personas, keystroke analysis, and net promoter score. It also examines how new technologies coming from neuro-marketing and online market research can refine user experience measurement, helping usability and user experience practitioners make business cases to stakeholders. The book also contains new research and updated examples, including tips on writing online survey questions, six new case studies, and examples using the most recent version of Excel.<ul> <li>Learn which metrics to select for every case, including behavioral, physiological, emotional, aesthetic, gestural, verbal, and physical, as well as more specialized metrics such as eye-tracking and clickstream data</li> <li>Find a vendor-neutral examination of how to measure the user experience with web sites, digital products, and virtually any other type of product or system</li> <li>Discover in-depth global case studies showing how organizations have successfully used metrics and the information they revealed</li> <li>Companion site, www.measuringux.com, includes articles, tools, spreadsheets, presentations, and other resources to help you effectively measure the user experience</li></ul>

Bill Albert

Tom Tullis

Measuring the User Experience

Everyone has insecurities. Those who attain high standing in life want to feel secure in their positions, and superior to those around them.<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Commit harmless mistakes that will not hurt you in the long run but will give you the chance to ask for his help.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Make it clear that your advice is merely an echo of his advice.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">You cannot worry about upsetting every person you come across but you must be selectively cruel. If he is very weak and ready to fall, let nature takes its course.</li></ul> Key to Power: Never take your position for granted. <a href="https://www.justologist.com/the-48-laws-of-power/">Read The Full Article Here</a>.<a href="https://www.justologist.com/#/portal/signup">Join the Community</a>.

Law 1: Never Outshine The Master.

<ul><li>People forget the favors they have received and imagine they have earned their success on their own merits.</li><li>While a friend expects more and more favors and seethes with jealousy, these former enemies expect nothing and got everything.</li></ul> Key to Power: Judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.

Law 2: Never Put Too Much Trust In Friends, Learn To Use Enemies.

Part I: Use Red Herrings.<ul><li>Our first instinct is to always trust appearances.</li><li>Cultivate an air of honesty in one area to disguise dishonesty in other.</li><li>Kill three birds with one stone: appear friendly, conceal your intentions, and send your rivals on time-consuming wild-goose chases.</li></ul> Part II: Use Smoke Screens.<ul><li>The paranoid and wary are often the easiest to deceive.</li><li>Win their trust in one area, and you have a smoke screen that blinds them in another.</li><li>The best deception is bland and inconspicuous, which calls no attention.</li></ul> Key to Power: If you keep people off the balance, they can't counter your efforts

Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions.

<ul><li>Power is, in many ways, a game of appearance, and when you say less than necessary, you inevitably appear more powerful than you are.</li><li>Once the words are out, you cannot take them back.</li><li>Short answers and silences will put people on the defensive, nervously filling the silence with all kinds of comments that will reveal valuable information about them and their weaknesses.</li></ul> Key to Power: The less you say, the more intimidating you are.

Law 4: Always Say Less Than Necessary.

<ul><li>Establish a reputation for one outstanding quality that sets you apart and gets other people to talk about you.</li><li>A solid reputation increases your presence and exaggerates your strengths without having to spend much energy.</li><li>It is wise to associate with someone whose image counteracts your own, using their good name to whitewash and elevate yours.</li></ul> Key to Power: When you have a solid reputation, you can undermine your opponent's efforts with ridicule.

Law 5: So Much Depends On Reputation—Guard It With Your Life.

<ul><li>Every crowd has a silver lining and they tend to act in conjunction.</li><li>Attach your name and reputation to a quality, an image, that sets you apart from other people.</li><li>Attack the most visible, most famous, most powerful person you can find.</li><li>The quality of attention is irrelevant.</li><li>An element of mystery can give you an intimidating presence as a leader.</li></ul> Key to Power: Play against people's expectations and welcome negative attention.  <a href="https://www.justologist.com/the-48-laws-of-power/">Read The Full Article Here.</a><a href="https://www.justologist.com/#/portal/signup">Join The Community.</a>

Law 6: Court Attention At All Cost.

<ul><li>The credit for an invention or creation is as important, if not more important, than the invention itself.</li><li>Keep your creation quiet until you can be sure there are no vultures circling overhead.</li><li>Learn to take advantage of other people’s work to further your own cause.</li><li>Use the past, a vast storehouse of knowledge and wisdom to build on the achievement of others.</li></ul> Key to Power: Don't waste time and energy, when you can simply wait for the right moment, then take others' lunch.

Law 7: Get Others To Do The Work For You, But Always Take The Credit.

<ul><li>Master your anger yet play on people’s natural tendency to react angrily when pushed and baited.</li></ul> Key to Power: Keep the initiative, to get others to react to your moves and keep them on the defensive.

Law 8: Make Other People Come To You—Use Bait If Necessary.

<ul><li>When you argue with someone, even if they seem to agree with you, you can never be certain how they will react.</li><li>Demonstrating your point is more effective and powerful. </li></ul> Key to Power: Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.

Law 9: Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument.

<ul><li>People are highly susceptible to the emotions and pathologies of those they spend time with.</li><li>The most damaging types of infectors are those who are perpetually dissatisfied and aggrieved.</li></ul> Key to Power: Choose who you are associated with carefully.

Law 10: Infection — Avoid The Unhappy And Unlucky.

<ul><li>Do not mistake independence for power; power requires a relationship.</li><li>Fear you can control; love, never. Better to have others depend on you out of fear of the consequences of losing you than out of love for your company.</li><li>Make yourself so indispensable that your superior is afraid to find out what their life would be like without you. </li></ul> Key to Power: Cultivate an irreplaceable talent or skill

Law 11: Learn To Keep People Dependent On You.

<ul><li>Give before you take.</li><li>Selective honesty is best employed on your first encounter with someone.</li><li>Calculated acts of kindness can turn a Capone into a gullible child.</li><li>Exceptions: When you have a history of deceit behind you, no generosity will fool people.</li></ul> Key to Power: Win people's hearts and you can set up your scheme without being noticed.

Law 12: Use Selective Honesty And Generosity to Disarm Your Victim.

<ul><li>Achieving power often requires seeking help from those above you.</li><li>To succeed in getting what you want, you need to understand their motives and tie them in with yours.</li></ul> Key to Power: Understand the person you are dealing with, and not confuse your needs with theirs.

Law 13: When Asking For Help, Appeal To People’s Self-Interest, Never To Their Mercy or Gratitude.

<ul><li>Use spies or be a spy yourself.</li><li>Pay attention at social gatherings where people's guards are downs.</li><li>Share a fake confession and someone else will give you a real one.</li></ul> Key to Power: Suppress oneself in the conversation, to make others talk endlessly about themselves and inadvertently reveal their intentions and plans.

Law 14: Pose As A Friend, Work As A Spy.

<ul><li>Chinese history abounds with examples of leaders who left their enemies alive out of mercy but returned to haunt them.</li><li>Recognize that you will accumulate enemies who you cannot bring over to your side, and that to leave them any escape will mean you are never secure.</li><li>When we sympathize with our enemies, we only strengthen their hate, and they will someday take revenge.</li></ul> Key to Power: Annihilate your enemy. Do not show leniency.

Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally.

<ul><li>Preserve and enhance your status by withdrawing at the right moment, just before people start getting tired of you.</li><li>Make yourself less accessible to increase your value in others' minds.</li><li>Image: The Sun. It can only be appreciated in its absence. The longer the days of rain, the more the sun is craved. But too many hot days and the sun overwhelms.</li></ul> Key to Power: Scarcity increases value. <a href="https://www.justologist.com/the-48-laws-of-power/">Read The Full Article Here.</a><a href="https://www.justologist.com/#/portal/signup">Join The Community.</a>

Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Honor and Respect.

<ul><li>Nothing is more terrifying than the sudden and unpredictable. We do not know when they will strike. After one has occurred, we wait in terror for the next one.</li><li>Unpredictability draws attention and gets people talking, especially if you are the underdog. </li></ul> Key to Power: Instill a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initiative on his side.

Law 17: Keep Others in Suspended Terror—Cultivate An Air of Unpredictability.

<ul><li>Maintaining power requires social interaction.</li><li>An isolated person is an easy target with limited access to information.</li><li>Choose isolation only as a last resort. </li></ul> Key to Power: When faced with threats, resist the urge to isolate yourself.

Law 18: Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself—Isolation is Dangerous.

Learn the Game of Power: Master your emotions. Play with appearances. Shift your perspective on the world. Learn from those who came before you.

THE MILLION COPY INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Drawn from 3,000 years of the history of power, this is the definitive guide to help readers achieve for themselves what Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, Louis XIV and Machiavelli learnt the hard way. Law 1: Never outshine the master Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies Law 3: Conceal your intentions Law 4: Always say less than necessary. The text is bold and elegant, laid out in black and red throughout and replete with fables and unique word sculptures. The 48 laws are illustrated through the tactics, triumphs and failures of great figures from the past who have wielded - or been victimised by - power. ___________________________________ (From the Playboy interview with Jay-Z, April 2003) PLAYBOY: Rap careers are usually over fast: one or two hits, then styles change and a new guy comes along. Why have you endured while other rappers haven't? JAY-Z: I would say that it's from still being able to relate to people. It's natural to lose yourself when you have success, to start surrounding yourself with fake people. In The 48 Laws of Power, it says the worst thing you can do is build a fortress around yourself. I still got the people who grew up with me, my cousin and my childhood friends. This guy right here (gestures to the studio manager), he's my friend, and he told me that one of my records, Volume Three, was wack. People set higher standards for me, and I love it.

The 48 Laws Of Power

Find 100+ Business Facts, Ideas & Insights - Curated from inspiring sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!

494. Why Do Most Ideas Fail to Scale?

Humility Is the New Smart

What You Do Is Who You Are

The Case for the Supermarket Supershopper

Shoe Dog

Measuring the User Experience

The 48 Laws Of Power

The Richest Person on Earth Breaks Every Rule, And You Should Too

Multitasking is Unproductive!!

The Surprising Science of Meetings

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

494. Why Do Most Ideas Fail to Scale?

Humility Is the New Smart

What You Do Is Who You Are

The Case for the Supermarket Supershopper

Shoe Dog

Measuring the User Experience

The 48 Laws Of Power

The Richest Person on Earth Breaks Every Rule, And You Should Too

Multitasking is Unproductive!!

The Surprising Science of Meetings

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.