Who is Farhan Lalji?

Great post from the boys over at SvN about planning. They’re talking mostly about software, but I think it totally applies to business as well.

Why do we spend so much time planning? Does preparation really help anything? Business plans, marketing plans, blah blah blah. Thing with plans is no matter how much you plan you don’t know what you don’t know. This is especially true when it comes to all things online.

According to RWW 5 years ago Ad Sense wasn’t around, web 2.0 hadn’t been invented, the top blog was Slashdot. By my recollection, 5 years ago Flickr was independent, big web companies were IPO-ing, and not having a mobile phone wasn’t unheard of. That’s all changed. So what about all those business plans that weren’t written 5 years ago?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think planning is all bad, I think you need to set some milestones and a general direction. But planning every detail so you don’t change or allow for flexibility as times change is just silly. When the world is changing at the rate it’s changing at you need to be able to change with it.

A plan might look great today, but tomorrow something might change the circumstances around the plan and it will look like crap. People need to plan less and do more.

I blog on my own site and - with Facebook’s notes import feature - my notes get reprinted on Facebook. This works well in some ways as (assumption) most of the people who read me on Facebook don’t use RSS so when they login to Facebook they see that I’ve written a new note. For people who read the blog through RSS or visiting the blog directly they (assumption) prefer using readers and commenting directly on the post. The problem is this separates the conversation and instead of comments being shared and great conversation taking place there are comments in two places and the conversation is in parts and not as great as I think it could be.

Examples, my play and work posts got comments on both Facebook and on my blog and my government posts got a ton of comments on my Facebook page and I know that people who read my blog would have added to this conversation.

So that’s the dilemma, what’s the solution? Some visitors on the blog aren’t Facebook friends, don’t think there’s a way to keep the Facebook posts open to people who aren’t contacts, is there? Should I just ask people to comment only on the blog? Facebook readers click on where it says “View original post”. I don’t think I can block comments on Facebook and force folks to comment on my blog, can I?

Any tips? Suggestions?

During my last job, at a design agency in London, we had a pool table. At 530 everyday, almost like clockwork, 2-4 of us would go and shoot some stick. It was a great semi release, we would end up talking about projects or developments in the world of technology more often then not. When we moved offices and ditched the pool table a large part of me felt that was a mistake, but I couldn’t articulate why.

At Yahoo! we have pool, foosball and ping pong tables and though I rarely get the chance to play these days it’s good to know they’re there. I’ve had some good conversations about life, work, philosophy and politics around these tables. One of the best times I’ve had at Yahoo! has been when we went out to play golf in the middle of Soho, not only was the golf fun but in winning the closest to the pin competition I’ve been inspired to play more golf. There was also some great work-related conversation that evening in a relaxed non-traditional environment.

And then I read about the Google Games (hat tip: Brad Feld) where students from MIT and Harvard came in and played various physical, mental and just plain fun games. Great recruitment technique if you ask me.

Last week I came across an article in the London Business School Business Strategy Review regarding the role of play at work. It’s weird but I’ve always felt that having a playful outlet was important to being able to work effectively. And this article makes that case.

If/When I start my own company I think play will play an important part in recruitment, engagement and strategy. If for no other reason then the fact that its fun and we spend way too much time at work not to have fun there.

This morning I saw a headline and story that bothered me on my feed reader,

Obama under fire after fundraiser remarks (Reuters)
Reuters - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came under fire on Friday for saying small-town Pennsylvania residents were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion,” in comments his rivals said showed an elitist view of the middle class.

But then I went on twitter to see what Obama News had to say about it. And sure enough there’s a posting with the response from the senator in Indiana where he clarifies that:

“And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement– so, here’s what rich. Senator Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’

And a YouTube clip so you can see the full context.

This is what I mean by the web facilitating democracy, it’s the transparency in stories that wasn’t there before and is there now. Before you would have seen the story in print media and had nowhere to turn. But today you see the story, and through the power of the web you hear straight from the source and make up your own mind with more information.

Cathy pointed me to the LordsoftheBlog.net today. It’s about page describes it as:

“a collaborative blog written by Members of the House of Lords for the purposes of public engagement.”

Last year I discovered David Cameron’s blog, I was skeptical (sk or sc? Seems like it can be spelt both ways) and unsure as to whether or not we would see DC blogging and posting in a years time and although the blog is being updated everyday it’s still updated more then once a week. It could be better, but it’s better then I thought it would be.

Earlier this week, I started trying twittering again to see if I can find any value in the service. One of the reasons why was the fact that Downing Street was twittering and I would be damned if Downing Street was an earlier adopter of something then myself.

Sometime between the discovery of LordsoftheBlog.net and the Downing Street Twitter I watched an address by Obama at the Google offices - sorry to lazy to find it again and link/embed it - in California.

Today it downed on me, all of these things are signs that information is being spread to people on their terms. People can engage or chose to ignore the information, but governments and officials representing government are finally leveraging the ability of the web to truly empower people. At the same time people have more access to information and the thinking behind the decisions made by government then ever before.

With blogs people can comment on posts around decisions and government officials can reply. With Twitter people can follow activities closer and respond with questions and concerns and watch the reaction to feedback. This is a giant step and I think this brings us closer to truly having government for the people and by the people.

It’s here and it rocks. I heart Flickr a little more today.

More information on the Flickr blog and there’s a video group that has some great content already.
Personally I think this will be different to the other video sites already online (thinking YouTube and Facebook) because the community on Flickr is pretty strong and puts up solid content. People on Flickr are passionate about photos and getting the same people to put up videos will lead to great video content.

Loving Dunstan’s beach close ups for example.

I was flipping channels while on the bike this morning and caught a bit of GMTV’s interview with Madonna. They discussed her collaboration with Justin Timberlake – really digging that song by the way – and her career and other stuff. Just after the interview they mentioned that GMTV had the UK exclusive of the new video and would be playing it in its entirety on Monday. The interview’s on the GMTV site, but since you can’t embed it here’s the link.

Later this morning I’m checking through my feeds and Jason C has a post with the video embedded. This post has the video too after the cut.

What the hell is the point of having a “regional exclusive”? Some people still don’t get the fact that the web is international and that releasing something in one market and then waiting months if not years to release the product in another market is pointless.

Companies need to get better at global releases. Customers are already consuming internationally organisations need to catch up.

Anyway, it’s still a cool song and video, can’t believe Madonna’s nearly 50?!

While looking at a book on my desk a colleague said “I thought you would be using Amazon’s new Kindle”. I said it wasn’t for me, and I can’t see myself ever reading a book digitally. We talked a bit about the experience and how it’s different from music online and I came up with an analogy that I think fits.

With music it’s difficult to experience a concert digitally; it’s an experience, and a long experience at that. Listening to songs works, but I can’t see digital concerts replacing the real thing. With reading I think it’s the same. Articles are the singles of literature, reading online works, short bursts good experience. Books are like a concert, longer sustained experience where digital isn’t as good as the real thing.

I know I’ve blogged about digital reading before and I’ve strongly felt the Kindle wouldn’t really take off, despite strong sales data, I’m happy that I’ve found myself an analogy that makes me feel better about my instincts on the medium.

Jason Fried over at SVN pointed an article on why the internet won’t be nirvana by Cliff Stoll from 1995. In it Stoll makes the point,

“Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople”.

That really got me thinking about salespeople. Could there be a more unauthentic role in capitalism then that of the traditional salesperson? I get shivers just when I hear the word.

But the internet is changing the sales perspective. No longer is it a person who goes around knocking on doors or cold-calling people. Everyone is becoming a salesperson.

I think in part it goes back to Umair’s point about interaction; everyone can interact with a product at a minimal cost. And then if you add the fact that sharing information has become super cheap and easy too, well then everyone becomes a potential salesperson.

By talking about NCAA basketball on my status on Facebook, by adding a bookshelf widget, by writing about 37signals on my blog, by adding feedback on a book on Amazon, by… you get the point. I’m a salesperson and so too is everyone else on the web. So if everyone is a salesperson 2.0 then no one needs to be a traditional salesperson and a salesperson is no longer needed. Finally, no more shivers.

Acquisitions and strategy

Web acquisitions are not strategy. Acquisitions are usually financial gymnastics showing value. Personally, I think when a big company buys a smaller innovative company there’s a good chance that innovation in the acquired company dies. Google was guilty of this with its acquisitions of Blogger (nothing new there, Wordpress, six apart innovative), Yahoo’s been guilty as well. And AOL, AOL is probably the guiltiest of the lot.

When I read that AOL had bought Bebo my immediate thought was, well they’ve just handed the social networking industry to Facebook. Facebook’s kept its independence and as a result has been cutting edge. Bebo was showing some fight, but my guess is that this purchase is going to kill any incentive Bebo has to fight and innovate.

Strategy is seeing where there are gaps, filling those gaps with a superior product or service. Strategy means seeing where you can add value and create value and then executing like crazy, it’s not acquiring a company that does a decent job filling it with cash and then watching as its motivation to innovate disappears.