The second part of the book deals with the management of Zappos, as Tony transitioned into running and growing a company. Here, he discusses how he built the now famous Zappos culture. He discusses this in detail, including many internal memos and company letters, and even including 24 pages of the company’s Core Values Document. I touched on this in my previous post The Zappos Culture Book. This is all very interesting, but since I’m more involved in the early startup days, it’s a bit beyond where I need to be. It was still helpful and I identified with many of the core values, and felt like I would be comfortable adopting the entire thing, as-is, for my own company, though with some personal changes here and there.

I do think that overall, the book could have been better with an editor reviewing and chopping out maybe 25%. For that reason I gave it 4/5 stars, compared with 5/5 for both Rework and Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It. If you remember, with Rework, between the next-to-last and final draft they cut the book in half, down to 27,000 words from 57,000. Delivering Happiness would have been better a bit shorter and more focused.

In this second part of the book, spanning sections 2 and 3, you will learn what it is that Tony believes are the only competitive advantages they have, “everything else can be copied”. You’ll read examples of how the company stood behind its culture and core values and how they developed what those would even be. Tony will discuss the number one driver of growth: customer service and word of mouth, and how that is more than a marketing scheme, but a way of life for the entire team at Zappos. Tony also discusses the importance and value they place on their call center, and how differently they handle that than most other companies, and how other companies can instill excellent customer service at their companies.

As I mentioned earlier you’ll be able to read the entire Core Values Document of the company with helpful example stories where they put it in practice and how it effected the people and the company. Tony will discuss his experience with beginning to speak publicly and how he changed his approach on how to prepare for speaking and how freeing the new approach was. He concludes with a discussion on the science and study of what happiness means and the frameworks of happiness.

I would summarize the entire book into one main theme: Do what you are passionate about, embrace your passions, and share them with others, focusing, in all you do, to make others happy in every opportunity, using all your skills, experiences and passions.

Remember to post a comment on any of my Zappos posts to be entered to win a free copy of the book. I’ll name the winner on Monday. You could share an idea, ask a question, share a related quote or experience as well.

Update:I’ll be shipping a copy of Delivering Happiness to the winner of the free book, Amber Weinberg. Thanks for reading Amber!

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. ~ H.S. Truman

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. ~ Carlos Castaneda

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I look down through the clouds onto the homes, businesses, churches, and communities below, I think back to a woman waiting in the airport with me just an hour ago. She had been bumped from a previous flight, and while waiting at the airport, had received a call that her young son had been in a serious car accident while she was out of town. He was on his way to the hospital when I first overheard the situation. After a few minutes of nervous pacing, she received another phone call. I could not hear what was being said, but she collapsed in uncontrollable grief and sobbing. A friend finished the call for her, and several minutes after I heard the update: her son was unresponsive, and was being airlifted to a different hospital in a last attempt to save his life.

I missed my kids. I longed to hold them.

Surely every home spread about below me had some kind of problem, difficulty or stress facing it. Many of them probably facing multiple issues, from strained parent-child relationships, to crumbling marriages, to financial issues caused by poor money management or unfortunate circumstances in their work situations, to health issues for family, friends, and loved ones, and even devastating loss. It reminded me of the recent loss of my grandmother, my grandfather’s failing health, the closing this week of my families church for the last 20 years, a fire that burned the church down a few years ago (we rebuilt it), and even back to the tornado that destroyed our home back in ‘92. At some point in our lives, we all face many of these problems, but I wonder how often we remember to be thankful and appreciative during the times when we aren’t dealing with severe issues, and I wonder how empathetic we are to those going through them now, and more importantly how willing we are to help those dealing with an issue.

As I head home, I also have thoughts of the projects I’ll get back to work on and what direction I should take with several of them. I have new thoughts and ideas stirring in my mind, inspired by the speakers and conversations from the conference I attended. I can’t wait to take action, to have more conversations with my like minded friends and partners, and get back to doing what I love. But though I love what I do and I love working with some truly great people on some really exciting projects, I can never forget the big picture; the other things in life that matter, and I’m thankful for the little reminders in life that come along, often just in time.

I’ll never know what happened to that woman’s family, nor how the outcome will shape her family for generations to come. All I know is I prayed for her many times on the flight home. I felt her pain, and I used it to remind myself to really cherish the times I have with my children and my loved ones.

The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed with grief or stress from a situation you find yourself in, stop and get some perspective. Sit by a busy place, perhaps in a mall at a coffee shop, and watch the hundreds of people walking by and remember that each one of them is facing difficult times, at least at some point in life. Remind yourself you aren’t alone and your problems aren’t a unique curse on you. It’s just part of living life.

Then, find someone in need, and offer to comfort them, pray for them, or help them in some way that you can. Remind yourself of your blessings and enjoy them, guilt-free, while you have them. Gather your loved ones, and express your appreciation for them. Embrace what you have, while you have it, even in the face of difficult times. That’s all we can do in the end, because the troubles on our path ahead are out of our control. As scary as that is, we have only one choice: live each day to the fullest, love life, love others, give and serve in all we do, enjoy the fruits of our labor for as long as we have them, and handle trials and troubles with integrity, honesty, faith, and perseverance.

They invited all employees to submit 100 to 500 words describing what the Zappos culture means to them. They committed to using everyone’s contribution, unedited, even if it was a complaint. Management learned a lot from the book, and it is now published yearly and made available not only to prospective employees, but also to vendors, and even customers. In fact you can request a free copy of it, as I did over the weekend, by sending an email to ceo@zappos.com.

This middle section of the book, ‘Profits and Passion’, goes into a lot of detail on what that culture was, how they established it and why. Tony believes that in the end, the only competitive edge Zappos has over anyone is: Brand, Culture, and Pipeline. Everything else can be copied. The section goes on to give some great tips on creating culture in your company.

Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post or either of the other two Delivering Happiness posts (Discovering Happiness or Now This is Real Passion) in order to have a chance to win a free copy of the book.

Tony was only working for $25/year full time at Zappos. He had invested millions from the investment fund, Venture Frogs, that he’d started, to the point that there was no money left. He then began to invest money from his own personal funds but that began to run out. They had to layoff some employees and significantly cut the salaries of the others, but in order to make that work and still keep the employees, Tony put them up in his own loft without charging rent. He also began selling off the property he had purchased as an investment in order to put that money into Zappos and keep it going. He even listed his favorite loft at less than market value, and then dropped it by 40% in order to quickly turn it around, get the cash and keep Zappos going.

VC’s said it was a bad investment; naysayers said people won’t buy shoes online. The business plan, should someone have ever bothered to put one together, would not have indicated any of this was a good decision. But Tony believed in the idea, he believed in the team, and he believed in himself and he was willing to risk everything for his passion of building something. In the end, he decided to liquidate everything he had and have a “fire sale” in order to raise the final round of money to keep hope alive.

We all know how it worked out in the end, though I can’t wait to read more and learn how. This book will teach you lessons in commitment and following your dreams, as well as motivate you, so I highly recommend it…again. And don’t forget, leave a comment on this post or the last one, or the next one, for an opportunity to win your own copy.

1. Profits
2. Profits and Passion
3. Profits, Passion and Purpose

I completed the first section this morning and rather than wait until I finish the book later this week, I thought I’d begin today with my first impressions of this beginning section. The book is so full of things to talk about, that discussing them all in one blog post would be impossible anyway. So, I’m going to write a few posts throughout week to discuss more of the book and hopefully hear from you with your opinions on the subjects discussed here.

I’ve been a fan of Zappos since September of 2009, when I made my first order and had to exchange it. I wonder if I had become such a fan if I’d chosen the proper shoe size the first time through, because, though I was impressed with the mind-boggling shipping turn around it was really the customer service I received when exchanging the shoes that converted me to a life long member of the Zappos movement. I know it was only shoes I was buying, and yet the way I was taken care of, caused me to see the company as more than just a business. I won’t review that experience again, since I wrote about it here, but I will say that it was that experience and being contacted by Tony himself on Twitter due to my review, that my interest in Zappos and Tony himself began. I started paying attention to what Tony was saying on blogs, and at his speaking engagements. All that led to my interest in reading his book, and looking back, I’m so very happy that I ordered that first wrong size.

As I said above, Tony split the book into three sections. Having only read the first at this point, I can’t comment on the direction he takes in the other two sections, but for me, after reading the first, I have the impression that the title of the first section really should be, ‘Discovering Happiness’, because that is the focus of the first segment of his life’s experiences and it really builds toward his ability to ‘deliver happiness’ through his work at Zappos. Tony begins with his childhood entrepreneurial endeavors, which sounded so much like my life that I made an immediate connection with him. As he experiments with various jobs, including programming, and various opportunities, he discovers that his passion really lies in building things. Again, I could relate to this so well, as I’m sure many of you will, and often reading about a successful entrepreneur who goes through the same challenges and discoveries that you have, can really help you see your own life from a different perspective, and also helps you connect with his wisdom and experience better and apply that to your own situation.

Here are a few ideas and quotes that stood out to me from this first section. I’ll be giving away a free copy of the book at the end of the week to someone who has commented on one of my book related posts. So if any of these ideas and quotes stir your thinking, leave a thought in the comments below and you’ll be entered to win a free copy of the book.

• As I said, Tony spends the first part of the book chronicling his entrepreneur adventures as a child, from worm farms, to selling greeting cards, to button making. It shows his entrepreneur leanings as a kid. I doubt there are too many real entrepreneurs that don’t have a similar story. Those that don’t may be more of a small business owner, and less of a serial entrepreneur. There is a difference, and it’s an important difference to understand and be able to identify in yourself.
• In high school he tried to find creative ways around actually doing any hard work. He did the same while attending Harvard. (if that’s not an attribute of a true entrepreneur, I don’t know what is!)
• He said, “School-related activities aside, my biggest focus during high school was trying to figure out how I could make more money.”
• Discovered the power of crowdsourcing while attending Harvard and collecting and reselling study notes for college classes.
• Held various programming jobs, including working for Microsoft before graduating and going to work for Oracle.
• Tried doing freelance work for clients building web sites, but found out how unsatisfying that can be.
• Created LinkExchange and sold it for $265 million to Microsoft
• Burned out at LinkExchange because he still hadn’t identified what it was that truly made him happy
• Finally realized it was, “building stuff and being creative and inventive” that made him happy, along with, “Connecting with a friend and talking through the entire night until the sun rose”. (This is so true in my own life, but love the way he states it and enjoyed watching him come to this realization, which is worth price of the book alone).
• Started an investment firm
• Discovered poker and realized the similarities between poker and business strategy. This part you can read online at the Delivering Happiness web site. Very interesting correlations, and once again, I could relate to it because I enjoy poker for the same reasons.
• From what he learned from poker he said, “one of the most important decisions for an entrepreneur or a CEO to make is what business to be in.” He goes on to say that it doesn’t matter how great your product is (in other words how great a poker player you are), if you choose the wrong market (ie. the wrong poker table), you’ll lose anyway.
• “Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins.”
• Discusses how Zappos got started, what his involvement was initially and how it changed to what it is now.

In all, though this first part is technically not yet about how Zappos became successful, it’s easy to see how Tony’s view points developed and what led him to lead Zappos in the way that he has, which led to the environment that formed the basis for all the success we see coming from the company.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest and sharing my observations and reading yours.

I have to wonder how many complaining customers are being impacted in any other way than saving $5 a month? I use my iPad a lot, probably way too much. While on a week’s vacation recently, I watched several TV shows (while working), over 3g. I was really impressed with how well it worked considering I was on 3g. I also surfed the web a bunch, kept up with my email and social networks. I downloaded apps, watched other video, and took a bunch of notes. The week before I did the same on a 3 day trip to Atlanta, and the week before that another 3 day trip to Sarasota, FL.

I keep my wifi turned OFF on the iPad, and use 3g even when wifi is available, because often the wifi my iPad picks up is actually worse (probably due to distance) than the 3g. In all, since I received my iPad over a month ago, I’ve used under 2 gigs of data. I also have no doubt that as time goes on, that monthly number will drop. I used it a ton when I first got it because it was new. I’ll never purchase as many apps in a month as I did this month. Usage will level off, and I certainly won’t always travel for half an entire month either. And if I did get close on data usage, I would start using wifi when available.

I think this is a perfect example of what I often tell clients and startups, that you must both listen to and ignore your customers all at the same time. The trick is knowing when to do each. And as always, observing your customers actual usage of your product provides far more info than asking them their opinion. There’s nothing wrong with asking of course. PeepNote is doing that right now with a survey (we are giving away a few Pro Plan year memberships in the process too), but you can’t assume that your customers are always right. I used to spend hours watching people use web sites in UI focus groups. Their behavior rarely ever matched up with what they thought their behavior was. We as humans simply aren’t always aware how inaccurate our perceptions can be when compared with reality, particularly when not in our area of expertise.

Customers can’t know where you are coming from, where you are going as a company/product/service, what your expenses are, what your limitations are, nor what you are actually seeing vs hearing. With AT & T, they saw the the majority of users didn’t need more than 2g a month, but that a tiny percentage where ruining it for everyone by using far more than the rest. So, instead of listening to your demands, they ignored you, and in the process, lowered your monthly bill, reduced strain on their network, and stopped forcing YOU to pay for someone else’s usage.

Consumers have to remember, that while a company needs to make its customers happy, it also has to make money. You can’t do one without the other. AT & T seems to have done the right thing here, and ignored the talk while observing the behavior. Hopefully for them, customers will see over the first few months, that there is no impact on them at all. Remember too, with this change came tethering, something consumers have been asking for, for years.

What do you think and how much data have you used on your iPad or iPhone over the last month?

I find a number of things about this outcry to be contradictory and quite frankly, dishonest.

True Diversity and Representation

The center of this debate is whether or not conferences like LessConf are using an unbalanced and unfair, even racist and sexist representation of the industry demographic by lining up a bunch of Caucasian male’s for all the speaking. The demands have been for more women and more “people of color”.

But let’s use some facts to cut through the heated emotions. Considering that the largest portion of our population, 15%, are descendants of Germans, it would only be fair if 15% of all speakers at all US based conferences are also of German descent. Irish is next at almost 11%. Then we get to African American, English, American, Mexican, Italian, Polish, French, and the list goes on. As for White Americans as a group, regardless of ancestry, the ones who “unfairly” dominate the speaking roles, the percentage is 80. My question to you who want so desperately for every conference to be “diverse”, how do we pull that off without having 50 speakers? And we haven’t even discussed gender yet.

Next I went through Scobleizer’s Twitter list of founders; 500 in total. Want to guess what I found (at least judging by the avatar?) 36 of the 500 were women. That’s 1 in every 14. So to be fair, how about a new rule of thumb for conference lineups? For every 14 males you invite, you have to invite 1 woman? As for African American’s I saw 1. Yes, just 1. There were certainly many from other countries, but very few could easily be determined by their skin color. Maybe 20 – 40 or so who were identifiable by their avatars as non-caucasian male. So if being statistically representative of the demographic is the goal, its going to have to be all caucasian males at the conferences. Sorry folks.

What does it mean to discriminate?

Here’s the thing about racism and sexism, you can’t determine if someone, like a conference organizer, is a racist/sexist by the makeup of the speaker lineup. You are seeing the outcome of a lot of work, a lot of phone calls and emails; a whole lot of networking. The result cannot logically indicate what is in the heart of the organizer. Perhaps if the person in question were making racist or sexist comments, or mistreating people of the opposite gender and race, then you’d have some grounds to make a case.

As for discrimination, I think its time for a refresher on what discrimination actually is. So from dictionary.com, here’s the definition:

treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit

In other words, if you look at a group of speakers and think to yourself, I wish the makeup of race and gender where different in order to be fair, you are practicing discrimination. You see, the conference organizers who pick the best 9 speakers, from the circle of whom they know or are able to come in contact with, and who is willing, and who is available and who is popular enough to draw attendees willing to fly across country and pay almost $1000 after flight, hotel, and ticket, may not have been discriminating in any way. It may never have even crossed their minds as to what color, ethnicity or sex any of them were. If they selected based on merit and availability, then by definition they did not discriminate. However, if after they saw their lineup and thought, “uh oh, no women, African Americans, Germans, Indians, etc, we have to fix this,” they would then very much be guilty of discrimination.

Who has the right to determine the goal and message of a conference?

I’ve read some outlandish opinions on this one during the debate. Some believe the conference is there to give the audience what they want, but that is only half the story. In selecting speakers, a conference organizer generally has a message or a goal they feel is an important one to provide to the audience. While they certainly want the audience to connect and to be enticed by it, they also are doing it because they themselves feel its important to share. It’s not a shotgun of hopes and wishes for success. A lot of thought goes into who the speakers will be and what their message will be. If conference organizers have to be worried about the physical appearance of the speakers, I wonder how many conferences we will even have in coming years and certainly I wonder what the quality of them will be. Not because women and non-caucasian men aren’t wise and experienced (is there really anyone who feels this way anymore? I see no evidence of it), but simply because the focus will no longer be on who the person is and what their message is, but instead on what gender and race they are. Doesn’t that sound familiar? It seems that no matter how hard we try to move on from racism and sexism and have true equality, the very people who vocally champion such a cause, are the ones keeping racial and sexual differences at the forefront, making sure we never forget to see the color of a persons skin when we look at them.

You know what I want to focus on? Building kick-ass startups; creating awesome web sites, solving peoples problems by using our wonderful new technology, and meeting people like Steve Bristol, Allan Branch, Dan Martell, Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, etc. Just like last year I got to meet Gary Vaynerchuk in person and have lunch with him, and then meet David Hauser, who I’d never heard of, but now have great respect for and have learned a lot from, I fully expect to learn from and meet many great people at this year’s LessConf.

Where is our focus?

In the end, the good news is this: those who attend LessConf and other beneficial conferences, will gain new wisdom from the experiences of the speakers and will learn and grow from meeting other like minded folk, regardless of gender, sexual preference, age, or race. They will come away from LessConf enriched, refreshed, and wiser, with new friends, wider networks, and possibly a whole new outlook on their endeavors. Those that stay away because LessConf didn’t put enough effort into purposeful discrimination, will continue to feel bitter and miserable; will continue to shake their head that this world is still so focused on race and gender…even though they themselves are the only ones who still notice the color of a person’s skin, the origin of their birthplace, or the specific mix of X/Y chromosomes.

I hope the offended can one day bring themselves to see past the perceived discrimination to what is being offered here: the opportunity to hear from some truly successful and wise people, and attend one of the best organized conferences in the country, run by two people who really care about everyone who attends, and really care about sharing the wisdom of the speakers to the attendees. This conference puts you close to the speakers, it involves you, it brings you together, not separates. I recommend you attend and leave your discrimination concerns at home. There’s no room for it in this community, and there isn’t near as much of it, if any, as some would have us believe. What there is, is a whole lot of opportunity for us to learn from each other, put our differences aside and build some really great things.

I know the major objection will be that of time constraints, particularly for those of you with jobs that already make you work long hours. I hear it from developers and designers all the time. Though that may be the case, its important to look beyond the now, and look to your future. Your current employer may not always be there. Work situations in IT can change overnight and its up to you to be prepared. Working on a side project will not only help for your next job, but also better enable you to perform your current one. Here’s four reasons why you should start or get involved with a project on the side.

Creative Outlet
Whether you are a designer or a developer, an employee or a contractor, most of us have to answer to someone when working on a web related project. In most cases, unless you are the one funding the project, those you report to can override your ideas and your vision, limit your creative input and take the project in a very different direction. Often times in the corporate work place particularly, creativity can be stifled in the name of red tape, the bottom line, and ‘because we’ve always done it that way’.Though it’s important to find a way to balance our creative desires with the need to make our bosses, clients, founders and investors happy, it can be a difficult, and unrewarding effort. Working on a side project can provide another outlet for your creativity, even if its working for someone else on a side project, it won’t be under as much stress since its not your main source of income, and you have more freedom to express your opinions without fear of finding yourself in the unemployment line. But do be sure to select your side projects carefully. You don’t want to find yourself in another restrictive situation. Find one where you can be involved in the creative side, and have a voice at least in the part of the project where you are contributing.

Think Outside Your Daily Box
For me, this is the most important reason. Often times our day jobs revolve around a certain unchangeable set of problems we must solve, with a limited set of solutions we can choose from. Even if within the scope of the project we find ourselves wearing many different hats, we are still limited to the time constraints, chosen technologies, and the industry of our day jobs. We are also often limited by those managing us with the ways in which we can solve problems.

I find that time and time again, an issue arises at work that I just recently solved on a side project. It’s ironic, but at least in my experience, my side projects tend to solve more problems for my day job than the other way around. But, I think this is because on side projects we get to tackle new and unusual problems, again due to our ability to stretch ourselves creatively.

Over my 15+ years of IT experience, I have found that those I’ve worked with who work on side projects are generally more helpful than those who don’t, in terms of thinking outside the box and solving problems, from using new technologies, to improved process, helpful tools, etc. This is reason enough to step outside your daily full time job box and experience a new challenge. It will not only prepare you for the day you may lose your job, but will also strengthen you for your current job, in ways you have probably not yet imagined.

Note to employers, encourage your tech employees to pursue projects on the side. Ensure they have the time to do so by not working them 80 hrs a week. In the end, your employees will be happier, more experienced, and bring a deeper perspective to your projects. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Working with Different People
In the previous section I discussed the benefits of working with different technologies, different tools, different problems and thus different solutions. Working with different people brings the same benefits. Even if we find ourselves working with the best, brightest most experienced in our industry, working with various sorts of people from varied backgrounds and with varied skills can help us expand our experiences, our knowledge, and our methods of creative problem solving. It also helps us widen our network, and establish friendships with a deeper array of people in our field.

Eggs in One Basket
As obvious as this one is, its important nonetheless. Even if a side project isn’t bringing in money, its a far better starting point to have should we lose our day jobs and suddenly have no income, than if we were involved in nothing else when the situation occurs. It’s even better if the side project(s) can provide you with another source of income. Multiple streams of income are always better than relying on just one. As well, if you find yourself waiting to find a new job, you can continue to work on a project, expanding your skills, using your creativity, networking, and, using the side project to demonstrate your skills and experience to prospective employers.

I’m sure there are many more reasons why a side project is beneficial, but hopefully just these four have convinced you of the benefits. If you don’t have an idea for something you can do on your own, announce your availability online and in your local meetups, or consider joining work on an existing open source project. If you are in design, you could consider redesigning the site or marketing material for your favorite charity, or look for a local group of developers who might be working on a great project idea but are in need of some design talent. Whatever your situation, there are always opportunities to expand your horizons and practice your skill sets, and doing so can help improve your futures and the futures of those effected by the projects you participate in.

Yesterday morning we launched our two week effort, tmpby.com, in hopes of bringing together the growing tech community. We have no desire to replace any of the great meetups and groups already meeting all around the bay area, but instead, to aide them in their work, demonstrate our strength to the other tech communities around the country, and help local tech users become more aware of others in their same area of work and study.

We will also announce local tech news and events on our Twitter account so take a moment to follow us there and please spread the word to everyone you know in Tech in the Tampa Bay area.