Faraznama

"I'm making money, why do more?"

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:52:00 +0000

Because more than you need to makes it personal.

Because work that belongs to you, by choice, is the first step to making art.

Because the choice to do more brings passion to your life and it makes you more alive.

Because if you don't, someone else will, and in an ever more competitive world, doing less means losing.

Because you care.

Because we're watching.

Because you can.

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You already have permission

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 22:42:00 +0000

Just saying.

You have permission to create, to speak up, and stand up.

You have permission to be generous, to fail, and to be vulnerable.

You have permission to own your words, to matter and to help.

No need to wait.

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All boats leak

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 22:42:00 +0000

There's always a defect, always a slow drip, somewhere. Every plan, every organization, every venture has a glitch.

The question isn't, "is this perfect?" The question is, "will this get me there?"

Sometimes we make the mistake of ignoring the big leaks, the ones that threaten our journey.

More often, though, we're so busy fixing tiny leaks that we get distracted from the real goal, which is to go somewhere.

[Al points us to this great Jobs joke].

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The only purpose of 'customer service'...

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:38:00 +0000

is to change feelings. Not the facts, but the way your customer feels. The facts might be the price, or a return, or how long someone had to wait for service. Sometimes changing the facts is a shortcut to changing feelings, but not always, and changing the facts alone is not always sufficient anyway.

If a customer service protocol (your call center/complaints department/returns policy) is built around stall, deny, begrudge and finally, to the few who persist, acquiesce, then it might save money, but it is a total failure.

The customer who seeks out your help isn't often looking to deplete your bank account. He is usually seeking validation, support and a path to feeling the way he felt before you let him down.

The best measurement of customer support is whether, after the interaction, the customer would recommend you to a friend. Time on the line, refunds given or the facts of the case are irrelevant. The feelings are all that matter, and changing feelings takes humanity and connection, not cash.

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"Well deserved"

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 23:16:00 +0000

This is one of the nicest things you can say to someone who just got good news.

"Congratulations" is fine for winning the lottery, but "well deserved" is reserved for people who put in the effort and the time and took the risk to get somewhere.

The interesting thing is that we get to choose what sort of prizes we're in line for. It seems to me that vying for the ones that come with "well deserved" makes more sense than merely spinning the wheel over and over.

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Books and Knowledge - articles by Javed Ch.

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 20:38:00 +0000

Three great columns by Javed Ch. on one theme:

http://www.express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1101562678&Issue=NP_KHI&Date=20120705
http://www.express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1101563439&Issue=NP_KHI&Date=20120706
http://www.express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1101564937&Issue=NP_KHI&Date=20120708

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Read my mind @ http://faraznama.blogspot.com/

Either, not both

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:51:00 +0000

Stand out or fit in.

Not all the time, and never at the same time, but it's always a choice.

Those that choose to fit in should expect to avoid criticism (and be ignored). Those that stand out should expect neither.

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What are you leaving behind?

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 30 May 2012 22:53:00 +0000

I love watching contrails, those streams of white frozen exhaust that jets leave behind. It's a temporary track in the sand, and then the sun melts them and they're gone.

Go to Montana and you might see the tracks dinosaurs left a bazillion years ago. Same sort of travel, very different half-life of their passage.

All day long you're emailing or tweeting or liking or meeting... and every once in a while, something tangible is produced. But is there a mark of your passage? Fifty years later, we might hear a demo tape or an outtake of something a musician scratched together while making an album. Often, though, there's no trace.

I'm fascinated by blogs like this one, which are basically public notes and coffee breaks by a brilliant designer in between her 'real' work. Unlike tweets, which vanish, Tina's posts are here for a long time and much easier to share and bookmark. Her trail becomes useful not just to her, but to everyone who is interested.

What would happen if you took ten minutes of coffeebreak downtime every day and produced an online artifact instead? What if your collected thoughts about your industry became an ebook or a series of useful instructions or pages or videos?

What if we all did that?

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Empathy

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 29 May 2012 23:31:00 +0000

Empathy is the powerful (and rare) ability to imagine what motivates someone else to act.

----

But of course, you're not.

And this is the most important component of strategic marketing: we're not our customer.

Empathy isn't dictated to us by a focus group or a statistical analysis. Empathy is the powerful (and rare) ability to imagine what motivates someone else to act.

When a politician or a pundit vilifies someone for her actions, he's missed the point, because all he can do is imagine what he would do in that situation, completely avoiding an opportunity to see the world through someone else's eyes, to try on a new worldview, to attempt to imagine the circumstances that would lead to any action other than the one he would take.

When a teacher can't see why a student is stuck, or when an interface designer dismisses the 12% of the users who can't find the 'off' switch... we're seeing a failure of empathy, not a flaw in the user base.

When we call a prospect stupid for not choosing us, when we resort to blunt promotional tactics to get attention we could have earned with a more graceful approach--these are the symptoms that we've forgotten how to be empathetic.

You don't have to wear panty hose to be a great brand manager at L'eggs, nor do you need to be unemployed to work on a task force on getting people back to work. What is required, though, is a persistent effort to understand how other people see the world, and to care about it.

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Is everyone entitled to their opinion?

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:35:00 +0000

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we need to pay the slightest bit of attention.

There are two things that disqualify someone from being listened to:

1. Lack of Standing. If you are not a customer, a stakeholder or someone with significant leverage in spreading the word, we will ignore you. And we should.

When you walk up to an artist and tell her you don't like her painting style, you should probably be ignored. If you've never purchased expensive original art, don't own a gallery and don't write an influential column in ArtNews, then by all means, you must be ignored.

If you're working in Accounts Payable and you hate the company's new logo, the people who created it should and must ignore your opinion. It just doesn't matter to anyone but you.

I'm being deliberately harsh here for a reason. If we're going to do great work, it means that some people aren't going to like it. And if the people who don't like it don't have an impact on what happens to the work after it's complete, the only recourse of someone doing great work is to ignore their opinion.

2. No Credibility. An opinion needs to be based on experience and expertise. I know you don't like cilantro, but whether or not you like it is not extensible to the population at large. On the other hand, if you have a track record of matching the taste sensibility of my target market, then I very much want to hear what you think.

People with a history of bad judgment, people who are quick to jump to conclusions or believe in unicorns or who have limited experience in the market--these people are entitled to opinions, but it's not clear that the creator of the work needs to hear them. They've disqualified themselves because the method they use for forming opinions about how the market will respond is suspect. The scientific method works, and if you're willing to suspend it at will and just go with your angry gut, we don't need to hear from you.

If these two standards sound like precisely the opposite of what gets you on talk radio or active in anonymous chat rooms, you're right. Running your business or your campaign or your non-profit or your sports team based on what you hear on talk radio is nuts.

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Why lie?

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:04:00 +0000

"We've decided to hire someone with totally different skills than yours..." and then they hire someone just like you, but more expensive and not as good.

"We're not going to buy a car this month, my husband wants to wait..." and then you see them driving a new car from that other dealer, the one with the lousy reputation.

"I'm just not interested..." and then you see the new RFP, one you could have helped them write to get a more profitable and productive outcome.

People lie to salesmen all the time. We do it because salespeople have trained us to, and because we're afraid.

Prospects (people like us) lie in many situations, because when we announce that we''ve made the decision to hire someone else, or when we tell the pitching entrepreneur we don't like her business model, or when we clearly articulate why we're not going to do business, the salesperson responds by questioning the judgment of the prospect.

In exchange for telling the truth, the prospect is disrespected.

Of course we don't tell the truth--if we do, we're often bullied or berated or made to feel dumb.

Is it any surprise that it's easier to just avoid the conflict altogether? Of course, there's an alternative, but it requires confidence and patience on the part of the seller and marketer.

Someone who chooses not to buy from you isn't stupid. They're not unable to process ideas logically, nor are they unethical or manipulated by others. No, it's simpler than that:

Given what they know and what they believe, the prospect is making exactly the right decision.

We always make our decision based on what we know and believe. That's a tautology, based on the definition... a decision is the path you take based on what you know and believe, right?

The challenge, then, it seems to me, is to realize that perhaps the prospect knows something you don't, or, just as likely, doesn't believe what you believe. Your job as a marketer is to figure out what your prospect's biases and worldview and fears and beliefs are, and as a salesperson, your job is to help them know what you know.

If you keep questioning our judgment, we're going to keep lying to you.

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Trading favors

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:25:00 +0000

Beautiful critique of rampant 'Liking'.

-----

Now that everyone has a media platform, look for even more of the mutual back scratching that comes from tracking favors.

The most corrosive sort of this network amplification goes like this: I do something for you unasked. Then I do something again. Perhaps I even tout you or your work a third time. Then I come to you, point out how generous I've been and ask for you to do something for me. Or I network my way to one person and then use that platform to reach three more, and repeat until I've worked the entire digital room.

Humans have a natural openness to reciprocity. It's a time-honored survival technique, one that allowed us to live together in villages for millenia. Someone who doesn't reciprocate is less likely to be protected by his peers, right? Not only have we been taught reciprocation since birth, but it feels right. It's baked in.

The problem occurs when the trading of favors become mercenary, when alert individuals start manipulating the system for personal gain. Suddenly, every favor is suspect, measured and not at all generous. Suddenly all the likes and links and blurbs become nothing but currency, not the honest appraisals of people we can trust. It means that bystanders have trouble telling the difference between honest approval and the mere mutual shilling of traded favors.

Yes, you can trade your way up, but at some point, the very people who were influenced by all your trades start to realize that you can't be trusted.

Mutual funds deserve to be rigorously measured and relentlessly traded. Favors and taste and allegiances, though, not so much. Like is too important to be something you do because you have to.

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Access to access

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:45:00 +0000

What's standing in your way? What would help you start and ship and create something of value?

Access to ideas is easier than ever before. You can see over the shoulders of the great leaders in every industry, instantly and for free.

Access to tools is easier too. Every digital tool in the world is easily available, often for free.

Access to markets? The internet brings every market segment into clear view and lowers the cost of reaching it.

Access to capital? It's never been easier to find funding for an idea that's enabled by the efficiencies the web creates.

Alas, the only access that's harder than ever is access to the part of your brain that's willing to take advantage of all of this. Precisely because it's easier and faster than ever before, it's easy to be afraid to reach out, to connect and to commit. No one can help you with that but you.

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Your voice will give you away

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:22:00 +0000

It's extremely difficult to read a speech and sound as if you mean it.

For most of us, when reading, posture changes, the throat tightens and people can tell. Reading is different from speaking, and a different sort of attention is paid.

Before you give a speech, then, you must do one of two things if your goal is to persuade:

Learn to read the same way you speak (unlikely)

or, learn to speak without reading. Learn your message well enough that you can communicate it without reading it. We want your humanity.

If you can't do that, don't bother giving a speech. Just send everyone a memo and save time and stress for all concerned.

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One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you're in the room...

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:17:00 +0000

Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not.

The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.

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Simple thoughts about fair use

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:15:00 +0000

If this is my potato chip, then it's not yours. You can't touch it, eat it or use it for any reason whatsoever, not without asking first. Copyright doesn't work that way.

There is a yin to the yang of copyright protection, and it's called Fair Use. Fair use permits scholars to do their thing, permits those that would do parody or commentary or comparison to be heard. I'm not talking about taking someone's work to make it into a poster or some sort of endorsement--I'm talking about the need for us to be able to comment on each other's work.

Without fair use, it would be impossible to write a negative book review, or compare Shakespeare to the Simpsons. Without fair use, it becomes just about impossible to have a thoughtful discussion about anything that's been published since you were born.

Most web users should know a few simple guidelines, principles so simple that you can generally assume them to be rules. (Worth noting that whether you are in the right or not, a lawyer on retainer can still hassle you--not fair but true):

You don't need to ask someone's permission to include a link to their site.
You don't need to ask permission to include a screen shot of a website in a directory, comment on that site or parody it.
You can quote hundreds of words from a book (for an article or book or on your website) without worrying about it and you certainly don't need a signed release from the original author or publisher. Poems and songs are special exceptions. Then you can worry.

There's a difference between being polite and observing the law. If you quote something (an idea, a notion, a recipe), the right thing to do is give credit.

Photos are a real issue, unless you are clearly commenting on the photo (as opposed to using the photo to make a point that a different photo could make as easily). When in doubt, be the person who took the picture. (Aside: Compfight has an easy to use setting--do a search and hit "commercial" in the left hand column and voila--CC licensed photos, ready to go.)

PS as soon as you make something and fix it in a tangible form, you own the copyright in it. No requirement that you register it with anyone. Putting a © notice is certainly a helpful way to let people know you consider it yours, but the law makes it clear that merely writing your creation down confers copyright to you. And... "all rights reserved" doesn't mean anything any more, just fyi.

PPS Here's what happens when the lawyers go (way) too far.

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The chance of a lifetime

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:45:00 +0000

Great post from Seth.

-------

A friend asked me the other day, "...given the sorry state of so much in the world, what's possible to look forward to?"

The state isn't sorry. It's wide open.

Interest rates are super low, violence is close to an all time low, industries are being remade and there's more leverage for the insurgent outsider than ever before in history.

The status quo is taking a beating, there's no question about it. That's what makes it a revolution.

I said this nine years ago and I stand by it. In the years since I wrote this essay, people have started social movements, built billion dollar companies, toppled dictators, found new jobs, learned new skills and generally made a ruckus.

Go!

Hindsight is 20/20. People are already looking back on the 1990s and wishing that they had had more courage. When you look back on the 2000s, what will you have to say for yourself? [The following is reprinted from 9 years ago].

Here's a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas?

Many people will have to answer that question by saying, "I spent my time waiting, whining, worrying, and wishing." Because that's what seems to be going around these days. Fortunately, though, not everyone will have to confess to having made such a bad choice.

While your company has been waiting for the economy to rebound, Reebok has launched Travel Trainers, a very cool-looking lightweight sneaker for travelers. They are selling out in Japan -- from vending machines in airports!

While Detroit's car companies have been whining about gas prices and bad publicity for SUVs (SUVs are among their most profitable products), Honda has been busy building cars that look like SUVs but get twice the gas mileage. The Honda Pilot was so popular, it had a waiting list.

While Africa's economic plight gets a fair amount of worry, a little startup called ApproTEC is actually doing something about it. The new income that its products generate accounts for 0.5% of the entire GDP of Kenya. How? It manufactures a $75 device that looks a lot like a StairMaster. But it's not for exercise. Instead, ApproTEC sells the machine to subsistence farmers, who use its stair-stepping feature to irrigate their land. People who buy it can move from subsistence farming to selling the additional produce that their land yields -- and triple their annual income in the first year of using the product.

While you've been wishing for the inspiration to start something great, thousands of entrepreneurs have used the prevailing sense of uncertainty to start truly remarkable companies. Lucrative Web businesses, successful tool catalogs, fast-growing PR firms -- all have started on a shoestring, and all have been profitable ahead of schedule. The Web is dead, right? Well, try telling that to Meetup.com, a new Web site that helps organize meetings anywhere and on any topic. It has 200,000 registered users -- and counting.

Maybe you already have a clipping on your mirror that asks you what you did during the 1990s. What's your biggest regret about that decade? Do you wish that you had started, joined, invested in, or built something? Are you left wishing that you'd at least had the courage to try? In hindsight, the 1990s were the good old days. Yet so many people missed out. Why? Because it's always possible to find a reason to stay put, to skip an opportunity, or to decline an offer. And yet, in retrospect, it's hard to remember why we said no and easy to wish that we had said yes.

The thing is, we still live in a world that's filled with opportunity. In fact, we have more than an opportunity -- we have an obligation. An obligation to spend our time doing great things. To find ideas that matter and to share them. To push ourselves and the people around us to demonstrate gratitude, insight, and inspiration. To take risks and to make the world better by being amazing.

Are these crazy times? You bet they are. But so were the days when we were doing duck-and-cover air-raid drills in school, or going through the scares of Three Mile Island and Love Canal. There will always be crazy times.

So stop thinking about how crazy the times are, and start thinking about what the crazy times demand. There has never been a worse time for business as usual. Business as usual is sure to fail, sure to disappoint, sure to numb our dreams. That's why there has never been a better time for the new. Your competitors are too afraid to spend money on new productivity tools. Your bankers have no idea where they can safely invest. Your potential employees are desperately looking for something exciting, something they feel passionate about, something they can genuinely engage in and engage with.

You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It's never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. The best thing is that it only takes a moment -- just one second -- to decide.

Before you finish this paragraph, you have the power to change everything that's to come. And you can do that by asking yourself (and your colleagues) the one question that every organization and every individual needs to ask today: Why not be great?

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Merry

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:34:00 +0000

You can't be merry by yourself.

Sure, you can be content, happy, possibly even delirious. But merriment requires a group, and that group is almost always a group you can see and touch, one that's sharing the same molecules of air, face to face.

The digital revolution continues to get deeper, wider and more important. But it has made no progress at all at increasing merriment. That's up to us.

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Q&A

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:31:00 +0000

I'm often stunned by the lack of questions that adults are prepared to ask.

When you see kids go on a field trip, the questions pour out of them. Never ending, interesting, deep... even risky.

And then the resistance kicks in and we apparently lose the ability.

Is the weather the only thing you can think to ask about? A great question is one you can ask yourself, one that disturbs your status quo and scares you a little bit.

The A part is easy. We're good at answers. Q, not so much.

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Unexpected turbulence

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:02:00 +0000

Is there really any other kind?

If we see turbulence coming, we tend to avoid it. The art is in knowing that turbulence might come and looking forward to it, bracing for it and embracing it at the same time.

If your plan will only succeed if there is no turbulence at any time, it's probably not a very good plan (either that or you're not going anywhere interesting.)

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The simple first rule of branding and marketing anything (even yourself)

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:39:00 +0000

Not a secret, often overlooked:

"Keep your promises."

If you say you'll show up every day at 8 am, do so. Every day.

If you say your service is excellent, make it so.

If circumstances or priorities change, well then, invest to change them back. Or tell the truth, and mean it.

If traffic might be bad, plan for it.

Is there actually unusually heavy call volume? Really?

Want a bigger brand? Make bigger promises. And keep them.

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Assorted tips, hope they help

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:07:00 +0000

No stranger or unknown company will ever contact you by mail or by phone with an actual method for making money easily or in your spare time. And if the person or company contacting you asserts that they are someone you know, double check before taking action.
Don't have back surgery. See a physiatrist first, then exhaust all other options before wondering if you should have back surgery.
Borrow money to buy things that go up in value, but never to get something that decays over time.
Placebos are underrated by almost everyone.
It's almost never necessary to use a semicolon.
Seek out habits that help you overcome fear or inertia. Destroy those that do the opposite.
Cognitive behavorial therapy is generally considered both the quickest and most effective form of addressing many common psychological problems.
Backup your hard drive.
Get a magnetic key hider, put a copy of your house key in it and hide it really well, unlabeled, two blocks from your house.
A rice cooker will save you time and money and improve your diet, particularly if you come to like brown rice.
Consider not eating wheat for an entire week. The results might surprise you.
Taking your dog for a walk is usually better than whatever alternative use of your time you were considering.

Told you they were assorted.

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Tools vs insight

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:47:00 +0000

How is your vocabulary? It's a vital tool, certainly. Do you know these words?

a, after, and, as, die, eternal, first, gets, gun, have, in, is, job, life, me, mouth, my, pushing, saying, step, that, the, to, Tyler, waiter, you.

How about these?

a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

The first list contains every word in the opening lines from Fight Club, the second is the entire word list from Green Eggs and Ham. Of course, neither you nor I wrote either of these, regardless of how well trained we are in what the words (the tools) mean.

Knowing about a tool is one thing. Having the guts to use it in a way that brings art to the world is another. Perhaps we need to spend less time learning new tools and more time using them.

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The economics of Christmas lights

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:44:00 +0000

Why bother buying them, putting them up, electrifying them and then taking them down again?

After all, the economist wonders, what's in it for you?

The very same non-economic contribution is going on online, every single day. More and more of the content we consume was made by our peers, for free. My take:

People like the way it feels to live in a community filled with decorated houses. They enjoy the drive or the walk through town, seeing the lights, and they want to be part of it, want to contribute and want to be noticed too.

Peace of mind and self-satisfaction are incredibly valuable to us, and we happily pay for them, sometimes contributing to a community in order to get them.

The internet is giving more and more people a highly-leveraged, inexpensive way to share and contribute. It doesn't cost money, it just takes guts, time and kindness.

No wonder most people don't insist on getting paid for their tweets, posts and comments.

Two asides: First, it's interesting to note that no one (zero) gets paid to put up Christmas lights, but some towns are awash in them.

and second, I think there's a parallel to the broken windows theory here. Broken Windows asserts that in cities with small acts of vandalism and unrepaired facades, crime goes up. The Christmas Light corollary might be that in towns (or online communities) where there's a higher rate of profit-free community contribution, happiness and productivity go up as well.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/D1OnV4jp7v8/the-economics-of-christmas-lights.html

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A great way to give thanks...

noreply@blogger.com (Faraz) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:30:00 +0000

for the privileges we've got is to do important work.

Your job, your internet access, your education, your role in a civilized society... all of them are a platform, a chance to do art, a way for you to give back and to honor those that enabled you to get to this point.

For every person reading this there are a thousand people (literally a thousand) in underprivileged nations and situations that would love to have your slot. Don't waste it.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/taLi8g7944A/a-way-to-give-thanks.html

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