Buying is all about trust.
Language: English
Insisting
I’ve just seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) – IMDb: In the movie, everybody insists: Captain America is a regular guy with big wishes. He insists, he gets superpowers. He has a friend, the winter soldier. He insists. He gets superpowers. Hydra has some problems. They insist. The solve the issue. There’s a fight. At some point, somebody just insists. The good guys win by insisting, the bad guys win by insisting. The movie is so incredibly stupid. The Bond series used to do the same. Did James Bond like gadgets? Let him have the best gadgets. Did he have a car? Let him have the best car. Usually, the villain also had some gadgets, and some cars, but Bond was, generally better. In Skyfall (2012), things changed. He doesn’t get get a big gun, but a small pistol. Old style, very simple, very small. He doesn’t get an advanced gadget. He gets a radio frequency emitter. A small radio, that is. That’s all he gets. You generally know that James Bond is going to use the gadget: Setting up fantastic gadgets and intriguing devices is a cornerstone of the spy genre, and the James Bond franchise in particular. When the buzz-saw watch is issued to James Bond by Q, it seems a bit fantastic, but still congruent with the world Bond inhabits: a world of super-villains, gorgeous female spies, deceptive appearances, and cool gadgets, cars, and weapons. So we have no problem accepting the existence of the watch. And with that set-up accomplished, the …
The middle path in customer care
Recently, I had an unfortunate event buying from an online store (the price I paid was different than the one displayed on the web site). I sent them an email. This has happened to me before on their web site. After a few days, they replied that I’m wrong, and they’re right. Still, they might be wrong, nevertheless (they admitted). To settle the situation, they gave me around 1/3 than the required amount of money, and they thanked me for my understanding of the situation.
The topic of this blog post: what can you learn from the above example?
Simple / complex decisions
You may want to watch the following video: through this paradigm: The first instincts & thoughts about wolves are negative (they are killers, they are hunted by few animals, themselves, their social structures are closer to Mafia than Old-village-with-nice people, they’re aggressive and dangerous to humans). The movie first starts by telling you some reasons on which the wolves actually do some good (they kill deer, which helps the vegetation, but they also make deer stay away completely from vast areas, in which they can be caught easily). Then the movie gives some implications of saving vegetation → birds appear → then some rodents → then other birds, for those rodents → then some castors → then some bears, eating berries → then more deer get decimated, by the bears. But the movie also shows that vegetation has a deeper impact – due to river banks being influenced by the vegetation, some rivers change their course / stay on their course more, depending on the vegetation just brought up by wolves. Thus, wolves influence the direction of rivers. It’s a big difference between the first impulses & thinking the situation over. First instinct is based on primary emotions, thinking requires more cognitive functions (primary emotions, also). More than this, by deeply analyzing a situation (or studying previous situations), you can get to very powerful insights (wolves change the banks of rivers). In some management decisions, things are based on simple thinking (I apply this rule – “wolves are bad” / “delegation is key” / “do coaching”). The better solution is to try & have …
Delegation
I asked some people for invitations to an event, in exchange for services & online branding. The response from the person delegated to do PR activities for the event – you’ll have to wait for a week, we’ll hold a management meeting, and I’ll present the situation to them. What’s the purpose of this person in the company? Why don’t they make some software to gather voice commands, record them, and have them discussed in the meeting? If the PR manager for an event can’t decide a PR package, and each single situation must be discussed at the top level, why did they hire that person? If the skills required are “but she must interpret what you say!”, you could get a 18-year-old person, no experience, very low salary, and just have a simple conversation, get the data, and present it in a meeting. Also, since when a group meeting is the best place to decide such a thing? To me, this is clearly the situation in which a single person must decide. At the Ritz-Carlton, every single employee (even the maintenance folks) has a budget of $2,000 per guest to make things right. On the spot, without asking. Without a doubt, the guest is blown away by this rapid response. A caring person who, instead of saying, “I’ll have to ask my supervisor,” just makes it right. But even more important, I think, is the effect of trusting your people. You’ve already given them the keys to your brand, you’ve already made them the …
How to set the price for an electronic equipment, second-hand? (e.g., at what price should you sell your laptop?)
Let’s say you have an electronic equipment you wish to sell. What price should you settle for?
Good movies, poor movies
A poor movie is one in which people insist to solve things: person A tries to a thing, it doesn’t work, it insists, it works. In Frozen, there’s a race from wolves. They don’t succeed at escaping, but they insist, and they escape. They are ready to jump, they don’t quite make it, but they insist and they make it. This happens with other characters in the movies (they ran from a huge snowman, they insist, and it works, one old guy doesn’t get to dance with the queen, he insists, he makes it and the list continues): A good movie is one in which when there is a trouble, the main character finds a creative solution. In The Bourne Ultimatum, the main character (interpreted by Matt Damon) finds creative solutions for escaping situations (at one time, he goes beneath a platform, so that he won’t be seen). In Skyfall, the 007 Agent (Daniel Craig) shows lots of creativity for solving problmes (at one time he climbs a moving elevator): It’s easy to insist. Most problems, though, don’t get solved this way.
Exits
Yesterday, in the metro, for a short while, some girls were staring at me and giggling. Perhaps it’s because I look like a modern soldier with all my photo / video equipment on me:
Or perhaps due to my belly, which has some proportions right now. Anyhow, they were giggling.
My first reaction was defensive – I felt bad for myself, I was angry at them. What could have I done better?
Thoughts on serendipity-investing
Rand Fishkin from Moz suggests, in a video, invest in non-measurable, serendipitous marketing. I’ve done this quite a lot in the past years. The trouble is I’ve done more than the suggested 20% of my time on this, and now I face a situation in which I have hobbies which account for more time than my actual work. Not so good. From Nicolae Steinhardt’s point-of-view, this might be not as bad (see Saint Anton of Padua quote), but, still, it’s not so good, either. So, less hobbies, more work.
(Half-) Intelligent decisions
I was very young when this happened: I was with a friend (her name was Mihaela), she was much older than me. At one point, we saw a big group of people. We went a few steps in that direction, to see what was going on. At some point, Mihaela covered my eyes, so I would not see. I think I heard some screaming. I did not understand much, perhaps someone committed suicide, or something of this sort happened. I was unsure, we went from there, I think listened to her command not to look. A lot of time I thought about this scene, wondering what has happened.
Did Mihaela do good?
