Branding Lessons

"Focus on small group of expert users who make extreme demands of your product.  Keep exceeding the expectations of this small group of users.  When these experts love your product, they will recommend it.  Lots of casual consumers will notice and be attracted to your brand.  They’ll eventually account for more sales volume than the experts.  But even when the new consumers account for most of your sales volume, keep designing your products for those experts.  In other words, always shoot for dead center on your target."

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NSE Flash crash

NSE saw a flash crash today. Are the regulators watching?

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The questions that arent asked in interviews

What is it that you are looking for in your next job (pick one)?

1. More Money
2. Better Benefits
3. Different Culture
4. Growth and Opportunity

There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer.  Rather, the interviewee’s answer will reveal what motivates them in the workplace.  Now, the magic of the question isn’t the answer, but how the answer matches or contrasts your company’s culture and environment.

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Normal Distribution : Performance grading bell curve

Yet another post bashing the Great Intellectual Fraud as Nassim Nicholas Taleb would put it.

"The problem with organizations that have only adopted the bell curve — and not the rest of the integrated process — is that they end up forcing differentiation by the numbers. Managers start with the formula instead of performance. This formulaic approach reverses the basic assumption that all people have the capacity to achieve stretch performance and continue to grow and develop. Instead, focusing on the curve gives the demoralizing message that only a few people can be successful, and the rest will be average or less. And if managers expect their people to perform at average levels (or worse), they will. It’s a reverse Pygmalion Principle: People will perform downward to meet the lowered expectations. If they know that true performance and achievement will not make a difference in their ratings and their future, why bother? And for those that do want to really achieve and make a difference, they will look for an organization that is more like GE and will truly reward stretch performance."

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Coming of age

Very pleased to see India come out in full strength and get 6 medals in the Olympics.

Lots of positives. Strengthened the belief that in shooting, India is becoming a rival to reckon with. Reinforced the belief of strength in wrestling [good job Yogeshwar!. Ofcourse Sushil too], a few glaring errors in refreeing in boxing but nevertheless a medal. A surprise in badminton [honestly, I didnt expect that]

Hockey was disappointing in the sense they should have finished 6/7... not 12.

Joydeep Karmakar will take a lot of positives from this. Too bad to miss it by a small bit - but all this helps in the future competitions. He should / will take heart from this.

Surprisingly, we found 2 final entries in discus too... track and athletics - something that India has failed to do for a very long time. Brilliant there too.

Tennis was poor but it was sort of expected too [atleast I thought it wasnt a medal chance]. In badminton, P Kashyap should take a lot of confidence and positive attitude from this olympics.

Overall, an outstanding Olympic and they did surpass my personal expectation [my personal belief was this: "5 medals in 2012 and they have come of age"]. Simple fantastic.

Now for more focus and target 10+ medals in Rio. Rio, here we come.