Seasons of Life, on February 17, 2011

I travel a lot. On foot and by trains mostly.

Travelling on foot has a purpose, so no problem here.

Traveling by train has no purpose, no meaning, and therefore hard to understand.

Am I taking a train ride to Mandalay? A town I love so much, a town good for fun and music and nothing else for me? Or am I going to Yangon? A new place, a new town that invokes the fear of unknown as well as promises great expectations, challenges, exploits and opportunities?

I read a lot too. For no particular reasons.

Take a lot of notes, dump a lot of notes.

Learn a lot, see a lot, understand a lot. But write very little, even for my diary, let alone this blog or any other place.

For no particular reasons.

Summer vacation. Free, loaf, drift, read for fun, play for fun. Travel for curiosity, read for pure curiosity.

How long can the summer last? How many years have gone in this summer? How many more days will this last?

In my youth, the seasons go like, in Myanmar, Summer(Hot season), Rainy season, Winter(Cold season).

Summer is for loafing.

Rainy season means new/upper/higher class, new lessons, new teachers, new learnings, new understandings, and maybe new friends too.

Winter means long runs, long games, hard studies, exams and tests, prizes and awards, and achievements and recognition.

I didn't have any problem with any season. Neither do I now.

Sweet summer! Then, what?

In Life(or to be more accurate in moods), summer can be followed by winter or rains, or even a new summer!

My Summer is sweet. But it just feels too long. Can't be sustained. When will it be over?

I still want to ...
I still intend to ...
I still believe I can conquer the world somehow.

Good luck.

Product Strategy : What is Strategy? -- 2

I asked a very young reader to give me a very brief summary of a previous post What is strategy? He replied: "Everything is leverage."

I realized at once that I had failed to write clearly. Still, I joked: "Oh, yes, making the competition believe that everything is leverage is a good leverage too ... because, as Sun Tzu says, when you defend everywhere, you're not defending anywhere."

Yesterday, we asked: "Are beans in bamboo containers strategic for your army? " and answered "Yes" to that question.

But not all bags of beans can be strategic. They are when they meet the following conditions:

1. The competition sort of relied on their cavalry. What if they came in boats, on elephants, or merely on foot?
2. Their horses were poorly fed. What if the other side's commander got wind of you plan and prepared properly for that?
3. You can take advantage of the ensuing chaos in their cavalry. What if you were far too outnumbered?
4. The other side's commander would not adapt quickly. What if they dismounted and shot with their arrows, as the Mongols would/did?
5. Even the weather would be on your side: If it rained too heavy,  if the wind blew too hard, their horses would not be able to catch the enticing smell of your steaming beans on the grounds.
6. The other side's horses would not come with mouth guards.
7. The other side did not use some medicine to de-sensitize their horses' sense of smell.
8. Maybe many, many more factors.

These are trash, hoarding, OCD(Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), not strategic assets.

When Do Trash Become Strategic Assets?

You need the big picture, the mosaic, the collage where each trash becomes a component, an element, a cog the wheel, a brick in the cathedral, and so on.

How Do You Get the Big Picture, the Mosaic, the Collage?

Two methods as far as I know:

1. Your parents have coup d'oei in their DNA
2. You hire McKinsey, Bain, Booz, Accenture, HopeHero etc.

Rip-off and Rebuild Software Development

On bitbucket, google code repository, GitHub, I find a lot of django/GoogleAppEngine-Python codes for almost anything: social network, forum, message board, LMS(learning mgmt system), CMS(content mgmt system), wiki, quizz, collaborative writing, shared whiteboard, mobile app etc.

Shouldn't we extract some value from them?

As we all know, Python is not Perl/PHP or even Java. It's a very good-natured langauge.

Login, logout from App1, quiz from App2, friendship invite from App3 etc are there for us to mix and match as our kids play with Lego kits.

My trainees have lots of experience for this kind of not-cut-and-paste but rip-off-and-rebuild development.

If some of us can find a business model to go with that Lego-style app, we may make some money for us.

Product Development: Processes and Steps

According to the literature, Product Development consists of the following processes and step/stages:

1. Identify market opportunities, market segmentations, positioning, and marketing mix(4P's, 6P's etc).
2. Identify customer needs.
3. Generate product ideas, concepts, visuals and design of User Experience.
4. Product Portfolio, product lines, product architecture, business cases and stage-gates
5. Product life cycle management: Reinforcement, Renewal, Resurrection, Retirement
6. MVP(minimal viable product) and prototyping
7. Market testing
8. Project management and WBD, Gantt chart, PERT chart etc
9. Manufacturing
10. Brand equity management, sales training, marketing in general
11. Go-to-market efforst, distribution, logistics etc.

Our approach is more focused, more adaptive and more suitable for software businesses.

  Trends ---> UX ---> MVP prototyping ---> Market testing
  Needs  ---> UX  ---> MVP prototyping ---> Market testing

With the following iterative/feedback loops running throughout:

     Market testing---> Trends
      Market testing---> Needs
      Market testing---> UX
      Market testing---> MVP prototyping

Product Strategy : What is Strategy?

I've been burned so many times. So I learned.

I learn that you must obviously sound and look humble in online communication, discussion etc. So, here I am ---- humble both by nature and by discipline.

What is strategy?
I don't know clearly.

I don't even have a clear answer for: What is strategic?

I only have stories, anecdotes, case studies, fragmented impressionistic data. Maybe too simplistic for Harvard/Standford Profs and for you too.

1. Are beans in bamboo containers strategic for your army?
2. Are trumpets strategic for your army?
3. Are drums strategic for your army?
4. Are silk vests strategic for your army?
5. Is medicine for cracked winter feet strategic for your army?

Yes, according to military histories of the Chinese and the Mongols and  Punic Wars .

1. Are dental chairs strategic for your army?
2. Is winning hearts and minds strategic for your army?

Yes, according to military histories of the British.

What About Software Business?

1. Is "pizzazz" and "sizzle" strategic for your websites?
2. Is "design" strategic for your websites?

Yes to Question 1,according to Don’t Make Me Think, if your site is entertainment(movies, musics, games), pure branding(cereal), or -- I forgot this last one ;-)

Yes to Question 2, according to this Fast Company article

"A reliance on design-driven innovation poses a challenge for the companies that live by it: You can’t easily patent how something looks, or the feel of a user interface. Features, subtleties, and finishes spawn imitators with unprecedented speed. That means that design-led companies must innovate constantly to maintain their edge. And that’s exactly what makes the stories in this issue so interesting."

So What Is Strategic?

They say that leverage can be found in "strange places". What kind of "strange"? What kind or kinds of places? Why strange places?

Leverage, a beautiful word, indeed. Especially in deeds.

Product Development : Designer Speak, Definitely Absolutely Seriously

 

I have been learning to think, work and communicate like a product guy/gal.
 

I read this article in the print version "Dave Morin Explains It All," Fortune September 24, 2012. Online version is at "Dave Morin Explains It All"
 

Now, here are some quotes, only one of which was actually uttered by the great Dave Morin. (First, he worked in Apple's marketing, then he worked at Facebook where he invented Facebook Connect and Facebook Platform, and now he's running Path), and the rest are made up by me.

Can you tell the authentic from the fake, the profound from the pseudo-profound?

1. "With life, mobile has become the platform" 
2. "With platform, mobile has become life"
3. "With mobile, life has become the platform"
4. "With life, the platform has become mobile"
5. "With mobile, platform has become the life"
6. "With the platform, life has become mobile"

The answer can be found in the article: Dave Morin Explains It All

This is how we develop tastes, right? Good luck.

 

Comming Posts

I'm going to compare HungryGoWhere to Yelp/Singapore. This is a sort of preview/teaser.

 

Invitation to Marketers and Promoters

November 23, 2012

We are developing an application for primary and secondary students all the world over.

It's a free app with premium services for paying users.

We want as many students themselves and their parents as possible to become aware of it and to try it out.

1. Can you help us locate where they are?
2. Can you spread our message among them: email, direct mail, flyer, social media groupings, Youtube, slide share, ezine publishing, mobile messages, PR, ANY OTHER WAY?
3.  Can you drive traffic to our app/site?
4.  Once they are at the site, can you help us encourage / cajole / entice / seduce them try out our service?

Beyond that point, we take over.

We take it upon ourselves to ensure

1. that our app is intuitive and easy to use,
2. that its benefits are obvious to the users,
3. that the fees are reasonable and affordable and easy to pay, and so on.

Here also, we are open to your contributions
e.g.

1. What features will increase our value to the users?
2. What benefits will they like to get?
3. What concerns would we address?
4. Reduce or increase price? and so on.

Are your team comfortable doing these activities?

PS. True, we will stop funding any product that fails to meet our milestone/target.

But, before we do that, we will try to morph it into a far better product. Even if we kill a product, we stay in the same line of business and still go after the same types of customers.

So, please also think about long-term benefits that you can get from starting a long-term relationship with us. When Product AZ 1.0 of ours goes, AZ 2.1 will come, and when AZ line goes, there will be BQ, CW, DY lines and so on. And you should still be promoting them for us to our mutual prosperity.