Business (s)tuff & ideas, objects, tunes & random thoughts
Summer in Savonia, Eastern Finland, can be a relaxing -albeit industrious- event. Here’s a great way to spend your time when you’ve got some Silver Birch, Alder and Aspen to deal with for winter’s wood (for your sauna, for example) and a Zetor from the 1960s to help you get the job done.
Before - Zetor on the right lending a hand
After - Ta-da!
My warmest regards and compliments to Matti and Sirkka for this incredible work. Hope to participate in this one next Summer!
Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School developed Porter’s Five Forces Analysis in 1979 as a framework for industry analysis and strategic development. The goal of the model is to derive the five forces that determine the competitive intensity and, thus, the attractiveness of a market. If profitability is high across the market, it’s attractive; if the combination of forces drives profitability of the market or industry down, it is deemed “unattractive”.
Porter refers to these forces as micro environmental, as they are forces close to the company and which affect it’s ability to serve its customers and make a profit. In the model, should a change occur in any of the forces, the company must re-evaluate the marketplace. Also, it is important to note that the overall industry attractiveness does not mean all companies in it will yield the same profitability, as specific business models within them might allow individual companies to deliver above average profitability.
The model is nice to assess the attractiveness of a market we’re in or planning to enter by stating under each epigraph the reality of the micro environment. The model’s graphic representation is as follows:
According to a survey made by the company Kelly Services, about 65% of Russian office workers are ready to change their job. 84% would be glad to accept an offer to work with another employer since they “do not like the tense atmosphere at their company and the unstable position of their employer”.
1/15 office workers have quit their jobs on their own accord as a result of bad relations with colleagues and top managers. About 41% of workers are ready to find new jobs due to their company’s instability. During the crisis, the work load of 72% of office employees changed; about 38% started to work less and 44% more.
According to the survey:
A total of 2.400 office employees all over Russia were polled. This news item comes from Trud, edition of 22th June 2009.
In the picture, Metro Moscow escalators by Sansculotte licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3.0
Frutales Fruit trees
cargados, charged,
Dorados Golden
trigales… cornfields…
Cristales Glass
ahumados. smoked.
Quemados Burned
jarales… rockroses…
Umbría, Shade,
sequía, draught,
solano… easterly wind…
Paleta Palette
completa complete
verano. summer.
Manuel Machado (Seville, 1874 – Madrid 1947)
Spanish poet and playwright of the Generation of ‘98
Last night I was looking for information on how to descale a kettle. I found a cool site with all things handy for life. Actually, the site’s slogan is “Get Good at Life”. The place is called Videojug and they basically show you videos on how to do stuff to fix some everyday problems and many other things (like How to Make an Origami Pig or an interview with a specialist on What is Bronchitis).
What I liked was how they are selling video ads. In the screen-shot I have a video about something as bizarre as origami pig making and it has an overlay on the bottom part of the screen. I also find the content is extremely suitable for this format (videos are well executed, pruned and edited, useful and purposeful (for the most part, forgive my examples). So, quality is reliable and acceptable which, for such a utility service, is critical.
As it’s a “solving-daily-issues-by-video-snaps-for-the-masses” kind of place, its content perfectly lends itself for click based non-intrusive video advertising formats.
Salah is the name of the Islamic ritual prayer. Muslims are summoned to Salah by the muezzin from the mosque; this is done by chanting Athan, the official call to prayer, which is performed 5 times per day. Here is a transliteration from the Arabic from a source including a description on performing the ritual.
Allaahu Akbar (4x)
God is great
Ashhadu Allah ilaaha illa-Lah (2x)
I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except God
Ash Hadu anna Muhamadar rasuulullah (2x)
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God
Hayya’ alas Salaah (2x)
Come to prayer
Hayya’ ala Falaah (2x)
Come to felicity
A-Salaatu Khayrun Mina-Naum (2x) [Fajr only]
Prayer is better than sleep
Qad qaamitis Salaah (2x) [Iqama only - not recited in Athan]
Our prayers are now ready
Allaahu Akbar (2x)
God is great
Laa ilaaha illa-Lah
There is none worthy of worship except God
Sunni and Shi’a versions of Athan differ. In the map our neighborhood mosque, also referred to in the title of the post.
View Larger Map
“Experiments are only revealed in retrospect to be turning points”.
I strongly recommend to anyone working in media, or classifieds, or publishing of any kind to read this post.
And now, back to thinking about Aldus Manutius, the Elder.
Good night!
I normally get very edgy with people trying to persuade me that standardising is not possible blah, blah, blah or that cultural and national differences provide strong barriers to deployment of certain product groups blah, blah, blah, especially in software or services targeted to some very specific industries (automotive dealers, official ones; real estate agency networks, and so forth).
However, there is always a fine grain and some extra reading gave me some fresh perspective. I think it’s fair to remember that the Not Invented Here Syndrome, first of all, sort of came out of the perceived hard-headiness of software development teams thinking that they must do everything themselves. On the other hand, when looking into reducing fixed costs and passing “out” parts of your key business processes, I find the following quote not just fair but probably quite wise:
If it’s a core business function — do it yourself, no matter what.
Pick your core business competencies and goals, and do those in house. If you’re a software company, writing excellent code is how you’re going to succeed. Go ahead and outsource the company cafeteria and the CD-ROM duplication. If you’re a pharmaceutical company, write software for drug research, but don’t write your own accounting package. If you’re a web accounting service, write your own accounting package, but don’t try to create your own magazine ads. If you have customers, never outsource customer service.
Don’t ask me why I liked this whole post. But I did. Thanks Joel. On the other hand, I recommend reading The Power of Dynamic Value Chains for better and deeper insights.
I follow an interesting blog on marketing and strategy and came across some fine insight about XXIC business transformation needs. Basically the author states that in these times, we need to think way bigger than we used to. The era of large corporations making incremental changes is giving way to the era of small ones making huge predicaments. Of course one would argue that business transformation comes from aligning stakeholders with a shared sense of purpose into new ways of doing business, setting processes or entering a market.
But, in fact, it’s just people (as in individuals, the human subject matter of the mix) who can actually make or break this. And, according to this author, in order to make them tick, you need to maximize purpose, maintain a bifocal focus, and make change safe.
If you like what you read here, go for the full original post from Idris Mootee to get more insights into this approach to organisational transformation.
I am currently staying for a few weeks in one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters. Specifically, the one on Kudrynskaya Ploshad, in Moscow. According to Khrushchev, Stalin had said the following prior to this project:
We won the war… foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there’s no skyscrapers. If they compare Moscow to capitalist cities, it’s a moral blow to us
I am not sure the architectural value of these could be considered a main attribute, but the history of the project is of certain interest. It seems it was the Municipal Building in downtown Manhattan that both impressed and inspired Stalin’s orders to the architects who were commissioned these buildings.
The phrase perception management has often functioned as a euphemism for “an aspect of information warfare”. A scholar in the field notes a distinction between “perception management” and public diplomacy , which “does not, as a rule, involve falsehood and deception, whereas these are important ingredients of perception management; the purpose is to get the other side to believe what one wishes it to believe, whatever the truth may be“.
I shared this information on perception management with a colleague of mine just as I came across it, and he sent me the following and positively interesting interpretation on the issue:
Please bear in mind that the Truth is absolute, simple, universal and unique (“Truth is Truth”).
Perceptions of Truth are relative. Therefore, facts (which are perceptions of Truth by human beings) are relative. The Truth of the human mind is also relative therefore, perception of that which is personal Truth.Only WISE PEOPLE may perceive the TRUTH, although they call it by different names. Truth shall triumph. That is why the Truth is singular, but the perceptions are plural.
I found this statement of special interest and highly relevant to the world we live in. However, I am not sure all of us would agree that facts are “perceptions of Truth”… Read and interpret at your own whim!
I work and live in countries where smoking is prevalent. Last night I had diner next to a 60 year old man who, while he ate, let a concatenation of cigarettes pretty much smoke themselves on the ashtray next to him. Today, it occurred to me to check just how much smoking is going on in these parts. As I imagined, the countries in which I spend most of my time are the world’s most notorious smoking centers. Just looking at the map of smoking males aged 15 or plus, I came across the following data in a recent World Health Organisation atlas.
With 60% and above smoking in that gender age group we have: Russia, Romania, Turkey, Tunisia, Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, Republic of Korea, Cambodia, Yemen, Kenya…
Just for comparison I looked at my country, Spain, at 40-49% and also Finland, at 20-29% (like Canada). On the low end places like Sweden, below 20%, alongside Oman or Barbados. The low end has an interesting mixture of countries, which indicates that a number of different and possibly mutually exclusive factors contribute to low smoking indices. I leave this to another post.
More in 10 Facts about Global Burden of Disease; Tobacco Free Initiative of World Health Organisation
Image courtesy of darkroastedblend
Just came across a great sentence on change: “The first step needed to produce lasting change is profound concern (or dissonance) that the path we are on is no longer working”. This is in the book The Change Masters, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
A system is not just the sum of its parts, but the product of their interactions. So, the best parts do not necessarily make the best system. Rather, the ability of a system to achieve it’s purpose depends on how the parts manage to work together, not just how they perform individually. If you apply it to people or teams, the model is a clear exponent of the value of collaborative action and coordination.
Systems thinking looks at organisations as systems and analyses how the parts interrelate and how the organisation as a whole performs overtime. A good example to describe this is Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France victories between 1999 and 2003, where he won each year, but never won more than a few of the daily stages (below see daily stages won each year out of total stages).
1999: 4/21; 2000: 1/21; 2001: 4/21; 2002: 4/21; 2003: 1/21
More on systems thinking from systems dynamics guru Jay Forrester. Also read more on Theory of Constraints, Limits to Growth, Shifting the Burden, Five Whys
Sublimation is the process by which a solid changes to a vapor (or gas) without passing by a liquid state. For example, the transformation of ice to water vapor and vice-versa.
In psychology it is a defense mechanism by which unacceptable feelings or behaviour are manifested in a constructive manner. Freud discussed it as a process of redirecting physical energy from ego-desire to the satisfaction of cultural aims.
The relation between the two meanings of the word could be - for example – the fact that both are complex processes by which a state of being (solid; ego-desiring) takes a very different state on (gas; cultural satisfaction).
Anyway, it was just a word that came to mind today as I was hanging clothes in a pretty cold terrace and wrongly thinking that, because it was cold, they would not dry.
The phase diagram for CO2. At about 1 atmosphere (the pressure at sea level on Earth) and at room temperature, CO2 will turn directly from a solid into a gas, bypassing the liquid state. Illustration courtesy of Swinburn
“The horror of it is that beauty is not only a terrifying thing – but it is also a mysterious one. In it the Devil struggles with God, and the field of battle is the hearts of men. And as a matter of fact, it’s natural that those who are in pain should talk about it. Now listen, for I want to come to the matter in hand”.
Dimitri Fyodorovich Karamazov to his brother Alyosha
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
I recently read in the blog of the ex-IT Manager of Anuntis Segundamano (the Spanish operation of Schibsted Classified Media) that – as of November 2008 – all print publications of the company in Spain are closing.
They are leaders in the Spanish online market in Jobs (Infojobs and Laboris), General Merchandise (Segundamano), Real Estate (Fotocasa) and Automotive (Coches.net). Segundamano newspaper in Spain has been for 30 years a kind of transactional ‘institution’ for used goods. I think in Madrid almost 100% of the population over 30 knows it as the ‘free ads paper’ and has used it at some point or another to sell a house, get a job or find a car.
By now print was an irrelevant part of the company’s profit (they were issuing only 14 print titles now, versus +160 in summer of 2004). However, they had managed to keep the overall growth by aggressive online positions and pricing and closures of loss-making and non-strategic print titles. According to Juan Carlos’s blog, the flagship title “was not loss making at this time”, but the strategic decision was to close and re-structure accordingly.
Schibsted revealed in it’s interim report of Q3 2008 that Schibsted Classified Media had Q3 operating revenues of EUR 38,4M – 19% less than in Q3 2007. According to the report, “the decline is primarily due to the negative trend of the print publications in Spain”. Operating revenues from online grew 13% to EUR 27,5M in the same period. Online contributed 72% of operating revenues vs 52% in the previous period. Internet made an operating profit of EUR 8,4M vs an operating loss of EUR 1,2M for print.
Classifieds in print are, indeed, on a sliding scale. The general trend in media, according to enduragement’s interesting post, is another relevant signal.
A Russian internet professional was telling the other day some facts about the runet which are quite interesting.
The runet has a 29% yearly audience growth; 70% of users are on broadband; there’s an 80% penetration rate in ages 12-24; 48% of households have computers; 39% of Russians conform the runet’s monthly audience; 500M$ was the ad spend of 2007; 800M$ is the 2008 forecast (maybe less now after the crisis); the e-commerce turnover was supposed to be 2B$ in 2007 and is forecasted at 3,4B$ in 2008. About 150M$ were spent in Russia in web production last year (programming, design, webmastering…)
15B queries were made on search engines in the Russian language in 2007 (that’s 40% more than in 2006); there were 90M mailboxes with 9,5M daily users; in 2007 there were 50M user profiles in social networks in Russia. Number of profiles grew 15x in 2007.
Other day I listened to some interesting comments in a panel in the Internet CEE conference in Warsaw, where the general manager of Google Polska (Artur Waliszewski), the product marketing director of Yandex (Andrey Sebrant) and the sales director of Seznam (Tomas Buril) debated.
When asked about the search eco-system, all three coincided on one mission and some key assets…
All 3 agreed that R&D focus pursues their main search mission: to anticipate and answer in the most relevant manner the questions posed by the people using their engines. In this respect, all efforts on the technology move for relevancy. Up to here, all clear. But then, when establishing the key assets of turning this into revenues, they said something to this effect:
Sebrant, Yandex: direct selling builds trust and is key to the revenue model. In this respect we focus fully in training and certification of our (sales) staff and understand that the only way to build trust is by facing our customers with people, generating trust by having “someone look you in the eye”
Waliszewski, Google: certification and training are keys in the Ad Words ecosystem; without those people to educate the clients, there is no success, however much we optimize and improve our algorithms to achieve search advertising relevancy
Buril, Seznam: we employ 250 in direct sales to get our products to the clients, this is the equivalent of the Google and Yandex effort to educate staff and certify them in order to get to the final customer and show them how to use search advertising
In my understanding what they’re saying here is: our products could be extremely complex on the technical side, but making them come across to the final customers and making money from them is, still and by and large, a direct selling and educational effort.
Could this be true? How do you feel about the issue?
