'Done is better than perfect'

Like his contemporary Google, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a letter to potential stockholders before his IPO filing. In it he laid out his holier than though mantra about how his company is not out to make money (yeah right!) . He said  " goal is to make it easier for people to exchange opinions and ideas, which will ultimately improve products, businesses and the economy."   Well we all believe you Mr.Z. But one can't blame him, afterall Google gave the 'Don't be evil' motto during their pre-IPO letter.


What caught my attention was the mantra that he advocates and apparently is put up in offices all around the world. Apparently, Facebook believes that 'Done is better than perfect' where you can come with wild wacky ideas that don't necessarily have to be practical at the moment. It can later be improved upon. They regularly hold 'hackathons' for this purpose. I don't have a background in hacking, but it goes something like this. 

The Facebook Way  

Hacking is an inherently hands-on and active discipline, Zuckerberg said. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works.

“There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: ‘Code wins arguments,’” he wrote.

Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster,” Zuckerberg said. “However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: ‘Move fast and break things.’ The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough.”

This is one of the reasons probably for the continuing success of Facebook where the average age of employees remains 26. This young crowd is bound to come up with some ideas and Zuckerberg believes in harnessing this pool of talent to the maximum. It is an important philosophy which most companies should advocate. Many of the old establishments believe in the rigid philosophy ' It worked for us and it will continue to work' . When faced with competition from outside that constantly tries to innovate, these companies will be found wanting. It happened to Kodak and now it seems to be catching up with Nokia in the mobile phone segment (via: Apple and Samsung).

Many companies influenced by the net and marketing gurus say that they advocate innovation and tries to foster it. But in the end spend thousands of dollars for consultants to solve problems which could have been easily resolved internally at a fraction of the cost.

How many companies have an open door policy or a framework for ideas to be implemented. Most companies hold sessions for idea generation where the top bosses pitch an idea and the followers just nod their head in agreement. There is very little argument because it is seen to be disrespectful to do so. Also, the boss is always right. Without a junction you will always be travelling on the same straight road. So unless arguments and differing view points arise, your policies and ideologies will continue to go along the same road you continue to travel. At the same time there will be competitors who have created that junction and taken a different route. You believe you will reach your goal first but only to be disappointed that by taking a different route, competitor is already reached the goal.


But in the end it is the company that suffers, because unless you innovate and adapt to changing market variables, you remain a constant, stuck at the same place believing in the old glory days of yore. 

Remembering the glory days is important but unless you look ahead, you will not know where you are going. That is something to keep in mind.Call it whatever you want but new ideas have to keep churning out if you want to be successful.

New year, new beginnings,new possibilities

Well the new year is upon us. 2012 fated to be the end of the world, or so say the doomsayers. There are so many changes that are happening the world over. The world really doesn't have time for these doomsday predictions.


One of the important changes that I noticed was that I was spending a lot less time on social networking sites. It's true. Gone are the days when I would spend hours browsing profiles,postings, commenting on posts  or finding something useful to share. These days I log in, see if there are any notifications, direct messages that require my immediate attention and then just leave the page open without ever peering into it. This seems to be happening a lot with people. People log into their social networking sites and they don't actually spend time there. Even though they don't disconnect, they are not actually viewing/doing anything on the site. If they aren't spending time on the site , that means many of the companies are spending a lot of advertising money for ads which no one is noticing. This was one of the reasons why many analysts believe that the valuation of Facebook for its IPO is over the hill. When it launches and it is going to , it is predicted to be the biggest IPOs in known history. But how long will they be able to sustain the zing and rosy outlook. Who knows?


Read this article on Business Today. It had some interesting facts.


"The survey found that more than half the youngsters - about 55 per cent - have either reduced the time they spend on their favourite social networking sites or have deleted their accounts/profiles altogether. " Check it out



Another interesting development is the increasingly high focus on green technology and industries. I am sure that it's going to boom even more in 2012. 
On a similiar note an interesting app that I found while browsing tech crunch.  called InBloom — a Yelp-style application that offers up sustainable businesses and eco-friendly/dietary food retailers based on location. 


But these kind of apps are more useful in the west, where there is a lot of interest in green initatives. But this is the kind of out of the box thinking that's going to change the way we live in a few years time. That is of course if the world doesn't end. Lol. 

Dear.__________.___________

If any of you have seen the wonderful wonderful ad of dear.sophie.lee.

you must know then that if you hadn't teared up you must be made of stone or have a doctor check you out.

Honestly, I was holding back the flood gates post that ad. The tear ducts were almost about to give way to a waterfall, but I mustered up the last bit of manhood in me and had the glazed almost cried effect. They really need to put up a disclaimer sign saying Beware: watch only when alone! 

Anyways, luckily nobody noticed but even if they did, another tearjerker the good old raymond ad of the yore days, which says only real men cry! well  that ad helped us men out a bit. Needn't burst a blood vessel holding back the tears anymore.

But coming back to the point of the matter. The dear.sophie.lee ad really states the fact that we are moving into a world which is slowly but surely merging with the digital world. Although, we don't see the binary codes yet, they are slowly but surely becoming a part of our daily lives. 

Just the other day, my cousin sister had come to the house with her new born son. He is an angel and like all babies, I was trying to grab his attention (and not make him cry- he is a a bawler, but an angel nevertheless) by asking him if he wants an iphone, laptop,etc. Everyone in the family was having a nice time listening to me making a sales pitch for digital products to a 2 month old. But funny thing, in a mallu family, no one blinked ! These are not your everyday products like soaps, toothpaste, toys etc, but very sophisticated and quite expensive products. But even my technology repelling family members too are beginning to see that this is the way things are going to move forward. 

The google chrome ad has captured in essence this moment so well. It has advertised itself not just as a product of choice for tear jerking dads but also given us a lifestyle on google. A way of life with the myriad of unique products that google doles out. Not only that, it has in essence given us a manual for life with a copyright to use only google products for our life time and for generations to come.A brilliant ad. 

My point being it won't be long now, when laptops becomes cheap or even cheaper than milk! (milk now cost Rs 19 for a litre). When the day and age comes, you know whom to turn to when you type those golden words. The last time I went to my native place, I managed to rummage through some of the cupboards and came up with photos from my childhood. There were so few as compared to the present generation . The present generation will have their whole lives documented , well till the teenage years anyway. Some teens don't like being photographed by mum and dad. But the point being, life is on the fast track for these kids. They are on a whole different platform from us, they will be having a facebook account by the time they turn 1. Many of them would be blogging by the time they are 10. Some would be having their own website. Some would be ordering items from website. They are leap years ahead of so many generations before us. There are so many negative points to this acceptance of technology into our lives and our children's lives. But like the google chrome ad tells us, and this is an important lesson. The web is what you make of it. So if we start behaving responsibly on the web, it would be a wonderful world we will be leaving for the next generation. Like we should take care of the physical world be it by reducing pollution, waste, making it greener etc, so should we become more responsible for the digital world because rest assured they will be spending way more time than us on the digital world.

So let's make the best use of it. 

Love,

A tearjerker