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January 31, 2006
Innovation and segmentation
I was flooded with work to prepare for a workshop in the US. For my client. A lot of it relates to innovation and segmentation. More to segmentation than to innovation. I always had my own opinion about the advantages and disadvantages about innovation and segmentation, but now, I believe it is time to share it - put it up for discussion.
I begin to wonder even more.
What if segmentation is about markets that exist already. You start looking at existing customers and wonder, how many more slices can you do across the demographics, lifestyles, attributes, household income level, and other attributes? In short, you are looking at your customers from an ankle that exists already. Looking back to the past.
Innovation is different - radical innovation, not necessarily incremental innovation. When you innovate there are no markets. You are alone, because you are leading the market. You are looking towards the future. You look at markets, but you look at it differently. Trying to create something new, something useful, something that makes the life of potential customers easier. You don't necessarily have a market size, only rough estimates. It is possible to estimate how much you will influence other markets. Like, when Sony Ericsson created the Walkman Phone. There were walkmans and there were phones. They combined it, and probably estimated the stream of new users, potential users, first time users, and so on.
Innovation is for leaders, and segmentation is for - what? Followers, established companies?
Did Google look at Yahoo to copy what Yahoo did and to achieve market leadership? AirAsia at Malaysian Airline Systems or MAS? A car company at a horse carriage? A computer company at the typewriter? Ray Kroc and McDonalds at traditional restaurants? I could go on and on. Okay, we have Starbucks, looking at coffee shops in Italy and transplanting the concept to the US. Now this is an idea and was possible because the normal coffee in the US usually sucks. And nobody had the idea to transplant it in the first place.
But I think you get the picture. Innovation is for leaders. May be it is the overdone segmentation exercise that causes all the companies to look so similar.
Posted by Andreas at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
Working hours
How many hours in a day do you work? I don't mind working long hours, but it is important to me to have time to connect to my family and especially be there for my boy. If my current job (the one besides coaching) would demand too much of my time and energy, I would jump to something else.
Based on what I experienced in the US I googled for information comparing international working time and this came up:
(link from Web-Japan, quoting the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare)
Okay, it is for the manufacturing sector, but then who says that the service sector works far lesser? May be even more hours?
Books write about the work ethics in the US. This is all theory, and the experience in the US was - shocking, amazing, awesome, frightening? I scrample for words.
People run around with their laptops in their hand, their Blackberry in the pocket, and may be the mobile phone between the teeth. Anytime there is a break, they sit down to write a message. Even during the workshops, laptops were open, and listeners continued with their work.
Coming home from a restaurant late at night, I opened my laptop to go one more time through my presentation I was about to give. My client had send me a mail, inquiring about something - I responded 5 minutes later.
Those regular readers of my blog will recall that one of my Indian colleagues has now been transferred to the US. He is already fully in the work. Anytime, anywhere. Getting up in the morning, first thing is to check the and respond to mails. Going to work and sitting in the bus - checking and responding to mails.
Basically - no break. Constantly on the run. Think about the connections in the brain that are being created, or connected, and strengthened. Ongoing. We can get addicted to work, to what we are doing. Work can overlay all the other purposes in life. As one colleague says, she lives for the project, is in it day and night, dreams about it and spends every free minute on it.
Is this what is called loyalty to a company? Or is it fear of losing when you get retrenched and the hope that because you worked harder that the person aside of you, you will be spared? What will you do when there is nothing left behind? What is your message to the world, the legacy you are leaving behind?
It surely is interesting and amazing to see the energy that is created in those US companies that work incredbily long hours and demand a lot. It would be interesting to know, how many drop out along the rat race.
Posted by Andreas at 03:20 PM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2006
Showerheads
We all know our showerheads in our own homes, but what when it comes to those that you find in hotels? How often did I travel, stayed in a great hotel with even great service - and there is not always a correlation between the Star-Ratings that a hotel has and its service - only to get a splash of either too cold or too hot water.
I mean, visualise the context. I want to shower. Leaning over to open the shower, I adjust the temperature setting. Mostly it is too hot in the beginning, but often, wow, I got a shock how cold the water is.
The Crown Plaza Hotel in Mundelein where I stayed to visit my client had quite an interesting showerhead. It can be turned to either side to avoid surprises. And, even better, those that cleant the rooms always (yes, always), turned it to the side, so that I wouldn't get the shock that I described.
Here is a picture of it.
Posted by Andreas at 03:10 PM | Comments (1)
Medieval Times in Lincolnshire, Chicago
Americans are known for their out-of-the-box thinking to create and develop businesses. While in Chicago, we went to Medieval Times. It is a restaurant where guests eat while watching a show with knights performing.
Picture from Medieval Times's Webpage
After mingling around in the entry hall, the guests are then escorted into the arena - and their respective place.
Picture of the entry hall
Guests are involved in the show - they are transformed into lords and princesses - each getting a differently coloured crown that represents one of the knights in the show and have to cheer their knight to victory. Our knight, who was the Yellow Knight, lost in the second round.
Food is served - we have to eat with fingers. Nothing new to those coming from Malaysia, but probably unique to Americans. The food, well, basically sucks. Fried chicken, which is way to dry, potatoes, which are tasteless, a soup, which is only hot, but tastes like nothing as well, and bread.
Then, the show begins. It basically tells the story of a follow up to a battle where the king has lost his son. Now, the knights battle it out for the succession to the king's throne.
The knights fight it out. When swords hit each other, sparks are flying.
Fighting with real weapons
Thus a lot of training goes into it, because, well, the swords, and axes are sharp. Real sharp. The show ends after all the knights have battled it out - then, a traitor kills the survivor and claims his rights to the king's throne. A last battle between the king's army and the traitor's followers and the traitor is captured. The king asks the audience if they want to let the traitor live or die.
And wow, the audience really goes for death, cheers for death. The king describes what will happen to the traitor - a very cruel description of torture, ribbing of this and stapping that. Okay, they are playing "medieval times" and life wasn't too good then with torture and death. Pretty dangerous in fact, but it makes me wonder, what goes on in the audience's mind to cheer that passionately for death. And I ask myself, if this is the America of today?
Is Medieval Times worthwhile a visit? Probably. There were some in the audience that had birthday, as announced by the "king" - so it makes for a good and different birthday celebration. An interesting experience for visitors and tourists. A repeat visit? Probably not.
Posted by Andreas at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)
January 28, 2006
Returning to Malaysia: Airport stories
Just flew from Chicago to Los Angeles. The airports in the US look and feel cramped. Too small, when one is used to Asian airports.
Long lines at the check-in in Chicago - taking off shoes, unpacking the laptop and the belt, everything on the belt. Really everything.
I was security checked. By luck. On the boarding pass was a code stating SSSS - what means extra check. I gave the officer my ticket, and he shouted to his colleagues: "Oh yes, here we got a winner," And to me: "Please step over Sir, leave your luggage on the belt". Everything tensed up around me. I was not allowed to touch any of my bags anymore. Total body check by hands, but then, only up and down to see if I hide anything on the body. I expected more. Checking the shoes, inside out. Every bag was opened and searched. The whole procedure took 10 minutes or so.
Flying to LA, I was in the last row of the plane. Flying in to LA was fun. Man, the city is huge. We flew over it for about 5 minutes (at least it felt so long), and lights below us as far as one can see. Huge. Really, really huge, but then, probably also a lot of wastage of electricty.
Checking in internationally - again, shoes off, laptop out of the bag, and everything from my trousers into a container (container?).
Interesting: a sign warning travellers that the security measures undertaken in Denpasar in Bali and another place are not up to standard. Is this a warning to travel to Bali? I guess it is
Nearly took someone else's laptop. There are plenty of Dell Computers all around. Nearly every business traveller has one.
Sitting in the lounge now (yeah, I fly business class), having a beer and wishing you all Gong Ci Fa Cai,
Posted by Andreas at 02:13 PM | Comments (2)
January 26, 2006
Something about my trip to the US
I am now for over one week in the US. It is cold - even for me as a European. But then, I am the polluted type of German, with my Asian experience of 12 or, no, now 13 years. It is really 13 years already.
My journey first brought me to Chicago, and then, last Sunday, I moved to Mundelein, which is a suburb of Chicago, about 50 kilometers away from the main city.
Chicago is a nice place. Friendly and helpful people, This is something that I discovered already the last time, back in 2001, when I was here for my first time.
This time around, I stay in a hotel close to the main shopping district. This means walking up and down the road in the fricking temperature - we took a taxi every now and then, but they are really expensive. And I always think that the way to discover a city is to walk through it a lot.
There are pavements in Chicago. This might sound funny to those who read the blog and live outside Malaysia, but hey, there are not enough pavements in Malaysia. I love pavements - they allow me to walk, to see people, to see interaction. People are walking around, huddling in their clothes, and rush along to reach where they want to go. Still, there are laughters in the air. It is nice to be around in this atmosphere. It is more like community, instead of isolation. In Malaysia, everybody sits in a car, the noises that you hear around you are the honking of cars, the radio, and the conversations from those inside your car. Nothing compared to this experience in Chicago.
What is sad to see is that there are many beggars sitting along the road, despite the cold. I gave a dollar every now and then, because how easy is it to lose your way. It is easier to be poor in Malaysia, because at least, there is hardly any chance that you freeze to death. What happens here, every now and then as well.
Naturally, I visit a bookshop - a huge Borders bookstore. bought books - about 6 or so, but pitifully, those that I really looked for where not available in the bookstores. Amazon will be happy. I will write more about the experience in Borders in another entry.
My kid wish is for me to bring back an action figure. Sadly, there was only one Lego shop along the street (North Michigan Avenue) and a Disney Shop. The Lego Shop was great, and I bought him a Bionicle Figure, a book telling the stories of the Bionicles and a pen. The pen is customisable - some parts can be exchanged so that it looks different everytime. The Disney shop, honestly, was pathetic, at least for my purpose. Clothes, and toys for smaller children, None of the action figures that would enlighten my boy. So well, some other shop will get the deal.
The drawback? Let's talk about the cold. It is cold.. Damn cold :) Below zero degrees. It snowed the first day and ever since, snow is everywhere. Especially in the suburb - but it looks beautiful. I feel peaceful when I see snow falling, convering the roads, trees and cars. It makes me feel magnificent to be part of this, and aslo insignificant because I realise that nature doesn't need us. Nature can cover anything if it only wants.
And the wind is blowing hard - Chicago is not called The Windy City for no reason. As such, the few times I am really outside the office building, or the hotel, I am packed into warm winter clothes.
What is great is the fresh air. The wind blows hard, for sure, but there is this feeling of clean, fresh air that fills the lungs. It is also great (for a while only) to be outside, and feel the cold creeping into the clothes, the face, and the hands, to see the breath in the air and to really realise that this is a part of my life that doesn't exist that often anymore. For that I cherrish it.
Got to go and have breakfast. One more day and I am flying back - hurray Malaysia, I will have the chance to celebrate Gong Ci Fa Cai.
Posted by Andreas at 09:10 PM | Comments (2)
January 19, 2006
Off to the US
Off I go to the US. I am sitting here in the business lounge in Hong Kong's airport while on my way to the US. Yeah - it is my first flight business class - meeting up for a workshop with my company's client. I have a heavy week in front of me, lots of work, and talking, but I will have fun with purpose, what is the main intention in life.
I will be in the US for over one week. I might or might not be able to write an entry. Well, may be over the weekend, but next week, it will only happen by chance.
Have fun, in the meantime, and follow your purpose.
Posted by Andreas at 09:44 PM | Comments (3)
January 15, 2006
Stars are born early - with the support of parents
How do you know that your child is on its way to become a star? Well, this discussion is always of interest. Is it better to have both parents around, do you trust your maid to take care of your children, is short but intensive quality time better than quantity time that is wasted in front of the TV? Or how beneficial is it to send your child from one tuition center to the next?
"The seeds of their success (the ones who became stars later on) were sown long before they started ninth grade. The survey results, based on 72% of the 378 winners responding, are telling in terms of their family lives:
• 94% said they grew up in homes with both a mother and a father.
• 57% of their fathers had doctorates, and 58% of their mothers had a master's degree or doctorate. More than 95% of the fathers and 91% of the mothers had at least a bachelor's degree, and 100% of the parents had at least a high school diploma.
• In 43% of the families, only one parent worked outside the home for the majority of the student's school years."
"What's most significant is the way parents live and demonstrate that they value education. In the survey, parental involvement/influence was rated "very important" to their high school success by 81% of the respondents — slightly more than "personal work ethic" (79%), "finding an activity I was passionate about" (77%) and "a great teacher or mentor" (74%)."
So, when was the last time you spent time with your children, guided them, taught them something and didn't just shut them up?
Posted by Andreas at 11:10 AM | Comments (4)
Never look at ants the same way again
Ants are small and amazing animals. When I was a kid, I always observed them. Their business, the way how they organised themselves, defended themselves as well (I admit, I killed plenty of them as a boy - and wow, was I bitten and attacked).
Now, a study has found out that they teach each other how to find food by using "a technique known as tandem running -- one ant led another ant from the nest to a food source.
It was a genuine case of teaching as ant leaders slowed down if the follower got too far behind. If the gap got smaller, they then speeded up.
Tandem leaders also paid a penalty, because they would have reached the food four times faster if they had gone alone. But teaching had its advantages -- the follower ant then learnt much more quickly where the food source was.
Information then flows through the ant colony when followers are promoted to leaders and the teaching process starts all over again."
I liked the comment that the professor, who let the story, said in the end:
"What's nice about this demonstration is that the ant is an animal with a small brain. The human brain is a million times larger and yet the ant is very good at teaching and learning."
Then, how come we know so little about ourselve?
Posted by Andreas at 10:45 AM | Comments (5)
January 11, 2006
If the world is full of opportunity ...
Ask yourself....
If the world is full of opportunities, and you have all the potential that there is how is it then possible that you end up with the same job, the same salary level, the same type of girlfriend or boyfriend or partner, the same problems and issues, the same frustrations, over and over and over again?
Are we limiting ourselves by running the same internal programs again and again and again? How often did you look back, sighing, to say, "yeah, I should have known", or "not again."
Isn't it time to review your life, identify the triggers that cause the repetition?
Isn't it high time for change?
nlp
neuro linguistic programming
mind
business coaching
personal effectiveness
malaysia
Posted by Andreas at 12:47 PM | Comments (7)
January 10, 2006
AlwaysWoW!'s Service Offering in Coaching
AlwaysWoW Consulting Sdn Bhd offers coaching services to businesses leaders and individuals seeking to excel in business and in life. It is our goal to assist you identifying and developing resources to reach your personal or business goals.
Our coaching sessions are supported by processes of Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP.
Coaching with NLP helps business and executive leaders to create sustainable advantage:
• Improve your leadership style
• Develop goals and identify clear pathways to success
• Improve your decision making ability and be able to see the impact from different perspectives
• Create an innovative and creative organisation
• Manage your stress level
• Become aware of your communication style and be able to really engage employees and stakeholders
• Develop your personal and business mission and vision
• Get buy-in from stakeholders and develop trust and rapport with them
• Be more flexible in your own thinking by understanding your and other's personality style and traits
• Become a better communicator
• Create the ability to see how others evaluate your actions - create multiple points of view
• Reach out to those that you want to reach in ways that you have never thought of before
Change is the only constant and it won't get slower. The only chance companies and their leader have is to embrace change and be ready. Business and executive coaching is one way to create individual responsibility embedded in coachee's belief and value system. It may be the only way to create lasting and sustainable change.
For the Individual:
Personal or Life Coaching is best known in its relation to improving personal effectiveness. For the individual, it is assisting in overcoming:
• Doubt
• Anger
• Anxiety
• Guilt
• Sadness
• Fear
• Conflict
• Indecisiveness
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Performance Issues and to create wider and more choices in your life and work
• Understanding your partners, friends, relatives and children
• Search for identity and purpose
• Assisting in the preparation for critical situations such as conference speeches, interviews, presentations, career choices, examinations or tests
Coaching with NLP helps individuals to master their emotions astonishingly fast. Going through the exercises challenges individuals to discover on how to overcome their fears, doubts and frustrations, create their world today to succeed tomorrow in situations that they could only dream of before.
Ask yourself what you want and check the following questions.
For the business leader
• Is your business facing increasing competition and you need new directions, more creativity and innovation ?
• Have you recently restructured your company and something seems out of sync?
• Are there communications challenges in your company?
• Do you lose business to your competition and don’t know why?
• Are your different leaders working more individually and not towards a common goal?
• Do you want to understand your customers, clients and employees even better?
• Do you want to succeed in sales- negotiations, meetings, and conferences?
For the HR leader
• Is your training creating sustainable results?
• Are you promoting executives without real success?
• Do you face a leadership crisis?
• Is your employee turnover too high?
• Are your employees disengaged, and lack motivation, are frustrated?
• Do you want to create a high-performance teams?
• Are you putting the right people in your team to achieve breakthrough results?
Coaching with NLP is all relatively straight forward. It sounds like magic, can be seen as magic but it is outstanding in its effectiveness - I experience it myself every day.
Even better, it creates lasting change! And when was the last time you changed your habits, participated in a training session and experienced lasting change, in business or in your personal life?
Contact me now - what have you got to lose? Send me a mail for an initial discussion or exploratory coaching session.
nlp
neuro linguistic programming
mind
coaching
personal change
malaysia
Posted by Andreas at 02:25 PM | Comments (3)
January 09, 2006
Miracle questions
NLP has something that is called the miracle question.
"Just imagine that tonight while you are asleep there is a miracle and the problems that haunt you currently suddenly disappear. What would be the first thing you noticed that would let you know the miracle had happened?"
And, following:
"Following the miracle that happened over night, what would you do differently in your life?"
Or:
"Imagine, you could not fail, that there is no failure in your endeavour. What would you do, how would you act?"
Think it through and then, think through what holds you back from acting as if there were no problems. Because, remember, problems are mostly created in our mind. When you look back in your life, how many times did insurmountable simply disappear because ... you just did what you needed to do.
To think "As If" also helps to stimulate your own creativity as it stimulates the neurology in your brain. Think about it!
nlp
neuro linguistic programming
mind
coaching
personal change
malaysia
Posted by Andreas at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2006
NLP - the AlwaysWoW! Way
NLP has been defined as the “Art and Science of Personal Excellence” –this is the shortest and most succinct definition that I found.
Others call it the “Structure of Subjective Experience”. Different people give different meanings to the same event; all experiences and events are filtered by us through our own values and beliefs system. How we react to events is thus based on how our own mental system has learnt to filter, process and respond to those events.
NLP’s tools and processes assist individuals and companies to create awareness and create more choice in their environment. Its aim is to develop your own potential and help to create success – or, even helps to create the future. It does so by unpacking your own internal structure, beliefs and values and helps to recreate experiences from different points of view.
If you, for example, lack the confidence to face a situation, NLP is helping you to discover “confidence” in you, and creates the anchor that you can live and be “confident” whenever you want.
In short, it helps to discover internal resources that are needed to overcome challenges – in my speak: To create the WoW in your Life - whenever and wherever you want it.
AlwaysWoW! Consulting Sdn Bhd now offers business coaching and personal effectiveness with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) – contact me for an initial coaching session.
Send a mail to me now and let's get started.
nlp mind coaching personal change malaysia
Posted by Andreas at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)
The spread of hate
Last week, comments were posted in this blog that were, according to my ethical understanding, way out of the "usual".
Thank you, Mr. or Mrs. Kelly, Yuking, Coolooc, Molisa, and Konek for their extensive outline of their thoughts, but my apologies, I am not in the mood to keep those comments in my blog, even as comments.
The comments were long - it probably took a while to prepare them - but were inciting, blaming the government, blaming Badawi, blaming the education system, blaming the Indians, Chinese, and Malays and blaming anything else in the world.
It is interesting to read thecomments. And to ponder about the persons behind them. These are people that carry hate within them. They blame others for things that went awry in their own life. They generalise experience so much, that it applies to everything.
Look at hate - you can blame the Chinese, the Indians, the Malays for your own misery. But ask yourself, honestly. Has there never been a Chinese, an Indian, a Malay who behaved in a way that contradicted your thinking, your belief? That was actually good, in your map of the world? Has there never been a situation, an action from the government when you said or felt, yeah, that is the correct or right thing to do? Never in your life?
Their beliefs are so incredibly limiting. If you believe that others are to blame for your own misery, where is your own choice?
The more you blame others, the more you give those "others" control over your own life.
Think about this! And ask yourself if you are really so helpless in your life? And, do you really want to keep living this way, in this limited?
Don't you think that it is time to take your life in your own hand?
nlp mind coaching personal change malaysia
Posted by Andreas at 05:55 PM | Comments (1)
January 05, 2006
What powerful quotes
I found this over at Tom Peters' weblog, and boy/ girl, what powerful quotes about living.
Let me note down those that I felt most powerful, in my map of the world:
“Have you invested as much this year in your career as in your car?”—Molly Sargent, OD consultant and trainer
This is so true, but hey - I invested a lot to become what I am now, and I will never look back and keep going on and on and on!
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”—Eleanor RooseveltSo, as one famous company said: Just do it! Feel uncomfortable, as I wrote earlier, stretch yourself to the limits and enjoy life beyond your imagination!
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”—GandhiStop criticising others and go inside of you and see, what things you have changed today, and want to change tomorrow. Because if you start with yourself, you resonate with mankind!!
“Nobody can prevent you from choosing to be exceptional.”—Mark Sanborn, The Fred FactorRevolutionise your life and dream wild and vivid.
“It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.”—Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, RespectWe surely can learn something from here, can we? Look around you and see, how respectful people treat each other. Reflect upon your own behavior - cut in someone's lane recently?
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."—John Quincy AdamsHello - does anyone listen? How much inspiration have you created in your employees or even children and partners today?
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high
Good old Michelangelo surely got it right - stretch yourself, today, tomorrow and forever on!
and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Michelangelo
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” —Karen LambWhoever Karen is, she is one smart woman! But I am building my dreams already - today and tomorrow, to reach my goals!
Posted by Andreas at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2006
About learning and communicating
Stories about my communication and learning, captured over the past few days.
1.) I recently told my child that it is not possible NOT to learn. We are learning all the time, be it conscious or unconscious
2.) I mentioned to a friend that the moment we stop learning, we start to die
3.) One of my executives said that he does not yet know everything there is to know about the project we are working on. I told him that the moment he knows everything I will have to fire him, because when he knows everything, he has stopped to learn at that exact moment.
I was just kidding, of course, but isn't it true? We will never know all there is to know about the things we really want to know. Just look at your wife, husband, boyfriend, sister, brother or parents or your children. How much do you actually know about them? Even so you are with them for years and year.
Posted by Andreas at 03:10 PM | Comments (2)