The Value of Deep Work

About a month ago, I came across an interesting book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. What initially only a glimpse of small interest, became a wonderful, powerful, impactful, and life changing reading for me. In fact it inspired me to start learning computer science as well. Not only because Prof Cal Newport is also a professor of computer science, but also because the book is an encouragement to focus on very hard things deliberately.

In these days of multitasking and smartphone crazed society, shallow works are everywhere. People do not seem to work for their true calling. People mostly work only to earn for money. But if that is the sole reason for us to get up every morning and move ourselves to the office, then this kind of motivation is very superficial and will not get us anywhere.

Instead, the book advocates the craftsmanship ideology. To love what you do from the smallest bits of your work. To have a genuine passion of expertise. It started with Carl Jung’s experience of working in his secluded lodge. And then many experts were also presented in the book, among others, the creator of Ruby and Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson.

The book also focuses on how to work with undivided focus, produce top quality results, and still manage to enjoy life and get home at 5 pm everyday. That is very interesting for me. Though I have not finished the book yet, definitely the idea is intriguing and encouraging.

I encourage you to get the book. It will definitely change the way you see your work and profession.

 

 

Top Brand List

This posting is a reminder, that despite all the heated debates and endless quest for proper brand valuation techniques, there are at least two established – so far- brand rank list that are continuously updated. With all their weaknesses, two merits remain: they do their methodology consistently, and they make general sense of global brand powers – which tell us pretty much who  the brand kings and who  the paupers are.

First: Brandz Top 100 Global Brands by Millward Brown. Pdf reports downloadable since 2006. Done by a research agency who specializes in brand valuation and measurement.

Second: Interbrand Best Global Brands. Downloadable only the current year (which at the time of the writing of this post is 2012).

These two free publication can be used as fairly objective brand rankings. If your brand is included in the list, then rest assured you are one of the strongest brands on the planet, but please be aware, that your rank can drop next year if you are being complacent. If your brand is not in the list, then there are a lot of hard work – consistent one – to endure and there are a lot of improvements needed by your brand. Plan it, and execute it well!!!

Building Brand : No Mystery, Just Put The Modern Context To It

Is it difficult to build a brand? It depends. But generally, no. The first thing to do before building your brand is, to honestly answer : does your brand have any chance to survive the onslaught of competitors? Which boils down to the classic and proven Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning and Differentation principles. These steps are there and must be taken carefully – and honestly.

After spending several years in marketing and research, I came to this conclusion : many marketers and shareholders just push everyone and everything in their businesses to the limit due to the greed factor.

Greed kills innovativeness. Greed takes away the ingenuity and smart solutions brought by the best mind. And greed does not believe in the methodical and precise steps of brand building that have been laid out by great minds such as Aaker, Keller, and Kapferer.

Greed rushes marketers to do frantic actions. To start the sweepstakes. To get into price wars. So the enemy of brand building is not the marketer or the customer or the competition, but it is the greed factor.

Anyone involved in the brand building should be brutally honest and objective, and methodical and precise and analytical in doing so. We cannot rush the building process of 50 floors skyscrapper, so why on earth we often want to rush a brand building process?

Just put the modern context into it. Employ breakthrough consumer research. Develop strong quantitative models to predict everything you can predict. And walk the aisles and markets and talk to people about the brands in your category. Use your sincerity and equip it with all the hard data you get to craft powerful marketing actions. You should do all of these. No shortcuts.

Brand building is not difficult. It only needs a painstaking attention to detail and methodical and precise execution of strategy. And no, it is not elusive. Learn from Google, Coca Cola, Harley Davidson, Ipod, Samsung, Toyota, Honda. Have you done what those guys done?

The Power of Regression In Predicting Profitability

Regression is the most common statistical technique used to explain and predict a variable in science. Yet we often abandon it and look for other exotic ways to predict a brand’s or a business’ profitability.

Any great marketer must master the regression technique and carefully build strong database to supply variables data into the model. Marketers or brand strategists cannot rely on theories and intuition any longer. Deterministic probability needs to be calculated. And that can only be done by careful analysis on consumer or industry data, through regression and other models.

Visiting The Idea Of Modeling The World For Marketing Purposes

In the ever changing business environment, expertise in data handling is essential for the survival of organization. And this expertise is also becoming increasingly sought after by industries. Complex world needs effective modeling.

When I worked in one of the leading market research agencies, I often discussed a lot of things with an expert in market research, by the name of Suresh Subramanian. In those discussions, I yearned for effective and holistic modeling of this economy.

I often wonder if there is a single formula that can explain it all. Suresh said it was impossible. But I have to disagree. It is possible. It is possible to include every variability in this world into a sophisticated mathematical modeling. Though may be the models will need constant update, but in the perspective of understanding the world, such endeavor is badly needed.

It is like adventure. What if you can model the world in a simple spreadsheet? You can put some variables, may be less than 10, and you can hit the ‘run’ button, and the predictions will pop up into your screen. I think this is really innovative. I do not believe in the marketing this practice has been widespread.

Like all technologies and expertise, only the best companies master this skill. Yet this has to be spread. Because the more companies run efficiently, the better off the world economy will be. The better off the human beings will be.

Improving marketing effectiveness also means improving the world. Because with more effective marketing effort, less and less resources will be wasted. Less wasted print ads, less wasted marketing budgets, and companies will have extra cash to invest in something else. Or to reward employees more financially, which in turn will improve also the economy because of the increasing buying powers.

Modeling the world for marketing. This is the greatest endeavor to pursue for you and me.

What If, Two Words That Fuel Innovation

Two words : “what if”. Two words that change this world, your life and mine. If you want, you can use these two words for advancing your life into better state. Just ask yourself, “what if I can work from home?”, “what if I can pilot my own flying car?”, “What if I can check prices automatically in my cellphone?”.

Or taking it a step back, many innovations in human civilization were inspired by the words “what if”. “What if I can have a machine taking me to places instead of horse-pulled cart?”, “What if I can talk to someone far away with me through some kind of device?”, “What if I can store all my business files in single convenient place without storing them in a daunting piles of folders?”.

And you see cars, phones, and computers nowadays.

So as marketer and business leaders, it is crucial to keep pushing “what if” in your mind. “What if I can provide these products at half cost at twice level of quality?”, “What if I can create an advertising that is so compelling that people will instantly buy my product right after they saw it?”, “What if I can analyze market trends in just under half an hour with only a few clicks of mouse?”.

Keep innovating. Because right now, someone is innovating a lot faster than you. Read the best minds, gather the best resources and knowledge, and keep accumulating tons of knowledge into your expertise and competence. You cannot afford any more time to waste.

“What if you can ……  “

Future Of Market Research

The future of market research is still uncertain. On one hand, the usage of do-it-yourself market research tool such as surveymonkey has been increasing, but on the other hand, businesses need research agencies to decipher what the data really means.

I’d rather say I’m the pessimist. The fact is a lot companies maintain internal research department to save budget from doing the ad-hoc studies. May be in some cases ad-hoc studies are definitely necessary such as in pre-product launch study, TVC concept evaluation pre-launch and post-launch, and other tests. But if businesses can run without spending research budget, they will definitely run it that way. And there are simply too much internal data that are buried under the pile of administrative works and cumbersome corporate database that are underutilized.

Had some managers and skilled analysts dug into this internal database, a company could have benefited a lot more, rather than relying all their market insight needs on market research agencies.

Marketing Jakarta As A Brand

In light of Jakarta’s anniversary this June, it is interesting to visit again the idea on how to effectively market Jakarta as a brand.

As one of South East Asia’s major cities, Jakarta has been marketed under a few taglines. The latest one is the campaign by its municipal government, “Enjoy Jakarta – Semua Ada”. But this does not seem to bring enough success on its own.

First of all “Enjoy Jakarta – Semua Ada” is not entirely a clear and focused tagline. Which part of Jakarta to be enjoyed? Its shopping malls? Its traditional and cultural heritage, or culinaries delights? or what? Anyone can enjoy anything in Jakarta, so the tagline is ill fitted to serve as an umbrella positioning for Jakarta as a brand. Check this out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVedRvo-Vs

Secondly, there is no concrete efforts on the ground to support the tagline. Roads are still full with traffic jams. No simple and friendly tourist information booths like the ones available in Singapore. No free maps for tourists. Nothing works in the ground, not even in the airport. Something is really wrong with the execution.

In my own perspective, Jakarta in the last three years (2008-2010), has been growing into a modern city, in particular with the new shopping malls (Grand Indonesia, Pondok Indah Mall 2, Pacific Place, FX Mall, Senayan City), which is really a boon for Jakarta’s tourism. This means, that Jakarta has one of the most modern arrays of malls in South East Asia, which is should really be emphasized in the tagline.

Some crazy ideas :

“We have all the Prada, Louis Vitton, Ermenegildo Zegna apparels you can imagine. Only in Pacific Place, Jakarta Indonesia. Log in to shoppingjakarta.com”

“You can’t have the pinnacle of branded handmade leather handbag unless you visit Senayan City in Jakarta. Only 1 hour flight away from Singapore, 3 hours flight away from Bangkok, 1 hour flight away from Bali.”

and someone with decent creativity can write a lot more copies that promise luxury of shopping in Jakarta malls, because it is indeed luxurious here.

Another alternative route is promoting Jakarta heritage of Dutch colonial old buildings, most of which are actually relatively well preserved. However this needs solid ground operation and control, too. For example, the government can coordinate with tourism resources and guides such as lonelyplanet about these antique buildings, and provide real guides on how to reach them, and hold cultural event to supplant the experience of the tourists.

Just another crazy idea :

“Do you know that Jakarta has more than 50 antique buildings, built from 1600-1800 by Dutch colonial regime. Visit them all today. Log on to old-jakarta.com to find out more”

And on that website, everything must be prepared from airline ticket reservation to hotel booking to on site tours etc etc. This will definitely speak more than “Enjoy Jakarta – Semua Ada”, which is quite meaningless actually.

As a Jakarta resident, I sincerely hope Jakarta can be a major city, a lovable city, and a center of growth of culture, economic and tourism in South East Asia. Happy Anniversary Jakarta 2010!

How The World Gets Wired and Changes Faster Then We Know It

It has been echoed in many business journals, magazines, books, and public discourses, that the world is changing very fast. The widespread use of Internet and online-capable gadgets have made information flow within people faster than any of us can predict. It is not surprising that, given the abundant information available, one can have higher influence today, provided that this person is willing to educate him/herself a little bit.

Take for example, the story of MIT students who develop softwares that enable cellphones to support rural people in accessing medical diagnostics, updated crop prices, information on traffic and public transportation, in an initiative called MIT Media Lab’s NextLab program, which aims to develop application for cellphones to improve quality of life of rural people around the world. What makes this initiative special is that, unlike non-profit efforts by non-profit organizations around the world, the graduate students of MIT developed the softwares as for profit business start ups.

Just like any other innovations, cellphone apparently will hit the last market segment, the laggards. Those are people who come from lower income group, less educated, and usually live in rural area. Five or ten years ago, we could say that cellphones are products for middle and upper class segment, but not today. ANd we begin to see lower priced cellphones, often Chinese made, are also capable of online access. Now a junior high school student from India can google things he like. A grandfather in a remote village can text his grandson in the city. The world is almost completely wired. And it happens faster than predicted, because lower tech cellphones with monochrome display are being pushed to the market quite heavily, and now can be obtained as low as US$ 20.

As the world gets wired, as a marketer, we should really ask ourselves, can we really keep doing the “old ways” of marketing? Bombarding people with heavy TVC campaign alone will not sustain our brand. Because people now dig everything through Google. They do not easily believe TVC today as they did ten years ago. People everywhere become more skeptical. Combine that with the recession and inflationary prices, people want to stick with what’s right, with products that work well and deliver real value for them. The market is getting harder for new entrants to access.

On the other hand, the emergence of social networking sites and increasing Internet users globally, has brought the imperative to master and harness the power of this media much more effectively. Facebook has reached 175 millions users last year, and grow by 600,000 users per day! We can expect that within the next 2-3 years, Facebook can reach 1 to 1.5 billions users. What a great media audience. What a big potential.

Combine the fact above with the increasing availability and decreasing price of broad band access, it can be safely said that within the next 5 years, television as we know it will be equipped with on board computer and keyboard and mouse, and also broadband connectivity, so people can easily switch, record, manipulate, and share television shows they like -or they hate.

Are you ready to ride these waves of changes…?