Exercise your mind

Really fit people seem to be good at all sports. Really talented at all the physical things they try. They seem to eat what they like at restaurants and yet remain svelte. How?

Here’s the trick. They don’t just play tennis, swim or jog. They do it all and more. They participate in many and varied types of physical activity and sport. So they exercise their entire body. They develop new motor skills all while refining the base they already have. They stay fit and get fitter.

Our brains work the same way. It gets fitter, stronger and more flexible the more challenges we give it. To just read about business and entrepreneurship only builds certain parts of our mind. Occasionally we need to stretch it in other ways. Read something different, watch a nature documentary, undertake some craft activity, do some gardening, go bird watching. Anything.

When we do this the interconnecting synapses in our mind will develop. We’ll then better cross fertilize our ideas and experience. We’ll open up the space for new solutions….

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So please click out of this blog, and do something you’ve never done. Your mind will thank you for it.

Have an opinion

Quite often it pays to be malleable, especially in a corporate environment. The powers that be only want to hear about incremental improvements that build on the status quo. Not change it.

Once we leave and get out there on our own. We must make sure do this:

Have an opinion, create change and go beyond the incremental.

Your school teacher was wrong

It’s not cheating, it’s collaborating

It’s Ok to draw outside the lines

Neat handwriting is not a pre-requisite

Touch typing is not a pre-requisite

You don’t have to all wear the same clothes

You can have a respectable job and wear jeans

Conforming does not necessarily lead to success

the ‘Soft’ – subjects are the most important

Talking is not evil, it’s the most important skill you ever learn at school

Having a contrary opinion is fine

You can have a future and be bad at maths

Being different is OK

Doodling on your paper is good for the mind

Daydreaming is fine

…add yours here….

School is vital to our learning. But just remember which bits to ignore.

Over reactions

Over reactions are omnipresent in humans. The best example is the sharemarket. It is rarely priced at ‘fair value’. The sharemarket sentiment is either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. 

it seems that managers tend to over react

it seems that employees tend to over react

it seems that VC’s tend to over react

it seems that suppliers tend to over react

it seems that customers tend to over react

The funny things is that over reactions never solve the problem, and often compound them.

Isn’t it refreshing when one of the above has a balanced and considered response to the inevitable issues which pop up in any start up business.

Be refreshing.

10 years from now

You’ll look back in way in which you can’t grasp how much opportunity lay before you.

You’ll consider the freedom of choice you really had which made anything possible.

You’ll see your business ideas, predictions and philosophies transformed into an abundant economic reality.

10 years from now you’ll be able to look back on your choices today.

In 10 years….

…don’t be the shoulda, coulda, woulda guy*.

 

 

 

 

*guy means person at startupblog in a 2008 kind of way!

The experiment – Joseph Jaffe

JJ of Jaffe Juice is running an experiment to test the theory of his new book – Join the conversation. And it’s this:

Use new marketing to prove new marketing (or UNM2PNM for short)

The underlying thinking is that he use the approaches discussed in the book to promote it – hence providing a proof of concept.

So he’s given 150 books to bloggers and the like (me included) who’ll review it and ‘start the conversation’ – good bad or ugly. So when I get it, I’ll review it right here on start up blog.

  

It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how the book does in market.

‘Game changing’ – Nintendo Wii

If anyone ever needs proof that the market leader can be given lesson, Nintendo provides this.

 

From a brand which dominated the 1980’s with handheld games and fell into relative console obscurity during the 1990’s it’s comeback has been astounding as has the performance of the Wii.

And it’s all based on simple consumer insight:

“Games everyone can play”

  

A direct quote from their current advertising. Enough said. 

  

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They are clear console market leader now in Australia. Overtaking the previously thought ‘unbeatable’ Sony Playstation franchise. No incumbent is ever safe. This maxim will only increase in relevance over time.

Often we build complexity into things because the technology allows it. We are better off focusing on what makes sense for the end user, not what’s possible.

Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame has been espousing for a long time that the future of gaming is not in the console, but the controls. He’s obviously ahead of his time.

Start up lesson: The offer with the best user experience, always beats the offer with the best technology.