As some of you might notice I've gone back to the drawing board with my blog. And most importantly come back with a clear plan. Which is funny because the first blog post of the new and "improved" blog will be about plans and why they do not work.
I'll start with a tweet of mine a couple of days back:
Why plans fail? The same reason behind most failures: assumptions. Assume less, ask more. #starup#business#sales
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) April 10, 2014
So next post will be all about assumptions and failures. Until then I'll leave you with this great idea filled with assumptions...
Welcome back to my thoughts form NBF 2013. Ending of year 2013 drove and pushed me finally to blog the remaining talks for me (and hopefully you) to learn from. These will be a lot shorter than the previous ones but one must sacrifice somewhere.
10-10-10 is a lovely concept and mostly for me it opened up as a form of evaluation process to help people with the choices that we all must and get to make.
The process goes as follows:
First 10 represents the next 10 minutes after making the decision (I'd also like to add to the first ten minutes the minutes leading to the decision because it raises the idea to an another deeper level in leadership also.)
Are you looking for a fast or quick pleasure? Or are you ready to postpone it for a positive impact on the next level...
Second 10 stands for next 10 months you'll have after the decision.
Are you willing to put the extra effort to reach this years goal or making a difference in one of your relationships in the near future.
The last (but the most important, at least in my opinion) is the next 10 years in your life.
This might take some thinking to start actually do but in the long run it'll make the biggest impact. The people we want to be or want to spend time with are most importantly reflected with the decisions we've made a while ago. Trust takes a lot of time to build. As does all the other really important things in life such as, health, wisdom and balance with different areas of life.
As a knowledge worker myself (and most propably many of you) I've found often pondering about the term "working hard". Luckily I noticed a tweet about the issue a while back and we had a quick but an interesting bouncing of ideas and opinions.
Also the blog of @klakhani raises valid points: to the blog!
Are Your Programmers Working Hard, Or Are They Lazy? In other words it's hard to measure knowledge workers http://t.co/V7QMRxtjck
— Karim R. Lakhani (@klakhani) December 12, 2013
@klakhani No it's not. Knowledge workers are working hard if they offer and bring to the table more than they are asked for.
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 12, 2013
@klakhani Because if they are doing only what they are asked for they are not using their capacity to the fullest.
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 12, 2013
@klakhani Of course. But that's leadership. We were talking about lazy vs. hard if I recall right. 1/2
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 13, 2013
@klakhani If someone wants to bring more to the table than just whats required means (most of the time) that they want their company to win.
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 13, 2013
I've thought about the different things that make you a "hard worker" as in you being an investement to the company rather than a cost.
If you're evaluating someone do note that these questions should work as a guideline more than a black and white truth by number. Answers can be either yes/no or go from "never" to "always".
1. Is an employee doing the things what he/she is paid to do?
2. Is an employee sucking energy and time from co-workers or from his or her boss?
3. Does an employee charge others with energy?
4. Does an employee raise difficult issues to the discussion even if it wouldn't be good for him or her?
5. Does an employee spread and enhance trust around his or herself?
I hope that I could dig deeper into these questions right now but not tonight. I'll try my best to get back to these tomorrow.
Vijay's example is simple. If a normal western EKG machine weighs 250 pounds, needs electricity to work, needs an expert to operate and costs 25 000 euros. How many Indians have the luxury of getting EKG scans in the rural parts of India where there is none of the things needed for the machine?
The answer is of course very few. Are there still heart related health issues in the rural parts of India where a EKG machine would be of great help. The answer is of course yes. How did we innovate ourselves out of this problem?
With this. This is a portable EKG system that is easy to use and the cost of a single scans price drops to a mere 2 cents. Something every Indian can afford if experiencing chest pain. And the biggest beauty is that this is still profitable and most importantly (you won't believe this but) the quality is as good as that of an "western" model. To answer the question of the title we'll dive in to the next paragraphs.
Reversing is not about lowering quality
This is one of the biggest ideas of the speech. The way do most of our decisions are actually based on a lot of other factors than common sense.
All businesses aren't evil. They pay taxes (at least the good ones) and make the world go around on many many levels. A businesses goal is to make profit. Some argue why, but Jack Welch gave a great insight (not really an insight. More of a common sense approach, but what can you do when you're not as smart as you think): "Our social responsibility strategy is to win! Because that makes it possible to have be socially responsible." It's true due to the fact that a bankrupt company has very little to share.
The challenge that this profit-to-be-made approach does not lend it's hand most of the time to the best possible answer in innovation. Another example of reverse innovation is in the form of an artifial leg designed by a thailandish M.D.
Why are the western/first world artificial proesthethics made of hard to come by materials that are so costly? The problem is the amount of resources given to different professionals today. Resources are not bad per se. But the problem lies with the unconstrained resources. Let's say you're perfecting a car design. How long would you design the perfect car it if you would have no constrains of time or money?
Now think for a while how fast and cheap could you design a working and good-enough car if your life depended on it?
What do you really have to do for your product?
The real cost of you designing a car is not limited of course to only the designing process. A big amount of all products cost comes from non-production costs associated with business. Administrative costs, taxes and marketing play a big role in the cost of any product. Have you ever studied where non-branded and cheaper products come from. Especially in Finland there is a trend of big chains creating their own lines of everyday items such as groceries and clothing "brands". The idea is simple. Get the stuff out of the same factory that makes their branded and marketed bacon and just pack it and sell it cheaper due to the fact of cutting the need and cost of marketing in the process.
Same meat - Costly Price
Same meat - Cheap Price
Why did chicken take over this post? Because there are numerous costs with most products that can actually be "outsourced" to the users or the people in general. A great way to market a proesthetic limb is to have people actually use it. This beats every other form of marketing when you are actually making profit and gaining marketing potential at the same time.
Cost of use vs. Cost of product
The closing argument of reversing innovation is the everlong argument between the cost of use versus the cost of product.
Do we count the right way?
Having a 25 000 € EKG machine standing unused for 90% of the time. Most of the time with a multi million MRI machine. Just because they are too costly to use. Why is it a costly to use these machines? Because a "smart" MBA has calculated that the "cost" of the device is 25 000 euros divided by the times it's been used in it's life time. Instead of counting the cost by the cost of use if it would be used as much as possible.
This same thing applies to a lot of things. For example in Finland the public transportation in most of Finland is costly because of this ill-adviced equation. Of course you have to be profitable with a business but the most parts of Finland it's actually cheaper to drive your own car from city to city than to take the train. And at the same time trains are running half of the time empty due to the small amount of people who see to get their moneys worth by taking the train.
I would love to get the data from VR on how much more fuel consumption does a single passenger add. If someone knows please let me know.
The example that Vijay used for the use of cost vs. use of product is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvz2JGI-L6Q (Sorry for not being able to embed it. Blogger bugs)
Most of the time as you can see. It's not about product innovation. It's about process innovation.
Ideas that sprung into my mind from the presentation and while blogging
What are good materials to recycle and to what products?
What could I or my company "outsource" to the customers and/or supply chain?
How could I get into a reverse innovation mode from "just" innovating?
Once again thanks for reading this far and comments are highly appreciated!
You can read more about "cheap" innovations from here
