One of our listmembers tips us this blogger, a source of good info... check it out...
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Blame The Black Guy
Welcome to USA...
Who are the powers that be? The ones who get us into wars we do not want to be in. The ones who get banks that should fail bailed out, the ones who get "health care" reform through although a majority does not want it. Who are they? Who knows, but they get things done.
Will we resist the powers that be "blaming the black guy?' Well, it is not up to us. It is up to Obama not to take the blame. A good start is for Obama to stop adopting exactly Geo Bush policies on habeas corpus, torture, bailout war, health care and every other item. By being Geo Bush III, he makes all of the Bush dynbasty problems his. it is up to Obama. From drudge today:
GINGRICH: Obama 'most radical president ever'...
LIMBAUGH: Obama 'inflicting untold damage on this great country'...
MARK LEVIN: Obama 'Closest Thing to Dictator We've Ever Had'...
PALIN: Obama's 'vast nuclear experience he acquired 'community organizer'...
LIZ CHENEY: Obama Putting America on 'Path to Decline'...
HANNITY: Obama 'Is a Socialist'...
SAVAGE: 'Obama The Destroyer'...
Ergin Is Perplexed By Mark Cuban Post
Hello John,
I was away for a long time and now i am back to good old USA!!! Here, this what i read and I can't believe so much opposite to everything you teach.http://blogmaverick.com/2010/04/06/why-you-should-never-listen-to-your-customers/ Wow! what gives!?? I appreciate all the inspiration you provide.Thank you.
ergin
Ergin, thanks for the heads up...
Mark Cuban is hugely successful. I think he is saying the same thing as me, just in other words...
***“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”***
1. This is one of those cute lines... but it begs the question "How to invent the future?" I think I am one of the few, if the only, that explains how (although I was inspired by Drucker on this point...) Our solution to a problem we experience is an invention. It is not there until we come up with it... then we research immediately, from customers, to find if it is in fact new... "It's a good idea, but does not exist..." We then develop the item based on this feedback. We go to the best place in the world to have prototypes made. We then test our thesis with the prototype, in the form of seeing if we can get enough orders from customers to cover a minimum, etc...
***Then it made a fatal mistake. It asked its customers what features they wanted to see in the product and they delivered on those features. ***
2. I would agree this is a fatal mistake, because there is no way to assess the value of those suggestions from the customers. First, it is all speculation if we just ask customers what they want, in the future. Note that our first approach is as customers trying to buy our solution to our problem, profoundly different initial contact... then speculation is over. When return with a finished product, and our goal is not to have a "winner" (that costs too much to accomplish) we merely want to have enough orders to cover a suppliers minimum in a workable amount of time, profitably. mark Cuban must get 100 million in orders for his projects to be successful, you and I need about $5000 in orders to get started.
As we come for reorders, our customers ask for changes. Since we have several hundred customers arranged around the USA, we can tell, via our sales reps, which requests are universal, and which are just local whimsy. We act on the universal requests, so we are grounded in what the customer wants.
If you come in and ask a customer what they want, they will ask for the sky. If you show them a coffee mug, they will ask or it in blue. Cuban is right of course, it is fatal to first ask customers what they want. Plan is is we ask if a solution exists. Plan B we show them something we found overseas. Either plan, we never ask customers what they want. We present something. I say so in my book and classes.***
***They put themselves in a never ending revolving door of trying to respond to customer requests.***
Sometimes a cute remark has to be backed up, and then an argument begins to break down. Apple Computer is a in the " never ending revolving door of trying to respond to customer requests." Microsoft has an ad campaign that precisely states microsoft is " in a never ending revolving door of trying to respond to customer requests." The difference is Apple succeeds, and microsoft does not. Apple is better at processing customer requests.
The Cuban says, "Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happen. (NB: I think he means "happy") Listen to them. Make them happy." Well, which is it. Listen, or do not listen?
I would say Mark Cuban is saying "don't spend a lot of money on what trying to find out what customers want in a new product. Find out if they want what you want to make. If, when they approve that, and they want small changes, then make those changes."
Also keep in mind Mark Cuban is a salesmen, which make his comments all the more useful to me, since I am not. Salesmen are a different breed of cat. Cuban recombines what is already there and sells it. I cannot do that, because I do not know how, it is not in my DNA. It is in his. WE are small biz people. But his observations as a top salesperson are very important. Although he is an auto salesman, I've even read CLOSE EVERY SALE by Joe Girard for his insights, a book I highly recommend.
So Mark Cuban creates a stir by saying NEVER LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. The he says listen to your customers. He and I agree that one should not listen when it does not matter, and we should listen when it does. WE agree, I think.
John
Friday, April 9, 2010
Anthony & Bill Want a Nuke Out Back
I've asked the few nuclear physicists I have met how come they don't make home versions of the nuclear reactor for power needs? I get a lot of blinking eyes, and tentative views that it is theoretically possible... in 2008 Anthony bird-dogged an article on this, and 2010 he has again.
Obviously a lot of people are thinking about this too... just another example of how ideas are not unique or new... just who will act on them?
Over $200 Million Cost Per Arrest
The War On Terror is generally a scam for shaking down the taxpayers. The winner of the rip-off awards must be the Air Marshall Service, with a cost of over 200 million per arrest. Air security must be turned over to the airlines if we ever hope to have air safety.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
China Displaces USA as NZ #2 Market
We make friends with those with whom we trade. New Zealand's #2 partner was USA, now it is China. Most of it is raw materials that once went to USA, for USA industry. Now that work is done in China. Part of the increase is a reduction in trade barriers between China and New Zealand. One fast way for USA to grow is to eliminate any taxes or restrictions on imports.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Dave's Great Comment and Question
One problem with this blog service, a google offering, is I can moderate comments, but it does not tell me to what the commenter refers when i see the comment. I can either approve or not approve, so I have to guess to the comment refers that I have said, and then where it is. Ughh!
I approved Dave's comment, and would like to reply to it, but once approved, I can no longer know where his comment is, or what it is about. Sigh.
If Dave will send me a link to where on my blog his comment is, I will answer his question in his comment.
My experience is for all the wonders of Google, they do leave one or two disinteresting inconveniences in every offering. This of course means Google is eminently open to competition. They have no monopoly, because anyone that wanted to could crush google at any time in an open market. Just serve the customers better than google does.
Half Trillion Unfunded Liability
So California public employees pensions are a half trillion down. There is a crisis in education, and it is due to an unsustainable business model, or as they say, failed socialist policies. We are heading into another downturn because the bailouts could not and did not work. Fraud at the highest levels is as active and present today as it was before. There is no industry coming up that can restart the economy.
Capitalism cannot save this, the only thing that will work is the free market. Education is by far the largest single expense in every state budget. Education, and all of its ancillary parts, is prime for introducing efficiencies. If you have a passion for education, and find joy in solving the problems thereof, then lend a hand now. It is a field wide open.
The USA empire is over happily, and critical to a turn around is to bring the troops home from all 220 countries we occupy immediately. Chins gets more oil out of the middle east than we do, so what is the point of being there/
The other area is getting rid of the policies and regulations that have stymied small business and innovation formation in USA. Once the field is opened up, then the unforeseen innovations will emerge and USA can recover.
I am not optimistic, since law, academia, labor, medicine, business and religion have all been bought and paid for by big government. The Catholic Church, in its international parts, has at least objected to USA empire, but they are now being put on the defensive by charges of witchcraft.
Unexpected wonderful things can happen in spite of all the forces arrayed against the true and the good and the beautiful. You have to organize yourself for luck. bes thing to do is to assess the problem correctly and then position yourself to make the world a better place.
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