Skip to main content

We are all customers too

I often am challenged or get asked how I have developed the thoughts and insights I have into certain domains even though I don't have years of work history in those spaces.

Maybe I'm just weird, or wired differently, but this always leaves me puzzled.

The reality is I'm not sitting around coming up with quadratic equations, most of the way I frame things is rooted in common sense. At the end of the day, when not at work, I am a customer / consumer too, just like everyone else.

Often I simply look at things and say, "how would I do this", "how would I make this better or less of a pain in the ass"!

It's not rocket science.

This always makes me think of some line from a movie or TV show (probably something geeky that I came across over the years because I couldn't Google it - if you know it, let me know!)

Basically the idea is that to truly understand something, you need to see it while hanging upside down in front of a mirror.

The idea is to drop your preconceptions and what you think you know, and approach it from a totally different angle than you (or everyone else) would.

Then, just test. Try. See what you can tweak or adjust. At the end of the day, we make things WAY more complicated than they need to be. 

Your brain is cool, use it.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Black Swan

  Maybe I think differently because I have read this? With everything going on with the CoronaVirus, it is incredible to see how people are behaving. Everyone and their cousin is talking about the Supply Chain, about being prepared, about not having enough capacity ... it's crazy. I honestly wonder if the people making all of these comments have ever actually ran any operations, if they ever had to responsibility to actually get things done. It's easy to say how prepared you can be, and what companies should have been doing, or pointing the finger saying "how could you be out of stock". The reality is, we have a lot of choice. The average grocery store for example can easily have 15,000 to 20, 000 skus that move through their stores ... think about that for a minute. That many skus, that are all cycling through the stores on some type of regular rate of sale.  Or let's take something that's more in people's face at the mo...

Give your best stuff away

    This is an interesting and sometimes polarizing topic. One group of people believe that the more content (ideas, conversations, posts, videos, etc) that you put out into the world, the better your return is as you are connecting with more people and getting greater exposure. Another group feels that by investing all of this energy into giving away "free stuff", takes away from what you could be doing to grow your business, give to your clients or to your employer. That giving your stuff away doesn't pay the bills, so what's really the point other than feeling good. For me personally, I'm all about giving my best stuff away for free, and what follows are really my "whys". First and foremost, I don't really prescribe to the idea that anyone really has "best stuff". That's finite and fixed and I truly don't believe this applies to people the way it can be associated to things. If you are a miner, and you m...

How to Avoid the 'Quick Fix' Lure of Technology That's Stifling Your Creativity

  We live in a world that is obsessed with solving problems with a system or technology. How many times have you hear someone [basically] say "let's get an app for that"? Crazy. I'm all for shiny new things. I love my toys as much as you do.  Rarely however does that new systems, application or software suite fix any of the underlying issues. When was the last time you started using something new, either in your personal or professional life, and it immediately fixed your problem and you changed nothing about what you are doing. Often, what ends up happening, is that as businesses look to implement some new tech, they also end up having to change HOW they are doing things. The changes that are made to core processes is what drives the success. Using your phone to track your steps, your sleep, your workout or to even help you write. Pause for a second, think about any of those situations.  Tracking your steps and setting daily goals means that you are actually walking ...