Zappos is an online apparel retailer that started out selling shoes but ended up in as a full apparel retailer. Their mission statement is not unique, but I feel what is different about them is how they align themselves to meet that goal objective. They have a great sense of humor and they really are embracing the whole social media thing.
Today I came across this excellent blog post from their CEO, Tony Hsieh, and there are a few bullet points I just want to re-iterate here:
- Table selection is the most important decision you can make. [Evaluating market opportunities]
- Figure out the game when the stakes aren’t high. [Strategy]
- Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience. [Continual Learning]
These are excellent ideas. Lets try apply them to Brunei’s ICT industry [report by Dr Yong Chee Tuan and Hj Abdul Rahim Derus].
These two posts by Tony Hsieh and Dr Yong Chee Tuan are such rich sources of material for us to talk about. e.g. the Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007-2008 report mentions a lot of OSS, and re: Brunei “many of the e-government project proposals that are based on open source applications are not usually lower in cost than those based on proprietary systems. The lower initial cost of open source systems is sometimes offset by the implementation/customization and the long-term maintenance costs.”.
But that’s a story for another blog post … more after the break:
Table selection is the most important decision you can make
From the report: “Brunei Government has set aside “More than BND 850 million” in funds for developing e-Government applications.”
The message here is … pick your fight sensibly! Don’t be seduced into high-risk, low-gain games. Seek out the “low-hanging fruit”, yet at the same time enter into calculated risks, in games with acceptable risk and commensurate returns.
Guy grabs low hanging fruit from a tree
Figure out the game when the stakes aren’t high
From the report: “Each ministry should plan and allocate several small-scale projects that are not so mission-critical but which are strategically important for developing a local ICT industry. For example, an exploratory RFID project and courseware development projects may be good choices for locally incubated solutions”
The last thing you want to do is stake your livelihood, your house and home on a game you aren’t familiar with. Dr Yong identifies two projects that are thought to be strategically important for developing the local ICT industry: RFID and a courseware development project. I might have to invite Dr Yong for lim teh to find out his more of his perspective about these 2x projects.
Winning hand of blackjack with house keys up as the stakes
Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience
From the report: “The Innovation/Incubation Centre managed by BEDB [edited: this was spelled "BEDP"] is opening the floodgate for local ‘technopreneurs’ to focus on R&D work instead of merely playing the role of system integrators or customizing applications. This landscape may therefore be turned around within a few years.”
How else can we learn to develop products from the ground up, if we don’t try ourselves and learn through life’s experiences?
Difficult odds can be challenged ... if we carry with us the right attitude
The bottom line:
If we heed some of these excellent life lessons from Tony, we should be doing our best to avoid situations such as this:
Kitteh loses his shirt in a game of poker
[Note: Images above are licensed under the auspicies of Creative Commons licenses]
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