Don’t wait, GET small, THINK big.

A great article posted by Seth Godin, favorite preacher

i am posting the highlights from an interview he did . http://www.etsy.com/storque/article/1871/
Basically he talks about how it might be wiser to remain small, and think of big ideas and tis possible to do great and massive stuff while remaining small. (and wiser to do so this way). This applies to Nepal especially where most of us feel ” You have to be big, to make better things ”

We in Nepal, are used to the “big government, big business, small people” and thus have a misguided view that “being small is not going to make big changes, big revenue or big ……. “. or “we need a big powerful government to make big changes, or we are doomed !”

This thinking is mostly crap!

Here is a validation on

“ GET SMALL, THINK BIG “

Big used to matter. Big meant economies of scale. (You never hear about “economies of tiny,” do you?) People, usually guys, often ex-Marines, wanted to be CEO of a big company. The Fortune 500 is where people went to make… a fortune.

There was a good reason for this. Value was added in ways that big organizations were good at. Value was added with efficient manufacturing, widespread distribution and very large R&D staffs. Value came from hundreds of operators standing by and from nine-figure TV ad budgets. Value came from a huge sales force.

Of course, it’s not just big organizations that added value. Big planes were better than small ones, because they were faster and more efficient. Big buildings were better than small ones because they facilitated communications and used downtown land quite efficiently. Bigger computers could handle more simultaneous users, as well.

Get Big Fast was the motto for startups, because big companies can go public and get more access to capital and use that capital to get even bigger. Big accounting firms were the place to go to get audited if you were a big company, because a big accounting firm could be trusted. Big law firms were the place to find the right lawyer, because big law firms were a one-stop shop.

And then small happened.

Enron (big) got audited by Andersen (big) and failed (big.) The World Trade Center was a target. TV advertising is collapsing so fast you can hear it. American Airlines (big) is getting creamed by Jet Blue (think small). BoingBoing (four people) has a readership growing a hundred times faster than the New Yorker (hundreds of people).

Big computers are silly. They use lots of power and are not nearly as efficient as properly networked Dell boxes (at least that’s the way it works at Yahoo and Google). Big boom boxes are replaced by tiny ipod shuffles. (Yeah, I know big-screen tvs are the big thing. Can’t be right all the time.)

I’m writing this on a laptop at a skateboard park… that added wifi for parents. Because they wanted to. It took them a few minutes and $50. No big meetings, corporate policies or feasibility studies. They just did it.

Today, little companies often make more money than big companies. Little churches grow faster than worldwide ones. Little jets are way faster (door to door) than big ones.

Today, Craigslist (18 employees) is the fourth most visited site according to some measures. They are partly owned by eBay (more than 4,000 employees) which hopes to stay in the same league, traffic-wise. They’re certainly not growing nearly as fast.

Small means the founder makes a far greater percentage of the customer interactions. Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them, quickly.

Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs.

Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.

Small means that you can answer email from your customers.

Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them.

A small law firm or accounting firm or ad agency is succeeding because they’re good, not because they’re big. So smart small companies are happy to hire them.

A small restaurant has an owner who greets you by name.

A small venture fund doesn’t have to fund big bad ideas in order to get capital doing work. They can make small investments in tiny companies with good (big) ideas.

A small church has a minister with the time to visit you in the hospital when you’re sick.

Is it better to be the head of Craigslist or the head of UPS?

Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.

Don’t wait. Get small. Think big.

hope you enjoyed the argument.

Republic ? Nepal ? Gross National Happiness ?

Today Nepal becomes a Republic (or rather starts on its track.).

My main question is whether as a republic, we will have finally improve our Gross National Happiness, GNH ( and not our GDP, no not that our material wealth progress indicator.).
i.e material and mathematical analysis of GDP are just a small yet important indicator in the grand design of “Real Progress.”

“Happiness indicators” are a bigger analysis/process which needs to be factored in for “real worth-while and sustainable progress”.

I believe our “Gross National Happiness” indicator is going to define our success as a republic, in the coming years, decades.

Few indicators i would personally value to measure Gross National Happiness is:

a) respect ( am I going to respect you enough to not impose my thoughts upon you)

b) tolerance ( How am i going to treat you, if you don’t live the way i feel everyone should live.)

c) trust ( am i going to trust my daughter to my neighbor if i have to go run off to the next city to do an urgent errand)

d) love (will i value my life and be able to love myself.)

mundane points i have mentioned here, but holds deep significance for the new society that is to emerge.

call me wishful, but as a positive change seeker, i desire to go back to our basics, to our childhood, when all our relations were simple, positive and trust oriented.

Gross National Happiness = Simple way of life ( Simple means full, fun and un-attached–).

Simple is not hungry, poverty, dull mind, lack of progress, its just the opposite of that.
simple is hard to achieve, requires hard to achieve, quality to maintain it

enjoy, the republic of Nepal folks.

A formula for business success:

My hypothesis:

Best Working Environment >>> Best Workers >>> Best Product (or Service) >>> Profit !!!

I wish i could explain it better with more words/paragraphs.. but this explains it all for what i wanted to say.

btw.. if you think i missed ” Best idea”, no i didn’t. Its good if you have a better idea, but doesn’t have to be a pre-requisite.

Change, Change, Change

Granted i am writing about why Maoists won in Nepal, is not particularly a business and entrepreneural blog, I am non the less writing.

Business and innovation is affected by the external environment and that environment needs to be studied carefully and bet made on the directions it is leading.

When the situation of “hope” becomes so dry, and strained, people run for the last breath. and I feel in this breath are the words “Change, Change” Change”. At any cost !

Thats what people of Nepal voted for, when after 16 years of supposedly democratic Nepal faltered again and again. with more than 1 prime minister for every year that passed (on average), who didn’t want change !

Young and old (mostly young) are fed up with the status quo. They are willing to embrace change, even though it might lead to a treacherous path. They have not much to lose (so the people seem to feel).

Who represents change here. Only the Maoists. Every other party in the equation seems to be rooted (or rotten) in “status quo”.

while radical change brings new uncertainities, people of Nepal are willing to experiment one more time.
their hope for change is maybe change will get them “economic prosperity”. Till now its all promises, they are willing to give their support to any voice that shouts for change! that desperate the situation is.

“My village has only old women and young children. All others have gone outside to work in Arab countries. such that in one case, one young drunk and bully scares the whole village of 100 families and there are none to oppose him.
Why wouldn’t they want something different than this”

Fear, Fear, Fear:

“Fear” “Fear” “Fear”
Maoists used the concept of “fear” in their marketing. (( has worked in republican campaigns in the past 8 years in US.. you get the idea from george bush election wins).. effectively….

If the Republicans in USA could win the US elections using “fear” as one of their main campaign tools, Maoist have learnt a lot from them.
Fear-mongering is an effective elections tool, specially in the midst of vulnerable ones. And Nepalis are vulnerable. Poor, marginalized, helpless in most cases, you respond to marketeers of fear, the fastest, i suppose.
They used it with one simple marketing logic, one: “If we don’t win, the country is back in chaos.”

which for most people meant:

” Maoists will ask for forced donations of food and other materials that directly affect the village people and poor”

“Maoists will target us instead of the “physically stronger” government”

which led to the “better them than us” logic which translates into “better loot the crappy government in Kathmandu than us”.

Also the another logic of fear is that Maoists are here to clean a society that is decaying fast. The fear of being on the decayed side prompted many young people to vote for them. People were fearful of being in “status quo”.

Ujw

which leads to a 3rd factor which many young and old people wanted:

“Change, Change, Change at any cost since we are all nearly broke anyway.”