Bill & Dave by Michael S. Malone - Book Review

This is probably the best business log that i have read till date. It made me laugh, cry and inspire all in one go. I could not put the book down before completing it. And in the end, I was enlightened in what could be the famous and cherished HP Way.

I learnt, 

1. Bill overcame Dyslexia by memorising whatever he heard in class. That made a great entrepreneur - one who listens to his customers and employees.

2. Dave Packard developed the management style "Managing By Walking Around". MBWA.

3. The first product was not named product code number 1 but was 200A. The famous calculate HP-35 was named so since it had 35 keys. And interestingly the HP01 as a product was not successful at all - a Digital Watch. And the first product pricing at $54.40 was as a result of the fact that it reminded amusingly of te historic phrase "54'40" or Fight!" that was used in the 1844 camapign to set the US-Canadian border in the Northwest.

4. Friday Dressing, Beer after work on Fridays, Flex timing, telecommuting, Open Door Policy were all pioneered in HP.

5. Strong Financials of HP owe their fundamentals to "Internal Financing of Growth".

6. Trust was the biggest fundamental of HP Way. And Dave Packard learnt it through his apprenticeship at GE in Schenectady. The perceived security crisis of tools and instruments disappearing from workshop at GE was treated with clampdown on security. This criminalised employee dedication to greater productivity by stopping employees from taking the tools and instruments home to keep working on unfinished projects from their jobs.

7. Treatment for Employees - being fair: Employee Evaluations and Termination

The guiding principles were:

• The indivdual affected had had advance warning through written evaluation and has been advised constructively on how he/she should improve.
• Wherever practical assure the employee is given an opportunity for other placement where he/she might make a greater contribution. Employee placement is a functino of supervisors and personnel and not a function of the emplyee to be turned loose to find a his own job someplace in HP.
• If termination is the only alternative, personnel must be fully advised and believe the fase is satisfactorily documented and the decision has the approval of the general manager concerned.
• Before any adverse action is taken, it should be well thought out. We must recongise that each of our people represents an individual with problems, families etc.

8. The Nine Day Fortnight - It is only fair that, during hard times everyone in the company share in the pain and make comparable sacrifices.

9. G Time: Take advantage of slow periods to give back to employees time that wouldnt be used anyways - and let them use their imagination to fill it productively.

and finally ... 

The HP Way - Corporate Objectives:
1. Profit: profit is the best single measure of our contribution to society and te ultimate source of our corporate strength. aimt to achieve maximum possible profit consistent with our other objectives.
2. Customers: to strive for continuous improvement in the quality, usefulness, and value fo the products, and services we offer our customers.
3. Field of Interest: to concentrate our efforts continually seeking new opportunities for growth but limiting our involvement to fields in which we have capability and can make contributions
4. Growth: To emphasize graoth as a measure of strength and a requirement for survival.
5. Employees: To provide employment opportunities for HP people that include the opportunity to share in the company's success which they help make possible. To provide for them job security based in perforamnce and to provide the opportunity for personal satisfaction that comes from a sense of accomplishment in their work.
6. Organisation: To maintain an organisational environment that fosters individual motivation, intiative, creativity, and wide latitude of freedom in working towards established objectives and goals.
7. Citizenship: To meet obligations of good citizenship by making contributions to the community and to the institutions in our society whcih generate the environment in which we operate.

Jack Trout Gems

I was just browsing through the new book of Jack Trout "In Search of the Obvious:The Antidote for Today's Marketing Mess". And came across a good summary of his points, worth a read.

1. Common sense is your guide.

2. Marketing's big problem - Wall Street

3. Research can obscure the Obvious.

4. Advertising people can be an Obvious Problem.

5. Advertising is a science ... you should never let art get in the way of selling a message.

6. What works in marketing is the same as what works in the military, the unexpected.

7. In the long run, every market becomes a two horse race.

8. The future is never obvious, A search for the obvious is about today, not tomorrow.

Have fun reading the book.

Matters of Mind

I was surfing through the web and came across this brilliant collection of the tricks that mind plays based on the cognitive bias that gets built.

As a marketeer, this definitely intrigued my sense. Definitely worth a dekko.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases 

Amazing Human Mind

Its astounding, what i saw today. And thought of reproducing it. I do not claim to have discovered this but am copying someone's mail content here.

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I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was reanidg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

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And now that you have been able to read this, what do you have to say, or share with me. Any amazing facts are welcome.

Funny Photos of Bush

I just came across this link of some photographs taken at very inappropriate moments or mid way between a gesture that do reflect as funny.

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-36649.html