Culture of Excellence that created RAZR in Motorala

These are the lessons that Geoffrey Frost, widely acclaimed as the father of RAZR shares:

1. "It was a bet being made, not a base being covered. We didn't even include it in the sector's business plan."

2. "No compromise was the standard operating procedure. We didn't juggle tradeoffs, we just insisted on excellence."

3. "We didn't try to predict the market for the product based on history, we bet that if it was good enough, it would make its own market."

4. "We put the best, brightest, craziest, and most passionate people we had on it."

Read more from Remembering Geoffrey Frost.

$10 Music CDs

This article may be a bit old, but the interesting information at the end shows the break down of a CD's cost:

Total price = $15.99

$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

Note that the retail store's maximum margin is only 24.3%


In my opinion, CDs are priced much too highly these days. The music labels and artistes are taking an unreasonable cut of the revenue, and there is too much of extravagant marketing. This will be fine if the industry is competitive, but it is pretty much an oligopoly, with the music labels controlling almost everything, including consumer's choice (i.e. they decide which artiste makes it or breaks it)

Whatever it is, I hope I can get cheap CDs in Malaysia in the future :)

Mega Regions

I first got introduced to the concept of Mega Regions from this BNET article. Some interesting (but unrelated) bites from the article:

• Never knew there is a sunbelt from Houston to New Orleans, although both are oil & gas centres
• Tijuana specializes in high-tech electronic manufacturing (was assuming it is into apparel and low-tech manufacturing)
• Texas has overtaken California in terms of wind-generated energy - in a state with the highest oil & gas production!

Key criteria to be classified a mega region: contigous with >1 city centre, population of >5 million, produce >100 billion. According to this article, it makes for some 40 mega regions

Mega Regions are defined as large networks of metropolitan areas linked by geography, infrastructure, environment, economic linkages, cultures and history. For further details, read on at http://www.angeloueconomics.com/megaregions.html


For futher reading, try this book: Who's your city

An interview with Richard Florida, author of the book at BNET

Further information in Wikipedia (Megalopolis)

How Steve Jobs played hardball on iPhone

Ever wondered how Steve Jobs rolled out iPhone with an exclusive carrier arrangement with Cingular? That Steve even considered offering Apple's one cellphone service. How he convinced the carriers to buy into the iPhone idea and even manage to cut a profit sharing deal for network traffic?

Informative article at Wall Street Journal online

Bottom line: Giving the customer what they really wants really pays

Branding

Was surfing through SlideShare and chance upon some interesting materials on branding:

The 2007 Brand Markerters Report (pdf)

There are some very interesting slideshows on branding:

Self-Branding
The Brand Gap

Insecurity: Stumbling Block to success

We often read about success factors, and yes one should always look at the positive side to really progress. On the other hand, it is good to sometimes reflect back: is there anything which is really holding me back?

I find that insecurity is a plague that affects almost all of us. This insecure feeling can be buried really deep down inside, and the busyness of daily challenges results in a facade that beautiful entomb our deepest fears.

Yet it is exactly these fears that rear their ugly head at the most inopportune time: stakes are high and pressure is at the boiling point.


I notice that for the past 4 years I have not been making a lot of progress, and when I really pick up the courage to face myself, a lot of it is due to the insecurities deep inside. While one can move forward propelled by negative forces, it is not sustainable and comes with it a lot of negative effects. You need to know yourself; what you really want from life, and to be truly happy. Only then, can you find the "perfect" job and experience that smooth road to success which always seems to come so easily and naturally for some people.

If the positives does not motivate you enough, then think of the implications when you let your insecurities take control. You will fear change, rather than adapt to it. You want to control the situation, and make other people to act as you wish them to be. If you were a leader, you could potentially derail many a talented person; who deserve a shot at glory just like yourself :)

Know thy enemy and know thyself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know thyself but not thy enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not thyself, wallow in defeat everytime.
-- Sun Tzu