A self-help reference tutorial for how to manage effectively.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Holiday Special
2
3
4
5
6
8
9
Boston Consulting Group: punching managers between the eyes since 1963!
I found a fascinating document on the Boston Consulting Group website today that details the foundation and growth of the company. The 50 page PDF gives a year by year documentation of how Bruce Henderson, a former Bible salesman, grew BCG from a firm with just two consultants to an organization with 3,300 consultants and offices all over the world.
Henderson started off by mailing out controversial essays designed to provoke senior management thinking on a broad spectrum of business issues. They called these 'Perspectives'. When writing these texts, they eschewed anything that was considered conventional business wisdom and instead sought significant and thought-stimulating ideas. Henderson liked to describe the Perspectives as a Punch between the Eyes.
Here's the timeline itself:
http://www.bcg.com/this_is_bcg/bcg_history/Printable.pdf
And here's just one of the Perspectives, 'Capitalizing on Anomalies', that particularly appealed to me:
http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Eng368-CapitalizingonAno.pdf
Henderson started off by mailing out controversial essays designed to provoke senior management thinking on a broad spectrum of business issues. They called these 'Perspectives'. When writing these texts, they eschewed anything that was considered conventional business wisdom and instead sought significant and thought-stimulating ideas. Henderson liked to describe the Perspectives as a Punch between the Eyes.
Here's the timeline itself:
http://www.bcg.com/this_is_bcg/bcg_history/Printable.pdf
And here's just one of the Perspectives, 'Capitalizing on Anomalies', that particularly appealed to me:
http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Eng368-CapitalizingonAno.pdf
Robot spider terrorizes lazy translators!
I come across so many poorly translated websites on the internet that it gave me the following idea as to how a language translation company could generate leads: build a robot or spider program that crawls websites searching for errors. Program the spider so that once it finds an error, it then notifies the programmer and automatically emails the website owner or webmaster. Some standard blurb like "Dear Website Owner, while looking at your website we saw that there are errors in the translation into English. This creates an unprofessional impression of your website and your services. If you would like this and any other translation errors corrected, please email us."
I'm not a computer programmer, so I have to ask those who ARE and are reading this: how feasible would this be? I imagine you'd probably need to be able to program the spider to find a specific incorrect phrase like "The customers is satisfied". Or could you set it up to substitute the word 'customers' for any plural noun, so that when it comes across the plural noun clashing with the 'is', it can identify it as an error and flag it.
I'm not a computer programmer, so I have to ask those who ARE and are reading this: how feasible would this be? I imagine you'd probably need to be able to program the spider to find a specific incorrect phrase like "The customers is satisfied". Or could you set it up to substitute the word 'customers' for any plural noun, so that when it comes across the plural noun clashing with the 'is', it can identify it as an error and flag it.
Cheap accommodation: sleep in a New York coffin !
So next idea: I realized recently that there are next to no capsule hotels in New York City. Are there any at all? For those who don't know, capsule hotels (or coffin hotel as they are sometimes known) come from Japan and look like this:
Guest space is reduced in size to a plastic block roughly 2 m by 1 m by 1.25 m, providing room to sleep and that's about it. There may be a TV if it's a fancy shmancy one. The capsules are stacked, two units high or more. Luggage is usually stored in a communal locker area away from the capsule. Washing facilities are communal. The advantage of such a hotel is the price, usually around $16–34 per night.
I mentioned it to a friend who got extremely excited by the idea. Since we were at a bar and therefore unable to access the internet, we made various conjectures as to what would be involved.
- male and female capsules to be separated into different areas
- vending machines in the communal area could bring in additional revenue
- set it up near railway station therefore probably the Penn Station area, maybe 10th or 11th Avenue where rent / property would be slightly cheaper.
- need to prevent homeless people adopting it as some kind of dosshouse. Prohibitive pricing therefore necessary?
We became convinced that there must be some regulatory hotel body that prevents their existence in New York otherwise surely there'd be a few.
This morning I checked on wikipedia and saw that there's just one hotel listed in NY as being a capsule hotel:
http://www.pickwickarms.com
(But I think this is a misnomer. Their rooms are HUGE compared to what you get in a real capsule hotel)
If you were a tourist in NYC and on a low budget, would you stay in our capsule hotel?
UPDATE: June 25
OK. So in order to judge whether or not there's going to be some law that'll stop this particular idea, I did about 4 hours research on the internet.
- Yotel is the brainchild of Yo! founder Simon Woodroffe
- The central London Yotel will be priced at £80 for an overnight stay, and the airport hotels at £40 for four hours
- A third hotel will open in central London in 2007, as part of a plan to be in all prime city centres and key airport locations in the next five to 10 years.
- EasyHotel plans to use demand-based pricing to reduce vacancies. The fewer people want to stay at a given time, the lower the price will be. (Easyhotel is from the guy who gave the world Easyjet, Mr. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, a Greek lad). EasyHotel plans to rent rooms for $9.75 a night.
If you're interested, here's where I did the background reading:
http://www.frommers.com/articles/4359.html
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2006/03/16/305754/hotels-touch-of-luxury-on-a-budget.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/travel/08cheapchic.html?ex=1273204800&en=50bad28e4ef64f4c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
http://www.japanaddicted.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2431
So, I learned much about small cabin-like hotels from the likes of Yotel and Nitenite, but precious little about capsule hotels in the USA.
Why not?
Why not? Why not?
Whynotwhynotwhynot, goddamit?!
Coz they really do not seem to exist! The only two references I came across for capsule hotels were from two guys, Brett and Brehd, that run a blog commenting on building developments in Knoxville (Jeeze!):
http://www.knoxpatch.com/?p=553
And a techie guy named Jan Chipcase who even has a photo on his blog: a view from his capsule hotel in San Francisco:
http://www.janchipchase.com/blog/archives/2007/03/ideo_presentati.html
Is that real, Jan? Or did you photoshop it? Because I can't find ANY other reference on the internet to capsule hotels in San Fran!
So I emailed the trio of characters above, but so far have heard nothing back.
Another thing I did was create the following text:
Hello John,
I came across your website while doing some research on the internet. I am investigating the feasibility of opening a capsule hotel in New York City. (I'm sure you have at least heard of the concept, which comes from Japan?) No one seems to be able to tell me whether such a densely packed hotel is actually legal or not according to city laws. Do you have any wise advice you could provide me with or at least a few pointers? Is there some paragraph of hotel regulations that would immediately knock our business concept on the head...
Sincerely,
...and email it to all the following hotel experts of some degree or other:
1. various professors of law and real estate at the Hotel and Hospitality School of Cornell http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/
2. Hotel Industry Consultants www.pinnacle-advisory.com
3. Juliana Shallcross, Senior Editor of www.HotelChatter.com
4. Hotel Industry Consultant www.jeffcoy.com
Feedback ranged from " I don't have any experience or knowledge on this type of hotel" (which I found kind of amazing, considering even I had heard of capsule hotels and I've never been to Japan!) to advice referring me back to one lawyer here in New York that I had actually phoned up and quizzed already.
The longest and most helpful response came from ...
5. www.melvingoldconsulting.com with Mr. Gold from the UK even offering to put me in touch with the Yotel people!
But the end result? No one really knew off the top of their head.
So, finally, I threw together the following mock-up of an ad and put it on craigslist to at least get a feel for what demand there might be out there:
.....................
CRAIGSLIST: New York accommodation - inexpensive and cool sleeping quarters
Inexpensive accommodation available for tourists in midtown Manhattan area. Our Japanese style capsule hotel offers you a clean and compact sleeping module. An ultra cool and hip place to stay in The Big Apple. Bathrooms are communal but very hygienic. Male and female quarters are separated. Friendly and welcoming staff. Ideal for students or those on a low budget. We are located a few blocks west of Penn Station. For $70 per night, you will not find cheaper accommodation in such a great and convenient location.
To enquire about availability, email us:
1. your exact dates and
2. number of guests
We will email you back more exact details about our accommodation facilities including photos, availability and how to reserve a sleeping capsule.
.....................
...and, because I know that Craigslist removes it's postings within 7 days, I'm also throwing it up over here too at this spin off blog: http://new-york-capsule-hotel.blogspot.com/
But so far, about 4 days later, how many people have responded?
None.
Are we barking up a wrong tree here?
Input and ideas welcome... Help!
Guest space is reduced in size to a plastic block roughly 2 m by 1 m by 1.25 m, providing room to sleep and that's about it. There may be a TV if it's a fancy shmancy one. The capsules are stacked, two units high or more. Luggage is usually stored in a communal locker area away from the capsule. Washing facilities are communal. The advantage of such a hotel is the price, usually around $16–34 per night.
I mentioned it to a friend who got extremely excited by the idea. Since we were at a bar and therefore unable to access the internet, we made various conjectures as to what would be involved.
- male and female capsules to be separated into different areas
- vending machines in the communal area could bring in additional revenue
- set it up near railway station therefore probably the Penn Station area, maybe 10th or 11th Avenue where rent / property would be slightly cheaper.
- need to prevent homeless people adopting it as some kind of dosshouse. Prohibitive pricing therefore necessary?
We became convinced that there must be some regulatory hotel body that prevents their existence in New York otherwise surely there'd be a few.
This morning I checked on wikipedia and saw that there's just one hotel listed in NY as being a capsule hotel:
http://www.pickwickarms.com
(But I think this is a misnomer. Their rooms are HUGE compared to what you get in a real capsule hotel)
If you were a tourist in NYC and on a low budget, would you stay in our capsule hotel?
UPDATE: June 25
OK. So in order to judge whether or not there's going to be some law that'll stop this particular idea, I did about 4 hours research on the internet.
- Yotel is the brainchild of Yo! founder Simon Woodroffe
- The central London Yotel will be priced at £80 for an overnight stay, and the airport hotels at £40 for four hours
- A third hotel will open in central London in 2007, as part of a plan to be in all prime city centres and key airport locations in the next five to 10 years.
- EasyHotel plans to use demand-based pricing to reduce vacancies. The fewer people want to stay at a given time, the lower the price will be. (Easyhotel is from the guy who gave the world Easyjet, Mr. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, a Greek lad). EasyHotel plans to rent rooms for $9.75 a night.
If you're interested, here's where I did the background reading:
http://www.frommers.com/articles/4359.html
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2006/03/16/305754/hotels-touch-of-luxury-on-a-budget.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/travel/08cheapchic.html?ex=1273204800&en=50bad28e4ef64f4c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
http://www.japanaddicted.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2431
So, I learned much about small cabin-like hotels from the likes of Yotel and Nitenite, but precious little about capsule hotels in the USA.
Why not?
Why not? Why not?
Whynotwhynotwhynot, goddamit?!
Coz they really do not seem to exist! The only two references I came across for capsule hotels were from two guys, Brett and Brehd, that run a blog commenting on building developments in Knoxville (Jeeze!):
http://www.knoxpatch.com/?p=553
And a techie guy named Jan Chipcase who even has a photo on his blog: a view from his capsule hotel in San Francisco:
http://www.janchipchase.com/blog/archives/2007/03/ideo_presentati.html
Is that real, Jan? Or did you photoshop it? Because I can't find ANY other reference on the internet to capsule hotels in San Fran!
So I emailed the trio of characters above, but so far have heard nothing back.
Another thing I did was create the following text:
Hello John,
I came across your website while doing some research on the internet. I am investigating the feasibility of opening a capsule hotel in New York City. (I'm sure you have at least heard of the concept, which comes from Japan?) No one seems to be able to tell me whether such a densely packed hotel is actually legal or not according to city laws. Do you have any wise advice you could provide me with or at least a few pointers? Is there some paragraph of hotel regulations that would immediately knock our business concept on the head...
Sincerely,
...and email it to all the following hotel experts of some degree or other:
1. various professors of law and real estate at the Hotel and Hospitality School of Cornell http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/
2. Hotel Industry Consultants www.pinnacle-advisory.com
3. Juliana Shallcross, Senior Editor of www.HotelChatter.com
4. Hotel Industry Consultant www.jeffcoy.com
Feedback ranged from " I don't have any experience or knowledge on this type of hotel" (which I found kind of amazing, considering even I had heard of capsule hotels and I've never been to Japan!) to advice referring me back to one lawyer here in New York that I had actually phoned up and quizzed already.
The longest and most helpful response came from ...
5. www.melvingoldconsulting.com with Mr. Gold from the UK even offering to put me in touch with the Yotel people!
But the end result? No one really knew off the top of their head.
So, finally, I threw together the following mock-up of an ad and put it on craigslist to at least get a feel for what demand there might be out there:
.....................
CRAIGSLIST: New York accommodation - inexpensive and cool sleeping quarters
Inexpensive accommodation available for tourists in midtown Manhattan area. Our Japanese style capsule hotel offers you a clean and compact sleeping module. An ultra cool and hip place to stay in The Big Apple. Bathrooms are communal but very hygienic. Male and female quarters are separated. Friendly and welcoming staff. Ideal for students or those on a low budget. We are located a few blocks west of Penn Station. For $70 per night, you will not find cheaper accommodation in such a great and convenient location.
To enquire about availability, email us:
1. your exact dates and
2. number of guests
We will email you back more exact details about our accommodation facilities including photos, availability and how to reserve a sleeping capsule.
.....................
...and, because I know that Craigslist removes it's postings within 7 days, I'm also throwing it up over here too at this spin off blog: http://new-york-capsule-hotel.blogspot.com/
But so far, about 4 days later, how many people have responded?
None.
Are we barking up a wrong tree here?
Input and ideas welcome... Help!
Sneezing panda captures eyeballs !
Hmmmm....today I discovered how to embed utube videos in blogspot. Click on the play arrows below (sometimes you have to click twice) to take a look at some entertaining videos and then rejoin me once you've scrolled down below the videos for some more thoughts on this.
The sneezing panda. You have to watch this one twice to really appreciate it. Very funny inter-bear interaction at the zoo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtLzvOsQ80k
This clip shows a guy named Noah who took one photo of himself every day for 6 YEARS!!! It's very interesting to see the effect of aging. Kind of poignant effect with the music. Quite beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo
Some clever choreography from four guys running/dancing/bouncing off exercise treadmills of all things. Nice idea. (I'll give two dollars to the first person who can write what the song is in the 'comments' section)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NINJQ5LRh-0
Cute kid talking about some guy getting kicked in the 'penith'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9hgFXftG2g
So. Now you've 'hyucked' it up, tell me this: could there be potential here for grouping useful utube videos together in order to create huge web traffic? I'm thinking of categories that spring to mind like
1. putting a series of useful clips together. For example: http://traditional-irish-music-session-tunes.blogspot.com
2. Or all the smaller parts of one documentary (as I've done by putting all 6 parts of a Velvet Underground documentary onto one page here in my spin off blog):
http://watch-tv-on-the-internet.blogspot.com
3. Or all the Utube videos of songs by one artist as I've done in an example spin off blog containing video clips of songs by the wonderful Regina Spektor:
http://regina-spektor-videos.blogspot.com
4. Or putting a series of Utube "stand up comedy" videos together on one website. Call it http://stand-up-comedy-clips.blogspot.com or something
What do you think? What might be other value-building groupings of YouTube videos that one could 'assemble'? Write a comment, drop me a line, make me a suggestion (or an offer I can't refuse!) by using the email address listed elswhere on this page.
Oh and by the way: do you want to learn "how to put videos on my blogspot"? It's a cinch! Here's how to upload video to your blog:
1. Go to Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com
2. Do a search for some video clips related to your blog or whatever it is you'd like to put on your blog.
3. Got one?
OK.
Now while the video is playing, do you see the "Embed" field to the right of the video? (in my example screenshot below, it's circled in red). Go in there. Do 'Control + A' to select everything in there. Now do 'Control + C' to copy it. OK. You've got it! You've got the precious little HTML code. Don't drop it, for God's sake! Be very very careful. Anythign could happen at this point! Hold your breath until I tell you to breathe again.
4. Now go into your blog and find the area where you can add HTML code. Assuming you're using Blogspot or blogger, it'll probably be when you create a new post and then you just do 'Control + V' to paste the code into the post.
5. Save your post. Check how it looks when you view your blog. You should have a real live little Youtube video sitting there with a play arrow, waiting to be pressed. Like this:
6. Breathe again. Congrats. Say to yourself "I am now the proud owner of video content on my blog. I now know how to upload videos to blogspot!".
7. Have a nice cup of tea.
The sneezing panda. You have to watch this one twice to really appreciate it. Very funny inter-bear interaction at the zoo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtLzvOsQ80k
This clip shows a guy named Noah who took one photo of himself every day for 6 YEARS!!! It's very interesting to see the effect of aging. Kind of poignant effect with the music. Quite beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo
Some clever choreography from four guys running/dancing/bouncing off exercise treadmills of all things. Nice idea. (I'll give two dollars to the first person who can write what the song is in the 'comments' section)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NINJQ5LRh-0
Cute kid talking about some guy getting kicked in the 'penith'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9hgFXftG2g
So. Now you've 'hyucked' it up, tell me this: could there be potential here for grouping useful utube videos together in order to create huge web traffic? I'm thinking of categories that spring to mind like
1. putting a series of useful clips together. For example: http://traditional-irish-music-session-tunes.blogspot.com
2. Or all the smaller parts of one documentary (as I've done by putting all 6 parts of a Velvet Underground documentary onto one page here in my spin off blog):
http://watch-tv-on-the-internet.blogspot.com
3. Or all the Utube videos of songs by one artist as I've done in an example spin off blog containing video clips of songs by the wonderful Regina Spektor:
http://regina-spektor-videos.blogspot.com
4. Or putting a series of Utube "stand up comedy" videos together on one website. Call it http://stand-up-comedy-clips.blogspot.com or something
What do you think? What might be other value-building groupings of YouTube videos that one could 'assemble'? Write a comment, drop me a line, make me a suggestion (or an offer I can't refuse!) by using the email address listed elswhere on this page.
Oh and by the way: do you want to learn "how to put videos on my blogspot"? It's a cinch! Here's how to upload video to your blog:
1. Go to Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com
2. Do a search for some video clips related to your blog or whatever it is you'd like to put on your blog.
3. Got one?
OK.
Now while the video is playing, do you see the "Embed" field to the right of the video? (in my example screenshot below, it's circled in red). Go in there. Do 'Control + A' to select everything in there. Now do 'Control + C' to copy it. OK. You've got it! You've got the precious little HTML code. Don't drop it, for God's sake! Be very very careful. Anythign could happen at this point! Hold your breath until I tell you to breathe again.
4. Now go into your blog and find the area where you can add HTML code. Assuming you're using Blogspot or blogger, it'll probably be when you create a new post and then you just do 'Control + V' to paste the code into the post.
5. Save your post. Check how it looks when you view your blog. You should have a real live little Youtube video sitting there with a play arrow, waiting to be pressed. Like this:
6. Breathe again. Congrats. Say to yourself "I am now the proud owner of video content on my blog. I now know how to upload videos to blogspot!".
7. Have a nice cup of tea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
