Clarke Ching - More Chilli Please

Specialising and differentiating

A couple of years ago I asked a colleague of mine to review my resume. It was my "consultants" resume used for marketing purposes rather than the resume I would use for selling myself.

He advised that I just say I have an MBA rather than an MBA specialising in technology management. He said that I was unnecessarily limiting my potential market. It sounded like good advice so I did what he suggested.
Lately I've been thinking about the advice and I've changed my mind completely. I am a technology manager. I know stuff - lots of useful, money making stuff, in fact - that your average (and believe at least half of them are below average) MBA doesn't know. I specialise in technology management. Why would any one want to hire an ordinary MBA for a techology management role? Why would anyone hire a general practioner to do brain surgery?

You want to know the annoying thing? I didn't learn anything from MBA, no matter what I specialised in, that I couldn't read in text books. The useful stuff I write about above was learnt from entirely different books, by writting my own book, and most important from screwing up repeatedly in real life while I figured out how to get it right.

Doing an MBA, for me, was not a learning exercise, it was a marketing exercise. And as everyone who has done an MBA knows one of the keys to marketing is differentiation - that's why my resume now says I've completed an MBA specialising in technology management.
.oOo. Sent from my BlackBerry www.ClarkeChing.com +44(0)7920114893

Urgent help required: Know any good PC games?

I know this is pathetic but ... I have the business version of Vista loaded on my PC and it has NO GAMES. Not even solitaire. No minesweeper either.

I'm not a great game player but every so often I wouldn't mind some harmless - but not addictive - distraction on the long train trips.

Any suggestions?

I don't want to get addicted. I don't want to have to think too hard. I don't want any long term commitments to the game. I don't really want to spend much money either.

The last game I bought was a discounted version of tomb raider 2 in 2000. I enjoyed it so much that at 3AM - about 14 hours after buying it - a uninstalled it and destroyed the disks.

Love some suggestions.

Clarke

Testing typepad posting from blackberry

Please ignore ...
.oOo. Sent from my BlackBerry www.ClarkeChing.com +44(0)7920114893

Kevin Rutherford's Variation simulation

Earlier this year I suggested running a little simulation of coin tossing in excel. The results really surprised me.

Now Kevin Rutherford - one of the cleverest people I've met in person - has gone one better. He has automated the simulation using Ruby and includes the results on his business website.

Read the background on his weblog - http://silkandspinach.net/2007 /07/25/a-ruby-sparkline -showing-variation/- then follow the link and refresh a half dozen times to see the results change with each rerun of the simulation.

The results make perfect sense to me LOGICALLY and in retrospect ... but they go completely against my prior intuition.

I love what Kevin has done with this. Give the excel version a go too though.

testing typepad remote from gmail

Please ignore ...

Podcast: Chapter two of Rolling Rocks Downhill

http://clarkeching.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=237346

Bill Dettmer on the “3 Cloud Method”

Bill Dettmer is a hero of mine.  I learned much of my early TOC thinking from Bill's early books and I love him for sharing details of how to use the TOC thinking with mere mortals, too cheap to invest in the training like Bill did.

He is currently immersed deep down in the final stages of editing his latest book on the TOC Thinking Processes.  Bill described the new book as a "quantum leap forward in the thinking process".  I  truly can't wait. 

In order to help us kick start the TocThinkers blog, Bill has kindly shared one of the appendices from his book.  It is the controversial one where he states why he believes the 3-cloud method of constructing Current Reality trees is fundamentally flawed.  Funny thing is – a lot of very clever people agree with him; a lot of very clever people don't.  It reminds me of the dire straights song which goes "Two men say they're jesus, well one of them must be wrong".

Read more by visiting the  TocThinker's Blog Entry, compliments of Bill Dettmer.

Trust and negotiations

Very good reading: http://www.ayeconference.com/Articles/Chinesecontract.html

Several cultures contain a fable about a horse, a Farmer, and a wolf. After a time both plagued by the wolf the Farmer and horse agree to work together to defeat their common foe. The horse's speed and stamina combined with the Farmer's weapons and cleverness win out. The horse then asks the Farmer to remove the bridle and saddle - their agreement being at an end. "The hell you say." replies the Farmer, "Giddiyap Dobbin." as he applies the spurs with a will.

This parable is a warning about deals that don't work out so well. It's charming and memorable as such parables are when they are good, but a little hard to work with in real life. Most contracts are not about donning saddles and bridles to hunt down wolves. So, I'd like to offer a checklist for the mechanics of deals that work out well:

by Jim Bullock.

You can call me Rainman

Where I come from BBQing is not so much a way of life, but a reason to live.

So I was thrilled when we had an unexpected sunny patch.  I was convinced that it was going to last and I was also on a bit of a high because I suddenly found myself alive and in a very positive financial position ... so I bought a fancy webber BBQ. 

So far I've used it twice; I've suffered through major flooding; and tonight my wife turned the heating back on (it's July 19th, the middle of summer).

Despite being a rational man, not prone to superstition, I'm convinced that I am to blame for the bad weather.  I'm 90% certain that if I had not bought a BBQ then it would have been a nice summer this year.  My wife and friends agree with me.  Similar weather patterns happened in 1998 when I bought a bicycle in April.

Now, I flatter myself by assuming that because you are reading this blog ... you too are intelligent and rational.  So tell me: Am I to blame?  Am I being daft? Am I alone?

how to build empathy and rapport

My wife has a wonderful gift: she is very, very, very good at empathy without even trying.  It just comes naturally to her.  It's a strength.  I guess it explains her profession - she is a psychiatrist - and why her friends always ring her first when they have a problem.

I'm okay at empathy.  I don't always do it automatically but having watched my lovely wife I have taught myself to be empathetic.  I hope that doesn't sound false or forced - but I just noticed how much happier people would be after talking with my wife, than they would be when talking with other people, and I wanted to be more like that. 

I turns out that empathy is good for business too.  I think it was Malcolm Gladwell in "Blink" who told the story of how doctors who were empathetic (or just respectful and displaying genuine concern) would get sued dramatically less than other doctors.  The company I worked for before going solo helped call centre staff to listen to their customers with concern and empathy ... and increased loyalty and reduced rework and costs by doing so (not to mention making the employees happier).  Concern and empathy are a key tool in software development for understanding what customers really want.

All that said, take a look at this short article on how doctors can change thier behaviour slightly to building rapport with their patients.  The blog is worth subscribing to too.

http://obgyntips.blogspot.com/2007/07/build-rapport-with-new-patients.html