Efficient or Effective?

Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com:

“We run our warehouses 24/7 which is actually not the most efficient way to run a warehouse, but it gets the shoes out to the customer as quickly as possible.”

Effective doesn’t necessarily mean efficient. Efficiency tries to use the momentum of the status quo, but make it faster or cheaper. [...]

The status quo has feelings too!

Have you heard someone advise others to “not upset the status quo” as if it were a hormonal teenager with a zit on prom night? I have. But the thing is, the status quo has no feelings – at least no feelings for you.
So your goal today, right now, is to [...]

Seinfeld on Marketing: Transparency

It’s been a while, so I thought its time once again for another Seinfeld on Marketing (drum roll, please). In this episode, Kramer and Newman are explaining to Jerry why they want to reverse the peepholes on their apartment doors:

KRAMER: Newman and I are reversing the peepholes on our door, so you can see [...]

Asking the wrong questions

Why do some companies seem to be able to catapult their thinking and are fully engaged with their customers while other companies blissfully churn out more of the same mediocre stuff? I think in many ways it comes down to asking the right questions.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard many [...]