Timothy Chen

大四時，第一次聽到教授把電腦的CPU資原比喻為自來水 - 未來人人家裏都安裝像水龍頭的電腦終端機，需要使用時，打開開關，不用時，關掉開關，每個月依照CPU使用率付費。(沒辦法，當年最夯的關鍵字：”on-demand”) 而事實上，CPU或硬碟儲存空間「自來水化」的概念，已在web hosting產業中行之有年。想必雲端朵朵的cloud computing infra service也將採此模式收費。

基於1) 趨勢 2)終結盜版，微軟申請”pay-as-you-go-computing”專利也就不足為奇了：

Microsoft outlines pay-per-use PC vision  —  U.S. patent application number 20080319910, published on Christmas Day, details Microsoft’s vision of a situation where a “standard model” of PC is given away or heavily subsidized by someone in the supply chain. The end user then pays to use the computer, with charges based on both the length of usage time and the performance levels utilized, along with a “one-time charge.

 

收費方式同時考慮到質與量的層面，真是滴水不露啊！

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以下是New Rule for the  Economy作者Kevin Kelly慶祝New Rules出版10週年，將原著以每兩週一篇的頻率，重新發表到部落格，免費和大家分享。有興趣的人可到此訂閱。今天和大家分享一段和Microsoft有關係的橋段，在當時，全球蔓延在軟體皆產業的熱潮中，微軟的商業模式更是如日中天，大師們紛紛預測，未來數十年，將是微軟，或是「微軟模仿者」的年代…

(注意，這是10 年前寫的，當時MS的股價和身價是開無敵模式)：

…GM is now the counter example. Today, if your company is like GM, it’s in deep trouble (真巧XD). Instead, pundits point to Microsoft. Microsoft is the role model. It is the highest-valued company on Earth. It produces intangibles. It rides the logic of standards. Its sky-high stock valuation reflects the new productivity. So we look ahead and say: In 40 years all companies will be like Microsoft.

History would suggest this is a bad bet. The obvious lesson is that we tend to project the future from what’s fashionable at present (雲端計算？Web ?.0？搜尋？). Right now software and entertainment companies are very profitable, so we assume they are role models.

Brad DeLong, an economist at UC Berkeley, has handy theory of economic history. He says that various sectors of economy wax and wane in prominence like movie stars. The history of the American economy can be seen as a parade of “heroic” industries that first appear on the scene as unknowns, then heroically “save” the economy by doing economic miracles, and for a time are treated as economic stars.

 

In the 1900s, the automobile industry was heroic: There was incredible innovation, many, many car company upstarts, incredible productivity. It was a wild and exciting time. But then the heroism died away and the auto industry became big, monolithic, boring, and hugely profitable. In DeLong’s view, the latest heroic savior is the information, communication, and entertainment complex. Businesses in the realm of software and communications are now valorous: They pull successes out of a hat, stack up unending innovation, and perform economic miracles. Long live computers!

 

全文點這邊

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不得不相信這個世界上還有很多搞不懂viral marketing是啥的人(可能包含我)，整天喊著「來做一個viral campaign吧」、「我希望可以這邊這邊多加一點viral的元素」、「這部份的預算我們提議買viral的媒體」、「因為要省錢，所以你你你去用viral的方式把訊息放出去」etc. etc….

高汀教主大概也是受不了了，所以寫了一篇導正視聽的好文。先直接節錄文末：

The reason for this post is that viral marketing is getting a bad name, largely from clueless marketing agencies and clueless marketers. Here’s what they do: they get a lame product, or a semi-lame product, and they don’t have enough time or money to run a nationwide ad campaign. So, instead, they slap some goofy viral thing on top of it and wait for it to spread. And if it doesn’t spread, they create a faux controversy or engage a PR firm or some bloggers and then it still doesn’t work.

Being viral isn’t the hard part. The hard part is making that viral element actually produce something of value, not just entertainment for the client or your boss.

原文在此、附上Ideavirus電子書下載

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As much as I appreciate the goals of the Foundation, I found myself admiring Bill Gates as a person during the course of the interview. The truth is that while he was busy developing software, he’s also worked on developing himself. He is the self-made American who has matured into a role model and leader. He is thoughtful and tactful where a younger version would have been brash and impetuous. Like Windows, improvement for Gates has required multiple iterations but the insistence on getting it right won out eventually. The newest release of Bill Gates is the best yet.

Charlie Rose’s interview with Bill Gates

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Thus a risk of leverage is that it takes away choices.

- The Snowball, P.531

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Charlie Munger said of him, “Warren doesn’t have stress, he cause it.” Dale Carnegie said to give people a fine reputation to live up to, and Buffett had learned that lesson well. He knew how to Carnegize heroic accomplishment out of his people.

The gist of what he told his employees was something like: “You’re so good, this won’t take you any time at all, and it won’t cost anything to do. And, of course, you’ll have it back to me in the next mail. Because you are just so damn great at what you do. It would take three people to replace you.” 

- The Snow ball p.500

領袖魅力101：讓你的部屬在飄飄欲仙的幻覺中接下艱難的任務。

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不管是做平面或網路行銷，大家常最怕碰到的，不外乎缺乏創意的視覺，或辭不達意，語不驚人的文案。若兩害取齊輕，我認為劣等的視覺，所造成的殺傷力比劣等的文案小。這也許違反一般人的想法。

拿網頁來說，驚艷的視覺效果的確會讓到訪者留下深刻的印象，但謹此而已，一個媒體本身是否能傳遞「內容」，才是能否產生call-to-action的關鍵。(所謂的有內容，指的並非是放一堆廣告詞，而是放有教育性、新知性的資訊。一般人都會希望自己花費，做一件事、看一篇文章，會有所成長，知道一件過去不知道的事，而不是聽你廢話，浪被寶貴的時間。)

我相信marketer對於試圖「賣」給消費者的產品，有各種文案包裝手法，一般不外乎一股腦兒說自己好(最常見的劣質手法)、拿自己和競爭者比較、點出消費者的痛點、暗示或創造需求、或直接講明用我們的產品，會給「你」帶來的好處。這些類型的文案，都只是滿足marketer一時的口舌之快，對消費者來說，不痛不癢。

不僅如此，marketer逞完口舌之快，還會繼續掉入期望讓消費者「大飽眼福」的陷阱，就是我之前所說的，要求極炫的視覺效果，冀望能直搗消費者的神經中樞，讓你的觀眾一輩子忘不了 (可能嗎)。

你的時間是不是都花費在修改再修改的美工，潤飾再潤飾的文案？

別再浪費時間了，一堆版面奇醜無比，文字出奇平淡的「超人氣部落格」已經直接了當告訴我們，在這個年代，尤其是網路媒體，visual & wording都不是重點。成功的原因在其他處。

只有當你把你過去身為marketer，自認為很強的專業抽離，你的眼睛才看的到其他處。

什麼？又說要改Banner的顏色了嗎…？

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今天讀到很有趣的一句話：

Selling ideas is a fundamentally different business than having ideas.

我為原quote補充一句：

Having ideas is a fundamentally different business than executing ideas.

而且：

Executing ideas is a fundamentally different business than delivering what you’ve sold.

但在這個世界上，同時擁有”having ideas”, “selling ideas”, “executing ideas”能力的人並不一定能成為贏家。看得出來只做其中某一項，讓其他人去做另外兩件事的人才是真正的贏家嗎？

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話說這個Blog副標題雖然叫做Microsoft Evangelist’s Blog，但我好像很長一段時間沒發表和MS有關的文章了…

沒關係，今天的新聞看到一樣我覺得值得一寫的新玩意兒 - Microsoft Oxite。這個恐怕大家都念不出來的新東西 (阿克賽德)，是微軟12/5釋出的open source版content management system，想成是微軟版的wordpress就對了！

檔案在Codeplex可以下載，目前還是Alpha版。可能要等週末才有時間測試測試。說不定之後Microsoft Evangelist’s Blog就可以堂堂架在MS自家的solution之上囉。

(解說影片)

相關連結：Oxite Lab @ Mix Online

Tags: Microsoft CMS, Microsoft Open Source, Oxite

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Class 1 truths were absolutes. Class 2 truths became truths by conviction.

 

If enough people thought a company’s stock was worth X, it became worth X until enough people thought otherwise. Yet that didn’t affect the stock’s intrinsic value - which was a Class 1 truth.

- P 147, The Snowball

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Twitter evolves quickly. Perhaps because its features are so minimal, new user behaviors seem to propagate across Twitter really quickly. It’s a bit like the reason that fruit flies are used for genetic research: the short lifespan compresses the time for mutations to take hold. Perhaps a better analogy would be the speed of cultural evolution among humans compared to biological evolution. The most fascinating evolution happening on Twitter isn’t an evolution of the software, but an evolution in user behavior and in the types of data that are being shared. (source)

看來人還是要去適應科技，但也因為這種適應，造就出新的行為，新的網路文化。然後

marketer最後再去入侵這些文化。

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* A stock is the right to own a little piece of business. A stock is worth a certain fraction of what you would be willing to pay for the whole business.

* Use a margin of safety. Investing is built on estimates and uncertainty. A wide margin ensures that the effects of good decisions are not wiped out by errors. The way to advance, above all, is by not retreating.

* Mr. Market is your servant, not your master. Graham postulated a moody character called Mr. Market, who offers to buy and sell stock every day, often at prices that don’t make sense. Mr. Market’s mood should not influence your view of price. However, from time to time he does offer the chance to buy low and sell high.

- p. 147, The Snowball

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非常好的一篇文章，拿地心引力和進化論作為譬喻，說明為什麼marketing前者比後者來的容易。

1. If the story of your marketing requires the prospect to abandon a previously believed story, you have a lot of work to do.

Nobody had a seriously described theory of gravity before Newton named it. No one walks around saying that they have a story about why we stick to the earth better than the gravity story. As a result, there was no existing story or worldview to overthrow. Naming something that people already believe in is very smart marketing.

2. If the timeframe of the message of your marketing is longer than the attention span (or lifetime) of the person you are marketing to, you have your work cut out for you as well.

Evolution is really slow. Hard to demonstrate it in real time during a school board meeting. Gravity is instantaneous. Baseball players use it every day.

 

Tactic 1: Try to tell a story that complements an existing story rather than calling it out as false.

Tactic 2: Try to make the ‘proof’ as vivid and immediate as possible. Like an apple falling on your head.

(source)

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記得當時年紀小，讀了幾本Donald Trump的金光閃閃勵志書，Trump(這波金融危機損失不少)提到自己是個連週末都樂在工作的人，那時聽到這種感人肺腑的話，也覺得一個「成功」(假設是世俗的那種成功)的人，就應該要把工作融入生活(翻譯：工作狂)，讓工作成為人生價值的一部分。

等到身邊的朋友都進了職場後，卻不約而同地聽到大家搖旗吶喊”work life balance!” 甚至連畢業前夕，曾信誓旦旦要成為工作狂，要在三年內有一番作為的那位同學，如今也常在飯局抱怨。

抱怨什麼呢？抱怨自己埋頭苦幹了半天，卻得不到認同；抱怨花了一整個週日下午寫出來的建議方案，沒有獲得採用；抱怨上一季績效達成率百分之一百二十三，卻沒有拿到加薪。連潑三盆苦水後，他又補一句回馬槍：說來真反常，我已經近四周沒有在週末打開電腦處理公務了。

然後又是一記後旋踢：I can’t see my future here.

我讓這位好友的苦水撒了滿桌都是，等到甜點都上了，咖啡因和葡萄糖的化學作用，才啟動了我渾身上下都被理想壓抑的現實神經。

原來，任何工作場合，總是會有期望朝九晚五規律工作的小眾族群，也有希望透過額外努力，能夠得到額外報酬的大眾族群。前者高喊work life balance並不為奇，但當後者也加入反超時工作革命軍的行列，特別是原先充滿熱情的star也不復在週末發送email時，管理階層就要當心了。

當incentive v.s. contribution這架翹翹板失去平衡時，員工，哪 怕是self motivated的員工，就會跳上另一架叫做work v.s. life 的翹翹板，並努力前後調整座位，想盡辦法讓它平衡。當然，如此「平衡」的公司，最後恐怕也只能交出損益「平衡」的營收成績(翻譯：沒賺沒賠)。如果董事會和投資人喜歡這樣的結果，那就繼續放任incentive v.s. contribution失去平衡吧！

等回到家後，我又下意識地打開outlook看一下收信匣，突然慶幸我是在另一間截然不同的公司。

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