Timothy Chen

Two young guys joined a company twenty years ago. One is now the CEO, the other stuck in the middle position. Why? The scope and the openness of minds rule their careers. What they choose to see, what they choose to listen to, and what they choose to believe matter. 

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在我們團隊之外，或許只有投資大師華倫．巴菲特的話值得一聽，他不只對房市，還對所有一切的成長週期做出評論：「有三個 “I” 一直存在。第一是創新者 (Innovator)，然後是模仿者 (Imitator)，再來便是笨蛋 (Idiot)。」講得真對，巴老，現在笨蛋來了。。

 

- 雷曼啟示錄, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers, p178

Social media marketing, or more specifically, FB marketing, is currently at the 2nd stage, and moving forward to 3rd stage. How many new campaigns are launching without a FB fan page alongside? How much attention and tolerance could be divided by ever increasing sugar-coated baits? As palatable as they appear to be, baits that all tasted quite alike have been overwhelming. Since the total amount of human attention is fixed, this is a lose-lose game.

Time may tell, I don’t know. In the last decades, it takes a while for the crowd to learn to distinguish spam from newsletters, and to distinguish newsletters from eDMs. People who can’t tell ads from information are those you lest want to target. Unfortunately, we’ll witness more and more fan page followers to be categorized as ads-illiteracy. Brilliant marketers will advance from one less effective vehicle to another. Only the idiots stay.

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The other day, I had lunch with friends and much of our talks were about careers. I shared 4 criteria to evaluate the intrinsic value of a job. They are:

1. current pay – your relative “market price” which may shapes how you view yourself. How much you earn is less important if you are a recent graduate, but believe me or not, it matters more than you think when you get older. From time to time, however, job markets could be quite inefficient. For example, you may find your colleagues, inferior to your intellectual capability, work less hard and achieve poorer results, but they are nevertheless “quoted” at a higher price than you. It’s time to choose whether to take advantage of the “market inefficiency”.

2. future growth – if more than 50% of the skill you perform everyday is what you are already good at, you should consider another job. If your pay is strongly correlated to and will grow along with your profession and experience, and there are no glass ceiling for such growth, you should consider staying. On the other hand, some positions are going nowhere, even though they are landed on a top-tier company listed in Fortune 500. Take a while to identify them beforehand, and don’t lie to yourself when you are in such roles.

3. your colleagues – you may spend more time with them than with your family. Everyday you learned from them, or even imitate them. Colleagues not only influence your value, but also form an important network that you may find useful during the later stage of your career. So choose your “business partners” wisely.

4. your customers, partners, and vendors  - make sure they are the kind you like, otherwise you won’t succeed. If you despise geeks and nerds, you won’t succeed in IT or gaming industries. Interaction with external business counterparts may occupy as much as 80% of your job scope, so you should regard them no less than your colleagues. They are important constituents of your network, too.

When it comes to career seeking, the ultimate rule, as Steve Jobs already told us in his commencement address in Stanford University, is straightforward:

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

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The surest way to convince yourself that you are passionate about something is when you hear that “something”, be it a quote or a short speech, you feel certain chemistry changing inside your body. Your adrenal gland and lachrymal gland secrete. You feel the thrill, the urging, and the undeniable body response. All happen at once, just as you hear a song and it’s rhythm and lyric touch you so deeply and, so suddenly.

It’s a moment that you can’t explain, but you just know when it comes to you.

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Large technology companies, taking advantage from their resources and understanding of market, are good at sketching the right vision, but, unfortunately, usually poor at execution. From an overall perspective, misalignment of incentives among divisions and implementation of imbalanced scorecards are two major causes of poor execution.

Ironically, most corporations in the developed countries implement “balanced” scorecards, and these scorecards contain shared goals, which are vital to new R&D effort, assigned to more than one department. Some professionals believe that the concept of shared-goals described in scorecards has been the best realization for collaboration management so far, but I would argue that though the application of scorecard is a good way to increase revenue, it is not necessarily a good way to foster internal cooperation. Instead of being a mechanism to drive commitment, shared goals are more often than not to become an excuse for not taking thorough responsibility. Because each division has their own priority delegated through organizational hierarchy, shared goals are inevitably give ways to primary goals. And because managers’ incentives are bundled with the achieving rate of goals, and their time and resources are limited, they tend to emphasize on objectives they have full control and neglect shared goals which require more effort on inter-departmental communication and resolving conflict among stakeholders. The consequence is obvious – lack of teamwork and less efficient execution that make the right vision broken.

I therefore recommend a radical way to align incentive with each division and stakeholder. For each scorecard, there are some items more difficult to accomplish than others. Top executives should assign each items a “risk factor” – the ranking of rick that a certain goal may not be able to be achieved. The higher the risk, the higher the incentive would be rewarded to those who reach the goal. For example, shared goals that are neglected or dodged by most managers last year are those with higher risks of not being well executed this year, and should be assigned with higher risk factor and higher incentive to catch managers’ attention. Once the new model introduced, shrewd managers who tend to calculate what are best for them will reconsider whether the high incentive justify the time and energy they will invest. Equally important is that objectives with higher risk rankings should not be divided into shared goals; instead, they should be assigned to a single owner who deserves all the returns to ensure thorough execution. After all, risk-sharing is the source of the financial crisis in 2008, and it didn’t and won’t go well with human nature.

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One of the reasons why I always enjoy reading TechCrunch is that, Michael Arrington, the founder and editor-in-chief of TC, always takes a stand bravely.

Yesterday he publicly criticized the political stunt orchestrated by US Congress, GoDaddy and, you guess it, Google. Among the trio, Senator Chris Smith, in order to exemplify how wrong it is to “exist” and “do business”  in China, made a comment about Microsoft as below:

They [Microsoft] need to get on the right side of human rights rather than enabling tyranny, which they’re doing right now.

 

And Sergey Brin, interviewed by NYTimes a few days ago, attributes Microsoft’s position against Google to loser’s mentality:

I’m very disappointed for them in particular,” Brin said. “As I understand, they have effectively no market share – so they essentially spoke against freedom of speech and human rights simply in order to contradict Google.

Here I present the arguments Michael Arrington brought up to challenge comments on Microsoft’s ignorance of human right. It’s up to you to determine how valid and convincible these arguments are.

1. Both Google and GoDaddy made political donation, $8,500 and $19,500 respectively, to Senator Dorgan’s campaign fund.
2. Why doing business in China was just right in December 2009 but doing so is very very wrong now?
3. .cn domain registration accounts for a tiny portion of GoDaddy’s overall business (2700 v.s. 35 million, 0.08%). And this contradicts to Sergey Brin’s suggestion that companies with effectively no market share spoke against freedom of speech and human right.
4. The US government, doing nothing to fight the “evil “ existing in China, backup certain companies while blaming some others.

I would like supplement that, just because Microsoft makes excessive profit doesn’t mean that Microsoft does excessive evil to human rights and freedom of speech. Moreover, associating too much social responsibility and moral standard to profit-making companies, is basically, irresponsible and anti-capitalism. On the other hand, the fact that “most” of Chinese people are comfortable with the political and economic status quo makes the claim that the Chinese live under oppression ungrounded. All that being said, we should regard Google’s leaving China as pure business decision even though some of the underlining causes are political ones, and respect decisions made by companies, such as Microsoft, which decides to stay in China, obeys the local laws, and continues to do business as usual, as business decisions.

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Since the measure of a technology’s success is how invisible it becomes, the best long-term strategy is to develop products and services that can be ignored. (source)

Visibility – short term success – marketing

Invisibility – long term success – core value

The strategy you’re pursuing is visibility or invisibility?

If you’re a manger or founder, would you rather make yourself more invisible than visible within an organization?

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(source)

Don’t waste your time. Most of us are floating at the center of the chart, and tend to drive to the upper left side when thinking about innovation. Stupidity and innovation is a double sided blade.

For marketing guys, they have little, if not none, control of product development, their efforts always lie on the horizon of pricing war. Remember the 4P’s and The Lord of the Rings? After all, you’re reluctant to admit it’s One P to rules them all. And that’s Price.

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Here is the comment I left on Mr.6’s post:

Web 2.0這周末被宣告死亡！建議所有網路創業家準備自學寫程式

Overall, I believe it’s difficult to change WEB2.0 bulls’ mind set even though they are witnessing what’s happening everyday. I call it Stubborn2.0.

But before we go further, let’s have a delicious appetizer first: (Disclosure: I’m in fact bullish, too. I’d absolutely like to see the global stock markets go way up and up.)

And the comment I posted with a little bit modifications:

The real problem: Economy downturn -> Advertisers cut marketing budgets (including online media plans) -> WEB2.0 sites revenues decrease (if there’s any revenue at all)

 

If your WEB2.0 sites are not counting on onsite ads to survive, then congrats! Lucky you.

 

Let’s face the reality. Ask yourself practical questions - “what’s my business model?”, “how’s my company’s burn-rate?”, “when will my company break-even?”, “where should I start the expense cuts?”

 

It’s time to focus on cash flows, rather then user growth.

 

Business is business. Your cost-effective-socially-connected-user-generated-content-software-as-a-service-crowd-wisdom-leveraged-light-weighted-programing-cloud-computing-permanently-Beta-widgetized-and-portable-and-opened-platform-ed-WEB2.0-dreaming may be no longer a sustainable business model during recession. Just keep dreaming big, when everyone is willing to spend.

 

Bonus reading : Sequoia Capital’s warnings & call-for-actions for their portfolio companies:

http://timothychen.info/2008/10/10/bye-the-good-old-time/

 

- Tim

Nothing could be better than being ended with Michael Arrington’s quote-of-the-day and the infamous Cyprus video:

Goodbye, Web 2.0. I hope I never have to type those words again. Now can we please get back to work? There’s still a ton left to do before we get to Matrix-style virtual reality, the Singularity, and mobile phones with batteries that last a whole day. (source)

 

Tags: Cyprus短片, WEB2.0泡沫

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I often ask myself questions to keep things clear in my mind. One good one to ask yourself is “What am I pretending not to see?” That can bring blind spots to the surface quickly. (source)

 

Interesting to see Mr. Trump talked about “pretending-not-to-see” today. I wonder worldwide real estate investors like him are doing such an exercise, or not. Better to face the realities.

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Here it is:

RSS is a little like radio. Every blog and many news services ‘broadcast’ a tiny little signal that you can’t hear, but your RSS reader can. (It’s like a radio tuner). You tell the RSS reader which blogs and news feeds you like, and whenever it senses that signal, it goes out and grabs the post for you. Quick and free. With a good reader, you can easily keep up with 100 blogs in less than an hour. (source)

 

I’m not sure how tech-savvy Seth Godin is, but the metaphor of radio broadcasting for RSS feeds subscription sounds quite fresh. To facilitate communications, every marketer should learn how to transform a complex term, process or technical details into some sort of tangible objects that target audiences are familiar with.

After all, the crowd are way more lazy, stupid and time-deprived than what you could imagine.

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If there is only one thing that enterprises ought to learn about Web 2.0, it’s this one: building information systems that allow you to adjust in real time based on interaction with your customers is the true mark of a networked enterprise. (source)

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Finally, a technology executive willing to tell the truth about cloud computing.  Speaking at Oracle OpenWorld, Larry Ellison said that the computer industry is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion and cloud computing is simply the latest fashion. (source)

 

This quote reminds me the “Hype Cycle” of 2005 - 2008.

I was looking for the chart of 2008 published by Gartner for my personal study, but soon I found there are Hype Cycles of 2005, 2006 and 2007 circulating on the Internet as well. It’s fun to compare them all at once.

Here you go:

Definition of the 5 phases of a Hype Cycle -

http://www.gartner.com/pages/story.php.id.8795.s.8.jsp#2

2008 Hype Cycle (Hottest Buzzword: Green IT)

2007 Hype Cycle (Hottest Buzzwords: Gesture Recognition, Mashup, Virtual Worlds )

2006 Hype Cycle (Hottest Buzzword: Web2.0)

2005 Hype Cycle (Hottest Buzzwords: Biometric Identity Documents & BPM)

1995 Hype Cycle (the first version released by Gartner)

Will Cloud Computing reach the peak of hype next year?

Tags: cloud computing, Hype Cycle, Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, Larry Ellison

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5. Microsoft說: 2019年，我們的生活會是這樣:

While particular systems may come and go, how youth engage through social network sites today provides long-lasting insights into identity formation, status negotiation, and peer-to-peer sociality…I argue that social network sites are a type of networked public with four properties that are not typically present in face-to-face public life: persistence, searchability, exact copyability, and invisible audiences. These properties fundamentally alter social dynamics, complicating the ways in which people interact. I conclude by reflecting on the social developments that have prompted youth to seek out networked publics, and considering the changing role that publics have in young people’s lives. (source)

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• In 2008, China’s number of Internet users, 216 million, only represents 16.2% of total population

• 595 million mobile users in 2008, 800 million mobile user in 2012

• 1.4 billion online advertising spending in 2008, 5 billion online advertising spending in 2012 (37% increase per year)

Source: eMarketer, Sept., 2008

However something inside my mind believes that the numbers are exaggerated.

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The Empire Strikes Back: Our Analysis Of Microsoft Live Search Cashback (TechCrunch)

StarWars Trilogy happens to be my favorite Movies. That’s the reason the headline caught my eyes and an afterthought posted here. For those who missed the announcement of Live Search Cashback, here is a catch-up.

For Consumers:

1. You make a commercial search on Microsoft Live Search.

2. You get certain % of discount (your cash rebate) if you purchase an item listed.

3. You still have to pay full price to the vendor; Microsoft will transact the discounted cash to your Cashback account afterward (60 days).

For Advertisers:

1. The % of discount is the bidding price for exposure of items, just as how Google AdWords bidding system works.

2. All the money advertisers paid for bidding ad-inventory goes to consumers who buy their item via Live Search. It means Microsoft get ZERO revenue from advertisers’ CPA fees.

That’s pretty cool. Advertisers pays indirectly to the consumers taking their desirable actions. Though Microsoft gains 0 $ right now, it could split the CPA revenue with consumers in the near future as long as users get addict to this model.

So, let take a look at what A-list bloggers thinking about the initiative:

First, Michael Arrington’s takeaway makes me lol (sincerely)

 This new approach is both desperate and brilliant. Desperate because Microsoft is giving away most of the search revenue to get market share gains. Brilliant because they have such a small share of search revenue today that they have little to lose, and they are hitting Google hard in their core business.

 

Sometimes, desperation is a good place to be because it forces you to try crazy stuff.

One paragraph mentioned it’s nearly impossible to conquer Google’s sheer search market share (60%+) by technology-improvement solely. This really resonate with my previous post,  下一站，獲利模式.

It’s clear that technology alone will not unseat Google as the dominant player in this market. Microsoft already tried that with their AdCenter improvements in 2006; Yahoo tried with Panama last year. Google’s dominance only grew.

 

Hey, think about this: Microsoft sacrifices its revenue for market share! Rarely can we see a tyrant make such a sacrifice, if any. I told you MS is no longer seating on the evil emperor’s throne, didn’t I? : P

By the way, I like Silicon Alley Insider’s comment:

The success of the cashback endeavor, of course, depends primarily on query volume, and convincing consumers to stop using Google and start using cashback by offering modest savings is going to be a tough sell. But even Google fans and Microsoft haters have got to admit–it’s a pretty cool model. It’s YOUR attention, after all. Why should Google make $20 billion off of it

True, true. Seems nobody’s ever asked why Google AdWords NEVER pays me money while it’s my click-behavior & my attention that make Google employees rich.

Finally, one should listen to Bill Gates’ saying before making any judgement. His keynote on Advance ‘08 keynote: (Live Search Cashback official press release)

During his keynote address, Gates outlined three areas of focus for the company’s broad search vision:

• Delivering the best search results by continuing to focus on relevancy and selection

 

• Expanding the role of search around the set of tasks that searchers are most often working to accomplish — including commerce, entertainment, navigation and reference — through improvements in its user experience, intelligent tools and access across devices

 

• Innovating in the economic model that today powers the search business by rewarding both advertisers and consumers for engagement

 

Is Live Search becoming a more vertical-orientated search engine? Not a bad idea to break Google’s stronghold.

(Gates’ pitch on Live Search Cashback)

Tags: Cashback, Google, Live Search, Microsoft

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