A difference of culture

I’ve been to the United States a few times and I find it an endlessly fascinating place. I’m in the Bay Area for the first time and this is the closest I’ve felt Stateside to being back home. LA and NY have very different personalities.

For the first time though I think I’m starting to get my head around the cultural differences between our countries. I’ll blog about it once my trip wraps as there is still much to learn.

From an entrepreneurial perspective though, I was chatting with an Aussie here and he offered up a laugh out loud example of the difference:

If pitching a Holstein-Friesian cow, an Australian will point to the black and white colour, talk about the features of the cow, what it does, perhaps what it ate for breakfast; an American on the other hand will hold up a burger and exclaim how incredibly tasty it is.

Something for all budding Australian entrepreneurs to contemplate.

When planning meets the road

I was reading a post from Seth Godin this morning, Thriving in a wet environment, where he writes: No software design survives a collision with the user. It reminded me of Steve Blanks’ famous 2010 post, No plan survives first contact with customers. Steve was paraphrasing Field Marshall Helmuth Graf von Moltke who said, ‘No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy’.

It’s pretty clear that we need to get our ideas to market earlier than later. If you’re concerned that someone’s going to “steal your idea”, think about the alternative. Doing nothing at all amounts to the same result.

The experience economy

The trend toward experiences is important for technology startups. The era of competing over technical specifications is over. Users want better experiences from devices, applications, websites, and the offline services they enable. It is no coincidence that interaction design is replacing technical prowess as the primary competency at startups. People who create great experiences will be the most valuable to startups, and startups that create great experiences will be the most valuable to users.

— Chris Dixon, The Experience Economy

Offices of work and Microsoft

With business growth comes the need to find new office space. Right? I’m not so sure anymore. A fast PC (Macbook Pro by choice), tethered mobile phone and shelter (pick a nearby WiFi enabled, funky cafe) and you’ve got an office.

Why do any of us involved in the creative industries need to be confined to a cubical, or any “space”, to do anything any more?

So I’m ditching my office for the “road” and similarly ditching Microsoft’s Office for far better email and calendar tools. Stuff that plays nicely with Google’s enterprise solutions.

Seems both offices haven’t kept up with the times.