May 2011
1 post
“If there’s a one-way track—stuff gets added, but it never gets taken...”
– Seth Godin, on legacy issues.
March 2011
1 post
2 tags
Creation vs. Curation
The problem with the newspaper industry is that being a publisher is not special anymore.
Power today lies in curation.
It’s all about aggregating the very best bits and building a compelling story that puts it all together. An exceptional, insightful and unique arrangement.
It’s that Instapaper account or Twitter user that earns your respect for consistently expanding your horizon....
February 2011
1 post
1 tag
Ignoring the vocal minority
By now, the Twitterverse is probably clamouring for you to make your web app free or requesting you add new bells and whistles or complaining on how lame the new redesign is.
Anything that’s worth doing will get you backlash from a vocal few. The thing is, now, more than ever, the vocal minority can be heard loud and strong.
Tune it out.
I would be more worried if no one was complaining.
December 2010
1 post
“I don’t see the point of the Nobel prize. I’ve already got the...”
– Richard Feynman, on his receiving the Nobel prize.
November 2010
1 post
The restaurant business
In the restaurant business, everything happens by personal recommendation. The only way you’ll try a different restaurant out of the overcrowded market is if a friend tells you it’s the best mexican food. Hence, you win if you genuinely nurture your core group of evangelists and make it easy for them to share their passion. It’s all about caring and building an amazing experience...
October 2010
3 posts
3 tags
Dissatisfaction and satisfaction are not on a...
Dissatisfaction is pain. If you’re starving, money gets you food and gets you motivated to leave that dissatisfaction status.
Satisfaction is about believing you’re doing something larger than yourself, something worthwhile you genuinely care for. It’s achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement.
The fallacy here is to believe what got you out of dissatisfaction...
2 tags
How to be uncontroversial
Dumb down your work
Never say anything specific
Add as many compound-complex sentences as possible to your mission statement
Don’t say anything that matters
Don’t do anything that matters
Never take sides
Don’t talk about things people are particularly emotive about (this includes politics, religion and money)
Get John, the marketing MBA guy, to spruce up your corporate...
3 tags
Finding loyal customers
Your small group of loyal customers set the expectations for your business. They rule, not you.
Two ways to select them:
Shout louder. Get full-page spots in New York Times and run Superbowls ads. Be as disruptive and intrusive as possible. Spend massivevly to break through the vastly overcrowded space. Spam those who don’t care until they do. Most will you ignore you, but few will become...
September 2010
5 posts
3 tags
Gutenberg in the era of online video
This post was original published on TEDxConcordia’s blog. It’s relevant, so I’m posting here too.
TED’s head honcho, Chris Anderson, just released his first TEDTalk. He makes the case that online video is profoundly changing our lives and how we spread ideas. As you’d expect, it’s fascinating. You really should watch it.
Our ancestors were biologically...
2 tags
In praise of crap
Here’s the thing: if you want to make excellent stuff, start by producing lots of crap.
A lot of below average, mediocre work. Not all of it, of course, but enough to get you comfortable with shipping. It’s about experimenting, trying and occasionally failing. Seth Godin does it, and so does Google.
Remember, excellence comes with experience.
Are you shipping enough crap?
3 tags
On standardized testing
The premise is that if you’re willing to go through a large amount of arbitrary work to rank high on standardized tests, you’ll also work hard when it comes to the important stuff.
What a shame.
It’s all about working harder. Not better or smarter or more creatively. Just harder.
There’s always someone who can work harder, faster and cheaper than you....
2 tags
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with...”
– Sir Ken Robinson, paraphrased
1 tag
Forget the mainstream
If you can’t find deep and genuine gratification in what you’re doing, trying harder to sell your commodity to the mainstream won’t cut it. You’ll have to sell your soul, water it down, pander to the usual suspects and then try to find pleasure in your golf game or bourbon.
The alternative is building something you care for. Like, really. It’s all about taking care...
August 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Lessons from public speaking
When I was younger, I did a fair amount of competitive public speaking (ended up finishing 2nd nationwide at one competition).
Turns out public speaking is great life school. Looking back, here’s what I can say:
That nerve-racking, tingling sensation you get in your gut is the best indication you’re doing things right. The more intense, the better. It’s an indication...
1 tag
Hire the right customers.
Yes, you get to choose your customers, not the other way around.
Try to sell commodities at a desperately cheaper price than the competition and you’ll get one type of customer.
Be short-sighted and profit-obsessed and they’ll return the favour.
Or challenge the status quo and build genuinely interesting experiences and you’ll get get another type of customer.
You get to...
1 tag
Where are the gatekeepers?
Not so long ago, you needed the approval of Bill in Washington or the blessing of Hollywood or a good review from the New York Times to succeed. Those who had succeeded in the game decided whether you’d succeed in it. They’ve forever been the gatekeepers, the defenders of the status quo.
The Internet is radically changing this. If you’ve built your plan on the idea of suddenly...
June 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Calling for a reform in business education
The following is an overview of a manifesto I will publish through ChangeThis. Update: Voting has ended — thanks all!
The evidence is explicit: achievement in business school is not correlated in any way with success in business. In fact, even holding a business degree at all does not increase likelihood of success, increase either starting or ongoing salary nor increase happiness. ...
1 tag
Away.
I took a counselling job on an intensive youth leadership camp. As part of that, I’m totally disconnecting myself of the Internet and focusing 100% on the kids for the next two months.
I won’t post until August 15, 2010. Sorry.
In the mean time, you can always snail mail me at:
Sgt David Chouinard - cie C Centre d’instruction des cadets de l’Armée de Valcartier Garnison...
May 2010
8 posts
2 tags
Metrics are overrated
That’s not the say they’re unimportant. But they’re certainly overrated.
Some metric-obsesed businesses have completely reshaped their industry for the better (I’m talking of Google, Henry Ford and Amazon here). We need data-focused businesses, no doubt.
But that market is vastly overcrowded.
So many business are built around metrics, whether it be clicks on your...
“You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late...”
– Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting)
1 tag
Taking responsibility
You see it all the time in the inside flap of books or at the bottom of websites/flyers/blogs.
So and so does not endorse this activity.
Google is not not associated with this content in any way.
This is an unofficial Harvard page.
The views expressed here are only those of the author and do not reflect those of Penguin Books.
It’s so easy to put a line in the footer and chicken out....
“The QVC process is so finely calibrated that a producer watches call volume in...”
– The Atlantic :: The Genius of QVC — a must read. (via superamit)
3 tags
The importance of math
You’ve probably been in a math class where a student shouts, in despair, “I want to be a (designer, business person, plumber), why the hell do I need this anyways?”
Invariably, one of two things occurs:
(1) The teacher tries to convince you need this to do more math. Either you need it to pass the class, to pass the next class or to use it in yet another formula.
(2) The...
2 tags
Human beings > products
The Montreal Canadiens yesterday set up HD screens in the Bell Center to broadcast the 7th Canadians-Penguins match. Tons of people paid good money ($220,000 in total) to watch something that’s exactly the same thing as what’s on their home TV set.
Those 20,000 people weren’t at the Bell Center for the hockey game. They went out of their way to share a genuine experience with...
2 tags
Customer service is not a department
Whatever industry you’re in, always remember you’re also in the customer service industry.
You can rely on the engineering or accounting or finances department, but you can’t outsource marketing.
Every time you email someone, that’s customer service.
The way you answer the phone is customer service.
Every employee’s Facebook page is marketing.
Same goes for...
2 tags
Why you need to read
Forty percent of Americans read one book or less last year.
What if your doctor told you she hasn’t read a scholarly article since med school? Or your lawyer told you he doesn’t bother reading new case studies?
Then why is it acceptable not to read in your field?
Turns out books are by far your #1 entertainment and learning value. Before even trying to be the best (plumber,...
April 2010
9 posts
2 tags
The value of education
MIT releases all of its lectures online for free. Academic Earth has some of the best scholars in the world, their lectures also streamed free to your computer. You can learn more on the Khan Academy that you’ve ever learned in school.
So, really, why are you in school?
Certainly not for knowledge, since you’re deliberately paying much more to follow classes from subpar professors.
...
1 tag
Ignore the passer-bys
Consider a street performer. The vast majority of people will walk by. And that’s ok.
The majority of people visiting this blog will read a few words of the first post, get bored and walk away. In fact, 79% will never come back. That’s fine.
If you start running after the passer-bys to desperately get them to care for your work, you lose. More importantly, if you alter the core of...
“Get the fuck out of there.”
– Gary Haran, advice on tolerating a mediocre job.
1 tag
Is social media a fad?
Yes and no.
Social media as the new “media darling,” the get-rich-quick scheme, the race to the millionth Twitter follower is a fad.
Social media is like a giant online cocktail party. Sure, screaming the loudest will get you attention. Sure, using Twitter to spam clueless followers will get you more eyeballs than those Superbowl ads used to. But that’s the fad part.
I think...
2 tags
Knowledge
Today, knowledge is much less valuable. You can master anything from calculus to molecular biology by browsing Youtube and the Khan Academy. In this always-on Wikipedia world, the internet is much faster, better and cheaper than you at producing knowledge.
Just being able to provide facts makes you a replaceable commodity. Yet, much of school is that. Being able to know the 5 Ps of marketing on...
1 tag
Failure
Today, I failed.
Pablo Picasso produced more than a thousand paintings, and you probably can’t name more than five. The vast majority of Tim Burton’s work is a commercial failure. Warren Buffet regularly makes terrible investments. Seth Godin wrote hundreds of books, most of them miserably failing.
Turns out these people succeed because they fail way more often. They have the guts of...
2 tags
Overnight success
The media loves overnight success. 100,000 units sold on launch day. 10,000 views in the first month. 10 million in sales on opening day. Whatever the benchmark.
Start-ups love blowing money on grandiose launches. Just imagine! We’ll be on the first page on the New York Times and get a review from Walt Mossberg and have all the blogs following us.
The truth is, change happens...
2 tags
Three types of work
First off, props go to Michael Bungay Stanier for first bringing up this idea.
Bad work is the boring stuff. It consumes energy and leads to nothing productive. Endless meetings. Paperwork. Bureaucracy. Works cited pages. But, a reasonable amount of bad work is necessary for organizations to function.
Good work, on the other hand, is the stuff you’ve been trained to do all your life....
2 tags
Good ideas are overrated
You’ve been waiting all your life for that great idea.
Turns out good ideas are everywhere. My dad has plenty of them, and so does your town major and the guy behind the counter at the grocery store. Andrew Dubber offered his 30 best ideas on his blog, for free.
Good ideas are a dime a dozen. The world doesn’t need more ideas, it needs people to make them happen. History is lit up...
March 2010
10 posts
2 tags
Ignore the competition.
The best way to produce something good is to do everything the competition does, but better. If they’re big, fast, cheap, you should be bigger, faster and cheaper. If they have five features, you should have ten. At least. If Chad studies 10 hours for chemistry, you should study 20.
Of course, all this does is produce mediocrity. It’s an endlessly arms race that leads to nowhere.
...
1 tag
1 tag
Nobody.
Nobody can solve poverty in India. Nobody knows whether the netbook business is viable. Nobody can fix the financial system. Nobody knows how to bring freshwater to the sub-Saharian poor. Nobody has figured out how to stop AIDS. Nobody can stop the genocide in Darfur. Nobody knows how to solve the Hodge conjecture. Nobody understands how to produce energy sustainably. Nobody knows how to make...
“If your business plan depends on suddenly being “discovered” by some...”
– Hugh MacLeod, in his amazing book “Ignore Everybody”.
2 tags
1 tag
The Internet.
You could spend your time watching cat videos on Youtube and Chocolate Rain over and over again, laughing at Tay Zonday moving away from the mic to breathe. You could subscribe to failblog and set FML as your homepage. You could write on Alex’s wall to gossip on his hooking up with that hot chick. Or tag Chris in a photo and comment on how wasted he looks.
Or,
You could realize that the...
1 tag
The best stats you've ever seen. →
Hans Rosling shows why the world is getting to be a better place. Eye-opening insight from TED, as usual.
5 tags
Big
Everyone wants to be big.
A YouTube video with 7 million views is better than one with a thousand. Big planes are better than small ones. Faster, more efficient. Having a million dollars in the bank is better than having ten thousand.
The point of starting a company (or a non-profit, a political party, whatever) is to be big. Nah, HUGE.
Big leads to mediocrity. It’s a constant quest to...
1 tag
“Going with the flow is a euphemism for failing.”
– Seth Godin, on why playing safe is risky.
1 tag
Hi, I'm David.
Just start. Don’t wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you.
It’ll likely not be perfect, but I’m experimenting. This blog is my (gutsy) vision, my opinions on business, the Internet era and student life.
But really, it’s not about me. It’s about you. Comment, get involved, disagree and we’ll have a good time.
Nice to met you. I hope...