Be Like the Internet

Be Like the Internet - 8 steps to success in a post 2.0 world

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1. Let Go: 8 Steps to Success Go! 2.0 World Let in a post 8 Steps to Success in a post 2.0 World
2. Letting Go: Letting Go 8 Steps to Success in a post 2.0 World 8 Steps to Success in a post 2.0 World
3. Losing Control: 8 Steps to SuccessControl Losing in a post 2.0 World 8 Steps to Success in a post 2.0 World
4. Why are some companies so overwhelmingly successful on the network? (While others seem to be killing themselves off)
5. Or, what makes Google Google?
6. We’ve seen a fundamental shift in how value is created 1. Collapse in the cost of creation 2. The network changes everything
7. We used to focus on building core competencies
8. Cheap coordination allows value to be created on the edges
9. We're moving from an industrial age...
10. ...to a networked one.
11. Industrial age assumptions still rule.
12. But the networked world doesn’t work that way
13. The way for a business to thrive in the networked world is to adapt to the network (not the other way around)
14. Be Like the Internet 8 Steps to Success in a post 2.0 World
15. That leads to two questions: 1. Um, what? 2. Ok, but how?
16. Basically, get used to it being out of your control
17. Most of what matters to your business is happening outside your business
18. And it’s happening faster and faster
19. YOU ARE A NODE
20. YOU ARE A NODE you
21. YOU ARE A NODE y
22. Your new home page
23. Ok, sure, but practically what does this mean?
24. 8 ways in which you* can change to... BE LIKE THE INTERNET
25. 1. From control to chaos
26. Adapting to chaos: we’re naturals “They walk fast and they walk adroitly. They give and they take, at once aggressive and accomodating. With the subtlest of motions they signal their intention to one another.” William Whyte, City (1969)
27. Unpredictability requires new ways to plan
28. Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration
29. Yelp: customers lead the conversation
30. Disney’s image in the hands of passersby
31. 2. From convention to instinct
32. From red oceans to blue oceans
33. Southwest: ignoring sacred cows
34. Starbucks: coffee becomes a lifestyle
35. American Apparel: upstart with an attitude
36. 3. From process to flow
37. The industrial model: Hierarchies and procedures
38. The network model: Fluid dynamics
39. As seen in the brain’s synapses...
40. As see in a colony of ants...
41. What is Flow? Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Flow, is also another name for "flux" in physics, which is the rate at which something travels through a given cross section
42. Product development teams are adapting to manage the speed and uncertainty of the network
43. Abandoning the waterfall for the washing machine
44. Improvising directly with customers Example: 30 Boxes
45. 4. From documentation to collaboration
46. If the goal is to get into flow and avoid top-heavy process, how?
47. Whiteboard sessions
48. Cocktail napkin collaboration
49. Rapid prototyping
50. Bioteams that leverage short messaging
51. Pixar’s approach to movie development
52. “Make it OK for people to challenge an idea or two, the good ideas can withstand it and the weaker ideas fall away and make room for something [better].” -Brad Bird, Writer/Director of the Incredibles
53. 5. From fear to confidence
54. Fear of competition
55. There’s nowhere to hide anymore
56. Embrace critics and whistleblowers
57. vs. Kaiser Permanente
58. The truth about the Digg revolt
59. Jetblue apologizes via Youtube
60. 6. From ownership to stewardship
61. In service of a higher purpose
62. Ted Rheinold of Dogster “About week 3 I realized I wasn’t in charge anymore.”
63. It’s true for individual practitioners as well
64. Google aims to be a steward for the Internet’s decentralized nature, its core social good.
65. 7. From walls to openness
66. It’s not clear where you interests end and others begin
67. Secrecy is obsolete
68. Boundaries are optional
69. Create ecosystems around your business
70. Measure success by the meaningful connections in your own network
71. 8. From inside to outside
72. There’s a lot more going on outside your business
73. How do you need to change to BE LIKE THE INTERNET?
74. Develop a practice of valuing ideas on their merits and their connections
75. Beliketheinternet.pbwiki.com Come by our wiki to share stories about to put these principles into practice

Andrea Pontremoli : La forza del sogno

"La forza del sogno è quella di disegnare qualcosa dove agli altri vogliono essere" Andrea Pontremoli

Via: venicesessions.it

The 3 Keys to Motivation

"Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us", the newest book by Dan Pink, is a winner! It explains how intrinsic motivators beat extrinsic motivators, like rewards and punishments, for the more difficult cognitive tasks and jobs that are the core of what the new world of work and business are about.

What are the 3 most important intrinsic motivators?

Autonomy is our need for independent action and control over tasks, time, place, and team. One example is ROWE, the results-only work environment.

Mastery is our need to show we are "masters" of something that matters to us. The example he uses is comparing Encarta to Wikipedia (open source movement and community sharing).

Purpose is our need to matter in the larger scheme of things. Achieving your highest fulfillment does not have to be incompatible with making a living.

Via: www.careerhubblog.com

The Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Collectively, they are how we approach every project.

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to
be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas
of others.

18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."

28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'

31. Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea – I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.

37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces – what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference – the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals – but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.

Via: brucemaudesign.com

Don’t chase the money, chase the dream

At LeWeb last week in Paris, Tony Hsieh delivered a very inspiring speech about his company - Zappos - and the importance of company culture. We have highlighted below the main points of his message and explained why we think that these ideas are very relevant to Sandbox.

Define your core values

A company that has a good culture makes well in the long term. Companies have to commit to them and avoid making compromises, which also means hire and fire people based on these values. For Tony, the right way to start a company is to define its core-values.

Don’t chase the money, chase the dream

It is crucial to have a vision that goes beyond money and profits. Don’t begin a business with the objective to earn money. Do what you are passionate about and as you will do it well, the money will follow. Ask yourself what would you be so passionate about doing that you would do it for 10 years without earning a dime.

Once you have a strong vision, you will find it much easier to motivate yourself and your employees. You can motivate people with financial incentives or fear, but true motivation goes along with inspiration. If you can inspire your employees making them share your vision, you don’t need to worry about motivating them anymore.

Keep asking why

Ask yourself what you are pursuing in life: buying a home? getting married? Once you have the answers, ask why again. Why do you want to buy a house? Why do you want to get married? Eventually, everyone ends up with the same answer about what they pursue in life: happiness.

What is happiness about?

There are four factors that create happiness:

1. Perceived control
2. Perceived progress
3. Connectiveness
4. Meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself)

Once you have understood them, you can apply them in your business to better motivate your employees: Zappos for example gives small promotions every 6 months instead a big one every 18 months, increasing the feeling of progress among its employees.

The 3 types of happiness

Tony sees 3 types of happiness: pleasure, engagement and meaning. Most people start looking for the first one, hoping to then be able to reach the others, which is the wrong way to go.

- Pleasure is for example about buying new things. It works well, but only as long as you can sustain it.
- Engagement is about feeling passionate about what you are doing. It works better than pleasure, but is not sustainable either.
- Meaning is about finding in life what provides happiness in the long term. Finding meaning creates a long-lasting feeling of happiness.

Via: sandbox

10 Characteristics of Great Companies

1) Great companies are constantly innovating and delighting their customers/users with new products and services.

2) Great companies are built to last and be independent and sustainable. Great companies don't sell out.

3) Great companies make lots of money but leave even more money on the table for their users and partners.

4) Great companies don't look elsewhere for ideas. They develop their ideas internally and are copied by others.

5) Great companies infect their users/customers with their brand. They turn their users and customers into marketing/salesforces.

6) Great companies are led by entrepreneurs who own a meaningful piece of the business. As such, they make decisions based on long term business needs and objectives not short term goals.

7) Great companies have a global mindset. They treat every person in the world as a potential customer/user.

8) Great companies are attempting to change the world in addition to making money.

9) Great companies are not reliant on any one person to deliver their value proposition.

10) Great companies put the customer/user first above any other priority.

Via: avc.com

The Power of 1%

The following was sent to all Zappos employees :


Team,

Happy New Year! To kick off the year, I sent this on Jan. 2nd to a smaller group, but a few folks suggested that it should be sent to all Zappos employees. Here is a slightly cleaned up and better version of what was sent.

--

"It was the best of times and it was the worst of times." – A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

On CNBC Reports 2008, Maria Bartiromo quoted Charles Dickens, noting that, while Dickens was referring to the French Revolution, he could have easily been talking about 2008.

No doubt, 2008 was a very challenging year, starting out with a weak economic and retail environment that degraded slowly in the first half of the year and then fell off a cliff in the second half of the year. Depending on what reports you read, online ecommerce was down 3-5% this holiday season, marking the first time ecommerce didn't grow. Reading about these not-so-positive reports just goes to show how very lucky we are at Zappos, because we were able to ride through these rocky times and produce pretty incredible results. No, things weren't perfect, but 2008 was still a great year for us! Official results have to wait until our finance team closes the books and releases the audited financials in early March, but we managed to grow our business over last year and during the holiday season (when ecommerce was down), exceeded $1B in gross merchandise sales, and by Doing More with Less, kept ourselves profitable and cash positive – all the while having a lot of fun serving our customers!

We can reminisce about 2008, but now that 2009 is here and we are back from some much needed downtime, it's time to get our A-game back on. We'll be going over our goals and our "official" plans as soon as our board approves them, but even before that "officially" happens, we already know what we need to do.

One thing I encourage you to do is to refer back to our Core Values document and specifically the challenge in there: make at least one improvement every week that makes Zappos better. Ideally, we would do this every single day. It sounds daunting, but remember improvements don't have to be dramatic. Think about what it means to improve just 1% per day and build upon that every single day. Doing so has a dramatic effect and will make us 37x better, not 365% (3.65x) better at the end of the year. Wake up every day and ask yourself not only what is the 1% improvement I can change to make Zappos better, but also what is the 1% improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally – because we, Zappos, can't grow unless we as individual people grow too.

Imagine yourself making 1% changes every day that compounds and will make you and Zappos 37x better by the end of the year. Imagine if every employee at Zappos was doing the same. Imagine how much better you, Zappos and the
world will be next year.

It won't be easy and 2009 will no doubt present its own set of challenges, but we positively will get through it. Have a great and happy 2009!

P.S. Also check out Tony's blog entry, Your Culture Is Your Brand.

P.P.S. This is for the math geeks. If you start out with $100 at the beginning of the year and you were able to increase what you have by 1% every single day, at the end of the year, you would have $3,778.34 = $100 * (1 + 1%) ^ 365. That is 37.78x what you had at the beginning of the year. Get that 1% every single day!

Via: zappos.com

Your Culture Is Your Brand

Building a brand today is very different from building a brand 50 years ago. It used to be that a few people got together in a room, decided what the brand positioning was going to be, and then spent a lot of money buying advertising telling people what their brand was. And if you were able to spend enough money, then you were able to build your brand.

It's a very different world today. With the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can blog about bad experience with a company, and the story can spread like wildfire by email or with tools like Twitter.

The good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously as well.

The fundamental problem is that you can't possibly anticipate every possible touchpoint that could influence the perception of your company's brand.

For example, if you happen to meet an employee of Company X at a bar, even if the employee isn't working, how you perceive your interaction with that employee will affect how you perceive Company X, and therefore Company X's brand. It can be a positive influence, or a negative influence. Every employee can affect your company's brand, not just the front line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.

At Zappos.com, we decided a long time ago that we didn't want our brand to be just about shoes, or clothing, or even online retailing. We decided that we wanted to build our brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience. We believe that customer service shouldn't be just a department, it should be the entire company.

Advertising can only get your brand so far. If you ask most people what the "brand" of the airline industry as a whole is (not any specific airline, but the entire industry), they will usually say something about bad customer service or bad customer experience. If you ask people what their perception of the US auto industry is today, chances are the responses you get won't be in line with what the automakers project in their advertising.

So what's a company to do if you can't just buy your way into building the brand you want? What's the best way to build a brand for the long term?

In a word: culture.

At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff -- like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers -- will happen naturally on its own.

We believe that your company's culture and your company's brand are really just two sides of the same coin. The brand may lag the culture at first, but eventually it will catch up.

Your culture is your brand.

So how do you build and maintain the culture that you want?

It starts with the hiring process. At Zappos, we actually do two different sets of interviews. The hiring manager and his/her team will do the standard set of interviews looking for relevant experience, technical ability, fit within the team, etc. But then our HR department does a separate set of interviews, looking purely for culture fit. Candidates have to pass both sets of interviews in order to be hired.

We've actually said no to a lot of very talented people that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line. But because we felt they weren't culture fits, we were willing to sacrifice the short term benefits in order to protect our culture (and therefore our brand) for the long term.

After hiring, the next step to building the culture is training. Everyone that is hired into our headquarters goes through the same training that our Customer Loyalty Team (call center) reps go through, regardless of department or title. You might be an accountant, or a lawyer, or a software developer -- you go through the exact same training program.

It's a 4-week training program, in which we go over company history, the importance of customer service, the long term vision of the company, our philosophy about company culture -- and then you're actually on the phone for 2 weeks, taking calls from customers. Again, this goes back to our belief that customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company.

At the end of the first week of training, we make an offer to the entire class. We offer everyone $2000 to quit (in addition to paying them for the time they've already worked), and it's a standing offer until the end of the fourth week of training. We want to make sure that employees are here for more than just a paycheck. We want employees that believe in our long term vision and want to be a part of our culture. As it turns out, on average, less than 1% of people end up taking the offer.

One of the great advantages of focusing on culture is when reporters come and visit our offices. Unlike most companies, we don't give reporters a small list of people they're allowed to talk to. Instead, we encourage them to wander around and talk to whoever they want. It's our way of being as transparent as possible, which is part of our culture.

We've formally defined our the Zappos culture in terms of 10 core values:

1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8) Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble

Many companies have core values, but they don't really commit to them. They usually sound more like something you'd read in a press release. Maybe you learn about them on day 1 of orientation, but after that it's just a meaningless plaque on the wall of the lobby.

We believe that it's really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you're willing to hire and fire based on them. If you're willing to do that, then you're well on your way to building a company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build. You can let all of your employees be your brand ambassadors, not just the marketing or PR department. And they can be brand ambassadors both inside and outside the office.

At the end of the day, just remember that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff -- including building a great brand -- will fall into place on its own.

Via: zappos blog

Immersi in una bolla creativa

Ci sono posti in cui all'improvviso si accende una scintilla di energia collettiva. Non ingabbiatela e tenete alla larga avvocati e benefattori. È un'atmosfera da salvaguardare, scrive Kevin Kelly.

Lo scenio è come il genio, solo che si trova all'interno di un'intera scena culturale e non nei cromosomi di una singola persona. La parola è stata coniata da Brian Eno per descrivere l'energia creativa che si scatena in alcuni luoghi e indica "l'intelligenza e l'intuizione di un intero gruppo".

Immersi in questo clima produttivo diamo il meglio di noi perché siamo ispirati dall'ambiente e dalle persone che ci circondano, che sono sulla nostra stessa lunghezza d'onda. Lo scenio, però, si verifica solo se sono presenti alcune condizioni.

• Apprezzamento reciproco: le mosse rischiose vengono incoraggiate dal gruppo, l'intelligenza è apprezzata e una forma di amichevole competizione spinge all'azione anche i più timidi. È una specie di "logica del branco" in positivo.

• Scambio veloce di strumenti e tecniche: appena qualcuno scopre qualcosa di nuovo la condivide subito con il gruppo. Le idee circolano rapidamente attraverso un linguaggio comune.

• Gli effetti del successo: quando ottiene un risultato sorprendente, l'intero gruppo si gode il trionfo. E questo trasmette forza per i successi a venire.

• Rispetto per l'originalità: il mondo esterno non è troppo duro con le trasgressioni del gruppo. I tipi più ribelli o quelli fuori dalle righe sono protetti da questa specie di zona cuscinetto.

Imparare dagli scalatori
Lo scenio può emergere ovunque: nei corridoi di un'azienda, in un quartiere o in un'intera regione. La storia è piena di esempi. Nella letteratura moderna ci sono stati la Tavola rotonda dell'Algonquin e il gruppo di Bloomsbury.

Nell'arte c'è stata la Parigi degli anni venti, i loft di Soho a New York e, più di recente, il festival del Burning Man. E per la scienza, l'edificio 20 all'Mit e la Silicon Valley.

Tutto questo mi è tornato in mente guardando il documentario Vertical frontier sugli scalatori del Parco nazionale di Yosemite, in California.

Negli anni trenta alcuni scalatori decisero di scalare le pareti verticali dello Yosemite. Occuparono un campo permanente sulla parete nord, il Camp 4, dove spesso campeggiavano illegalmente per l'intera estate. Il gruppo era formato da giovani squattrinati appassionati di alpinismo, con molto tempo a disposizione, incuranti delle leggi e spinti da una grande voglia di scalare in modo nuovo.



Camp 4 diventò una scuola, un club e una casa estiva per molti scalatori. Diede vita a una nuova etica, a equipaggiamenti incredibilmente innovativi e inventò la maggior parte delle più moderne tecniche di arrampicata.

All'apparenza i luoghi dello scenio non hanno nulla di particolare: l'edificio 20 dell'Mit era semidiroccato, Soho era un ammasso di spazi industriali e Camp 4 è un campeggio polveroso. Ma ci si arriva solo a piedi, caricandosi tutto sulle spalle, e questo tiene alla larga gli scalatori della domenica. In più non ci sono macchine e il clima è molto intimo.

La tranquillità del posto è stata minacciata più volte e gli scalatori di tutto il mondo si sono battuti perché il posto fosse messo sotto tutela. Alla fine il campo è rimasto una specie di incubatrice per gli entusiasti dell'arrampicata.

Anche se ogni azienda o università vorrebbe ricrearlo, questo clima speciale non si può costruire a tavolino. Devono esserci i pionieri giusti, un luogo aperto ma non troppo e molte scintille di entusiasmo.

La cosa più importante è non distruggere l'atmosfera: quando il gruppo comincia a funzionare non va formalizzato. Quando vedete le prime scintille, sventolate il fuoco perché si attizzi ma non spostate lo scenio in un altro posto. Tenete alla larga avvocati, architetti e benefattori. Lasciate che il vostro scenio rimanga scomodo, strambo, marginale: in cantina, in periferia, sul retro, lassù a Camp 4. E, quando nasce, onoratelo e salvaguardatelo.

Via: internazionale.it

Mission and Vision statement (with examples)

Some examples of Mission and Vision:

Nike: To experience the emotion of competition, winning and crushing competitors.

Wal-Mart: To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people.

Disney: We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages, everywhere.

Google: To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful

Yahoo: Our mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses

Amazon: To build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online

Dell: To be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best
customer experience in markets we serve.

Hewlett-Packard: To make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity.

Ford Motor: To become the world's leading consumer company for automotive products and services.

Ebay: to provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything.

Facebook: Facebook gives people the power to share and make the world more open and connected

Ibm: we strive to lead in the invention, development and manufacture of the industry's most advanced information technologies, including computer systems, software, storage systems and microelectronics

Microsoft: we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential

Sony: To experience the joy of advancing and applying technology for the benefit of the public.

Apple: To produce high-quality, low cost, easy to use products that incorporate high technology for the individual. We are proving that high technology does not have to be intimidating for noncomputer experts.

Generalmotor: to provide products and services of such quality that our customers will receive superior value while our employees and business partners will share in our success and our stock-holders will receive a sustained superior return on their investment.

Toyota: To sustain profitable growth by providing the best customer experience and dealer support

Mcdonald's: McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.

Burger King: We will prepare and sell quick service food to fulfill our guest's needs more accurately, quickly, courteously, and in a cleaner environment than our competitors. We will conduct all our business affairs ethically, and with the best employees in the mid-south. We will continue to grow profitably and responsibly, and provide career advancement opportunities for every willing member of our organization.

CocaCola:Everything we do is inspired by our enduring mission:
To Refresh the World... in body, mind, and spirit.
To Inspire Moments of Optimism... through our brands and our actions.
To Create Value and Make a Difference... everywhere we engage.

Pepsi: We have absolute clarity about what we do ‘WE SELL HIGH QUALITY FOOD AND BEVERAGE PRODUCTS.’ Our success will ensure: customers will build their business, employees build their futures, and shareholders build their wealth.

3M: To solve unsolved problems innovatively.

Fannie Mae: To strengthen the social fabric by continually democratizing home ownership.

Mary Kay Cosmetics: To give unlimited opportunity to women.

Merck: To preserve and improve human life.

for more missions, visit: Man on a Mission or this one

10° anniversario del "Cluetrain Manifesto"

Per il decimo anniversario del Cluetrain Manifesto, riporto qui di seguito i 95 punti tradotti in italiano.

"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies."

1. I mercati sono conversazioni.
2. I mercati sono fatti di esseri umani, non di segmenti demografici.
3. Le conversazioni tra esseri umani suonano umane. E si svolgono con voce umana.
4. Sia che fornisca informazioni, opinioni, scenari, argomenti contro o divertenti digressioni, la voce umana è sostanzialmente aperta, naturale, non artificiosa.
5. Le persone si riconoscono l’un l’altra come tali dal suono di questa voce.
6. Internet permette delle conversazioni tra esseri umani che erano semplicemente impossibili nell’era dei mass media.
7. Gli iperlink sovvertono la gerarchia.
8. Sia nei mercati interconnessi che tra i dipendenti delle aziende intraconnessi, le persone si parlano in un nuovo modo. Molto più efficace.
9. Queste conversazioni in rete stanno facendo nascere nuove forme di organizzazione sociale e un nuovo scambio della conoscenza.
10. Il risultato è che i mercati stanno diventando più intelligenti, più informati, più organizzati. Partecipare a un mercato in rete cambia profondamente le persone.
11. Le persone nei mercati in rete sono riuscite a capire che possono ottenere informazioni e sostegno più tra di loro, che da chi vende. Lo stesso vale per la retorica aziendale circa il valore aggiunto ai loro prodotti di base.
12. Non ci sono segreti. Il mercato online conosce i prodotti meglio delle aziende che li fanno. E se una cosa è buona o cattiva, comunque lo dicono a tutti.
13. Ciò che accade ai mercati accade anche a chi lavora nelle aziende. L’entità metafisica chiamata "L’Azienda" è la sola cosa che li divide.
14. Le aziende non parlano con la stessa voce di queste nuove conversazioni in rete. Vogliono rivolgersi a un pubblico online, ma la loro voce suona vuota, piatta, letteralmente inumana.
15. Appena tra qualche anno, l’attuale "omogeneizzata" voce del business – il suono della missione aziendale e delle brochures – sembrerà artefatta e artificiale quanto il linguaggio della corte francese nel settecento.
16. Le aziende che parlano il linguaggio dei ciarlatani già oggi non stanno più parlando a nessuno.
17. Se le aziende pensano che i loro mercati online siano gli stessi che guardavano le loro pubblicità in televisione, si stanno prendendo in giro da sole.
18. Le aziende che non capiscono che i loro mercati sono ormai una rete tra singoli individui, sempre più intelligenti e coinvolti, stanno perdendo la loro migliore occasione.
19. Le aziende possono ora comunicare direttamente con i loro mercati. Se non lo capiscono, potrebbe essere la loro ultima occasione.
20. Le aziende devono capire che i loro mercati ridono spesso. Di loro.
21. Le aziende dovrebbero rilassarsi e prendersi meno sul serio. Hanno bisogno di un po’ di senso dell’umorismo.
22. Avere senso dell’umorismo non significa mettere le barzellette nel sito web aziendale. Piuttosto, avere dei valori, un po’ di umiltà, parlar chiaro e un onesto punto di vista.
23. Le aziende che cercano di "posizionarsi" devono prendere posizione. Nel migliore dei casi, su qualcosa che interessi davvero il loro mercato.
24. Vanterie ampollose del tipo "Siamo posizionati per essere il primo fornitore di XYZ" non costituiscono un posizionamento.
25. Le aziende devono scendere dalla loro torre d’avorio e parlare con la gente con la quale vogliono entrare in contatto.
26. Le Pubbliche Relazioni non si relazionano con il pubblico. Le aziende hanno una paura tremenda dei loro mercati.
27. Parlando con un linguaggio lontano, poco invitante, arrogante, tengono i mercati alla larga.
28. Molti programmi di marketing si basano sulla paura che il mercato possa vedere cosa succede realmente all’interno delle aziende.
29. Elvis l’ha detto meglio di tutti: "Non possiamo andare avanti sospettandoci a vicenda".
30. La fedeltà a una marca è la versione aziendale della coppia fissa, ma la rottura è inevitabile ed è in arrivo. Poiché sono in rete, i mercati intelligenti possono rinegoziare la relazione con incredibile rapidità.
31. I mercati in rete possono cambiare fornitore dalla sera alla mattina. I lavoratori della conoscenza in rete possono cambiare datore di lavoro nel tempo dell’intervallo del pranzo. Le vostre "iniziative di downsizing" ci hanno insegnato a domandarci "La fedeltà? Cos’è?"
32. I mercati intelligenti troveranno i fornitori che parlano il loro stesso linguaggio.
33. Imparare a parlare con voce umana non è un gioco di società. E non può essere improvvisato a un qualsiasi convegno solo per darsi un tono.
34. Per parlare con voce umana, le aziende devono condividere i problemi della loro comunità.
35. Ma prima, devono appartenere a una comunità.
36. Le aziende devono chiedersi dove finisce la loro cultura di impresa.
37. Se la loro cultura finisce prima che inizi la comunità, allora non hanno mercato.
38. Le comunità umane sono basate sulla comunicazione – su discorsi umani su problemi umani.
39. La comunità della comunicazione è il mercato.
40. Le aziende che non appartengono a una comunità della comunicazione sono destinate a morire.
41. Le aziende fanno della sicurezza una religione, ma si tratta in gran parte di una manovra diversiva. Più che dai concorrenti, la maggior parte si difende dal mercato e dai suoi stessi dipendenti.
42. Come per i mercati in rete, le persone si parlano direttamente anche dentrol’azienda – e non proprio di regole e regolamenti, comunicazioni della direzione, profitti e perdite.
43. Queste conversazioni si svolgono oggi sulle intranet aziendali. Ma solo quando ci sono le condizioni.
44. Di solito le aziende impongono l’intranet dall’alto, per distribuire documenti sulla politica del personale e altre informazioni aziendali che i dipendenti fanno del loro meglio per ignorare.
45. Le intranet emanano noia. Le migliori sono quelle costruite dal basso da singole persone che si impegnano per dare vita a qualcosa di molto più valido: una conversazione aziendale in rete.
46. Una intranet in buona salute organizza i dipendenti nel più ampio significato del termine. Il suo effetto è più radicale di qualsiasi piattaforma sindacale.
47. Se questo spaventa a morte le aziende, è pur vero che esse dipendono fortemente dalle intranet aperte per far emergere e condividere le conoscenze più importanti. Devono resistere all’impulso di "migliorare" o tenere sotto controllo queste conversazioni in rete.
48. Quando le intranet aziendali non sono condizionate da timori o da un eccesso di regole, incoraggiano un tipo di conversazione molto simile a quella dei mercati in rete.
49. Gli organigrammi funzionavano nella vecchia economia, in cui i piani dovevano essere ben compresi da tutta la piramide gerarchica e dettagliati piani di lavoro potevano scendere dall’alto.
50. Oggi, l’organigramma è fatto di link, non di gerarchie. Il rispetto per la conoscenza vince su quello per l’autorità astratta.
51. Gli stili di management basati sul comando e sul controllo derivano dalla burocrazia e al tempo stesso la rafforzano. Il risultato sono la lotta per il potere e una cultura di impresa paranoica.
52. La paranoia uccide la conversazione. Questo è il punto. Ma la mancanza di conversazione uccide le aziende.
53. Ci sono due conversazioni in corso. Una all’interno dell’azienda, l’altra con il mercato.
54. Nessuna delle due va bene, nella maggior parte dei casi. Quasi sempre, alla base del fallimento ci sono le vecchie idee di comando e controllo.
55. Come politica di impresa, queste idee sono velenose. Come strumenti, sono fuori uso. Comando e controllo sono visti con ostilità dai lavoratori della conoscenza e con sfiducia dai mercati online.
56. Queste due conversazioni vogliono parlare l’una con l’altra. Parlano lo stesso linguaggio. Si riconoscono l’un l’altra dalla voce.
57. Le aziende intelligenti si faranno da parte per far accadere l’inevitabile il prima possibile.
58. Se la volontà di farsi da parte è presa come parametro del quoziente di intelligenza, allora veramente poche aziende si mostrano rinsavite.
59. Seppur subliminalmente, milioni di persone sulla rete percepiscono ormai le aziende come strane finzioni legali che fanno di tutto perché queste due conversazioni non si incontrino.
60. Questo è suicidio. I mercati vogliono parlare con le aziende.
61. E’ triste, ma la parte di azienda con cui i mercati vogliono parlare è spesso nascosta dietro una cortina di fumo, il cui linguaggio suona falso – e spesso lo è.
62. I mercati non vogliono parlare con ciarlatani e venditori ambulanti. Vogliono partecipare alle conversazioni che si svolgono dietro i firewall delle aziende.
63. Sveliamoci e parliamo di noi: quei mercati siamo Noi. Vogliamo parlare con voi.
64. Vogliamo accedere alle vostre informazioni, ai vostri progetti, alle vostre strategie, ai vostri migliori cervelli, alle vostre vere conoscenze. Non ci accontentiamo delle vostre brochures a 4 colori, né dei vostri siti Internet sovraccarichi di bella grafica ma senza alcuna sostanza.
65. Noi siamo anche i dipendenti che fanno andare avanti le vostre aziende. Vogliamo parlare ai clienti direttamente, con le nostre voci e non con i luoghi comuni delle brochures.
66. Come mercati, come dipendenti, siamo stufi a morte di ottenere le informazioni da un lontano ente di controllo.
67. Come mercati, come dipendenti, ci domandiamo perché non ci ascoltate. Sembrate parlare una lingua diversa.
68. Il linguaggio tronfio e gonfio con cui parlate in giro – nella stampa, ai congressi – cosa ha a che fare con noi?
69. Forse fate una certa impressione sugli investitori. Forse fate una certa impressione in Borsa. Ma su di noi non fate alcuna impressione.
70. Se non fate alcuna impressione su di noi, i vostri investitori possono andare a fare un bagno. Non lo capiscono? Se lo capissero, non vi lascerebbero parlare così.
71. Le vostre vecchie idee di "mercato" ci fanno alzare gli occhi al cielo. Non ci riconosciamo nelle vostre previsioni – forse perché sappiamo di stare già da un’altra parte.
72. Questo nuovo mercato ci piace molto di più. In effetti, lo stiamo creando noi.
73. Siete invitati, ma è il nostro mondo. Levatevi le scarpe sulla soglia. Se volete trattare con noi, scendete dal cammello.
74. Siamo immuni dalla pubblicità. Semplicemente dimenticatela.
75. Se volete che parliamo con voi, diteci qualcosa. Tanto per cambiare, fate qualcosa di interessante.
76. Abbiamo qualche idea anche per voi: alcuni nuovi strumenti, alcuni nuovi servizi. Roba che pagheremmo volentieri. Avete un minuto?
77. Siete troppo occupati nel vostro business per rispondere a un’e-mail? Oh, spiacenti, torneremo. Forse.
78. Volete i nostri soldi? Noi vogliamo la vostra attenzione.
79. Interrompete il viaggio, uscite da quell’auto-coinvolgimento nevrotico, venite alla festa.
80. Niente paura, potete ancora fare soldi. A patto che non sia l’unica cosa che avete in mente.
81. Avete notato che di per sé i soldi sono qualcosa di noioso e a una sola dimensione? Di cos’altro possiamo parlare?
82. Il vostro prodotto si è rotto. Perché? Vorremmo parlare col tipo che l’ha fatto. La vostra strategia aziendale non significa niente. Vorremmo scambiare due parole con l’amministratore delegato. Che vuol dire che "non c’è"?
83. Vogliamo che prendiate sul serio 50 milioni di noi almeno quanto prendete sul serio un solo reporter del Wall Street Journal.
84. Conosciamo alcune persone della vostra azienda. Sono piuttosto bravi online. Ne nascondete altri, di bravi? Possono uscire ed entrare in gioco anche loro?
85. Quando abbiamo delle domande, ci cerchiamo l’un l’altro per le risposte. Se non esercitaste un tale controllo sulle "vostre persone", sarebbero anche loro tra le persone che cercheremmo.
86. Quando non siamo occupati a fare il vostro "mercato target", molti di noi sonole vostre persone. Preferiamo chiacchierare online con gli amici che guardare l’orologio. Questo farebbe conoscere il vostro nome molto di più del vostro sito internet da un milione di dollari. Ma siete voi a dirci che è la Divisione Marketing che deve parlare al mercato.
87. Ci piacerebbe che sapeste cosa sta succedendo qui. Sarebbe davvero bello. Ma sarebbe un grave errore pensare che ce ne stiamo con le mani in mano.
88. Abbiamo di meglio da fare che preoccuparci se riuscirete a cambiare in tempo. Il business è solo una parte della nostra vita. Sembra essere invece tutta la vostra. Pensateci: chi ha bisogno di chi?
89. Il nostro potere è reale e lo sappiamo. Se non riuscite a vedere la luce alla fine del tunnel, arriverà qualcuno più attento, più interessante, più divertente con cui giocare.
90. Anche nel peggiore dei casi, la nostra nuova conversazione è più interessante della maggior parte delle fiere commerciali, più divertente di ogni sitcom televisiva, e certamente più vicina alla vita di qualsiasi sito web aziendale.
91. Siamo leali verso noi stessi, - i nostri amici, i nostri nuovi alleati, i nostri conoscenti, persino verso i nostri compagni di battute. Le aziende che non fanno parte di questo mondo non hanno nemmeno un futuro.
92. Le aziende stanno spendendo miliardi di dollari per il problema dell’Anno 2000. Come fanno a non sentire la bomba a orologeria nei loro mercati? La posta in gioco è persino più alta.
93. Siamo dentro e fuori le aziende. I confini delle nostre conversazioni sembrano il Muro di Berlino di oggi, ma in realtà sono solo una seccatura. Sappiamo che stanno crollando. Lavoreremo da entrambe le parti per farle venire giù.
94. Alle aziende tradizionali le conversazioni online possono sembrare confuse. Ma ci stiamo organizzando più rapidamente di loro. Abbiamo strumenti migliori, più idee nuove, nessuna regola che ci rallenti.
95. Ci stiamo svegliando e ci stiamo linkando. Stiamo a guardare, ma non ad aspettare.

Via: mestierediscrivere.com

Building a Creative Economy

Phase I. To grow a creative economy and culture, establish a service to link creatives with companies needing creative talent, whether as employees or vendors. This is the ‘big head’.

Phase II. Develop a website to capture the Long Tail, that is, the 95% of the creatives that don’t have connections to the companies and organizations that can hire them, but have more than enough to talent. Where growth occurs is when companies that don’t realize they need creative talent meet up with creative talent that doesn’t realize their talent is needed.

Phase III. This placemaking-oriented phase will be to use the creative community to grow a much larger progressive community of future customers to crowdsource (apply the Wikipedia approach to) the building of meaningful places, like green outdoor cafe districts, shared workplaces and attainably-priced condos.

However, to legitimize the second phase, you need to prove the first phase is financially sustainable. Thus, ensure that someone links the economic producers - defined here as large companies/organizations and smaller creative businesses - in order to match them up with creative talent, whether to fulfill job positions or complete creative projects (ie websites, events, social media campaign) to attract new customer bases.

Via: cooltownstudios.com

The 70/20/10 Model

The 70/20/10 Model is a business resource management model pioneered by Eric E. Schmidt.
This model dictates that, to cultivate innovation, employees of a company should utilize their time in the following ratio:
70% of time should be dedicated to core business tasks.
20% of time should be dedicated to projects related to the core business.
10% of time should be dedicated to projects unrelated to the core business.

More information: The 70 Percent Solution

Via: wiki

8 Steps to Create Successful Change

1) Create a sense of urgency
2) Pull together the guiding team
3) Develop the change vision and strateg
4) Communicate for understanding and buy-in
5) Empower others to act
6) Produce short-term wins
7) Don't let up
8) Create new culture

Via: harvardbusiness

Everything I Know About Business I Learned From Poker

EVALUATING MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

• Table selection is the most important decision you can make.
• It's okay to switch tables if you discover it's too hard to win at your table.
• If there are too many competitors (some irrational or inexperienced), even if you're the best it's a lot harder to win.

MARKETING AND BRANDING

• Act weak when strong, act strong when weak. Know when to bluff.
• Your "brand" is important.
• Help shape the stories that people are telling about you.

FINANCIALS

• Always be prepared for the worst possible scenario.
• The guy who wins the most hands is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.
• The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.
• Go for positive expected value, not what's least risky.
• Make sure your bankroll is large enough for the game you're playing and the risks you're taking.
• Play only with what you can afford to lose.
• Remember it's a long term game. You will win or lose individual sessions, but it's what happens in the long term that matters.

STRATEGY

• Don't play games that you don't understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.
• Figure out the game when the stakes aren't high.
• Don't cheat. Cheaters never win in the long run.
• Stick to your principles.
• You need to adjust your style of play throughout the night as the dynamics of the game change. Be flexible.
• Be patient and think long term.
• The players with the most stamina and focus usually win.
• Differentiate yourself. Do the opposite of what the rest of the table is doing.
• Hope is not a good plan.
• Don't let yourself go "on tilt". It's much more cost effective to take a break, walk around, or leave the game for the night.

CONTINUAL LEARNING

• Educate yourself. Read books and learn from others who have done it before.
• Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.
• Learn by surrounding yourself with talented players.
• Just because you win a hand doesn't mean you're good and you don't have more learning to do. You might have just gotten lucky.
• Don't be afraid to ask for advice.

CULTURE

• You've gotta love the game. To become really good, you need to live it and sleep it.
• Don't be cocky. Don't be flashy. There's always someone better than you.
• Be nice and make friends. It's a small community.
• Share what you've learned with others.
• Look for opportunities beyond just the game you sat down to play. You never know who you're going to meet, including new friends for life or new business contacts.
• Have fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you're trying to do more than just make money.

Via: zoppas blog

How Twitter Can Make You A Better (and Happier) Person

I was in Washington, DC last week and spent several days participating in inauguration-related events with various people including Evan Williams, the CEO of Twitter. So I thought this would be an opportune time to write about a topic that I've been thinking a lot about over the past few months: how Twitter has contributed to my own personal growth and made me a better person, and how you can take the same principles and apply them to yourself if you'd like.

I've talked a lot in the past about how we've used Twitter at Zappos for building more personal connections with both our employees and our customers. In fact, we recently debuted on FORTUNE MAGAZINE's annual "100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR" list, and they began and ended the article talking about our use of Twitter to build more personal connections with people. That in itself is its own reward that has both personal and business benefits, but for this blog post, I wanted to share my stories and thoughts on how Twitter has helped me grow personally.

For me, it comes down to these 4 things:

1. Transparency & Values: Twitter constantly reminds me of who I want to be, and what I want Zappos to stand for
2. Reframing Reality: Twitter encourages me to search for ways to view reality in a funnier and/or more positive way
3. Helping Others: Twitter makes me think about how to make a positive impact on other people's lives
4. Gratitude: Twitter helps me notice and appreciate the little things in life

The great thing about all 4 of these things is that not only have they helped me grow as a person, but they've also led to me being generally happier in life. And the benefits aren't just personal -- they also spill over into what we want the Zappos brand and business to be about: Zappos is about delivering happiness, whether for customers (through customer service) or for employees (through company culture). It's been interesting thinking about how all of my personal learnings about happiness can be applied to delivering happiness in the business world as well.

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#1 - TRANSPARENCY & VALUES

What would you do differently if you were always on camera? I'm not talking about being on a reality TV show, but what if there were a permanent public record of everything you do or say from now on that anyone in the world could view at anytime? How would you act differently in certain situations? Would you be friendlier to people? Would you be less negative and less judgmental?

If you were always on camera, then everything you did would go towards shaping your personal brand, whether positive or negative. What are your personal values, and what values do you aspire to?

At Zappos, we have 10 core values that act as a formalized definition of our company culture. Our core values weren't formed by a few people from senior management that sat around in a room at a company offsite. Instead, we invited every employee at Zappos to participate in the process, and here's the final list we collectively came up with:

1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8) Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble

The cool thing about the Zappos core values is that I've used them as my own personal values as well. So it makes tweeting really easy for me... Whether I tweet about something personal or something related to Zappos, if I'm living my life through these 10 core values, it all goes towards building the Zappos brand while shaping me personally as well.

A lot of marketers are initially mystified by how Twitter, in which you're limited to 140 characters or less per tweet, can actually help a company build a brand when you're so restricted in the length of your tweet. Here's the analogy I like to use:

Think of each tweet as a dot on a piece of paper. Any single tweet, just like any single dot, by itself can be insignificant and meaningless. But, if over time, you end up with a lot of tweets, it's like having a lot of dots drawn on a piece of paper. Eventually there are enough dots for your followers to connect them together. And if you connect the dots, in the aggregate it paints a picture of you and/or your company, and it's that total picture that is your brand.

I have to admit, like probably most other people, when I first joined Twitter I felt a bit uncomfortable publicly announcing what I was doing and what I was thinking. But because radical transparence was part of the culture of tweeting, I decided to give it a try and be as transparent as possible, both for myself personally and for Zappos. It was also consistent with Zappos Core Value #6: "Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication".

What I found was that people really appreciated the openness and honesty, and that led people to feel more of a personal connection with Zappos and me compared to other corporations and business people that were on Twitter.

By embracing transparency and tweeting regularly, Twitter became my equivalent of being always on camera. Because I knew that I was going to be tweeting regularly about whatever I was doing or thinking, I was more conscious of and made more of an effort to live up to our 10 core values.

A lot of people use Twitter to complain or vent, but I generally try to avoid doing so because it's not in line with our core values. What I've noticed is that it's also caused me to complain a lot less in real life, and because of that, I've found that my own personal happiness level has gone up.

---

#2 - REFRAMING REALITY

That's not to say that I don't get into situations that I'm not initially happy about. But now anytime something that used to get me upset or frustrated happens, I try to find the humor in the situation and think about how the situation can be reframed. I've found that almost every "bad" situation is actually an opportunity that can be entertaining to my followers on Twitter, which also forces myself to see things in a different light.

For example, last year I was staying at a hotel in Mexico and somehow managed to lock myself out on the balcony of my hotel room. I was stuck there for 45 minutes before I was finally rescued. This would haven normally been a very frustrating experience, but because I had my cell phone with me, I was able to tweet about it and it actually ended up being a very enjoyable 45 minutes as I tweeted about the progress of my situation and read all of my followers' responses to it:

Went 2 my room after my speech, came out 2 balcony. Balcony door somehow locked behind me so now I am trapped outside. @ zappos_fred 2 rescue [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/812279213]

Hotel front desk is telling @zappos_fred it's not possible for me to be locked out on balcony. I assure you it is, I am not pretending. [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/812287969]

Hotel security finally believed @zappos_fred, rescued me after 45 mins. Asked 4 ID so I could come in from balcony. No ID = stay on balcony [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/812292469]

in fact, I now almost looked forward to situations that would normally be frustrating, because I've learned that almost any situation can be reframed to be funny as a tweet, which then makes the situation in real life funny as well. For example:

Airport bathroom: guy tries washing hands - auto faucet motion sensor broken. He tries voice recognition instead by yelling "Wash!" at sink [http://twitter.com/zappos/statuses/806944443]

If it weren't for Twitter, I would have instead probably been a bit annoyed waiting in line behind this man who was unfamiliar with motion-activated sink faucets. But instead, Twitter forced me to search for and find the humor in the situation by taking a step back and realizing that it actually was a pretty funny situation.

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#3 - HELPING OTHERS

One of the great things about Twitter is the instant feedback loop. Within 5 minutes of sending out a tweet, you can find out whether people enjoyed or appreciated your tweet. When I first started using Twitter, I used to just tweet about what I was doing. Most of my tweets were very "me-focused", because the guideline Twitter gives is to answer the question "What are you doing right now?"

Every once in awhile I might share an inspirational quote or funny story or link to an interesting article. What I found was that those types of tweets also garnered the most responses. So today, with most of my tweets I try to do at least one of the following:

• Cause my followers to smile with something funny
• Inspire my followers (for example, with an inspirational quote)
• Enrich my followers' perspectives (such as with a link to an interesting article)

In other words, I've become a lot less "me-focused" and instead do a lot more thinking and asking myself, "What can I tweet about that would brighten the day for my followers or enrich their lives somehow?"

And by regularly putting myself into the mindset of asking what I can do for others, it inevitably ends up spilling over to my regular life outside of Twitter. And somewhat ironically, becoming less "me-focused" has actually increased my overall level of happiness for myself personally.

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#4 - GRATITUDE

In my research into the science of happiness, many studies have shown that gratitude activities (such as keeping a gratitude journal) helps people increase their overall happiness level in life. There are many ways to be thankful, and many things to be thankful for, but one technique is to make a more conscious effort to notice and appreciate the little things in life.

For me, because I try to tweet every day, I've found that I'm always looking for opportunities to have something to tweet about. So I end up noticing and appreciating things that I would normally not even give a second thought to. Here are examples of some tweets I've sent about things I've noticed that I would have normally ignored or forgotten about:

http://twitpic.com/rcli - Guy in New York with a cat on his head. Apparently this is normal. [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/1046534414]

http://twitpic.com/13fn1 - It's so cold that the NY street food vendors' tomatoes & lettuce are frozen [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/1124243255]

At Vegas airport. While in bathroom, I had an AMAZING revelation: Toilet seat covers are shaped exactly the same as life vests! [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/1109483429]

Enjoying just hanging out at home for my birthday. Looking at the full moon which is closest to earth today, happens once every 15 years. [http://twitter.com/zappos/status/1054918866]

So now, anytime I notice something that would normally be inconsequential, the very act of tweeting forces me to spend some time appreciating what would have otherwise been ignored or forgotten. And because of that, I've learned that every day, there are many, many opportunities to notice and appreciate the little things in life.

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So for all of the reasons I've outlined above -- Transparency & Values, Reframing Reality, Helping Others, and Gratitude -- I'd like to say thank you to Twitter for helping me grow as a person.

Tony Hsieh - CEO, Zappos.com

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SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Some questions for you to consider thinking about: What are your personal values? What do you want your personal brand and values to be? How can you use Twitter as a tool to help you grow as a person and be happier? If you've ever vented on Twitter, do you think you would be happier if you thought of Twitter as a tool for you to reframe your perspective? I'd love to hear people's thoughts and comments below!

Via: zappos blog
See also twitter.zappos