customers

What amazon does differently than its counterparts is: obsession with their customer’s delight and satisfaction. I was going through this post and saw the YouTube video below. Jeff Bezos defined the entire company’s focus on customers and explained over a napkin.

As companies or startups grow, they go on raising subsequent rounds of funding. An investor or VC fund bet on them for their long-term growth. In most cases, these startups spend millions of dollars in customer acquisition via discounts and advertisements. A very few of them work on a word2mouth or delighting their customers.

I am paying more to amazon because of their customer satisfaction than the others. What other brands have a similar cult following? Brands and founders are more busy achieving unicorn status than delighting their customers with service and winning their trust. I am so dependent on amazon that it’s a default place for any online purchase.

shadows

For the past few days, I am back to the Ruskin Bond books. I think I am trying to escape from reality or day-to-day happenings on social media, news. I liked the below quotes from the author about our shadows. I felt like sharing.

We three,
We’re not a crowd;
My echo,
My shadow,
And me.

We take our shadows for granted, don’t we? There they are, the uncomplaining companions of a lifetime, mute and helpless witnesses to our every act of commission and omission.

Pre COVID19

I was reading up some papers [1, 2] and this about earlier Pandemics. It was more about trying to understand if the current pandemic had some similarities with the past ones, especially the Spanish flu of 1918.

How it affected our life? I have not been a student of economics, zoonosis, or medicare. It was more of my itch. A few things which Spanish Flu had:

  1. The 1918-1919 pandemic inflicted high mortality on people aged 15-35 years.
  2. In 1918 it took six days to cross the Atlantic on a liner and spread across the world.
  3. The second wave took away most lives. 
  4.  Pandemic strained the life insurance industry.
  5.  The pandemic’s impact on communities and regions was not uniform across the country. (In the case of the USA)
  6. Influenza mortalities had a direct impact on wage rates. In the manufacturing sector in U.S. cities and states during and immediately after the 1918 influenza. 
  7. The influenza of 1918 was for a short period. (The pandemic arrived unexpectedly in the fall of 1918 and had largely subsided by January 1919. )

Many mortalities happened because of limited medicare availability in limited hospital care. 

One of the newspaper reporting implications on the economy.   

If you can recommend me some book, paper on the subject, it will help.  

simple

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
― Leonardo da Vinci

Simplify life, product, and relationships. Easier said than done. Most of us live in a zigsaw, complex social dynamics. The same goes for developing a new product. We hope appreciation and accomplishments will come from doing things differently. We end up building a puzzle and, the press glorifies it as a masterpiece. When the real user gets to use it, it confuses them more. As a result, users avoid using the product or start looking for an alternative.

Simple things scale, AB; kept reminding us in the early days of product development at Minio.

Our urge to do things differently has ended up building a Frankenstein.

bully

How do you save yourself from a Bully? He or She could be your friend, manager, or partner. Time and again, in my short life, I have come across such a persona. Someone too dominating, I am always right or, It is your mistake kind people.

Are bullies broken from within, too insecure about their public persona? Did they had a troubling upbringing? Is acting bully: a sense of pride or ego boost for some?

Psychology of money

I picked up the psychology of money by Morgan housel; last week. The summary of the book happens to be two things: 

  1. Own your time or independence 
  2. Live your life instead of chasing someone else’s or, consumerism should not lead life. 

I could relate to the book because most parts made me realize I am reading recycled philosophy books of Seneca and Epictetus. 

The author cites many books and many short stories iterating his observation. I particularly liked the example of the guy who lived a frugal life but donated 6-8 million USD to the hospital and library. He died wealthy not rich. He believed in compounding his wealth. 

I would especially recommend this book to people in their early 20’s just starting their career. They are the ones most easily fooled by the glamorous, Instagram life and consumerism. 

todo

Why do we have to live like a TODO machine? I hear from friends how they are missing their timelines related to work or personal leisure.

Taking control of our life means prioritizing life. It means being aware of our actions and what we need from them.

We have to de-crowd our minds and accept the reality of our limitations. The era of multi-tasking and decision paralysis is making us more confused and, we are acting like a TODO machine.

limit

In the dictionary of professional coaches, we can do anything, conquer anything. In short, we are limitless.

Is it the same in our real life? Are we all limitless or, we have limitations? Are these limitations self-induced because of our bias and blindspot? Can these professional coaches help us in overcoming these?

We, humans, are like wild animals. Our brain got developed with centuries of conditioning. We are still irrational, full of our perceptions. Some of it is results in making us superhuman while others a pest.

algorithms

I was watching Hannah Fry Aeon’s video title: Should computers run the world. After watching the video, I bought her book title: hello world. The book is a collection of real-world events driven by algorithms: medicine, crime, art, music, and legal: to mention a few.

The more I read: one part of my brain pointed towards the surveillance dystopia. The other part gave assurance about the better world.

Our human mind is irrational. Our decision-making takes account of our limited knowledge, emotion, and bias.

Algorithms depend on data. They can get biased, racist, and incorrect with the decision. If we leave ourselves at their mercy, we are doomed.

The middle ground is a mix of both: human consciousness + algorithms, the author suggests.