Recognize that in an uncertain contest against Nature your instinct is wrong. Bigger potential rewards are not correlated with more risk. If you are pursuing a truly uncertain endeavor, like a startup, there is no way of knowing if the larger or smaller possible outcome is more likely to succeed, so the only rational course is to pursue the biggest possible outcome you can imagine.
One of my teachers had a story about his local BicycleRepairMan, who had a sign in his shop:(see also AlarmBellPhrases, in fact see the whole goddamn c2 wiki)
CouldYouJust .... costs 40 Kroner
stakeholder | |
going forward | |
at the end of the day | this one is out of fashion now |
take-away | usually "key take-away" |
bring to bear | |
track record | |
facts on the ground | |
build on | e.g., "I'd like to build on what John said . . . " |
touch base | |
I just want to... |
If there's one thing every junior consultant needs to have injected into their head with a heavy duty 2500 RPM DeWalt Drill, it's this: Customers Don't Know What They Want. Stop Expecting Customers to Know What They Want. It's just never going to happen. Get over it.(scroll all the way down and click the 'Discuss' link)
Instead, assume that you're going to have to build something anyway, and the customer is going to have to like it, but they're going to be a little bit surprised. YOU have to do the research. YOU have to figure out a design that solves the problem that the customer has in a pleasing way.
This is Lukas Bergstrom's weblog. You can also find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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