Ravi’s Blog

I am going to make it a point to hike/run atleast once during the weekend. To kick off this awesome tradition, i started by hiking up the black mountain trail. Couple of things. First, bahiker.com rocks! This is an awesome resource for everyone. Who ever put it together, deserves some goodness points. Surprised to see that this site is only PageRank 6.

Second, I didn’t make it to the top. My goal was to hike up ~1.5 hours and return. So i did that. Spent about 2 hours 40 mins hiking. Not bad…

I just finished watching the 2nd episode of Apprentice 2. By now, all you apprentice folks know that bradford is out of the show. Yes, bradford with immunity is the one to be fired.

This ties in with my previous blog post. This situation is a clear example of how critical the ability to keep composure in all situations is. Bradford got ahead of himself and with arrogance/overconfidence allowed his emotions to rule roost. The lack of composure for few seconds put him in a very risky situation.

However, after seeing this episode, i wondered about mr.trump. Isn’t mr.Trump guilty of the same fault he acused bradford of? He lost his composure, his focus. He took his eye off the actual issue on the table, - why did the team lose and who should be held responsible for the loss.

He let his emotions get better of him and fired bradford. Bradford may have been stupid to take on an outrageous risk. I agree with donald’s assessment that risks like that can destroy a company. But, Right at that moment, they were getting together to discuss about that loss. Firing bradford for his mistakes was not the agenda.

Don’t get me wrong, i think this twist made the show very exciting. I have to praise mark burnett for making apprentice 2 as exciting as apprentice.

We humans are not perfect. This is one instant where the whole world noticed Donald Trump’s imperfection. Amazing thing is that *he* fired someone else for that imperfection.

So, the benefactor show was interesting. But i think mark cuban’s Blog is the real deal. Not only do you get great insight into his management philosophy and thought process, you also get behind the scenes insight into the show.

For me, more than the behind the scenes stuff, i liked the benefactor tests. There’s something to learn from each of the tests he writes about. I like tests #3, #8, #10, #11, #12.

I have a different viewpoint on test #6 than mr.cuban. I am not sure if i buy into “expect the unexpected” thing. I think the real point he is getting at is more about rolling with the punches and being adaptable, and always - i mean always - keeping composure when unexpected things happen.

I have learnt - the hardway - staying rational and composed in all situations is very critical for success. I would say it is critical success at a high level no matter what challenge you take. Ofcourse it is easier said than done

So, I got done watching The Benefactor. You know - that mark cuban show that got pretty bad talk prior to today? Let me tell you something, I think it’s cool. In the begining mark says some very interesting stuff. He gives out 3 factors for grading

1. First Impressions.
2. Setting Expectations and meeting them
3. Handling Pressure.

So Rating the show on the 3 criteria that he set, I would say the

1. The first impressions were good. It’s a show that kept my attention, was different, and showed some harsh business realities. I was thinking of how layoffs work when i saw the mark trying to pick a 2nd person to cut. He had the luxury of giving a test that determined the winner. Often times, in a lay off situation, that’s how managers are. They know have to cut a fixed number and the decisions are not easy.
2. My expectations of a mark cuban show were met. I was expecting some crazyness, jumpiness - which I got. I know for sure that mr.cuban is a man of substance, he demonstrated success repeatedly in real world. He delivered on that expectation as well. He set out the criteria for success very clearly, and followed them. This has been my one peeve with Apprentice. The decisions to cut were not really following the precedents set on the show a lot of times.
3. Handling pressure. I think he handled the pressure of the show very well. The expectation was that this will be a total copycat show of Apprentice. Given the press build-up and the success of apprentice, the pressure was ON to make this show compelling, yet differentiated. If the first episode was any indication, he did good.

Now, coming down to more critical analysis, the criteria set were very sales focused. Now, sales is a critical part of every business. You have to always keep in mind the first impression you create, your product creates. You have to make sure that you and your products exceed expectations.

What’s real is that sometimes there are good businesses who’s strength is not sales. It’s not that the business/product is not good, it’s just that they don’t make a strong first impression, or exceed the hype the marketing creates. Those businesses also succeed.

The thing that both apprentice and benefactor donot focus on is - value creation. Apprentice is always focused on winning, or doing better than a competing company in a short turn around situations. Looks like benefactor is focusing on sales, relationships, etc. I believe that real businesses (the ones that long for 100s of years) are built around creating value for customers.

So when i have my own show, i’ll make sure that it focuses on the right business principles. It’s their show, so they can talk all about what they think is important.

If you search on google for joyce park friendster, you can see that there’s about 4500 results returned, with a lot of the blogs/news being updated in the last cpl of days. The firing happened on August 30th and as of Sept 11th, the fire is still spreading…

On another note, i wonder why the results are different when i search from the google searchbox on my site for the same phrase joyce park friendster. Can anyone explain? Wonder if i should send people to the main google site, or switch to y!?

If it isn’t obvious to the friendster top-management already, firing Joyce Park aka Troutgirl from friendster for blogging is a PR disaster. Drawing - the usually balanced - zawodny’s ire, and rousing blogger passions is a surefire path towards “anti-social” networking.

I hate to speculate, and thankfully, someone else did that job for me. Here is cemper’s, comment about possible reasons for firing. Boy, i don’t know mr.winner, but he sure doesn’t look like a winner in that post.