Random Musings:

Shift Happens - Mind Candy

People can post presentations on Slideshare.net to share with others. My 11 Fold Way to Venture Capital Funding presentation is posted there. Like other Web 2.0 services, Slideshare enables participants to indicate their favorite presentations. In looking through the list of "appleseed," who included the 11 Fold Way, I found this presentation: Shift Happens, which was done by Jeff Brenman of Apollo Ideas based on fascinating data and thoughts from Karl Fisch. Brenman's contribution is in design.

This very readable presentation is in part about discontinuities, tipping points, and future shock. For example, some of Fisch's points suggest that our century will be the century of Chindia [my term, not his]. A couple of bullets:

• The 25% of the people in China with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of North America
• In India, it's the top 28%
• Translation: They have more honor kids than we have kids.

NetNet: well worth a quick read - lot's of mind candy.

Van Wie's Dictum

Van Wie's Dictum: Never introduce a new element (topic, issue, agenda item, etc.) in a negotiation unless absolutely necessary.

Example 1: The sales meeting is slowly but surely arriving at it's intended outcome and just as the discussion of next steps begins, one of our team members starts a completely new topic, such as a product or service not previously mentioned in the meeting.

Example 2: Both sides have discussed costs and benefits of the product (or service) and there seems to be great understanding and agreement on how the product service solves the key problem identified by the prospect.  Just as the deal is to be closed, a member of our team volunteers, without having been asked by the prospect, 6 other uses of our product.

You can easily imagine what happens next.