Nivi’s blog has some interesting quote-based posts…
From Mavericks at Work (Part 1):
“Even in the face of massive competition, don’t think about the competition. Literally don’t think about them. Every time you’re in a meeting and you’re tempted to talk about a competitor, replace that thought with one about user feedback or surveys. Just think about the customer.”
–Mike McCue, CEO Tellme Networks, Former VP of Technology Netscape
From The Essential Peter Drucker (Part 1):
“…the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
From Part 2 on Drucker:
“Knowledge work is not defined by quantity. Neither is knowledge work defined by its costs. Knowledge work is defined by its results.”
“Of all the decisions an executive makes, none is as important as the decisions about people because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.”
“[The relationship between knowledge workers and their superiors] is far more like that between the conductor of an orchestra and the instrumentalist than it is like the traditional superior/subordinate relationship. The superior in an organization employing knowledge workers cannot, as a rule, do the work of the supposed subordinate any more than the conductor of an orchestra can play the tuba. In turn, the knowledge work is dependent on the superior to give direction and, above all, to define what the “score” is for the entire organization, that is, what are its standards and values, performance and results. And just as an orchestra can sabotage even the ablest conductor — and certainly even the most autocratic one — a knowledge organization can easily sabotage even the ablest, let alone the most autocratic superior.”
He’s also got a Twitter blog with rapid-fire snippets.
WD
on 08 Feb 07Its hard to take that advice from the ‘VP of Technology at Netscape’, when some could argue Netscape failed for never understanding their competition (MS).....
Craig Fitzpatrick
on 08 Feb 07I love the quote about “marketing’s job is to make selling superfluous.”
Business folks always call product development a “cost center”, meaning it costs money to run but doesn’t bring any in. The Sales department is always credited with bringing the money in. What would Sales sell without the product? Clearly Development and Sales have a symbiotic relationship.
But it seems to me that Sales is actually the cost center. In a perfect world, Development would make Support unnecessary because the product doesn’t require support. And Marketing would make Sales irrelevant because the product would sell itself.
That would leave us with Development and Marketing being the core functions. Sales and Support are currently just picking up the slack from Development and Marketing not quite building support-free products that sell themselves.
Who’s the cost center now?! ;)
Tim
on 08 Feb 07@WD
Did Netscape, as a browser, really fail? Look at the success of Firefox/Mozilla.
WD
on 08 Feb 07@TD
Did Netscape, as a browser, fail? Not really.
Netscape as a company? Well, don’t consider the acquisition and later disbandment of the brand a success. And its safe to say a VP should be more concerned with the company as a whole than a single product.
So when he tells me not to think about my competition, and instead focus on customers, I have to ask him, “are you where you are today because you listened to your customers or because you ignored the competition?” I vote the latter.
CJ Curtis
on 08 Feb 07i find the “don’t pay any attention to the competition” quote a pretty idiotic suggestion.
not to mention ironic.
the reason netscape tanked (and it DID tank) is because with IE being integrated into windows, netscape failed to give you a reason to go out and get it. a tall order, maybe, but the nonetheless it failed.
virtually any type of business has some sort of competition. and if they don’t, they will. all businesses have strengths and all have weaknesses, which becomes the basis of the competition in the first place. so to “ignore the competition” in a quest to “perfectly fit your customer” is pie-in-the-sky thinking. in doing so, you are 1) ignoring your competitors’ weaknesses that you could possibly exploit and 2) you are ignoring your competitors’ strengths that could potentially put you out of business.
you could argue that it encourages greater creativity in solving our customer’s problems. personally, i think that’s a totally separate issue.
Kenn Christ
on 08 Feb 07@Tim: I think Mozilla succeeded despite Netscape. While AOL/Netscape did fund the Mozilla project for a while, they also did seemingly everything they could to destroy the Netscape name, including things like releasing a version of the browser that was little more than an IE shell and launching multiple unrelated products under the Netscape name, all with questionable levels of success.
Even before selling to AOL, the Netscape codebase was thrown away in favor of a ground-up rewrite, so it may be safe to say that the browser itself was a failure as well.
pireland
on 11 Feb 07“don’t pay any attention to the competition” seems to directly contradict the fifth section of the first chapter of “Getting Real” titled Have an Enemy>
“Sometimes the best way to know what your app should be is to know what it shouldn’t be. Figure out your app’s enemy and you’ll shine a light on where you need to go”
However, it also say:
”... it’s also important to not get too obsessed with the competition. Overanalyze other products and you’ll start to limit the way you think. Take a look and then move on to your own vision and your own ideas.”
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php
I’m getting mixed signals from the 37 signals!
franck perrier
on 11 Feb 07How i read “don’t pay attention to the competition”? First, do pay attention to it, benchmark your competitors, understand their product, their business models, their positioning, product, communication tactics, teams… Second, don’t get obsessed by them. Build your product and your company from your own vision, not as a reaction to them.
WD
on 12 Feb 07@ franck
thats the correct way to approach the subject in allot of people’s eyes, but I don’t think McCue’s quote lends itself to be interpreted that way at all. He very bluntly says, “Literally don’t think about them.” When someone prefaces their comment with ‘literally’, they remove any wiggle room on what they are trying to say.
In his case, his quote is perfectly inline with what Netscape actually did as a company, so I believe he really does mean ‘ignore the competition’.
And with the quote coming from a book titled, “Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win”, I wonder how the author sees that as GOOD advice, or even advice that will help your company win??
This discussion is closed.