There is this word in German that literally translates as Egg-laying wool milk pig.What is it?
The egg laying wool milk pig is an animal that lays eggs, produces wool and milk and has meat to eat.
But it does not exist.
Why?
Because it is not specialized in anything.
It does everything, but nothing really good.
Everybody in Marketing knows that. Marketing 101, Lesson one: define yourself, your product and your customer group. And still, if you walk around and ask small business owners and entrepreneurs what their product is, who their customer is, they say "Everybody". They cannot say "NO", they cannot say "this is not my business", because they are afraid to loose a customer, to loose money, to loose their reputition.
Know who you are
People "know" that you cannot be everything to everybody, and if you try, you will be nothing to nobody. But still. Its the fear of missing out on something, the fear of loosing your customer that drives many companies to do stuff that is not actually their business, and weakens their strategy. Most important for every business is to know who you are, and who you are not. Be honest to yourself and your customers. Be transparent. Let them know what you can do for them, and what you cannot. Your customers will value that and reward it with more trust in you.
Focus
In "The Disciplin of Market Leaders", Treacy and Wiersema define 3 strategies to focus your company on:
- Operational Excellence
- Product Leadership
- Customer Intimacy
Have Integrity
You are a great webdesigner. Great. Stick with it, if it makes you happy. But don´t start designing posters, just because this one company needs a poster, and you need money.
Be honest to yourself. Is that what you want to do? Is it representing your values, goals, highest exitments in your life. If the answer is "YES" -do it! If it is "NO" - don´t do it.
It sounds simple, but often these are the hardest choices for a company to make, especially when you want to grow and need money (like we all do)
In the end it all comes down to one single thing:
Know what you want and do it!
in your private life - in your workplace - in your company.
but what about being a 'Jack-of-all trades'??
ReplyDeletei do not know too much about a "jack of all trades", but from what i read on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades,_master_of_none)i think it falls under the "customer intimacy" part.
ReplyDeleteI think it is pretty clear when said ""Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a person that is competent with many skills but is not necessarily outstanding in any particular one"
For me this is a specialisation in itself. And if you see yourself as a "Jack of all trades" you will be able to help in many different fields, give a basic understanding, get discussions started, but when it gets to a deeper knowledge, you will hand it over to somebody who knows more in the specific area.
The Jacks ability is to connect areas and that, in these days, is a highly demanded skill. But if stay true to your identity, you will not get very deep in any special field, but rather hand it over to a specialist if needed.
It does not exist, because people aren't great with certain concepts. It could exist. It's just a bit of lab work, but considering it would need four stomachs (or a bacterial interaction, like that found in termites), it would need a stouter frame than what is above. The mechanisms for laying eggs versus live birth is another hairy (feathery?) situation that kind of modification works against other ideas via the limitations of a diet towards fulfilling all requirements (ie, eggs require a good deal of calcium, as do bones and milk). Thus, the stouter frame, would be essential. Further, the intestinal tract would have to be quite complex. It might even be better off with a duel intestine, which I don't believe any creatures have on earth. With the duel intestinal tract, it could absorb nearer two times the nutrition, however, now our animal is getting bulkier.... So, while you could whip this up (and it would be delicious), the limitations would require a shape quite different than any animals we currently use in those manners.
ReplyDeleteThe double-intestine is a better idea than a longer intestine, since the goal is not to have any toxic build up via stuff staying in their too long. Expect this thing to be voracious.
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