Ho Ho Ho

Happy holidays and stuff.

(No snow in Estonia)

Burj Al Arab

Some countries have signature places to visit. When you go to France, you have to go to Eiffel Tower and Louvre. When in India, you should visit Taj Mahal. For Dubai this place is Burj Al Arab.

Burj Al Arab, one of the symbols of Dubai, has (very) successfully create a mystique around it. It claims to be acknowledged as the best hotel in the world. It is a symbol of luxury, reachable only for the selected few. Not everybody can go there - just to look around costs 75$. Even most of the residents in Dubai have never been there. One night in the hotel starts from around 1300$ with the sky being the limit for the royal rooms.

The hotel as 8 restaurants and bars, I had dinner in one of them. For extra cost (about 110$) you can have a white Rolls Royce pick you up from your home to take you there. Restaurants are not cheap at all, but the food and service very of the highest quality. The dinner I had (buffet) was for 100$ per person (excluding drinks, even water) and it was easily one of the best dinners I have ever had. The buffet contained food that is quite often not included in the buffet menus like lobsters, oysters, sushi.



When we entered the restaurant I received a nice surprise - a table close to us was full of Estonians. There aren't so many of us and what are the chances of meeting some in Burj? One of the persons at the table was the rally ace Markko Märtin.

The hotel had a very nice ambiance, live classical music being played in the lobby (and they played very well). The hotel area size is not very large, but it's high and hollow inside. It was luxurious and nice, only the couches in the lobby looked rather cheap to me. In the entrance there was a cool fountain (see right). Escalators were next to aquariums with corals.

Dubai has a huge amount of 5 star hotels (total 54 by the end of this year), when you live here you happen to go to those places often (for drinks, dinner, appointments). This means you get somewhat desensitized to luxury and thats why Burj Al Arab didn't seem like that super special. But it was cool and different for sure, we had a lot of fun .

Books of the year

Every time when a year comes to an end all sorts of top lists are made. Best of song of the year, best footballer of the year and best book of the year. This post is about books in the non-fiction category.

You can find editors' list from Amazon for the best business books of 2006 here. Their no.1 book was The Long Tail which I have also written about in my blog. 800 CEO Read chose these books in their 2006 select.

I am going highlight my top 3 for the year. I chose these books based on the impact they had on me. I considered how they changed my paradigm, how they have been useful (e.g. contained information that I have used constantly successfully for my benefit over period of time) or how they expanded my horizons in a notable way.

1. Now Discover Your Strengths (M. Buckingham, D. Clifton)

This has been by far the most influential book for me. It has increased my self-awareness in so many ways and my understanding of other people. It will help you to understand what are you naturally good at, it will help you to explain why people are the way they are and why they excel at some jobs while not in others. Most certainly I will comprise my future teams based on the talents as it just make so much sense. I have personally experienced in so many ways how the talent concept introduced in the book really works. It is a must read book. I blogged about this book some months ago too.

2. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (R. Fisher, W. Ury)

This is a book about negotiations. We negotiate almost every day, whether its about the idea you came up with at work, which movie to see in the cinema or convincing somebody to do something. For those who want deeper insights into the art of principal based negotiations, this is a gem. I have used the knowledge I gained consciously so many times. I often in the middle of negotiations find myself thinking of the principals I learned, and have used them very successfully. There is no need to waste time on positional bargaining, there is a better way.

3. Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership (J. Jaworski)

Synchronicity is meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect. This is a very inspiring book. You should read it before embarking on a journey to achieve your dream. It is about importance of finding your true self, listening to your gut and seizing opportunities. It is not one of those teacher meets pupils kind of books where the guru tells you how to live, it is much more than that. The author tells his life story and wonders about life on the way. If you read "Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho where he wrote "if you really want something, all the universe will conspire with you", now you will understand what it means.


What are your best reads of the year?

A Compliment

A few days ago I received this e-mail:

"Hey Peep

Referring to your visit to our stall at CityScape, we were very much pleased with your approach. Should you be looking for any job in our concern, please call us at any time."

During the Cityscape real estate exhibition I was doing B2B selling and approaching many property companies, they were one of them. I take it as a compliment.

Corruption, reputation and wasta

Quite often in my business meetings I am asked "Who is the owner of the company?", sometimes also "How old is this company?" or "Where is your office?"

These questions are about reputation. It matters a lot who is the owner, if it's a local guy and if so, from which family? Or if its international, is it a part of a major corporation that has been around for like 100 years? It matters in which part of the town (or on which street) your office is. Quite shallow and ridiculous, I think. Where I am from, this kind of questions are almost never asked. It matters who you are and what you do, but here this is not enough.

I think this is characteristic to Middle East (and perhaps other parts of the world as well) and its roots come from Wasta. Wasta is who do you know, what is your background (family), how connected you are. It can be considered as a specific type of corruption (translation: a mean, mechanism, medium). Wasta is about having someone in a power position do something (legal or illegal) for you (a favor) that couldn’t be done without a wasta. What is different from other kind of corruption is that people don’t usually hide their acts when they use Wasta, they even brag about it, and offer providing the same wasta to people around us to help them out (to get a better social standing). With enough wasta, anything can be done: any lawful punishment can be escaped, any employment can be attained, any problem can be brushed aside.

People use wasta for business. Hence the question - who is the owner of the company. If you have big enough wasta, you can get your startup business launched in no time. Doors will open if the right names are involved.

From my personal experience I know people who have been teaching here for years in government schools. They told me that wasta is even used in the local schools (for emiratis). For example a student is in the school on a scholarship, but is lazy as hell and doesn't study, fails all exams and doesn't even show up sometimes. Teachers tell the administration to stop the scholarship, but get the answer "He is a nice kid, comes from a good family". Wasta.

I haven't personally had much contact with Wasta. It is much more common among the locals, which are the minority in the country (and 95% of them work in the public sector).

Fortunately the business sector (at least to my knowledge) is not very corrupt, although I have heard of bribery cases.

Dubai real estate developments

Last week there was a real estate exhibition in Dubai called Cityscape - claiming to be the largest in the world. To get a glimpse of the scale of the real estate developments here, see these pictures. Real estate is booming here like nothing else and the number of remarkable developments is huge. This is just a selection of new developments, not nearly everything.






























































































































































































































































































This building is an exact copy of an.. iPod! Most technologically advanced building in the world. Everything is voice programmed. If the phone rings, your whole apartments is blinking. You can choose the colour of the walls depending on your mood. You can have have pre-programmed romance theme in your bedroom if you want.

How to Succeed in 2007

CNN Money just published something cool: How to succeed in 2007. It comprises of short pieces of advice given by some of the world's most successful people (impressive list).

Some of the advice is about build the next Google, some tell you how to stay ahead, how to be a great leader, or - how to do well by doing good - my personal favorite.

Worth checking out: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/howtosucceed/index.html

Being a Samurai warrior

Large part of what I do for living is helping my Clients to get more clients. So I am meeting a lot of people to figure out together whether they could benefit from what I do.

I am sure most people can recognize an intelligent and smart person when they talk to one. There is one thing that especially strikes out in my line of work. Some people listen with the intent to understand and think along with you, they participate in the conversation. It doesn't necessarily mean they will do business with me. That's the smart kind of people.

Some listen with the intent to respond and jump to conclusions in the first second. They judge you from the moment you open your mouth and don't even try to understand. Some say "yes, lets do it" without even understand how it work or what it means to them. Some come up with weird counter arguments that have no significance to the issue discussed. They don't make an effort to understand. That's the stupid kind.

I believe this behavior reflects their overall personality. They don't listen and jump to conclusions in internal meetings, at home, in casual conversations. I personally try to avoid that kind of people whenever I can. It is likely they have missed some really good opportunities because they didn't make an effort to understand.

I think that as we cruise through life we have to be like Samurai warriors. Always on the look for that little piece of opportunity that comes our way, ready to seize it. Next time somebody tells you of an idea, make sure you listen. Have the attitude that this could be one the brightest things you'll ever hear.

Penis extensions

There are some men in the world who are deeply disturbed. They have inferiority complex, or they are impotents or have other kind of problems that seriously affect their self-esteem. As a result they go out of their way to seem bigger, better and more important. They rely on external things when it comes to their self-worth. These things are called penis extensions.

Some have to drive a big ass car, some have to yell at their wife, children and employees to make themselves feel better and get ego satisfaction. Two examples that happened to me in the last weeks in my business meetings:

Case A.
I go meet this manager of some company. Secretary leads me to his room and I find it to be a quite a large room. In the middle there is a huge rectangular table. The manager sits in one end of the table, I am being seated in the other end. The distance between us is perhaps 5 meters. He smokes while talking to me.

Case B.
Another company, another manager. He sits on a throne (its golden and any emperor would feel proud sitting there). He starts telling me about himself. How many degrees from which US universities (3 undergraduate, 2 masters, 1 PhD), where he has worked for how many years and how successful he has been. He tells me whom he knows and what connections he has. He talks about his relations with local royal families (he is not a local himself) and shows me an invitation sent by one of the sheikhs. His rant lasts easily over 5 minutes.

Seriously, get a life. Figure yourself out. Penis extensions don't work. They make you look insecure and pathetic. I fear for people who have to work under a person with a need to compensate something. Strive for inner confidence and internal self-worth instead.

Anyone can slay a dragon, she told me

I read quite a few blogs on regular basis. Sometimes I click the "Next Blog" link in the upper bar in Blogspot blogs with the hope to discover something cool.

One day that just happened to me. This blog belongs to a girl named Lindsay whom I've never met, but find very interesting. She is the most poetic person I know (even though I don't know her), her writings just keep on amazing me. I especially love the way she titles her blog posts.

Check it out. Its worth reading several entries, then you will see what I mean. The address is this: http://someeloquentgraffiti.blogspot.com/

Important

Go see "An Inconvenient Truth". It is very, very important.

Getting cold

Its the end of November, winter is approaching. Right now its 27 C outside. In the morning and evening its a bit lower and - and I can't believe it - I actually feel a bit cold then. Dubai weather has spoiled me (even though I hate the summers here).

I'm going home for Christmas and New Year. I bought the ticket today, so its official. Between 19.12 and 06.01 Estonians have a fantastic opportunity to meet up with me. I keep wondering whether the weather will kill me. Haven't seen snow or experienced sub-zero degrees for 1.5 years.

Social capitalism

"Companies are beginning to realize that these questions of 'How can I accomplish more good in the world?' and 'Where is the market opportunity?' are essentially the same question," says Jeff Hamaoui, founder of Origo Inc., a consulting firm that helps both nonprofits and for-profits navigate this blended arena of social enterprise. "Simply put, good business design maximizes opportunity and resources, now and for the future."

43 Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing The World

This just came in. There are a lot of organizations out there who are doing their bit in making the world a better place. Fast Company analyzed some of them, the ones who are using disciplines of the corporate world to change the world for better. Outcome is the list of 43 organizations who are the best at it.

Go here: http://www.fastcompany.com/social/ and see the list for 2007. We should applaud all of them and go work for them. Devoting your skills, passion and time for a cause worth fighting for is a life well lived.

The way things are supposed to be

I saw this movie recently in the cinema - "Accepted". It's this typical college-life simple fun movie that is easy to watch. Plot outline: when a high school burnout discovers he's been rejected from every college he's applied to, he creates a fake university in order to fool his overzealous parents.

Now in the university they create the students are the teachers and every student chooses what they want to learn. In the end of the movie they try to get the college accredited and the lead character gives an inspiring speech how the purpose of education is to develop the creativity of young minds and they don't have to be like any other university.

And that is quite an amazing point.

People are used to the way things usually are. They expect certain types of organizations to act a certain way or to have a certain way of operating.

It's expected that universities provide you with a specific curriculum and they have a faculty of professors. It's not expected that you give classes while being a student and choose every single subject you want not following a specific discipline.

It's expected that the waitress serves the tables in a coffee shop. It's not expected that a coffee shop serves as your temporary home where you can host your friends.

It's expected that the company's main goal is to maximize the profit. It's not expected that you are driven solely by a mission to make the world a better place.

It's expected that every person in the company has a specific job role and there's a hierarchy. It's not expected that the staff divides the necessary tasks among themselves every week and there is no boss at all.

It's expected that a conference takes place in a fancy location with high-tech facilities and they serve good food. It's not expected that a big conference takes place outdoors or in an warehouse and people have to cook themselves food over a bonfire.

What if you'd change the way people are used to see things? Sure, it will create some resistance to the idea, but more likely the innovation will make you remarkable. It will help you to stand out from the competition and create something cool. It's a great competitive advantage. It will make people talk about you. It will make people want to work for you or buy your products.

Challenge the way thing usually are and you can drive innovation.

The Long Tail

Anyone interested in e-commerce and how endless choice is going to change the marketplace, should definitely read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. Its a very insightful book.

Seth Godin, the marketing guru, said "The ideas in this book are going to be talked about for the next ten years. Might as well get a copy now."

The main idea is that the times when the world was driven by hits (best-selling products) is about to be over. What is going on (already!) is that if you give the consumer endless choice, then the products that even sell once per quarter combined sell as much as hits or even outsell them. In the virtual room you don't have to worry about shelf space, you can list as many products as you like (millions!).

Its more and more a niche world, people's taste is more and more specialized. Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

When I finished the book, I instantly got ideas how to use the Long Tail theory to my advantage in business. Now its just a matter of time when Google buys my websites.

Not my country

Traffic is a serious problem in Dubai and the local Roads and Transportation Authority tries to figure out how tackle it. Now they've come up with a solution - introducing road tax. That means that you have to pay some money (4 dirhams, a bit over 1$) when you use certain roads at a certain time.

I was listening to a radio show the other day where people could call in and voice their opinions. You could see the remarkable difference between the locals (UAE nationals) and expatriates. The latter were mostly saying it is not right for various reasons (like no alternative routes or means of transportation) and the locals were saying 'What a good idea! I am happy to give money for my country'.

That captures it. Most of the population (~80%) are expatriates, have no emotional ties with the country and don't consider it as their own. Now UAE is starting to introduce different kinds of taxes slowly and expats don't like it one single bit. Of course they don't have any rights as well, no say in how things are being run in the country, emirates or city.

UAE nationals feel invaded. They have been taken over. And when they heard on the radio that expats don't want to pay any taxes what so ever to their motherland, its is understandable they get pissed. Quite many of them said "if you don't like it, leave!".

You can hear/read everywhere that a large group of the expat population (especially westerners) considers leaving UAE when they introduce taxes as this was one of the reasons to move here in the first place (tax-free country). The cost of living is very high as it is.

Since UAE is an expat country by nature (built by them, can't function without them), it should consider how to create more dialogue with the expats, giving them some form of participation.

This would mean of course first steps towards democracy and involve a bigger shake-up in the current way of running things.

Customer service excellence

As our company uses Google AdWords service, I have had to deal with Google's customer support people. For some reason their system rejected our credit card (now the problem has been fixed). Although the communication was via e-mail, it has been impressive. They have been trained to address client's frustrations and make them feel better. When a customer complains, then most of all he/she wants to be understood first. Here are some examples of how their e-mails begin:

"Thank you for your email. I understand your credit card was recently declined and you would like us to investigate this matter."

"Thank you for your reply.
I understand that you have re-tried your credit card and it is still not being accepted by our system."

"Hi Peep,
I understand that you are concerned about the current issue relating to your credit card and you wish to know if I have received any updates from our technical team."

...and so on. Although I understand that they follow their protocol and training, it still works! I feel like I'm being understood! And as a result I am happy and have positive feelings towards them.

What else can a customer support unit wish for!

Of Books and Men

I like to read, a lot. I mostly read non-fiction because I feel it helps me to learn and expand my world. I feel I get more out of a book that broadens my horizons, that gives me tools I can use in my life. I probably read more than your average reader does, about 4 books a month - I guess I can thank my Input and Learner talents (more about talents in upcoming posts).

Quite often after I've finished a book, I find myself thinking that what was said could have been said using less pages. It's like the authors feel (0r the publishers demand?) that the book has to have a minimum number of pages. It seems to me that this minimum is around 200 pages. Even though the whole point with explanations and examples and what not could be presented on about 100 pages or a bit more. Almost every book has these parts/chapters/blocks that are not necessary. Its like out of a 250 page book 120 give 90% of the value. The rest are not necessary.

Why is that? Is is because thicker books sell better? That the buyer feels the money was invested better if the book has more pages? Maybe then there should be a "price per page" indicator next to every book in the bookshop so customers could see the value? If anyone truly thinks this way, it is ridiculous. Or is it that if the book has less pages it might seem that the author doesn't have much to say? Some books are based on an extensive research and if I would like to know all the hard data I might as well go after the thousands of research documents. But I don't, I want to know the outcomes and conclusions of the research. And in most of the cases what truly matters can be said using less pages.

We live in a fast paced world and cutting down on pages might attract more people to read, cause then they don't have to feel 'Oh my good when am I going to find all this time to read this book!?'. Publishers might even start making more money because people will have more time on their hands to read more books.

(You can follow the books I'm reading at any point of time on the right. Feel free to ask for recommendations)

Numbers from the book industry

Ever considered making money by writing books? Here are some "encouraging" numbers for you to consider.

In 2004, 950,000 books out of 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen BookScan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1200 books sold more than 50,000 copies. True, 10 books sold over a million copies (17 million in total).

The average book in America sells about 500 copies. Whats the number is other parts of the world I don't know, but probably the difference with Europe is not huge (even if it would be 3x more, its still a pathetic number).

This means that 98% of the books are noncommercial, whether they were intented that way or not.

// Source: The Long Tail, Chris Anderson