Category Archives: My Heroes

Steve Jobs: The Customer Experience Is Everything

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Part 6 in the series My Heroes.

Steven Jobs is definitely one of my heroes, not only because he pioneered the personal computer industry, reinvented the music and phone industry, but mainly because of his obsession with pushing the frontiers of customer experience.

Most companies and indeed entrepreneurs can barely satisfy their customers.  Many more are happy with a good percentage of satisfied customers.  But Steve Jobs believed  in something else.  My interpretation of his life-story has led me to believe that a C.E.O is supposed to be the chief representative of customers.  The C.E.O must be the chief customer, if you will, within an organisation who drives and inspires the rest of the team to consistently produce products or services that change lives.

This is a major paradigm shift from the conventional way of thinking of a head of business.  I know from my own experience that the tendency sometimes is to be obsessed with the power and control over everything; to be BOSS.  This couldn’t be farther from the truth because the real boss is the one who pays, even the C.E.O, so that he can pay for everyone and everything else.

I often think of the perfect romantic relationship between two people.  Gradually she calls less,  visits less,  says the right words less until it strikes him that the love has actually petered away and she’s long been seeing someone else.  While a few customers may be loud about their withdrawal, many will actually disengage gently without notice and find an alternative supplier.  The rest of the story is usually told by financials and in some cases a broken bank balance.

I was chatting with a former high school classmate who had ventured into advertising.  Having published a relatively good but visibly incomplete website, I told her to fix it in order to avoid losing customers.  She responded by saying she’s a multi-award winning designer and “people call me because they know what I’m capable of.”  Well, all I can say to that is sometimes being arrogant is precisely why even the biggest companies fall and get erased from memory.

Let me archive this great video of Steve Jobs handling an insult during a presentation.  In this video he demonstrates the essence of customer experience.

Colonel Harland Sanders: The Best Time is Now

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Part 5 in the series My Heroes.

Tonight I had the magnificent opportunity of exchanging thoughts with one of my elders.  The conversation, like a winding road, twisted and furrowed through the valleys of life and scaled to the sun lit peaks of opportunity.

I was particularly moved when he, my elder, told me that I was lucky because I was still young enough to pursue my dreams and that he was troubled by the amount of time he had wasted chasing nothing.  ”I have nothing to show for my years of hard work,” he somberly related to me.

It is then that I remembered that down the road from where I live stands a KFC.  ”Do you know why there’s a picture of an old man as the KFC logo?” I asked him.  A lot of dust had settled on my memory about the story of KFC, but I tried to relay the message as best I could.

The 11 secret spices of KFC were concocted by Colonel Harland Sanders.  He first served the chicken at his gas station in Corbin, Kentucky when he was forty years old in 1930.  Part of his trick entailed frying the chicken in a pressure cooker as opposed to a frying pan; that prepared the chicken much faster.  His chicken became so popular that in five years Colonel harland Sanders bought a motel across the street and expanded to a 142 seat restaurant.

Colonel Harland Sanders’ customers were generally travellers.  In the mid-1950′s though, his business collapsed due to the new interstate 75 highway which bypassed his town.  The new highway reduced the customer traffic drastically until he had to sell all his properties.

We learn that, at the age of 65, Colonel Harland Sanders took $105 from his social security check and visited potential franchisees.  The rest is history!

In a sense, KFC really started when Colonel Harland Sanders was 65 years old.  We also learn that he wore his distinctive white suite, string tie and his trademark mustache and goatee during the last 20 years of his life.  Hence the old man in a white suite as the KFC logo.

When is the right time to do something great?  Now, irrespective of age.

Charles Goodyear: Working Without Pay

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Part 4 in the series Makers of Today

It strikes me that today’s greatest weapon against AIDS , the condom, was made possible by a man who ended up in jail 6 times for unpaid debts, almost 150 years ago. Charles Goodyear (21 December 1800 – 1 July 1860) is the man who researched and developed the manufacturing process for making rubber durable and usable as we know it today.

After some time experimenting with gum, he went to New York and noticed the poor quality of tubes used to inflate lifebuoys (life preservers). He went home to Philadelphia and made better tubes with the gum he had been experimenting with and made a demonstration to the managers of Roxbury Rubber Company. They were impressed.

Roxbury told Goodyear that his product had to be tested for a year prior to approval. To his surprise, thousands of dollars in goods were returned because the gum was rotting. It is then that Goodyear made up his mind to experiment more with gum.

The first major breakthrough

When he returned home, an investor had him arrested and imprisoned! While he was in prison, he experimented with Indian rubber, magnesia and turpentine and discovered that that concoction removed the stickiness from the gum. He had made a breakthrough – or so he thought. After his release, he made a water resistant pair of shoes with the assistance of his wife and children.  Impressing some investors, he got access to some more funding.

However, it was not long until he discovered that the gum became sticky again. At this point, his investors pulled the plug on his project, grinding all research and development to a halt.  It was a waste of money and time to his investors. NEVERTHELESS, GOODYEAR WAS NOT DETERRED!

The Second major breakthrough

After selling his furniture and children’s schoolbooks for some cash, he continued experimenting with the white sticky stuff [gum].  He discovered that adding nitric acid to the rubber cured the surface.  Albeit the fumes from this process almost suffocated him, this was a great discovery that led to a partnership with an old friend.

He received world acclamation for this discovery. They opened a factory and produced clothing, rubber shoes, life preservers and a whole range of rubber products. Just when things were looking good, the panic of 1837 totally obliterated their fortunes and he was left penniless (again).

Goodyear made a good friend in J Haskins, who lent him money to continue with his vision. He found newer and better ways of producing rubber shoes. The problem was that the rubber could not withstand extreme temperatures and acid, and would always become sticky and decompose after time.

The Vulcanization process

Goodyear met Nathaniel Hayward, who had also been researching this material. Hayward showed Goodyear the progress he had made and they agreed that Hayward would patent that process, and Goodyear would purchase a license to use it. Hayward had solved the stickiness problem by adding sulphur!

At this point Hayward and Goodyear won a lucrative contract to produce mailbags. To their horror, these bags were returned at the signs of decomposition. Goodyear was penniless yet again and pressed!

Goodyear discovered that exposing his compound to an open flame charred by also left parts of the concoction perfectly cured and more elastic. He perfected this process, and later patented it as the famous process for manufacturing vulcanized rubber!

Goodyear was certain that he had solved the puzzle and invited friends to see his work, however investors had listened to him once too many times. He and his family suffered from the extreme consequences of poverty. Throughout their marriage (with his wife), they lost six children in infancy and a son who was slightly older.

Goodyear, together with his brother in law started a small factory producing rubber products. He went to Europe in 1852 only to find that Thomas Hancock claimed to have invented the vulcanization process and patented it in Britain. Goodyear contested the claims, but lost the legal battle.  After a lifetime of work, it was claimed by someone else…

He died in 1860. Almost 4 decades later, Frank Seiberling founded the Goodyear tire and Rubber Company (that we know today). Although Goodyear never lived to taste the fruits of his hard work, he was later (after his death) amoung 6 who were selected in the National Inventors Hall of Fame…

The life story of Charles Goodyear is close to my heart because, firstly it shows that when one is completely in love with what he or she does, no matter what happens, they never quit.  This is a story of an obsessed man.  For one who has never been obsessed with anything, it is a story of absurdity especially given the heartbreaking ending.  I choose to see it as a story of sheer determination.

Ron Clark: Educating is the Best Education

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Part 3 in the series My Heroes

I have found that the fastest way to learn is to teach somebody else.  Perhaps the anticipation of unknown questions forces one to apply themselves more to the newly acquired knowledge.

I also find that committing to teaching forces to break down their building blocks of knowledge to the simplest form.  Perhaps that too is in anticipation of different personalities and their levels to grasp something.  Either way, committing to teach seems to open up a valve that allow knowledge to flood in and stay there.

As I write, Ron Clark inspires me.  He “is known for his ability to raise test scores” significantly –Wikipedia.  I can only stress that he was not paid anything extra while building his legacy.  He simply loved what he was doing, just like Charles Goodyear.

Clark took a job in an elementary school in Harlem, New York, 1998.  He used innovative and unorthodox ways of teaching his learners, whom later achieved some of the highest scores in the region.  A movie called The Triumph  pronounces Ron Clark’s way of doing things far better than I could ever attempt.

I gathered two important points from the film.

  1. Education is the highest form of social interaction.  People will pay attention because they believe they have something to gain.  When education actually takes place, there’s a magic connection established between the people involved.  Everybody grows out of that process
  2. To win people, you must allow them to win you.  I found it fascinating how Ron Clarke allowed the children to teach him a thing or two in other areas of interest.  He openly allowed that to happen and that’s how the relationship spawned from disregarding the new teacher, to really having a special person who provides a source of growth.

Today we know of the Ron Clark Academy, a private non-profit school, built after 10 years of Ron Clark dreaming and pursuing its existence.

When you love what you’re doing, you cannot help but get it done properly.

William Kamkwamba: What is the Price for Greatness?

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Part 2 in the series My Heroes

I have been pondering over the past few years about why it is common that the stories of the great people stem from their worst circumstances such as loss or poverty?  Is this the price to pay for greatness?

Annie Q. Syed introduced me to a quote by Viktor Frankl, “What is to give light must endure burning”.   This quote has brought about a lot of peace and harmony in my thoughts, and I have come to another realisation that the same pain can be interpreted differently.
What triggers the change in perception?  With regards to, “the greatest people coming from worst circumstances”, I am leaning towards assuming that THEY HAD NO OTHER OPTION but to make the best of their situation.  From the dire situation, one who had the mind power to do something about it brought about a sense of inspiration and determination from within.Everybody has his or her own perception of things, but what I find very fascinating is that the same physical sensation can be interpreted and experienced in a polar opposite way.  The physical activities that occur during “tears of joy” are the same as “tears of sorrow”, but it is amazing how they have a different effect on ones mental state afterwards.

William Kwamkwamba at age 14, not only taught us that solutions stem from problems, but he also confirmed that one who has sufficient insight to see a problem,   also has the capacity to provide a solution.

“William Kamkwamba was born August 5, 1987, in Malawi.  Like most people in his village, his family of nine subsisted on the meager crops they could grow.  They lived without the luxuries considered necessities by many of us, such as electricity or running water.

Their situation became dire when, in 2002, Malawi experienced the worst famine in 50 years. Struggling to survive, 14-year-old William was forced to drop out of school because his family could not afford the $80-a-year tuition.” Source

With the extra time at his disposal, William built his first windmill, taking inspiration and concepts from pictorial instructions in a book from a local library, since he could not read fluently.  The Windmill was able to give power to 4 light bulbs and a radio for his family, and has since been modified and improved.

2007, During a Ted conference at age 19, William Kwamkwamba said, “After I dropped out of school, I went to a library and got a book titled ‘Using Energy’ and I got information about windmills, and I tried and I did it!”

Kamkwamba was profiled in the Wall Street Journal for his invention. And the book titled “The Boy who harnessed the wind” was said to be part of the top 10 selling books on Amazon.com in 2009.  An organisation called Moving Windmills now exists, and its motto is, “African Solutions for African Problems,”  which is led by William and many others.

But does it have to be a painful road that precedes all this?  Isn’t there another way?

Charles Lindbergh: Crossing Bounderies

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Part 1 in the series My Heroes

With this series I wish to remember all the people whose life stories bear testament to the fact that dedication is the primary ingredient to making great contributions in life.

While we all dream big and aspire to achieve big things we should remember that it is through small achievements that we acquire the discipline to execute bigger ideas.

We learn this from Charles Lindbergh.  The first man to fly non-stop from New York to Paris, crossing the pacific ocean and and winning the Orteig Prize, this after 6 men had lost their lives attempting the same.  At age 25 on 20th of May 1927 Mr Lindbergh together with his partner, a single seat, single engine monoplane took off pursuing a journey that was more suicidal than anything else.

From an early age, Charles had exhibited an interest in the mechanics of motorized transportation including his family’s Saxon Six auto-mobile, later his Excelsior motorbike. By the time he enrolled as a mechanical engineering student at the University of Wisconsin–Madisonin 1920, he had also become fascinated with flying even though he “had never been close enough to a plane to touch it.” Lindbergh dropped out of the engineering program in February 1922, and a month later headed to Lincoln, Nebraska, to enroll as a student at the flying school” wikipedia

What is it that must go through a young man’s head so much that in five years after learning to fly he attempts to fly where no man had ever flown?  My view is that it boils down curiosity and the drive to fulfill it.  After succeeding in this daring attempt he became a world icon in aviation, receiving the highest honor in the US military and inspiring the aviation industry to grow by 3000% only 3 years after his achievement!

Whenever I think of a project or a client that I know I need to work with, but feel as though they are too big or out of my league, I think of Charles Lindbergh and his mammoth achievement with virtually no experience.  I also think about the powerful words etched in  Mark 9:23, “If thou cans’t believe, all things are possible…”

Today I’m inspired by Charles Lindbergh.