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June 2006

The Wisdom of Crowds

by Pete Abilla on June 29, 2006

wisdom of crowds

The book “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki explains how the aggregation of information in groups can result in outcomes better than if the decision was made by any single person in the group. He argues that there are 3 types of Crowd Wisdom: Cognition: Market judgment, which he argues can be much faster, [...]

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Landscaping and Trees

by Pete Abilla on June 28, 2006

We recently finished landscaping our yard — front, side, and back. We’re really happy with how things turned out. Before landscaping, we had HUGE wheat-looking weeds all over the place, which hid the basketball-sized rocks beneath. Now, we have grass, trees, curbing, and a nice cement pad to BBQ and entertain. I’ll explain the whole [...]

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The Pareto Principle

by Pete Abilla on June 26, 2006

The Pareto Principle was named after an Italian economist who discovered that 80% of the wealth in Europe was concentrated in 20% of the population. This discovery is also known as the 80/20 rule or the Law of the Vital Few. The Pareto Principle is a phenomenon that finds application in many places, such as [...]

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Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time

by Pete Abilla on June 26, 2006

Very few service providers, regardless of service, look at the customer’s experience — from the customer’s point of view. If they did, service providers would realize that customer’s wait around a lot and much of the customer’s time is wasted. Queue’s can be an effective way to organize. The key is in managing the queue [...]

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Customer-focused Product Management

by Pete Abilla on June 22, 2006

role of product manager

Product Management is often confused with Product Marketing and Technical Program Management. At some companies, all of the above are actually seperate delineated positions. At Amazon, however, they are pretty much the same job entitled: Technical Product and Program Manager (TPPM). Funky, ain’t it? Actually, there’s very good reason why Amazon has done it this [...]

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Customer Obsession: In Real Time

by Pete Abilla on June 20, 2006

jason calacanis, venture capital, leanstartup

Jason Calacanis is clearly customer focused.  He’s using the interactivity of the web as a real-time focus group.  This does several things: For AOL, it helps them improve quickly and creates a TON of goodwill with its customers.  For the customers, it helps them to feel listened to and that their thoughts and ideas are important. This [...]

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The Polarity Strategy

by Pete Abilla on June 19, 2006

polarity strategy, business

I am reading Robert Greene’s 33 Strategies of War. It’s a good book and I’ve learned a lot already. From time to time, I’ll summarize a strategy that I’ve learned from the book and provide examples. Today, I’ll be talking about the Polarity Strategy. As an introduction, Greene says this about Strategy: Strategic warriors operate [...]

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Spings Attack Shmula

by Pete Abilla on June 19, 2006

Update: After I posted this, I was Spinged 22 more times. That brings the total to 52 Spings in 3 hour period. I need to look at implementing captcha for my comments. More Update: I installed Akismet and I added a math question for comments to prevent bots from comment spamming me — and, I [...]

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