Ignorance

"Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; an argument an exchange of ignorance." Robert Quillen

Ignorance is not foolish, but foolish encourages people not to remain ignorance. People don't want to be seen as incompetent idiots, because they don't want to be isolated. Nobody like to be friends with fools. They work hard in order not to be labeled as fools. Although being smart always helps, high IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, can lead people to become complacent, which will sooner or later lead to self-destruction.

Humble perhaps is the key to being wise. People who think they know everything won't listen and learn, and will ultimately become ignorance. Humble helps people "stay hungry, stay foolish", an idea delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, to 2005 graduates of Stanford Univeristy.

Self-aware ignorance does not breed ignornace but wisdom.

For the complete article of "stay hungry, stay foolish", please visit http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.

Ignorance is bliss.

Try My Best

Deliverable has to be produced whenever a task is assigned. There are basically three steps to deliver results: Planning, Execution, and Evaluation.

For planning, it is not only to define the actions to be taken from start to completion but also to identify potential risks. Prevention is better than cure. For execution, it is all about people management and the ability to manage unexpected changes. For evaluation, it is to show appreciation and learn from mistakes in order to prevent recurrence of the same problem. Efforts should be made to strengthen strengths and weaken weaknesses for sustainable improvement.

People like to say they'll try the best, and expect others to appreciate. Fact is, "try the best" is only the basic requirment. If the task is not performed with the "CDE" attitude, or commitment, drive and enthusiasm, the results are destined to be doomed.

However, it is always more important to "try the best" during execution than after evaluation.

Try the best during execution helps ensure excellent results. After? Who cares! Everybody suffers from the negative result already.

ICQ

ICQ is short for "I seek you", and it's been available to the online community since November 1996.

ICQ makes the world a smaller place by providing a platform for people around the globe to do online chatting. Chatting means informal conversation. Since it's informal by default, it's not usual to communicate formal messages via ICQ. However, people sometimes use ICQ to do online dating. Shouldn't love be treated seriously? Why people communicate love in an informal way?

An interesting thing is that there is really true love in the cyberworld. People do get married to others they met online. There is no personal interaction, or human touch, online. Everything is virtual, and on the mind. How could that be possible?

Online chatting delivers the experience that will leave people not knowing what to expect next.

Experience rules!

Key Ring

Key ring is a small chain used to link together a number of keys.

Without key ring, everything will be in a mess. Keys are everywhere, but it gets everyone nowhere. People may be lost, and will even have difficulties finding the right key for the key hole. Although key ring is only an accessory, it helps people organize better and shorten search time. Key ring is indeed a valuable tool, but nobody really cares. People are so used to the existence of key ring, and simply take it for granted. They have too many things to worry, and being organized is simply not their priority in life.

Key ring is a small detail, and it is like customer service.

Customer service is about details. Excelling at every touchpoint, or the detail, is the key to achieving Touchpoint eXperience Excellence (TXE), but how detail should be the details?

Small critical detail actually requires the highest magnification, so it becomes the focus and won't be neglected.

Not all details are important, but critical ones deserve the most attention, like key ring. Instead of getting everything right, it is more effective to excel at critical details.

News

No news is good news? It depends. Sometimes it's better to have some good news than no news. If the news is about an improvement, and that the improvement benefits everyone, why should anyone still want no news? But if the news is about acts of God, then no news is truly good news.

It is also impossible to have no news. People are nosy, and that becomes a demand. So long as there is demand, there will be supply. Reporters have to create not only good news but regrettably also bad news. The question is, what do the nosy readers want first? Good news, or bad news? This is like asking the customary, time-honored question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?"

Seeing the glass as half empty means the person is a pessimist, because that person dwells on the lack in his or her life. Seeing it as half full means the person is optimistic, because that person focus on the good things in life. Everyone knows the metaphor, so in order to be seen as an optimist, even though the person is in fact a pessimist, he or she will choose half full and describe himself or herself as an optimist.

How about the sequence of good and bad news? Is it another metaphor for life? Who cares, when everyone knows how to be a great pretender?

Here comes a joke on good news and bad news. A man gets a telephone call from a doctor. The doctor says: "About this medical test I did on you, I have some good news and some bad news." The man asks for the good news first: "The good news is that you have 24 hours to live," says the doctor. The man, incredulously: "If that is the good news, then what is the bad news??" "I couldn't reach you on the phone yesterday."

In conclusion, no bad news is good news.

Change

"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts." Arnold Bennett

Although everyone unwillingly accepts that the only constant is change, nobody really willingly accepts change. It is useless and meaningless trying to escape from change, because change is simply inevitable. Everything just keeps changing, and it won't stop changing until the judgment day, or the deadline. Change is about progress. The direction can be forward or backward, but there is always a movement involved.

It is easier to accept if the change is for the better. It is just a matter of time and adaptability. If the change is for the worse, then nobody will accept but resist. Although time heals, it won't heal all. Why should one have to accept something worse than before?

The best way for managing change is to set zero expectation and have non-zero flexibility. Although positive experience is achieved when value of actual deliverable exceeds that of expected, zero expecation guarantees expectations will always be met. Flexibility facilitates change of expectations, which then makes zero expectation possible.

Treat change as tide: live with it but never against. After all, all changes come from the same origin, and that origin is attitude.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Good luck!

Thank You

“God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say thank you?" William Arthur Ward

People take everything for granted.

The people have to be right. The information has to be right. The deliverables have to be right. If nothing is right, they either complain or simply walk away and never return. The first reaction is always to blame, but not to understand why things go wrong. It seems that spending time gaining a better understanding of imperfect is a sin. It is indeed ridiculous not to first appreciate the efforts spent on trying to get things right, but just to blame on the imperfect results!

Everyone wants perfect and shies away from imperfect. What's wrong with imperfect? If everything is perfect, then perfect doesn't really exist. Fact is, imperfect makes perfect possible.

It is easy to show appreciation for perfect results but not for imperfect ones. However, it is easy to say thank you from the head, but difficult to say it from the heart. Sorry may be the hardest word, but thank you the most difficult. Excesssive sorry abuse kindness, and excessive thank you loses its meaning. Sorry is used when things go wrong, turning negative into positive. Thank you is used when things go right, trying to acknowledge efforts and appreciate results.

Just one second can change everything.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Tires

Tires are the only contact between a vehicle and the road. However, people seldom pay special attention to tire condition unless they are professional and experienced drivers. Some touchpoints are like tires. They are not obvious but have critical and significant power to affect results.

I had this tire blowout experience lately. When I was on my way to a dinner gathering, the front tire suddenly deflated rapidly. The car started to lose its balance, and since this was my first time, I had no idea how to deal with the situation. I wasn't nervous because the worst scenario was death which I don't care about much. After all, everyone has a deadline, and there is no exception for me. Not far away there was a carpark. I immediately pulled the car over, and took a taxi instead to the destination.

The next day my friend referred me to a tire maintenance center. Since he's a car expert, I visited the center without a second thought. That's the power of grapevine, or word of mouth. When I reached the center, the technician provided bad services, not to mention about the price premium for nothing. I couldn't decide if I should hire the deliverable because I knew for sure I could get the same quality of tire at a cheaper price elsewhere, but I needed to check the source and as a result incurred further transaction costs. Were that extra transaction costs worthwhile, given I should replace the bursted tire asap? My decision was pending, but the clock was also ticking...

Nobody is dumb enough to hire the exact same product at a higher cost. In order to enjoy positive experience, I opted for the next best alternative, which was not my friend's referral. Not only was the tire replaced but the vehicle was also inspected for problems. Some were fixed for better performance and security reasons at competitive cost.

When there is word of mouth, it still does not guarantee anything. Experience rules at the final point of decision.

Please leave a message after the beep...

Everyone is always busy at something. It's almost impossible to successfully reach the person the first time. There are only two options when the person is not available: leave a message or just hang up.

If one leaves a message, there is no guarantee that he or she will return the call. Even if the person returns the call, nobody knows when. This unknown will definitely affect the deliverable quality. If the sender doesn't leave a message, then the message will be on hold forever. The receiver doesn't even know there is a message pending. No deliverable will ever be produced. Even if the receiver answers the call, he or she may not be able to immediately provide solutions. Nothing will be delivered if wrong things are done at the wrong time at the wrong place by the wrong person.

It is always better to leave a message than do nothing if a touchpoint chain is to be continued.

Developing a touchpoint chain requires non-stop communications. If there is discontinuity, it's difficult to reactivate everything again.

SMS

Everyone has to communicate in order to survive. If the person is deaf, there is fingerspelling to help the deaf reach out beyond their borders. If blind, there is Braille system and Moon system to help them read. When there is a will, there is a way. Nobody won't be able to communicate with others unless the person intentionally isolates himself or herself from the world.

Different generations use different tools to communicate. 40s use phone and email. 30s-40s use IM in addition to phone and email. For 30s or younger, they use SMS, IM, phone and email. SMS or Short Messaging Service has become a common communication channel, and so is IM or Instant Messaging for the younger generation.

However, SMS and email are not real time communications but rather wait-and-see. The receiver can either think twice before replying, or simply ignore without replying. Although both methods give more time for both the sender and the receiver to come up with the perfect message, it may not necessarily generate positive touchpoint experience, particularly SMS.

In Hong Kong, phone, email and IM are basically free communications. For phone, the user pays a monthly flat charge, and then he or she can make unlimited local phone calls. Nobody has to worry about the phone quota. For email and IM, what the user needs is a PC and IM software, which can be downloaded for free online. But for SMS, besides the monthly charge for a fixed number of Intra SMS, the user has to incur costs for additional SMS above the quota, and also costs of each Inter SMS. SMS is more expensive when compared with other communication channels.

Interestingly enough, some people prefer to send SMS rather than to call. This is not rational. Making a phone call basically is free of charge, but sending a SMS is charged on a pay-per-use basis. Why people prefer a deliverable that costs money to another deliverable which delivers the same result but at zero cost?

It is all about the experience of waiting to know...

Coin Toss

Decision making is both art and science.

It is an art because no decision is absolutely right or wrong. A bad decision may seem bad initially, but something can always be learned from a mistake. A good decision promises positive results, but it also encourages the decision maker to be a prisoner of success.

It is a science because there are many methods to make a decision. Decision can be made based on research such as Cost-Benefit Analysis, or plain gut feelings, such as coin toss. Please visit http://www.43folders.com/2005/09/01/eight-tools-for-streamlined-decision-making/ for more decision making methods.

When to adopt which is the question.

Making a decision is actually about eliminating choices. Wants are unlimited but resources aren't. As a result, people have to make choices and incur opportunity costs. The final choice is in fact the decision. All decision involves not only opportunity costs but also selection costs. Opportunity costs are the costs incurred after the decision is made, where selection costs during decision making. However, who really cares about the selection and opportunity costs? Just go with heart, and leave the rest to God.

Every day everyone needs to make at least a decision.

One can choose to bounce out of bed and get up when the alarm rings the first time, the second time, or simply just stay in bed no matter how many times the alarm rings. Nobody is going to perform a Cost-Benefit Analysis to decide when to get up, because it's not justified. But why not? Simply because the person is too tired to try to make a decision is not an excuse that no analysis should be performed for such an activity.

If one gets up late, he or she may either be late for school or work. Lateness hurts everyone because time is wasted on nothing. The consequence of getting up late can be significant.

But again, who cares!?

Just throw the coin in the air and let random decide everything.

If coin is not available at the point of decision making, try this.

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/probability/cointoss.html

Credibility

What is credibility?

Credibility is the quality or power of inspiring belief. (http://www.m-w.com)

Why is credibility important?

Credibility removes barriers and reinforces trust. Barriers hinder advancement, a negative touchpoint experience. Trust smooths out anxiety and obstacles, a positive touchpoint experience.

How to build credibility?

"The more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have." Brian Koslow

Accepting responsibility for actions is one thing. Delivering results is another. Credibility is built when results are delivered, but definitely not when one is a yes man! Unquestioning obedience is an act of stupidity.

"Getting started, keeping going, getting started again - in art and in life, it seems to me this is the essential rhythm not only of achievement but of survival, the ground of convinced action, the basis of self-esteem and the guarantee of credibility in your lives, credibility to yourselves as well as to others." Seamus Heaney

Credibility is also achieved when there is consistency of results. Everyone is tempted to deviate from the norm due to changes in environment. However, nobody understands that all changes come from the same origin. Only those who maintain and improve quality of deliverables consistently will earn credibility.

"You cannot lie ever, because a lie destroys the credibility of the product, and credibility is more important than anything. Credibility's even more important than clarity." Frank Luntz

Although lying is a sin, and should not be encouraged, it is also an art. A good lie that draws a smile can cover up everything harmful and destructive, but a bad lie that draws a tear reveals the brutal truth.

When positive experience is delivered at every touchpoint, credibility is built. The question is, how many touchpoints are there?

But...

Sentence One: "I'm sorry, but I think you are wrong. Please redo."

Sentence Two: "It is not a perfect solution, but it's acceptable. Let's go ahead."

What is the difference between these two sentences?

Sentence One starts out positively, but ends negatively. Sorry is meaningless as long as the receiver does not receive recognition for a completed task, and even so is requested to do the same task again in the hope of improvement. Although the process is not destructive, the result is. This leads to negative touchpoint experience.

Sentence Two starts out negatively, but ends positively. Imperfect is not a sin. After all, nothing is perfect, and everyone is imperfect. That's why perfect is so priceless. Once this brutal fact is understood and accepted, then imperfect is really nothing. Imperfect encourages hesitation, hesitation creates inertia, inertia generates no results. Sometimes it is better to just do it than talk without any action. Positive touchpoint experience is about action that gets results.

"But" is a very interesting yet powerful word. If used correctly, it turns negative positive; else, it ruins everything.

Positive touchpoint experience comes with a positive but, a but with positive ending. People remember last best.

Trust

Trust is founded on commitment, and is the foundation of positive relationship. Without trust, it is almost impossible to build Touchpoint eXperience Excellence (TXE).

Trust is never given but earned. Nobody can take trust for granted, and it is definitely not a free lunch. Trust takes forever to build, but just one moment to break. If life is unfair, then trust is definitely more unfair than life. When something is done wrong in life, it can't be fixed, and there is no point of return. That's just it. It's no use crying over split milk, and it's not worth spending time redoing everything, because the result is simply irreversible. Instead of wasting time asking why, it's better not to look back but start all over again.

When trust is lost, it can be rebuilt. However, rebuilt trust is never the same as before. It's really naive to believe that rebuilt trust can go back to the same level as in day one. Efforts spent on rebuilding trust definitely won't yield the expected return. It's therefore important not to lose trust in the first place. Same applies to mistakes. Mistakes can be forgiven but never be fully forgotten.

Every touchpoint is an opportunity to build trust, and that missteps can quickly break trust.

What are missteps? Actions that do nobody good but only benefit oneself are definitely false steps. Actions that benefit not only oneself but also everyone concerned are correct steps.

How to deliver correct steps? Always execute the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

Never be a spring! When one is being corrected, it is like a compressed spring. He or she will stay good for a while, but without commitment to right the wrong, the spring will sooner or later return to its original shape, or the extended spring.

Trust this? http://home.earthlink.net/~truthfaith/truthfaith.html

Blind Spot

Drivers seldom turn their head briefly to check blind spot. They just glance in the rear-view mirror, believing that it is an accurate reflection of reality. If there is no object shown in the rear-view mirror, they will go ahead to make the turn or change the lane. But is the rear-view mirror really reliable?

Most of the time, people are too lazy to dig out the truth. They rather listen to gossip which is almost available anytime anywhere at zero cost but not necessarily true than spend time researching for the fact. Without right or positive information, nobody is able to produce positive deliverable.

Although fact is brutal and gossip entertaining, truth stands the test of time. Time wears things down. Things erode, or wither, or decay, or die. Only truth endures. To see things clearly is actually to search for the fact.

Next time, turn head to check blind spot. Although seeing is believing, it really depends on how things are being perceived.

Safe driving!

Relevance

Everything is connected to everything else, which means that everything ultimately comes down to relevance. Relevance links everything together. If things are irrelevant, then nobody will bother to take a step further. Irrelevancy brings discontinuity, and relevance maintains momentum and sustains touchpoint chain.

Why purchase a book? A simple reason is to enrich knowledge. A special reason could be for collection only. Many people have the habit of buying books without ever reading one page, and they are not really bookworms. Bookworms read, and they do read. They have expectations on every book they buy. If there is no substance in the book, the deliverable does not meet expectation, and produces bad experience.

Relevance is just the starting point of a touchpoint chain, but it does not guarantee the chain existence thereafter. It's experience to build and sustain the touchpoint chain.

Bon voyage!

Fatty

In Hong Kong, ads on helping fatty get slim are all over the place. Ads exist in the form of outdoor ads, print ads, TV ads, and also internet banners. Celebrity with evident will also be used to strengthen the message. Regardless of the ad medium, they basically deliver the same message: stay beauty.

Why beauty is so important, not only for women but also men, basically for everyone?

The first 30 seconds decide almost everything. A stranger trying to win the audience should use the first 30 seconds effectively. Otherwise, it will take a lifetime to rebuild what could be built in less than a minute.

If the person looks handsome and nice, a good impression is formed on the spot and it's easier to break the ice. Actually, it's just like dating. Gorgeous women are easily attracted to men. And why? Because everyone chases after perfection. People usually judge a stranger by appearance first, or outer beauty, then by inner beauty, which takes more time to see inside the shell. They just don't have the patience to wait for the person to bring out the inner beauty. Outer beauty is more than enough.

The world is unfair, and it is created unfair by people. Fact is, inner beauty is more important, as it represents attitude. However, those with higher BQ, or Beauty Quotient, will always have an absolute advantage over those who have lower, for no solid reason. That advantage allows them to provide delivery of positive touchpoint experience without much efforts.

Outer beauty? How long does it last?

Touchpoint eXperience Management @ 060713

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." Dorothy Nevill

There are 2 environments - Internal Organization (i) and External Market (e). In each environment, there are 3 types of touchpoint - People, Information and Deliverables (PID). Each type of touchpoint produces 3 kinds of experience - Positive, Indifferent, Negative. In order to achieve Touchpoint eXperience Excellence (TXE), iPID have to have positive experience first in order to produce positive experience in ePID. ROI maximization is possible when TXE is achieved.

Without touchpoint, there is no opportunity for anyone to experience the experience. Without experience, it is impossible to determine whether subsequent touchpoint is possible. Touchpoint is therefore the foundation of basically everything, and it is necessary to ensure that once a relationship is formed, there is no discontinuity in the chain. Maintaining a chain of touchpoints will either strengthen or weaken the relationship, depending on the experience.

If the chain consists only of negative experience, it is better not to continue the chain. It can be argued that by maintaining the chain filled with negative experience, there is at least chance to turn negative experience into positive, but once the first impression is formed, it becomes really difficult to correct the impression. However, there are always two options: go, or no go. Besides giving up which should always be used only as a last resort, one can choose to navigate and pick a different course in order to bring new order in the chain.

4R is an evaluation tool to determine to start or continue a touchpoint, and it is an acronym for Relevance, Reaction, Return and Risk.

New Touchpoint - If there is no previous touchpoint experience, then the receiver will see if the touchpoint is relevant or not. If relevant, then the next step is to check intangible factors such as attitude of sender, content of information, and value of deliverable. If they remain positive, then the reciever will perform a quick cost-benefit analysis before accepting the touchpoint.

Old Touchpoint - If previous touchpoint experience is positive, then it is easier for the receiver to accept the touchpoint, but he or she may have higher expectations on the coming touchpoint. If previous touchpoint experience is negative, then the sender may need to spend more efforts to assure the receiver that the next touchpoint will not be a recurrence of previous touchpoint.

Enneagram

According to Enneagram, there are 9 types of people.

Type 1 - Reformer
Type 2 - Helper
Type 3 - Achiever
Type 4 - Individualist
Type 5 - Investigator
Type 6 - Loyalist
Type 7 - Enthusiast
Type 8 - Challenger
Type 9 - Peacemaker

That's it? No more types?

The United States Census Bureau reports on 13 July 2006 that the world population is 6,528,025,217. Can Enneagram segment the 6.5 billion individuals into 9 different categories? Em...

Understanding a person inside-out and outside-in is important in determining whether or not to keep the touchpoint chain, but Enneagram definitely is not the tool to use. There are 10 reasons.

01) Enneagram was originally used for spiritual development.
02) It is a sophisticated tool which is both complex and dynamic.
03) It has no common terminology for each type.
04) One has to understand the wing, trait, and healthy level.
05) The person has to take a RHETI test in order to identify his or her type.
06) RHETI is a scientifically validated test but nothing is mentioned about accuracy.
07) The type can change during lifetime.
08) It can be misued to get a quick fix on people - piegon-hole or box people in.
09) It is easy to make snap judgements on people.
10) It oversimplies complex reactions.

Human beings are the most complicated creature on earth. If one decides to read a person by Enneagram, please give it a second thought, or try face-reading instead. No test is required. A person is being judged even without his or her knowledge.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is not a new concept. Although it is relevant to and should be in fact the core objective of daily activities, it is seldom mentioned and applied in the world of sales and marketing.

It is always like this. When nobody mentions about it, it's always being ignored. Then one day when somebody starts to pay attention to the subject, everyone immediatley wants to know more about it, even if it is irrelevant to his or her well-being. The subject suddenly becomes rich and famous! That's human nature, and it is indeed a sad part of life.

CLV is the total value of a customer spanning the entire period of the relationship with the enterprise. It is the potential contribution of that customer to the enterprise throughout the customer's lifetime.

Every sales rep should have an objective. It is not about "c"ultivating more customers. It is not about "a"cquiring market share from competitors. It is not about "r"etaining customers by providing excellent services. It is also not about "e"xpanding the share of wallet of the customers. It is to maximize CLV within the shortest period of time by offering positive touchpoint experience consistently, in terms of PID, or People, Information, and Deliverables. The CARE strategy mentioned above is only used to achieve this single core objective.

CLV is also related to customer profitability. In simple terms, profit is revenue minus cost. Revenue equals price times quantity. Quantity represents each individual product sold to the customer, meaning that quantity is composed of two variables: product and customer.

In order to maximize CLV mathematically, the enterprise should really...
01) Increase the frequency of the product sold through repeat selling
02) Increase the number of customer through acquistion and retention
03) Increase the revenue from customer through cross-selling and up-selling
04) Decrease the cost of serving the customer through process improvement

GPO

GPO is short for General Post Office in Hong Kong.

Mr Postman is one of the toughest jobs in today's business world. Regardlesss of weather conditions, Mr Postman has to deliver mails and parcels to many locations every day. Salute to you, Mr Postman!

Effective 01 July 2006, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) adopted a five-day week for many offices of Government policy bureaus and departments. Although those offices will open longer from Monday to Friday, and the Government has also provided a 24-hour hotline and website for the citizens to learn more about the new work pattern, the deliverable is simply not for the citizens.

It really does not matter what the Government had done to ensure that people in need of assistance would still be able to get help under the new work pattern. This change in work pattern is already an inconvenience to people in need.

However, the opening hours of all post office counters remain unchanged. Mail delivery will continue on Saturdays. Poor Mr Postman...

A five-day week adopted by HKSAR is said to be "an initiative to reduce the pressure of the working population and to improve the quality of their family life, without impairing operational efficiency. The scheme will bolster civil service morale, promote social harmony and bring about positive impact on the community."

Reduce the pressure of the working population? Bolster civil service morale? Promote social harmony? REALLY!???

If the deliverable produces inconvenience, and thus negative experience, to the citizens, who is going to be blamed? Our innocent civil servants. After all, almost every citizen has to pay tax! Who is willing to suffer a drop in service level as long as it is not free-of-charge?

Extending the opening hours on weekdays will not benefit the citizens either due to regular unpaid overtime work of the working force.

Since the deliverable experience is negative, even if the information experience is positive, the impact on the community is still negative.

Well...

HKSAR welcomes views on the scheme. If interested, email tellme@1823.gov.hk

Sin

"Sin" is the short form of "sine", one of the three ways to form a ratio of the three sides of a triangle. The remaining twos are cosine and tagent.

There are still many unsolved mathematical problems. If interested to solve some of them, please visit http://mathworld.wolfram.com/UnsolvedProblems.html.

Besides problems in mathematics, everyone faces many other problems, and in handling the problems, he or she may inevitably create more problems. Sadly, this is an ironic situation. Is it worthwhile to create more problems while trying to get rid of problems? It depends. If the problems created generate more meaningful action items and prevent same problems from recurrencing, it's acceptable. Otherwise, the whole exercise is only going to be a waste of resources.

However, problems should not be seen as negative. Without problems, there is no room for improvement. Everyone commits sin, and there are no exceptions to saints. When one makes mistakes, it's really no big deal! Everyone makes mistakes. Before one gets angry at others because of a mistake, he or she has to ask 3 questions.

01) Has he or she not made the same mistake before?
02) Does the person making the mistake know he or she is making a mistake?
03) Is the mistake an old one, or a repeated one?

If he or she has made the same mistake before, then why blame? He or she has already experienced the pain, and it is now his or her responsiblity to share the wisdom. TEACH!!!

If the person doesn't even know he or she is making a mistake, it's really meaningless to scold at the person. The person being scolded definitely will have hard feelings, because he or she doesn't know the reasons of being punished. Because of the accusee's innocent reaction, the accuser will get even more upset. As a result, it will only produce negative touchpoint experience. It is more effective to help the person understand and accept that he or she is having a problem before any corrective action is taken. However, if the person doesn't agree that he or she is a problem maker, then it is necessary to help him or her acknowledge the fact, no matter how unwilling he or she might be.

If the person admits that he or she is a problem maker, but still keeps making the same old problem again and again and never-ending, and does nothing to correct the problem, rest the case. SHUN!

Deadline

Everything has a deadline.

Although the deadline is not mentioned some time, it won't just disappear. Anyone can miss a deadline, but nobody can avoid it. If the task isn't fixed before the deadline, nobody really cares. After all, there is still plenty of time, and nothing is urgent until the last minute. If it is closed to the deadline, someone who's above will start to remind whoever is held responsible for the task of the deadline, but no serious action will be taken. If after the deadline the deliverable is still not yet available, the original deadline is then announced dead, but immediately a new tighter deadline is born in order to make sure that the task will be completed soon.

The one who kills the deadline may receive severe punishment, but still it does not solve the problem. Everyone is tempted to put the blame on the problem maker, and focuses on why the deadline is missed. Nobody cares about how to reallocate resources, set everything back on the right track, and ultimately get things done right. People simply ignore the fact that the problem maker may at least know where the problems are, and if given a second chance may be able to come up with a simple method to bring the task to completion. When things go wrong, asking for everything is more powerful than blaming for nothing. When there are questions asked, something at least gets moving. People drilling on the same old problem basically fix nothing, and eventually will become the problem makers themselves.

The task will sooner or later be fixed by someone else. If it's a big task, then the one who gets it done will be seen as a life savior, and receive all the credits and rewards. If it's a small task, even if nobody recognizes any efforts spent, there is still an improvement made, regardless of how insignificant the contribution is.

Deadline actually means nothing. Life has a deadline too, but no one on earth knows the deadline for life. Fact is, nobody really wants to know...

As long as each touchpoint delivers positive experience, who cares about when the deadline is.

Luck

"All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck - who keeps right on going - is the man who is there when the good luck comes - and is ready to receive it." Robert Collier

There are two kinds of luck: good and bad. It is believed that good luck brings everything, and bad luck nothing. Everyone wants only good luck, because greedy is human nature, and everyone wants as much as possible.

Life is full of ups and downs. It is always easy to deal with the ups in life. When people are in the up times, they have the tendency to attribute the good times to either good luck or hard work. When chanllenging times appear, they are just not in the mood to do anything, and will easily lose temper naively believing that this will bring good luck back.

How many times does it work...?

NONE!

Shouting and yelling will only produce negative touchpoint experience, and it will easily result in a vicious cycle, getting nobody nowhere.

Take life easy. Take solace. Take peace. Everything works together with everything else as one dynamic whole. It is in experiencing the downs of life that we gain the greater enjoyment from the ups in life.

Cheer up!

Follow-Up

It's easy to start something, because it's not difficult to come up with an idea. As long as there are creativity and curiosity, an idea can be formed and developed.

Developing an idea means nothing, because small deeds done are better than big deeds planned. Rome was not built in one day, and great results are basically the aggregate of many small significant results. In order to make dreams come true, the idea has to be put in action. Without action, an idea is just another dream. Idea prompts action, and action delivers results. At the end of the day, only results count, because results determine experience. Positive experience is delivered when results exceed expectations.

No positive deliverable can be produced in one simple step. The production process is definitely not a one-off exercise but a chain of continuous activities or steps.

Everyone has the ability to start something but no tendency to finish anything. He or she just doesn't have the stamina to bring that something to completion. This is really about the willingness to take up responsibility, and then the commitment to continuous touchpoint experience excellence.

People with no sense of responsibility or accountability always over-deliver and under-promise. There is no further need to check whether they'll have the commitment, because they simply won't have.

How to help people develop a sense of responsibility? Make every task relevant to them. Relevance motivates people to take the first step.

Freedom

Everyone wants freedom, but not everyone knows how to use it. When misused, it becomes an abuse to others. People who abuse freedom always step on others' comfort zone, which will inevitably lead to negative touchpoint experience.

Positive touchpoint experience is achieved when true freedom is not present. There is no such thing as true freedom, because true freedom implies complete freedom. When people have complete freedom to do whatever they want, everything will be sooner or later in a complete mess, and the world will eventually end up with serious chaos.

False freedom is true freedom plus control. Although it is incomplete, it at least minimizes the opportunity of offensive activities, which are barriers to touchpoint experience excellence.

Anything in excess will result in bad results. Same applies to freedom. Excessive freedom is true freedom, and is the usual cause of selfishness. Selfishness is the root of offensive behavior.

When control exists in the form of rules and regulations is applied, people won't have the freedom to "just do it" without taking others' benefits into consideration. People have to think twice before any action is taken. The reason why they need to think twice as opposed to just once in the case of complete freedom is because they need to make sure that the action taken is not against anyone concerned.

Touchpoint experience excellence is made impossible if selfishness rules.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

It is a sad fact that people are usually "out of sight, out of mind." But how can things become out of sight if they are relevant? Things have to be irrelevant before they become out of sight. Once out of sight, it requires double efforts to remember why things should exist. Remain within sight is therefore key to building touchpoint, and also a necessary condition for touchpoint to persist.

People only remember things that are relevant to them. If things are irrelevant, they will choose to forget, consciously and unconsciously. They tend to take care of things that are right in front of them at the expense of leaving those things that are not obvious to do at a later date, and then without a deadline, those things will be forever forgotten, and will never be retreived again.

There is of course exception to this rule, and that is offshoring. But why can offshoring break the rule? The answer is simple: offshoring is still part of the business, and thus relevant to business growth.

Relevance is all that matters.