36/100: The Serious Business of Humour



My takeaways (The interesting bits that I noted while watching the video):

1. The User-led Mission Statement: To make people happy for 5 minutes a day! That's cool, and profound, at the same time.

2. Defining the business as the 'Business of Humour' rather than the 'business of photos of Cats' or the 'business of animal photos'. Again, listening to the users at its best.

3. The distinction between Popular Culture and Internet Culture: That there is such a thing. It is indeed different from celebrity gossip and all that. The Angry Birds that make the wave is not to be seen anywhere near the Westminster Abbey on the Royal Wedding day.

4. The definition of Internet 1.0 as 'transactional' - where people went to do a thing - against the Web 2.0 as 'cultural', where people express and connect. In fact, I disagree slightly: I used Bulletin Board services and made friends there, but I get the point.

5. Interesting point about sites, as they grow, shed some original users to become mainstream. Most 'cool' or 'fringe' or 'cultural' businesses have to do that, don't they?

6. The idea of 'Positive Risk' and the risk of failure as against risk of not taking risks. How many businesses decide on the contrary and die?

7. Failure as a process - I shall include this in my list of favourite expressions from now on.

8. Lowering the cost of failure - this seems to be a recurrent theme among the studies of failure. Jim Collins will call it 'Above The Water Level' risk taking.

9. Message to mainstream business: Let employees take a 5 minute mental break. I see the point.

10. The product development philosophy: Start with a minimally lovable product and incrementally add features. After two releases, let the market forces decide. I may use this in my own business.

Comments

Anonymous said…
as always, brilliant.

Popular posts from this blog

Lord Macaulay's Speech on Indian Education: The Hoax & Some Truths

Abdicating to Taliban

India versus Bharat

When Does Business Gift Become A Bribe: A Marketing Policy Perspective

The Curious Case of Helen Goddard

The Morality of Profit

‘A World Without The Jews’: Nazi Ideology, German Imagination and The Holocaust[1]

The Road to Macaulay: Warren Hastings and Education in India

A Conversation About Kolkata in the 21st Century

The Road of Macaulay: The Development of Indian Education under British Rule

Creative Commons License

AddThis