There have been a lot of discussions regarding the privacy issues a cookie implied, but marketers immediatly understood how strong a tool it was and did’nt want to let it go. The real reason for today’s success of the cookie technology is that some major players on the market forced the users to accept cookies in order to be able to access their services.

When a technology is too strong, you simply can’t resist and you forget even when was the time you really allowed it to happen in the first place: Javascript, Flash, CSS…

With a cookie you can track tons of information regarding a user behaviour: where he has been, how many times has he seen wich advertisment, how did he react, what did he do next: basically this is how most of behavioral targeting is done.

But how would you impose such a sneaky object into a paranoid crowd: you give it a cute name! From a marketers perspective it could be more appropriate to call it a “Quicky”…

That a cookie improves user experience there is no doubt, but the tools it gives marketers and the information we gather is unvaluable.

I always was tought that “you CAN’T bake your cake and eat it too” but apparently when it comes to cookies you actually CAN…

Slurp!

Sadok Kohen

Last week Paypal decided to suspend my account without any notice and without any explanation, and worse: as standard procedure towards successful businesses!

So if you are growing too fast, if you show success, if you make Paypal earn more money then the average customer, apparently you should be doing something criminal. So without a call, without a mail, without any verification, they decide to stop the service. Just like that.

Imagine your bank doing the same thing: you go to pay a bill, they tell you “sorry, you are making more money then the average Joe, liberal marketplace is an illusion, you are lucky we don’t arrest you, so until we feel like it, go away, we will call you!”

So I try to call the customer service, and very professionally they tell me they need me to explain to them howcome the success. I wrote them my business description (which is openly available on my website) and call again: they tell me I have to wait for the “qualified people” to check the info and that they have everything they need.

After waiting (and loosing money by the minute) I asked them to put me in contact with the holy “qualified people”, but even they can’t get in contact with them, all they can do is email them the information requested by me, I should wait, there are a lot of people waiting (!)…

My account was put back to normal in 6 days. I still haven’t been told why the account was suspended in the first place.

Even the smallest bank have account representatives. I can’t imagine how anybody could afford to do business like this. I am shocked of how such a great service could afford to have such bad customer care.

I am not the only one having this kind of problems, and it seems I won’t be the last, this is exactly why its healthy to have competition, and I am sure the competition took notice, but why should you be threatened to improve yourself ? Isn’t that the ultimate purpose of business ?

Sadok Kohen

Sometimes its just a way of being, so romantic and courageous, sometimes its a revolt, a revolution, a declaration of independence, a country, a job. Sometimes its a house with a view, sometimes a word, sometimes a song. It can be a smile, a kiss, a stroll in the park, a juicy wonderful steak. Its sometimes a book, a movie, a name… But at the end its just a word.

We live in a world with lots of illusions, the biggest illusion is freedom! We have no difference from the world depicted in the Matrix:

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more that your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

I find myself asking the same questions again and again. Different circumstances, same questions, sometimes it makes me want to puke…

There are several wars you can attend to, but not all are clean and you can’t win them all. A saying says:

Never wrestle with a pig-you both get dirty but the pig likes it!

Another says:

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!

Well its sometimes hard to run away from getting dirty and from being beaten down. Its also true though that every war bares a lesson, and every lesson has a price. The price makes you want to shrug and give up on the world you have built on your shoulders, and life seems so pointless and in vain.

So why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Because I choose to.

Sadok Kohen

for Sam

There was to localize, there was to develop, there was to structure, there was to partner, there was to invest, there was to decide, there was to market, there was to support, there was to design, there was to hire, there was to buy, there was to sell…

Then there was to finally launch!!

And there is to localize, there is to develop, there is to structure, there is to partner, there is to invest, there is to decide, there is to market, there is to support, there is to design, there is to hire, there is to buy, there is to sell…

The unexplainable feeling of traveling uncharted seas, of finding new horizons and building your home on virgin lands. Setting your own standards of excellence in doing so…

I love start-upping! I love my job…

Bidplaza.it is born… and growing up!

Sadok Kohen

To be clearer, the minute you buy those good wines and move them to another city (we are talking about few hundred kilometers) the taste of the wine drastically changes! The same applies to spices like the basilico, or the prezzemolo, lemon, oranges, cheese and all sorts of other food. This is due to changes in atmosphere pressure, altitude, climate and similar other factors.

Thinking about it, makes a lot of sense. The same rule is applicable to many local businesses. Not all businesses can go global, or when they do, they simply loose a lot of their flavor in the process. Sometimes the business has to change completely in order to be localized, and many businesses fail for not being able to adjust their model to the local needs. This is why Starbucks never tried entering Italy, or Subway didn’t succeed in Turkey. You can’t find a good Paella anywhere but in Spain, and the taste of Coke is simply different in every Country.

It is also applicable to experiences: there are a lot of coffee shops to go but the Starbucks experience is different, there are lots of hamburgers, but the Big Mac is the Big Mac. You have thousands of web sites where to shop, but Amazon is somewhat special…

Some experiences can simply not be duplicated.

If you can find that ingredient that gives you that special taste, the flavour that can be found only where you are, even if its just a small hint on the tip of your tongue, you’ll have that edge on everybody else, that unmistakable uniqueness, that’s hard to explain, but you know its there.

Sadok Kohen

Yesterday my partner told me about a new TV show format and technology that he considered a revolution in entertainment. Hearing this, I sent him an email from September 2005 sent by me to some international investors in different parts of the world, talking in detail about the technology I had developed and what kind of TV Shows could be done with it. My email was explaining in detail what my partner just told me. I was as always involved in several other ventures at that time and didn’t push it as hard as I should have done.

I am not the first nor the last person wasting a great idea. On the other hand the “Right Time, Place and Person” formula doesn’t always come friendly either.

A good Swedish friend of mine, during a party, read to us the executive summary of a business plan he made for “ring-tones” when cellular phones were a triviality even for Sweden. The plan was full of details, up to customized ring-tones for different callers and exclusive ring-tone tune production made by famous artists.

Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston may be the fathers of great ideas, slipping trough. Visicalc was the first spreadsheet software, developed when nobody knew what a spreadsheet was (Watch the Triumph of the Nerds). Everybody loved it and with no patent, Lotus came along. They empowered the “forward slash” in a webless era. Bill Gates was not impressed, Excel was born…

The truth is that what really makes an Idea reach its potential is the way its executed. This is not valid only for building huge business enterprises but simpler tasks like keeping your family together, excelling at a sport or reaching different personal goals. Here are some lessons I have learned:

1) Visualization

It all starts with that tiny spark in your head, and a distant rumble, like a huge flow of water stuck into a small canal. Pictures and sounds floating around numbers and formulas, the “perfect mess” that leads to that final Vision: its like having discovered Atlantis and looking at it from the top of a hill.

Everything is so perfect, so in place, so familiar… you are in love!
I wouldn’t exchange this feeling for anything in the world. The more you visualize, the more details you see, the more it makes sense.

Sometimes you hit a wall, bounce back and realize it was only a fling.

It’s crucial here to tell real love apart from passion and lust, as a mix-up would lead to total destruction!…

So flirt with your vision, go out on a few dates. Live together for a while before taking the big step. Its hard to see, when in love, what skeletons the vision might conceal.

Once you know each other well, its time to meet the family: look into the competition, if there isn’t any, there might be a reason! This is not a rule, but you should be more careful on uncharted land. The important thing is to gather as much info as you can and digest it well until you are certain she is the one…

2) Planning:

Once you are sure you want to pursue the final step, you start planning for the big event. It takes lots of research and opinions to complete it. Most of the wild guesses you will be forced to do during this period will generally turn wrong, be prepared for it.

Whichever Higher Force you believe in will be testing your commitment.

Some tools might come handy: Business Plan Pro is great to lay it out correctly. Aceproject is the first step to execution(and will come handy all the way to the end)

Once you have your numbers figured out and the tasks at hand, and still makes sense to move forward (this is where most ideas die before they take off) its time to find the physical resources you will need.

3) Teaming Up:

If I learned anything trough the years, is that “The Right People” is the most important aspect of anything you want to do in life. From personal to business. Not having the right people at the key positions is crucial for success, so if you can’t find them, keep looking. Don’t settle for the available, don’t settle for the affordable, every key position in the organization should feel (or actually be) partner of the organization.

Personally this has been the toughest lesson to learn trough the years but ask any successful or insightful executive in any business field in the world, they will tell you the value of having the right combination of people and what difference it makes.

I consider this the toughest of the steps into executing your dreams.

4) Persistence:

This is the time to get on the ring and start punching. Its no fair fight but as Rocky Balboa said:

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can GET hit and keep moving forward. How much you can TAKE and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done”

I can’t possibly add anything to that…

5) Followtrough:

This part we tend to forget, as after all the fights lost and won, no matter how many swings and hit and misses, we should keep at it. With time tough we tend to get sloppy, there is no more follow trough. I remember how annoying it was to hear that remark from my tennis teacher as a child. But Seth Godin explained that already so you better read it from him.

And if still doesn’t work, change track and keep trying. If you find out you can’t really execute just let go of that idea, release yourself from that burden, give it as a gift to the world and to who will be able to make something out of it. Be sure you’ll have many great ideas, be confident you can afford to be picky on which ones to stick to.

Sadok Kohen

It all started when the first ape understood how to use a club to hunt more effectively and the ape next to him used the same club to hunt the hunter and keep the prey. We tend to be very clever in finding the easy way out. Countless acts of redemption were always made in the name of a Higher Self, the man we “couldn’t” be.

You sin, you pay the priest. You commit adultery you pay the jewelery store. You are never there for your children, you pay the toy store. You eat to much, you pay the gym (and never go). You smoke, you pay insurance (and keep smoking). You don’t have time to care, you pay charity (and keep not caring)… You destroy the earth, you buy carbon offset!! (and keep DESTROYING).

You can actually calculate the value of the portion of the world you just destroyed and buy it back.

Not that I am against carbon offsetting as an end result. I am against the way carbon offsetting (like charity and several other examples) has become a currency were it should have become a place for people to go and reflect and mend the wounds inflicted, therefore taking responsibility for their actions and understanding where the problem really was. By doing this taking a step further to enlightenment and to become part of the “real” solution.

A very simple way to understand how our psychology works is to look at a little experiment they have done in a kindergarten. Parents were always late to pick up their children so the teachers decided to put a per hour fine on parents who were late. Guess what, the rate of being late drastically increased! Once “being late” had a price, parents decided they could afford it!

Can we really put a price on a disappointed child, or on health, or on nature ? Evidently the message out there is that we can. This is why the word sorry became so cheap that everybody could easily afford to say it, under ANY circumstances or even worse, they hire others to say it for them.

The solution, as always, lies inside us. The day we are not afraid to look, we’ll understand that Heaven’s not for sale…

Sadok Kohen

This is directly related to how education is perceived and executed and who are our first teachers.

When we are children we are very busy growing up. It’s no easy task, we have to live up to society standards and that’s why we are very selective in our choices. Which toys we like, which friends we like, which sports we like, which people we like, its all about new data processed at very high speed and most importantly “without prejudice”. A friend can become an enemy and then become a brother. A toy is inseparable one day, we hate it the other, you get the picture.

One day this kind of open minded social network is forced to stay put in a room with an old guy as the “guardian” for a HUGE amount of time…

You have a very well targeted audience with huge buying potential, LOCKED in a room with you for an almost unlimited and mostly UNINTERRUPTED time frame! (Seth Godin rejoice!)

Does that mean you can sell anything at any price, no questions asked ? Well that must be very well what we are thinking or we are really not that interested in selling, because if you look at how we try to teach our children during their most perceptive years its obvious we are doing a horrible job. But can we really afford to ?

Boring classes lead to attention deficit which lead to boredom associated with learning and boring class after class this information is written in stone. If learning is boring, so is working which directly relates to creativity and production loss of generation after generation. This is a direct economical, sociopolitical and humanitarian loss.

Whereas interesting classes, passionate teachers, awareness of what really is at stake would lead to convert those little minds in lifelong extremely loyal customers of knowledge! Creativity, productivity, health, awareness, everything would rise as a result of this with a huge direct impact on the worlds quality of life.

I remember for example being thought about how a battery works in terms of chemistry. Lots of formulas, lots of big words and history and names. It got a little interesting when a frog was involved but it was immediately replaced with big and boring charts. I think about it now, and how interesting it is actually to “know” with the real sense of the word how energy is created and preserved. What does energy mean. How it gives life to a toy. How it can be used in other areas of my life and the power that such knowledge yields. Its the concept of “energy” that needs to be sold first, and what a product it is to sell! But no, we don’t need that. All we want to do is use “energy” to put in a formula to derive some other constant in an “equation”. Splendid pitch right ?

Today’s marketers have amazing tools at their disposal. They track everything, from attention spans to eye balls. Crowd analysis, statistical charts. Behavioral analysis, direct marketing, personalized messages and many many more. All directly applicable to the subject.

I am sure if the best marketers in the world would have the chemistry book as a client, they would restructure every lesson into a great pitch. Use high tone voices full of passion while selling it and literally pour knowledge into your soul. They would recognize the combination of a great product, value the perfect audience and do everything to make the kill !

You probably think the kids don’t have the money to pay for such good marketers time. If you calculate the potential outcome of such an investment and the ROI you’ll see they are the richest and easiest client there is…

We have the tools, we have the means, we have the knowledge, we have the power and we have the time to do it. Why don’t we ?

Pick any topic out of a school book and turn it into a marketing pitch, complete of media planning, creative, script and all, share it with me if you like. You’ll realize that if you put the same passion you put into selling, lets say, hamburgers, you are holding in your hands the next Big Mac!

Sadok Kohen

And then came Web 2.0. The rules suddenly changed. The business drive was taking its power from the most unusual source: its customers. And soon enough Machiavelli started to take a beating. Few examples:

• Digg kicked out a user for the very “acceptable” reason that the information the user posted was illegal, and deleted the post. The users revolted: Digg had to accept the chances to be sued.
• YouTube started to put advertisement in user videos. There was a huge protest, they had to stop and ask for permission.
• Google stopped its downloadable video service. Google lost some of its credibility.

To all of this instances the Godfather could have said: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”, but what would have happened then? Ironically he would have probably be trampled by an angry “mob” while buying fruits.

Take away the personal out of the Internet today and replace it with business: you get Web 1.o and then the burst…

So what could the Godfather 2.0 have told to Sonny ? Maybe: “Not Personal ? It’s STRICTLY personal!” and then opened a social networking site for mobsters.

What are your suggestions ?

Sadok Kohen

This friend of mine used to go to the same restaurant to eat almost every day of the week, at the same hour. This restaurant was across his school so it was pretty convenient for him and he was welcomed almost as family. He knew everybody by name and so did everybody that worked there.

His lunch hours were different then most people as his classes ended a little late. One day he happened to be around school on a busy weekend and went in to eat. After waiting for more then half an hour and after several reminders he finally got angry and asked one of the waiters that he knew quite well, what was going on. The waiter replied: “You are right, but man, you just came on customer time!!”

(The term “Customer Time” may strike as strange, the event didn’t happen in an English spoken country but the literal translation is correct).

I started wondering, when does a loyal customer become so loyal that he becomes family ?

Because with family comes the feeling of being accustomed to a certain presence and taking that presence for granted is what leads to broken hearts or loneliness, which we try to erase by replacing with new experiences.

New customer acquisition has its own weight in the growth of a business. But it is our loyal customer base (our family) that supports us and allows us to chase new customers in the first place. Taking their loyalty for granted will only make it easier for them to go away on the first opportunity.

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted” ~Bertrand Russel

Sadok Kohen