Does this explain it all?

A fascinating article in the New York Post, proposes the following: Those who believe they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’re ever going to have approach life with a “fixed mind-set.” Those who believe that their own abilities can expand over time, however, live with a “growth mind-set.”

Your like so what? Well I'll tell you so what! Have you every thought that you're perfectly content with the job you have? No, well have you met someone who was? Have you ever concluded, with a sigh of relief, "I'm glad I don't have to study anymore." What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you encounter a new challenge, a new skill that you need, or a task that you've never done? If it's oh I don't know. It's not my job, it's outside of my training, or I don't think I can do it because I've never done it before, then you might have a fixed mind set. Not you, fine! What about your peers or your subordinates? Sorry boss, I can't do that with out going to training.

The Times article reveals that after three decades of painstaking research, the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck believes that: "Society is obsessed with the idea of talent and genius and people who are ‘naturals’ with innate ability. (Or had the good fortunate to be born with a certain last name)” Oh yeah, that sounds nothing like most of the people I come into contact with. Oh you haven't worked in the pharmaceutical industry, then you clearly can't work on our computer systems. Oh sorry no banking experience, nope, no way you can understand our computer systems. Yeah I guess that whole Masters in Computer Science doesn't provide me any basis on how to learn new computer systems.

Dweck continues: "People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they’re so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them." Now that clearly is NOTHING like most people here. The typical Puerto Rican or Puerto Rican company is so completely immobilized at the prospect of making a mistake or not looking smart, that if a task, idea, or opportunity comes along that is outside of their comfort zone, it must simply be ignored.

Finally Dweck concludes that: "People with a growth mind-set tend to demonstrate the kind of perseverance and resilience required to convert life’s setbacks into future successes. That ability to learn from experience was cited as the No. 1 ingredient for creative achievement in a poll of 143 creativity researchers cited in “Handbook of Creativity” in 1999.

Conclusion: Well, it explains a lot!

In a culture where image is everything and vanity is the number one motivator, we let our obsession with looking smart and avoiding mistakes dominate our lives. When considering Dweck's research it is now clear that these beliefs must be a major contributing factor to the lack of [innovation, research, invention, market growth, market creation, and global focus] here on the island. In addition, it explains why, when it comes to technology, there is a herd mentality of follow the leader. Since technology is complex, ever-changing, and hard to understand, most managers (leaders) refuse to make bold decisions that place the necessary importance and risk on technology. The exact strategy that all companies need to stay competitive. With a lifestyle mentality, business owners are content to have risen to as high as they believe their abilities can take them (Peter Principle), so they become fearful of losing what they have. They become risk-averse, exactly as identified in the classic business article 'Why good companies fail' .

In addition, for the same reasons, it prevents nearly all of our companies from researching and developing new products. It also blocks nearly all of our "entrepreneurs" so that they conclude that since company 'x' is successful, then that must be a good idea for a business. Therefore they conclude that it is a good idea to start a business to offer almost exactly what company 'x' provides. Listen people: Puerto Rico doesn't need any more online classified ad sites. I'm not saying give-up and let ClasificadosOnline.com 'own' the market. I'm saying unless you're bringing something new to the game that can disrupt their guerilla marketing strangehold on the market, don't waste your time. They have too much of a head-start for anyone to displace them with the exact same product and marketing strategy.

In a previous life I worked for a large wireless telecommunications company. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars launching a web-based system to sell cellular telephones. Before we launched the project I asked the director in charge of the project, "How many phones do you think we'll sell from the website?" His answer: zero. So I asked, "Why are we spending the money then?" His answer: because our competitor has a web site to sell telephones. While this director was not stupid his decisions clearly illustrate a fixed mind set. Instead of changing the game, bringing something new to the market, all he could come up with is that's what my competitor did, so I have to as well, EVEN THOUGH HE BELIEVED IT WOULD BE A COMPLETE FAILURE. Is it any wonder our economy sucks so badly?

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Facebook in Real Life

OMG, is this just too classic or what? Austin is "Yeah baby party naked!" Just imagine going through one day emulating these actions. People would think you were totally insane.

FaceBook In Reality

For those of you out there who haven't yet "fallen for" the whole social media bug, this hilarious video from Idiotsofants.com should give you a really good idea of what it's like. Well that is, if you were like surrounded by savants and very special friends.

Anyway, for those of you who have Facebook, you should get a really good kick out of this video and the next one I found. Enjoy!

Burlington Coat Factory Enters Tough Market

Do you remember what is like when you first starting your family? Or can you imagine what it will be like trying to start one in this economy? Well, when Mrs. Don Dees and I were newlyweds, uhh, a few years back, we remember fondly shopping at Burlington Coat Factory. They had cheap, but good quality, crap at a good price. Just what the valued oriented shopper is looking for, which was the case for us back then; still is I guess.

So when we recently heard that Burlington Coat Factory was going to open a few stores in Puerto Rico, it brought back fond memories. Although I'm sure this has been in the making for years, I think they are entering a tough market at the worst time in the last 40 years. With stiff competition from WalMart, K-Mart, Marshalls, Sears, and recently JC Penneys, they will face an uphill battle.

Not only that, this will be the first locations outside of the U.S. mainland for the Burlington, New Jersey-based company which operates 383 stores in 44 states. Which means they need to understand the cultural translation of their marketing very quickly.

According to them, they are an “off-price” discount retailer, which offers a wide selection of current season, high quality, brand name and designer merchandise at prices up to 60% lower than those at other department stores. Hmm, that's a pretty bold claim when they are stacked up against WalMart, the king of cheap crap.

Together the local stores will feature apparel, shoes and accessories for the entire family, baby clothes, furniture, toys, home decor items, and gifts, as well as a selection of its signature coats. One of the first stores is scheduled to replace the old Pueblo Xtra in Plaza Centro Mall in Caguas. Right now, there is no word of when the first store is scheduled to open.

President Bush Boosts Porn Industry

Bet you didn't see that one coming, right. In what can only be seen as a cherry on top of, in my opinion, the most devastating presidency EVER, a recent study by an independent market-research firm, AIMRCo (Adult Internet Market Research Company), has discovered that many websites focused on adult or erotic material have experienced an upswing in sales in the recent weeks since checks have appeared in millions of Americans' mailboxes across the country. These sites are a surprising beneficiary (really, really?) of the Economic Stimulus Plan, a plan that George Bush contends will "boost our economy and encourage job creation." Yeah, in the adult entertainment industry.

According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, "Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market."

Jillian Fox, spokeswoman for LSGmodels.com, one of the sites reporting figures to AIMRCo, added, "In a June 15, 2008 survey to our members, thirty two percent of respondents referenced the recent stimulus package as part of their decision to either become a new member, or renew an existing membership."

The economic stimulus plan, which includes a check for up to $600 for individuals and $1200 for married couples (among other benefits), is the product of an agreement between House leaders and the Bush Administration, focused on reviving a struggling economy in the wake of a flagging economy.

Fox also added, "Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his 'stimulus package,' but we'll take it."

Guinness Confirms Mozilla World Record

In what can only be deemed a world record word of mouth marketing campaign as well, in a massive grassroots community effort Guiness World Record organization has confirmed that Mozilla has established a new world record.

Mozilla announced it has set a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads in 24 hours. The record-setting 8,002,530 downloads coincided with the launch of Firefox® 3, Mozilla’s major update to its popular and acclaimed free, open source Web browser.

Mozilla enthusiasts worldwide drove more than 1.7 million pledges to download Firefox 3 on Download Day, hosted regional download “fests,” and informed more than 43 million people through hosting Download Day affiliate buttons online. The global Mozilla community has been celebrating the historic goal of establishing a Guinness World Record with parties in more than 25 countries, including Puerto Rico's own little party: "Nobox Firefox 3 Victory Party".

“The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was instrumental in achieving this record,” said Paul Kim, VP of Marketing at Mozilla. “Our community members came together and not only spread the word, but also took the initiative to help mobilize millions of people to demonstrate their belief that Firefox gives people the best possible online experience.”

“As the arbiter and recorder of the world’s amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla’s achievement to our archives,” said Gareth Deaves, Records Manager for Guinness World Records. “Mobilizing over 8 million internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication.”

Boston Concert Update - Living the Dream

Well I still haven't been able to find any concert reviews yet, but I did find one place that does have quite a lot of feedback, and from the sounds of it, the tour is going very well, especially for Tommy DeCarlo. You're like who, right?

This is an amazing story that you HAVE to check out. Briefly, after the death of Brad Delp, a Boston fan wanted to demonstrate how much Delp and the band Boston's music had meant to him. After some encouragement by his children, the fan recorded himself singing along with some Boston songs, Karaoke style. He then uploaded the recordings to his MySpace page and then continued on with his regular routine of working for Home Depot.

He later gets a call, which changes his life forever. It seems that Tom Scholz somehow found the recordings and was extremely impressed and sort of freaked out. He couldn't believe how similar Tommy sounded to the recently deceased Delp. So Scholz invited Tommy up to Boston to sing along with the band. After hearing Tommy perform with the band, he was invited to perform live with them in a tribute to Delp. Well, the rest, as the say, is rock and roll history. Everyone was reeling from how close Tommy sounded to Delp, with many fans saying that he sounded exactly the same, including Scholz. So he invited Tommy to tour with the band this summer.

For Tommy DeCarlo it has become much "More than a Feeling," it became a dream come true. For not only was he living the life of a rock and roll singer, he was doing it with his favorite band as well. How's that for Rock and Roll Magic?

Boston Concert Update

So, as I said, the only place I've found with any sort of feedback is on Tommy DeCarlo's MySpace Page. There you'll not only be able to hear his original tribute songs, but you can catch the latest comments from his new fans.

I only wish a little bit of that magic would strike here in Puerto Rico, as ticket sales seem to be slow for their August 31st concert at Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot. A quick check of the tickets at TicketPop still has excellent tickets available in all sections. I'm sure sales will pick-up as the data nears, but if you want to witness magic, you get your tickets now. Closer is always better, when it comes to rock and roll shows.

Google and Adobe rescue local Flash websites

Well I'll be [...fill in your favorite expression for being shocked and amazed at the same time, mine is...] a monkey's uncle. Which depending on which side of the argument for the Flying Spaghetti Monster you fall, might be true. Apparently Adobe has heard the cries of anguish and of gnashing teeth of the millions of website owners whose sites were invisible to the all powerful Google, whose 3rd commandment was "Those shalt not use Flash (that is, if you want to your site indexed by our search engine)."

Many of you out there have heard my rants on the over-use of Flash in websites built here in Puerto Rico. Well today Adobe announced that they have developed a special Flash application player especially for the major search engines. The new reader will permit the search engines to run a Flash movie as if the search engine were a regular user of the Rich Internet Application (RIA). With the reader the search engines will finally be able to understand what's inside of RIAs and other rich web content created with Adobe Flash technology and add that relevance back to the HTML page.

Both Google and Yahoo worked closely with Adobe engineers to develop the new Flash player, which to be clear is ONLY for the search engines. Except for improved search results, Internet users like you or I will not be affected. According to Ron Adler and Janis Stipins—software engineers on Google's indexing team:

"the new player will better index all of the text that users can see as they interact with a Flash file. If a website contains Flash, the textual content in the Flash files will be used when Google generates a snippet for the website. Also, the words that appear in Flash files will be used to match query terms in Google searches."

Fracking Amazing News for Puerto Rico Websites

This is amazingly fantastic news for the thousands and thousands of local websites which were done with Adobe Flash. Essentially they will immediately begin to show up in search results without having to do anything. So while local website owners benefit immensely from this announcement, it doesn't necessarily mean that websites will automatically start receiving first page search results. Standard search engine optimization will still be necessary to achieve those types of results. In addition, Adobe recommends that sites make use of deep links so that links coming into a site will drive relevance to the specific parts of an application.

While Google has already implemented the new technology, Yahoo (like everything else as recent events indicate) is lagging behind. Adobe promises to extend the benefit of the new technology to other search engines by exploring ways to make it more broadly available.

Puerto Rico American Idol Auditions

Despite my disdain for the show and it's evil twin Objetivo Fama, there is no denying that I'm in the minority, because both dominate the ratings. And so it is, that for the first time, American Idol will conduct auditions for the 8th season of the show here in our little corner of the ocean.

On August 2nd, in the Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot, the production team from American Idol will conduct auditions. While the trio of judges, that I think everyone universally hates, but is strangely attracted to, will not be present at the auditions, it is rumored that they will be present when they begin to whittle the list of local contestants down. Or whatever it is they do during the course of the the show, because, I truthfully have never seen an episode of the program. Of course, since I've been doing the whole starving entrepreneur thing for a while now, cable is a distant memory. Anything I want to watch now has to come via BitTorrent, and believe me, my bandwidth is too precious to be spent downloading episodes of American Idol. In fact you can probably count on one hand the number of shows I do consider BitTorrent worthy.

While Puerto Rico has been excluded from the first seven seasons of the program, due to the popularity of Objetivo Fama (OF), I guess they want to jump on the bandwagon and see if they can duplicate the following of OF. I'm skeptical, because there are many factors that work together to make OF so successful here in PR. I guess we'll soon find out. If you start to hear people talking about American Idol everywhere you go, then they will have succeeded.

To participate in the auditions, participants must be between 16 and 28, and be willing to travel to the United States. Two days before the auditions, the production team of the program will be giving out bracelets to aspiring singers, which will determine the time of their audition. They are hoping that will limit the usual insane behavior that that usually accompanies an event of this magnitude. I wish them luck with that, LOL.

Value is in the eye of the buyer

Seth Godin has many fans. Many of those fans would agree that he is popular because he knows how to self promote. You'll get no argument from me there, in my opinion, he is the most successful self-promoter on the Internet. But, for me, Seth is most successful in identifying and debunking the little lies we surround ourselves with in the business world.

While it's not usually my style, I just can't help but reproduce his blog post entitled "No such thing as price pressure," because it cuts straight to the heart of the problem we are having with DóndeEs.com. Here's what Seth has to say about commodity pricing of your products:

"Your sales force and your customers may scream that you need to lower your price.

It's not true.

You need to increase your value. If people don't want to pay, it's because you're not delivering enough value for the money you're charging.

You're not selling a commodity unless you want to."

I think, the crucial point here is the "perception" of value. Especially when the value you are offering is intangible, or worse than intangible, technological. For when it comes to technology, nothing becomes more difficult to perceive for your customer than something they fundamentally don't understand or perceive as a necessary evil, like anything related to computers (unfortunately here in Puerto Rico it's almost always all of the above).

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: jurvetson