How to get a girlfriend... or anything!
30 October 2006
Years ago an American taught me the secret of getting a girlfriend.I was twenty-two at the time, crewing on a yacht that was zig-zagging drunkenly around the Canary Islands before racing across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
(Note: In the interests of accurate reportage this entry contains strong language and scenes of a possibly desturbing nature. If you are easily offended please stop now.)
Our routine on the yacht was excellent. We'd surface late morning, sail until sunset, then rest for a while before hitting the bars, clubs and women therein... at least theoretically. In reality my record with the ladies was pretty patchy, and one evening over a pre-match drink one of the guys took me under his broad American wing.
"I'm worried about you Nick", he boomed, "this whole quiet Englishman abroad schtick is just shit, and you aren't getting any".
Quietly I defended my tactic of smoldering English disinterest... "it's a slow burner" I said.
"It's not slow Nick", he bellowed genially, "It's fucking glacial. But tonight I'm going to sort you out'.
With these words Randy (yes, that was his name) doused every conversation within twenty feet. The bar was full of young, and consequently largely frustrated, men... and this sounded like the motherload! At all at once everyone was drinking. Silence, and Randy leaned forward conspirtorially and dropped the bombshell.
"It's math", he said, and sat back with a smile on his face, looking for all the world as if he'd just solved third-world debt. The sound of young men paying for their drinks and leaving was deafening.
"Whu... uh... fuh... what?" I said, unleashing the full force of my searing wit.
"Math", he said again, grinning as if he'd cured cancer. "And the fact that one night I got knocked back eight times in four minutes".
"That must have made you very proud."
"Sure, enjoy it. But think about this limey-boy. I did hook up with the ninth girl I tried that night... and I'll be hooking up with someone later while your staring into your drink and talking about the weather to the back of some girl's head. I do the math, and I can hook up with someone whenever I want."
This at least seemed true. For a forty-something guy who wore a wig (I'm not making this up), Randy was extraordinarily successful with women. I listened. Who wouldn't?
It turned out that striking out eight times got Randy thinking about the numbers. "It just came to me" he said, holding up his hands. "I figured out that my success rate was one in nine! And all I gotta do to get a dance is ask nine girls. Worst case scenario... the first eight say no."
I told him that this sounded like a pretty appalling 'worst case' to me.
"You might think", he said. "But once I realised the math all I had to do was get asking. The quicker I started the quicker I got a result. And every 'get lost' is a step closer to...". He waggled his eyebrows in a way that was both suggestive and profoundly unnerving.
"I'm not that desperate?" I said, flying in the face of all available evidence.
"No? Shit. You look pretty goddam desperate from where I'm sitting."
"So you're saying all I need to do tonight is ask nine girls to dance and I'll get a hit?", I said, turning the idea over in my head.
"Well maybe not nine", he said, grinning, "I reckon you're more of a one in seventeen".
Nice.
So why am I telling you this? Because the difference between success and failure at anything is mostly about persistance. I'm reminded (as I rewrite this blog entry for the umpteenth time) that my teachers used to grade my work for attainment and effort (persistance). This was fortunate for me because, and this will surprise few of you, I'm not much of an academic. My 'effort' grades were regularly drafted in to shore-up poor attainment scores in my school reports... and yet no one ever properly explained to me that in the long run persistance beats talent every time.
Until Randy.
Posted by Nick Warren at 11:15 PM
3 comments
After the honeymoon
27 October 2006
Earlier this week we received an invite to Aikix's first birthday party. It is about 15 months since we first started working with the team there, and just over a year since we launched the Airkix web site.As it happens we can't make it to the party (sob), but responding I asked how the first year had gone. Here's what Simon Ward, the CEO of Airkix replied:
"Has year one met expectations? Certainly has and we are very pleased. By the way, we never underestimate the effectiveness of the website and one of the best decisions was to get you guys on that case - thanks, again and again and again!"
At Semantic we bang on and on about the importance of relationships with our Clients, even after the honeymoon. Check that. Especially after the honeymoon.
By the way, don't worry about us. Even though we can't make the party we've been invited up before Christmas. Flying at Airkix is just to much fun to miss. A blast... literally!
Posted by Nick Warren at 7:50 AM
0 comments
When lawyers run wild...
24 October 2006
In 1996 I had a number of passionate debates (we won't call them fights) with a distinguished corporate lawyer. As employees of IBM we were supposedly on the same team... in reality it was war.My job was to design and deliver a massive pan-European web development for a major international client... his job was to make sure I didn't screw it up expose IBM legally.
Thinking back it is easy to imagine what he thought of me; too young, too scruffy and far too beardy for my own good... yet inexplicably in charge of a project worth hundred's of thousands of pounds. I won't say what I thought of him.
We fought pretty much from the first moment we met, and to illustrate why you might want to try the following thought experiment.
1) Close your eyes and imagine the home page your favourite web site.
2) Create a mental description of the home page that would allow a designer who has never seen the site to re-create it exactly.
Hard isn't it.
But that is exactly what my colleague wanted... a proposal so specific that it could be defended legally. He did my head in... and on several occasions I was in danger of throwing all the toys out of my pram.
In my career I have written proposals for hundreds of projects in many different situations. I have made proposal by formal tenders, by brief emails, and in one memorable case managed to secure a £30,000 contract on the basis of a three minute phone call. But never once in all that time have I ever 'known' exactly what a Client would end up with. Not in a way that would have made my friend at IBM happy.
And this is why. Things change all the time in web development. Like any creative project the thing is alive... it's constantly evolving. Weak ideas are abandoned or reworked. Good ideas are replaced with great ideas. Or perhaps you come up against unexpected obstacles and have to route around them. The content that the Client promised last month is suddenly canned... think again, think again. Things happen during a project and the finished result is always different from what was proposed.
And here's the thing... it almost always turns out better than I planned.
I've written five proposals in the last four weeks, but in none of them have I specified exactly what the Client will get. I have tried to give enough detail to be credible, but leave enough room for the wiggling that is always (always) necessary.
At the time of writing we've won four, and the fifth is looking pretty likely. So I guess we are doing okay for now.
But I'd like to say sorry to my colleague at IBM. In many ways he was right. It was not unreasonable for our Client to want to know what they were buying for their hundreds of thousands...
...the problem was that I just didn't know what they'd be getting. Ten years and numerous projects later I still don't. That's why things are still fun!
Posted by Nick Warren at 8:12 AM
0 comments
When to propose...
11 October 2006
Recently we've been lucky enough to visit two new potential Clients... but in neither case did we bring what they really wanted, a detailed proposal. We just came in for a chat.This can be a dangerous strategy in competitive pitches, particularly if other companies turn up armed to the teeth. One of these potential Clients had already seen a full-service Marketing Agency who offered lots of detail; timetables, break-downs, research plans etc... and not just for the web site, for all their marketing needs. Phew.
The other had sent us a written brief a week or so before the meeting, and expected (not unreasonably) that we'd arrive at the meeting with a solution.
But we don't really do business that way - our style is too collaborative. We want to spend a little time getting to know our Clients before suggesting how they spend their money... not least because what they need often differs from what they want.
And anyway, I always enjoy that first meeting - the one about aspirations and possibilities... and the one where you get to dig into the issues, and behind the public face that's being presented. For example:
- With both these clients we actually discovered that they really needed two sites, not one... and we only discovered this IN THE MEETING.
- In both cases there were underlying technical requirements and constraints that only became apparent IN THE MEETING.
- In each case we were only able to gauge the others personality (a critical factor in successful relationships) IN THE MEETING!
In our experience writing a proposal before you've met the Client is putting the cart before the horse... not always, but usually. It's also one of the reasons why Semantic often doesn't do well in competitive pitches. I'll write about that, and how we write proposals in future entries.
Posted by Nick Warren at 6:52 AM
0 comments