strategy

  • It may seem odd to talk about something as soft and fuzzy as “passion” as an integral part of a strategic framework. But throughout the good-to-great companies, passion became a key part of the Hedgehog Concept. You can’t manufacture passion or “motivate” people to feel passionate. You can only discover what ignites your passion and the passions of those around you.

    The good-to-great companies did not say, “Okay, folks, let’s get passionate about what we do.” Sensibly, they went the other way entirely: We should only do those things that we can get passionate about.

    — Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins

  • The Entertainer: Sometimes product-makers just want to have fun. If creators of a potentially addictive technology make something that they use but can’t in good conscience claim improves users’ lives, they’re making entertainment. Entertainment is an art and is important for its own sake. Art provides joy, helps us see the world differently, and connects us with the human condition.

    — Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal

  • The Facilitator: When you create something that you would use and that you believe makes the user’s life better, you are facilitating a healthy habit. It is important to note that only you can decide if you would actually use the product or service, and what “materially improving the life of the user” really means in light of what you are creating.

    — Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal

  • To be creative, to create something that doesn’t already exist in the mind, is becoming more and more difficult. If not impossible. The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.

    — Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries, Jack Trout

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