All That I Know (About Technology)

By now, I expect that you’ve heard about the viral video that has reinvigorated the Old Spice brand. I have to hand it to the ad agency Wieden & Kennedy for showing everyone that the adage “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” works. According to Mashable, they reformulated and re-released the original video (initially produced in February) and developed almost 200 unique video responses to the social media buzz. These personalized videos generated even more buzz and eventually drove video views through roof.

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Being in the service industry, I regularly read blogs about happenings in the business world. And every blue moon I get to read a good business book.

One book that I just finished reading is Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, written by Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. The book chronicles Tony’s entrepreneurial journey from his first successful business where he sold mail-ordered button to the rise of Zappos.com and subsequent sale to Amazon. Throughout the book, Tony weaves in mini-lessons on what made things work (and what caused things to fail at times). Since the book is about delivering profits, passion, and purpose, I wanted to highlight a few lessons that struck a cord with me about running a business (or a team):

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Today, I ran the Windermere 5K in Cumming, GA. While I’ve run longer distances, I was nervous because I twisted my foot earlier in the week and thought that I’d have to skip the race altogether. Fortunately, I rested my foot over the past few days and felt comfortable giving the race a try.

I lined up at 7:30 am and anxiously waited to hear the announcer yell “go” to the crowd of 100+ runners. As soon as I heard the words, I quickly jumped to the front of the line but I quickly got this odd feeling as my heart started pounding at what felt like a 100 miles an hour. A good part of my nervousness was driven by my thoughts about foot — was it going to hurt or was it going to carry me through the race? Once I realized that my foot was solid, I focused on the run and stayed within my pace. And as I hit the first mile, I unexpectedly found myself outside of the pack for the first time. I realized how the pack helps me gauge my progress and pace. Being outside of the pack, I noticed that there was no real feedback so I decided to just go as fast as my body would take me.

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