Comments

And the great thing about the Zappos Rules, they actually live it and do it consistently. Now that is WOW!

Posted by John Rosa at June 3, 2010 2:16 PM

Please! we need more internet web sites like zappos!
E commerce will bring us out of the economic ditch we are in! This is the future!

It will correct all of our energy problems, plug up the hole in the bottom of the ocean and pull us right into the 21st century!

Embrace and drive change with zappos! Lets take a risk and
CHANGE THE FONT ON OUR WEB PAGE!

Lets make a new, super cool button to streamline e-commerce even more !

Be weird! Maybe we can invent a new color and put it on our splash page! How about tar-ball brown! That would be so fashion forward!

Posted by zorro at June 3, 2010 3:00 PM

Let's see...founded in 1999 and had virtually zip for sales that year. Does about 800 million gross sales in 2007, and over a billion last year.

Credible leadership can accomplish a great deal, regardless of industry. Perhaps if the U.S. Postal Service, Amtrack, U.S.Department of Education, DHS, to name a few could take a page from that playbook...do more with less perhaps...embrace and drive change...deliver WOW through service...could we then get some real change and progress. Imagine, public services that actually provided the public with services and programs that met their needs. Maybe we could finally win that war on poverty after all those decades. Trust and credibility in leadership...a performance and productivity multiplierltiplier for sure!

Posted by Dave Wheeler at June 3, 2010 8:26 PM

Zappos is one of the few good examples of values-based leadership in action! It's all about leaders who take the values off the wall and put them into practice every day. It's about hiring by the values and firing by the values...holding people accountable for "living the values." Ann Rhoades talks about how they did this at JetBlue Airways in this video http://www.peopleink.com/Videos/Live-your-Values.html

Posted by Gayle Watson at June 4, 2010 6:07 AM

Finding a company with such interesting Values Statement is nice, but they also live their values which puts them out front. Go to Zappos site and read the details behind each of those values statements for a much better appreciation. I can see the application in our personal lives as well.

People Ink puts it into a 5 step formula.
1. create a values blueprint.
2. Hire "A" players
3. Engage employees by Re-Recruiting daily.
4. customer loyalty and trust.
5. practice simple discipline.
Values-Centric Cultures

Posted by Grant at June 4, 2010 7:59 AM

and Zappos seems to do very well in recruiting brand champions trusted with autonomy in how they represent the brand. I think that is most remarkable.

Posted by David Sandusky at June 4, 2010 12:41 PM

"I suggested stealing intact" - Hah! It's not copyrighted, is it?

Folks often "pooh pooh" idealistic statements, but without highly placed ideals, little good is attempted. Ignore the die-hard cynics (isn't cynicism evidence of a form of failure?).

“Not failure, but low aim, is the crime” wrote James Russell Lowell, and not fully realizing high ideals is definitely NOT failure!

Posted by Randy Bosch at June 4, 2010 4:34 PM

What do they call a cynic from Jonestown?

A survivor.

My point is as far as what our country needs to get out of our current mess, Zappos means Zippo. We need to make stuff. We need infrastructure that provides mass transportation that cuts back on energy consumption.
I just don't see why, in 2010, we are excited about an ecommerce company that has cool rules for its employees.
Or one that is worth 1 billion dollars when it was once worth nothing.
This whole post reads like an article from Wired from 1999.
In many ways, Zappos is just empty calories. Its just the same old, same old.

Posted by zorro at June 5, 2010 7:00 PM

How do you make 1,000,000 dollars?

First, get 1,000,000 dollars.

-Steve Martin

(By the way, you can steal this!)

Posted by zorro at June 5, 2010 8:07 PM

Innovation as Tom would have it only needs a few
more 2nd grade teachers to allow their students to
literally color outside the lines. (this is not an exaggeration) I think that is dumb and
dangerous. Innovations require people to have deep scientific
knowledge, which is almost never stressed on this blog.

So is it just me? No. The former female CTO from Cisco
makes her viewpoint known here.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/08/new-models-need/

Posted by zorro at June 8, 2010 3:15 PM

I hear what you are saying Zorro but is that really true? Surely not all innovation needs ‘deep scientific knowledge’ as that implies innovation is linked only to higher intelligence. Can’t think of one right now but I’m sure some great innovations come from people who are not necessarily blessed with deep scientific knowledge. As for me I like the ‘numerous tries’ culture and I guess that means a mixture of science and luck.

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 8, 2010 4:07 PM

The big problems we have - actually only 1 problem, (energy)
require deep knowledge of physics, chemistry, mathematics,
biology etc.
We are fighting wars over energy. The gulf of Mexico is being destroyed. We've spent the last 30 years cheering innovations in retail and banking and supply chain improvements and design and on and on while completely ignoring the 800 pound gorilla - clean energy that is plentiful . Pick anything that we get all excited about today - for example, the design of the Ipod -
It exists because in the late 1980's a scientist working in IBM research (a physicist) discovered quantum mechanical properties that allowed computer memory to be small enough so an Ipod can hold 100 gig of songs. Without this discovery, there is no Ipod - No one ever talks about this guy when they marvel over the Ipod. Innovation can only go so far at solving the energy crisis. That is almost the only thing we should be focusing on - we are killing each other over it, funding terrorism and destroying our environment, yet the big business visionaries talk about great hotel service, great airline service, cool retail outlets and innovation in those venues. We don't get excited about actual engineering.
Its not just luck - Landing on the moon was not just dumb luck. Real transformative innovation - the kind that will solve the big technological problems requires people with a lot of deep scientific knowledge who have a lot of imagination.

Posted by zorro at June 8, 2010 8:03 PM

Yes, many innovations do not require higher intelligence. This is a fact that has been around for a while now. We have just over-learned it. Also, the fact is trotted out in order to inspire people into taking a shot at inventing something (and to buy a book that describes how 'easy' it is to innovate) I'm talking about specific types of innovation - I think we should view the wars in the middle east, 911, and the leak in the gulf as a massive failure of free markets. Governments should have created markets for energy innovation in the same way they create markets for ICBM's and Stealth Fighters.
If that had been done 30 years ago, we would be well on our way to solving the energy problem. This would have required a lot of engineers with a lot of imagination. And maybe today, we wouldn't only be discussing great airline service or wonderful personal music players, we'd be marveling at electric cars that go 300 miles in a charge or orbiting solar energy stations that beam electricity to the earth.

Posted by zorro at June 8, 2010 8:19 PM

Hi Zorro - ‘Over-learning’ – an interesting concept. I think I learn most through my ‘lots of tries’ mentality. Thinking however about what you are saying it may be because I’m not an engineer or scientist. My late beloved Dad was indeed an engineer - I clearly didn’t inherit the gene. He was a rationalist who would have been brilliant at focused innovation like you suggest for specific types of innovation. I think you are right about focus and if channelled for the betterment of all of us and harnessed to planet improving innovation rather than profit making innovation we would all be better off. The Socialist in me would like to see focused innovation applied to overcoming the moral criminality we see in our world in that - in our alleged civilised and advanced 2010 world - we still co-exist as human beings on a planet where there is obscene wealth at one extreme and poverty at the other, resulting in 20,000 people, mainly children, dying every day on our one planet due to extreme poverty. Now THAT surely would be a real great use of focused innovation. My main point is that I think there’s plenty of room for BOTH focused and scattergun approach – it’s about getting the balance right I guess and that’s what I think you are saying too unless I’m mistaken. We can never have too much innovation and if it comes ‘by accident’ or by rational focused innovation strategy then so be it - we all gain. I guess it would be a fabulous discussion to have about why innovation is not targeted more appropriately for the good of all on our one planet – what do you think?

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 9, 2010 3:08 AM

Invention of the microprocessor. A story that is never told
precisely because it has no conflict. It wouldn't make a good screenplay. Its just a matter of fact discovery. No 'us against them'. No one man fighting against a big faceless company who wins a battle. Nothing superficially heroic. But, it was the invention of the microprocessor. We only tell stories that have conflict and a story arc. We only pay attention to stuff that could be made into a screenplay. Note that this guy went to Stanford from a grant from the NSF.

http://www.velocityguide.com/computer-history/ted-hoff.html

Posted by zorro at June 9, 2010 10:00 AM

Good story - thanks

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 9, 2010 11:52 AM

Here is Ted Hoff discussing his invention and how he got into electronics. He is not weird, wild, woolly - he is as button down as button down gets, but he invented the friggin microprocessor! (this is actually worthy of an exclamation point) A movie of his story would have all the excitement of an episode of the old TV series Dragnet. But he actually changed the world, and that was not his goal. He was just doing his job well. Its 48 minutes, but 5-10 minutes is enough to get the idea. He as much to change the world than anyone Tom trumpets.

http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=17347

Posted by zorro at June 9, 2010 10:03 PM

Are we killing ourselves by requiring passion? Eisenhower dod a great job being boring. The passion the gurus talk about is as much about pleasing the audience they are talking to as it is about substance.
Here is Kristof's take.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/opinion/10kristof.html?hp

herbal viagra canada Posted by zorro at June 10, 2010 9:46 AM