Dmitry Linkov

Sign on the McDonalds express window: "Open 24 hours. Technical pause: from 4 till 6 am."
For me this "24 hours" looks illegal after that!

Differentiation is in all product categories. But there still are anchors on which other products are based on. Here is an example of beer:
1. Lager - the most popular and most widespread (I believe). Let’s say that Beck will be the anchor, but actually any beer can be the anchor in this category.
2. Dark beer - and here Guinness is the anchor with no doubt.
3. Non-filtered and non-filtered dark - here Czech beer like Franziskaner, Krusovice are anchors (in my mind).
4. With some flavor, but still beer - Hoegaarden is the anchor in this category.
5. More alcohol but still tasty and still beer - Belgian Leffe is the anchor here.
6. Light beer - Velvet.

Of course there are a lot of other types of beer. But if you take a consumer, and give him to try all of the beer that is on the market - these are the anchors categories he will think about while trying. Of course everybody has it’s own favorites, but in general there are 6 tastes, and six anchors for every taste. Some of the anchors are very clear to identify (like Guinness) some of them are not (like in lager category).
So what is the point of all this? The point is - 6 categories it’s so tiny! Dear producers, is this all you can imagine - 6 types of beer? Simple statistics shows that there are so many things that can be invented (beer cocktails, mixed beer, really alcoholic beer, beer without gas, foam beer, hot beer etc.), there are so many edges not yet discovered.
So keep working and keep creating new markets.

Here Tom Peters writes:

I love best practices.
I hate best practices.
I love them when they are available to learn from.
I hate them when they demand mimicry.

I want to proceed with best practices idea a bit more. From Tom’s citation there are two types of best practices:
1. Best practices can be something that has to be done by everybody - so they become like a "standard of quality". Like Wi-Fi in coffee shops. It’s simply has to be done in every coffee shops, and this is not the thing that distinguish you from you competitors. This is a standard.
2. Also best practices can be something, that makes certain company distinctive, something "purple". And if you will do the same for your company - it will be a sort of mimicry. This won’t work, because you are not the first one to use it and it looses the remarkability.

Some news on what is going on with me here).

On Friday I will have a French exam T.E.F. - so wish me good luck! It is a bit equal to IELTS, except that they deduct scores for wrong answers. It’s a bit weird, but I’ll live with that.

Every second day I visit Respublika book store and work on the business section shelves. This is a very interesting experience. While I’m there, I talk with visitors, see what they are looking for, try to understand their needs and catch their reaction. This communication with client brings me to the side of customer and that’s fantastic! I really enjoy working in this way, as a consultant. More to come ;).

A few evenings a week I watch some tv series. My favorites, for the moment, are: Lost, Jericho and, of course, Heroes! The most fantastic is that you can download them from the web, with professional translation, before it appears on tv. Moreover, Jericho and Heroes are not shown in Russia at all! There are even several translation groups, who compete with each other. And again - you can download them absolutely for free. Internet is changing our interaction with media in a brutal way.

The last is the book I’m finishing right now. "The 7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen Covey. This is a book number one for everybody. If you hadn’t a chance to read it - do it now. This will change a lot in your life.

Dear readers of my blog! I need comments, your comments, especially on this post.

One of my favorite books is Purple cow by Seth Godin. And I’m fully agree that in order to be successful, it’s necessary to be remarkable. This concerns everything and everyone. And after this, I’m thinking - what is it so remarkable in me? In how I do things? In how I write this blog?

I need your help to get the answer. Can you please write about yourselves? What do you think is so remarkable in how you write your blog? In how you do things?

p.s.: I will also be pleased if you post a link in your blog to this post.

One of latest problems btw. It’s well known that many people drink alcohol before flights. But in Russian, with an average 4 times in a month, there are problems with very drunk and aggressive people on the airplanes. So some guys get drunk, begin acting like idiots and all the other tourists suffer from this idiotic behavior. Does this happens in your country?

Last days I’m working a lot. But there is one thing I couldn’t write about.

We’ve bought this fantastic Macbook Pro! What can be said? Un-be-lie-va-ble! First hour we were sitting and laughing, making shots through webcam using some effects.
To be frank, the system is not perfect. It’s definitely much better than Windows, but still there are some programs I already installed and more to come. But this is ok.

One thing that really is strange for me - the sound of DVD-ROM. It’s kinda quirky slightly metallic sound that just must not to be produced by such a notebook!
Anyway - it’s completely new experience of the computers and thank you, Apple, for this!

Reading a post of Mike here, I thought - and actually "what blogs really do?"
Mike writes:

Conversations happen everywhere, but blog conversations are unique. Their reach is worldwide. They last as long as the Internet exists. Their impact is unpredictably dynamic.

I’m fully agree with this, and finalizing this thought - a blog can create a lot of weak connections. You remember, Dan Pink wrote in his book, that weak connections make a lot more in your life than we use to think. For example - you more probably can get a job from a guy that you saw only once than from your best friend. If you are consistently write and comment others you are creating this weak connections and that’s why blogs are superb.

You cannot be superb at everything. Just watch this video. The thing I liked most - is that pictures are quite the same. They evolve but it’s still a small niche of such drawings. I think it’s important to find your own niche. Do you have one?

I am back with a few drafts (hope to post them today-tomorrow) and a wonderful feeling after Wednesday conference of Dave Ulrich.

I picked up Dave early morning of 31st January in Airport. We were riding in the taxi and just chatting. Dave - you are great! Really! It was so interesting just to talk, to exchange opinions. Dave is a professional HR consultant - this is not quiet things that interested me, but during the conference he really changed my opinion on how complicated and interesting HR can be.

Having tough schedule right after the conference we had to move to the airport, because Dave had next conference in India right in the 1st of February. We were running at the airport like crazy but we finally did it!

That was a great experience and if Dave will speak somewhere near you I highly recommend you to visit the event.

What I really don’t like in my everyday schedule is that I sleep more that 6 hours. I cannot find my optimal minimum of sleep that will be necessary for a productive day.

How many hours do you spend for sleeping?

Tags: Dmitry Linkov, day schedule, sleep

I don’t play much. And even if I play I search for some good old games from 1995-2002 and sometimes even earlier.

Recently I found a game called Netstorm. There is an interesting story that I want to share with you.

A demo of the game was originally released by Activision on September 15, 1997, but a flaw allowed users to convert it in to a full-version download. This in combination with the close launch date of the popular Age of Empires and lack of promotion by Activision meant game sales were poor.
Activision maintained the official servers for a number of years until player numbers diminished and the servers were closed down on May 28, 2002. Shortly after, fans of the game set up unofficial servers to keep Netstorm alive. Additional unofficial patches have now been released which add several new options, allowing for more varied games. An expansion pack, which aims to double the number of units available, is in development.
Recently, Netstorm became abandonware and can be downloaded for free at Netstorm Headquarters. (taken from wikipedia)

But what is the most interesting - the game itself is fantastic! The computer gaming magazines put it on the first place of something like "The best unknown game" lists! In fact - we see that game is still alive and moreover - people play in it online. Of course there are not a lot of them but community is stable and very loyal.
So how Activision could turn this project to their own welfare? Actually quiet simple - continue developing of existing version, make a blog and keep updating. After a hard work they had to release a second version that would be immediately bought by the community they’ve made by their actions!

Unfortunately the project is not developing on it’s own so good. At 1997 we had only web 1.0 and no Permission Marketing book by Seth Godin.

This question is believed to be very important, and I feel it on myself. I’m doing a lot of projects and work in different areas - and I cannot say that I really  like all of them! But "what I like?" is still unanswered question for me.
Do you know the response for yourself? How did you come to this response?

There is a great blog I read these days - Re-versioning your life by Laurie. Don’t hesitate to check it out.

Tags: re-versioning, self-positioning

My good friend Bayram Annakov now has his own blog! Check it out at http://bayramannakov.wordpress.com/

We were studying at the university together and now do some speaking together for a group of 5th year students. He is very communicative guy with good management skills and a lot of ideas. Bayram - Good luck to you with blogging ;).

So here it is. Freakonomics is now translated and published in Russia. I’ve searched the blogs on some comments - it seems that 50% says Wow, other 50% says that the book isn’t interesting, and that findings are not clear at all.
Getting a bit deeper on what people wrote I think that there is a problem with the title. Levitt uses statistical methods and there is little to do with economics in his work. But people who buys is attracted by this "konomics" end. And it becomes frustrating for them, when they didn’t find any real economics inside!