Greek Complexity

Jonathan Franzen rips off my post

Read this and then this and judge for yourself. I was just more concise than he was.

Only joking, of course. He's much more perceptive and eloquent than I was. I wish I'd had time to finish reading The Corrections before I had to return it to the library. Oh well. He may be more profound and much better expressed, but at least -- and I flatter myself here, at my own peril -- I was funnier.

Seeking PR firm for long-term engagement with portfolio company. Must have strong media connections in Asia, ideally in the telecom industry or, less ideally, new media/Internet.

Update: don't need any more referrals. Thanks to all who responded.

Creating the McDonald's menu

A fascinating glimpse into the process that goes into adding just one new item to the McDonald's menu. It's not just coming up with the recipe. It's also the supply chain planning, the process standardisation, securing of long-term supplies, and lots more. On the recipe alone:

As Sudha Shankarnaryanan, General Manager, Product Development and Quality Assurance, points out, there is very little written material on paneer. "Even Indian cookbooks have barely a page on paneer processing," she says. In a company like McDonald's which is devoted to processes, it meant Shankarnaryanan would have to delineate and standardise the process herself. The first task she embarked upon, along with McDonald's India's largest food processor Vista, was to figure out a way to massproduce a spicy paneer 'fillet', that would comprise the filling of the paneer burger.

More here. I imagine the same sort of process happens in other countries when they introduce new items, often inspired by local dishes.

Five VCs Explain What They REALLY Think About Your Pitches

Interesting summary. For various reasons, not all of this is relevant to this part of the world. I liked these two especially:

• Answer questions quickly without getting defensive.
• Be a good storyteller

Link

Announcing investment in CustomerXPs

I am happy to announce a Series A investment in CustomerXPs Software Private Limited, a software company based in Bangalore.CustomerXPs is a rare example of a home-grown enterprise software company that aims to compete on the global stage with truly world-leading innovation.

The firm operates in the analytics space to provide human-like intelligence using real-time transaction data (for example, when a bank's customer calls the call centre with a question). A short-hand way of thinking about what the company does is, as one journalist said, CRM Version 2.0. CRM industry insiders would probably see this as Version 3.0, if we define Version 1.0 as contact management and Version 2.0 as analytics on historical customer data. Customer relationship is only one application of the company's technology. The technology is also being used for monitoring of fraud and compliance matters, business intelligence and other transaction-heavy applications.

Besides the team's obvious expertise spanning technical areas (artificial intelligence, data management, statistics, psychology and behavioural science), product management and sales, what struck us is the amount of commitment that the founders had to the long-term vision, with the discipline not to seek easy services revenues by becoming yet another Indian IT solutions company.

I hope to see more such product companies emerging and getting funded in India to allow the broader ecosystem to develop.

More information on the investment here.

Munich Day 3 and back to Singapore

I had planned yesterday to go buy some more food and beer to take back with me to Singapore. But it’s 8 am now and I’m not going to have time to go to the shops AND the BMW Motorrad Zentrum before taking the train to the airport. Dilemma: beers or bikes? Oh, callous fate, what a position to put a boy in.

By 8.30am, I’ve decided: beers it is. Saw plenty of bikes yesterday and it’s not like I'm going to buy one now. I hope the shops are open.

It’s 9am and I’m at the train station wondering which ticket to buy off the vending machine that'll allow me to go to the city centre and then to the airport. I seem to have more than one choice, the cheapest being 5 euros and the most expensive being 10.80 euros. Only one must be valid surely. I'm examining the info board to see whether I can get by being a cheapo when a passer-by stops of her own accord with "Do you need help?" She tells me which ticket to buy (the expensive one) and then runs off to her train. I continue to dither when she comes back worried that I hadn’t understood, but my ticket pops out just then. Very nice of her especially since she almost misses her train coming back for me. Get on the train and realise, ah, I forgot to take a picture of the hostel!

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I’ve got myself some food, beers and wine but lost track of the time. It’s 10.30 am now and I panic. Hope Munich airport is as organised as Changi or I'm in trouble! Almost certainly no time for the shower and shave I’d planned to take in the lounge. There’s nothing I can do about it now though. Que sera, sera.

That’s me panicking

I take stock of myself on the train. Think I've lost a little weight over the holiday. (When I get home later, I learn that this was just wishful thinking.) I've also managed to lose that cold I had when I left Singapore, so that's good. But my lips feel like they were produced in a tannery and sewn onto my mouth. Not so good.

I hope you Like this

Ever since Facebook created the Like button, I've noticed people clicking Like on the most inane of posts. Someone says, "Time for a coffee!" and 7 people click Like in the space of about 17 microseconds. The newsfeed on my Facebook homepage shows that nearly every post has at least one Like attached to it. The rush to Like has only multiplied after Facebook extended the functionality to allow Like-ing individual comments.

That's about the Like-ers. And the Like-ees? Facebook must employ the odd drug-pusher because they certainly know how to get people hooked. Your correspondent certainly needs his fix. I put up a post and wonder who's going to Like it and tot up the score when people actually do and what time of day it is where they are. I wonder whether, if enough people comment on my post, Facebook will promote its placement on newsfeeds so that more people will see it and Like it. And sometimes when someone tells me in person that they enjoyed something I put up, I paste a bland expression on my face, thank them and wonder, inwardly baffled, why they didn't just say so in a Facebook comment and click Like.

What's next? A Dislike button? I certainly know that this addict has craved one sometimes. Not least a Dislike button for the Like button.

Munich Day 2

I’ve decided that today is a day for museums but not the usual art or history sort.

I first take a tram and a bus to Olympiapark. So peaceful. It’s a massive park with an Olympic stadium and a lake with swans in it. Massive yet smaller than the English Garden, another park in Munich, which is supposed to be the world's biggest urban park. The English Garden came highly recommended too but I don’t have the time and don’t prioritise it.

Olympiapark

So many jet trails in the sky all over Europe. Counted nine in the sky at one point while at Olympiapark.

Then a superb three hours spent at the BMW Museum and BMW showroom! Too many dream bikes to pick a fave. When I tell one of the salesmen at the showroom that I’m visiting from Singapore, he says that lots of people visit from Singapore, and all very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about bikes. Guess I’ve passed a test! Might go to the dedicated motorbike showroom tomorrow, the BMW Motorrad Zentrum.

Dream machine!

Now to the Beer Museum.

Munich Day 1

I wake up on the train slightly panicky. We’re scheduled to arrive at Munich soon and I have to take a long phone call for work in a few minutes. How am I going to unload my luggage one-handed while participating in a long and complicated discussion?

Then I find out the train is delayed by more than an hour! In Germany! Can it really be? The attendant bustles around cheerfully with a hey-such-is-life manner and hands out free coffee to whoever wants it. I’m already one-handed so find it hard to stir some sugar into it, but my new Singaporean friend helps me. I also find out that we’re entitled to collect some compensation for the delay after we arrive. Gotta love it! The delay actually worked in my favour but I get some money to boot.

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I get to the hostel and check in. More Japanese! Remember what I said earlier about Japanese being great travellers? One of the Japanese guys in the room isn’t just a great traveller, he seems almost European.  Lived with a Germany family for a while last year, studied the language, seems to know Bavaria and Austria quite well… Somehow, I've always seen lots of similarities between Germans and Japanese. That's a discussion for another day.

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It’s still fairly early in the morning and I decide to take another walking tour. This starts from the old City Hall, the Rathaus. Beautiful building, but then there are so many more just as beautiful. This seems to be a sort of “downtown” as I later find out there are several shops in the area and a mid-sized department store.

Munich's Rathaus

Our tour guide is an American called Eric who’s lived in Munich many years. The group is about 30 strong and seems to be mostly Americans although there are Europeans too, even Germans. Most of them seem to be interested but no one interested enough to ask Eric any questions. I initially feel guilty, thinking that I’m monopolising the scene, but even when I shut up, only one or two others pipe up. I stop feeling guilty. The tour is good-not-great but then it’s a little unfair to compare with Ryan’s tour two days ago. Unfortunately, my camera dies along the way so I have few pictures of the tour and the rest of the day.

How not to pitch to VCs (aka "legal poppycock")

Lucy Kellaway at her best again!

The contract I’m about to break is the one that sits at the bottom of almost every business e-mail. In simple terms, it says that if the e-mail isn’t addressed to you, you must delete it at once, notify the sender and not tell a soul. [...]

In European law it’s pretty much impossible to foist this sort of contract on someone unilaterally. Legal disclaimers on e-mails are not only unenforced but unenforceable – making one wonder why they are so popular. [...]

Rather than do as instructed [by such disclaimers], I have decided to follow the common law of the internet. This decrees that whenever you get a crass message, you must forward it to everyone in your address book, or post it on your blog, or, if you are fortunate to have such a thing, write about it in your newspaper column. In so doing, I am at least notifying the sender, though maybe not in the way his disclaimer intended.

More of this eminently sensible, characteristically witty piece here.

One often finds the same sort of hogwash, nonsense, drivel, bunkum -- pick your favourite descriptor -- inside some sealed packaged goods -- "If you open this package, you are deemed to have agreed to this contract, which you could only have seen if you had opened this package" -- and many business plans sent out by entrepreneurs or their advisors to VCs -- "By opening this document, you are deemed to have agreed to the following conditions and restrictions".

Lucy Kellaway calls email disclaimers crass. Guess this is one of those seemingly obvious things that yesterday's post didn't cover: please don't attempt the same crassness with someone you're asking to trust you with an investment.

And yes, of course, this applies to all emails and docs you send to just about anyone. I don't mean to imply that only VCs should be afforded such a courtesy.