Saturday, March 31, 2012

Friday, March 30, 2012

Risk Assessment and Calculation

Risk Management
The essence of risk management lies in maximizing the areas where we have some control over the outcome while minimizing the areas where we have absolutely no control over the outcome and the linkage between effect and cause is hidden from us.

Assumption of Risk calculation
1. Full information
2. Independent Trial
3. Relevance of Quantitative Valuations

Law of Large Numbers: The average of large number of throws will be more likely that the average of small number of throws to differ from the true average by less than some stated amount.


Prospects Theory
People make decisions based on the potential value of losses and gains rather than the final outcome, and that people evaluate these losses and gains using interesting heuristics
There is no difference other than in accounting conventions between a cost and a loss.
Probability judgments are attached not to events but to descriptions of events…..the judged probability of events depends upon the explicitness of its description.

Endowment Effect
A person's willingness to accept compensation for a good is greater than their willingness to pay for it once their property right to it has been established

Law of Averages
It is a lay term

Decision Theory
Most of the decisions are prescriptive.

The information you have is not the information you want.
The information you want is not the information you need.
The information you need is not the information you can obtain.
The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay.

The utility resulting from any small increase in wealth will be inversely proportionate to the quality of goods previously possessed. – Bernoulli
There is a relation between the evidence and the event considered, but it is not necessarily measurable. - Unknown
Likeness to truth is not Truth – Socrates
Moral Certainty is less than certainty – Jacob Bernoulli
A person who never made a mistake, never tried a new thing - Albert Einstein
Under of conditions of uncertainty, the choice is not between rejecting a hypothesis and accepting it, but between reject and not reject. - Unknown
The true source of uncertainty lies in the intentions of others. – Game Theory

Monday, March 26, 2012

Book Review: Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook

Book Review: Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (And Other Social Networks) by Dave Kerpen: Publisher- McGraw-Hill: ISBN- 13: 978-0071762342

Likeable Social Media, is an successful attempt by Dave Kerpen to explain usage of Social Media, especially facebook to maximize the business benefit any marketing strategy.

Dave has used examples from his experience which most of the experts (sic!) from Social Media Marketing domain lack. The book is clearly written with lots of examples woven. Each chapter has exercise in the end which encourages readers to act on the learning’s.


This book is must read for any business owner, social media marketing executives.

Disclaimer: I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.


Further reading: Numerous books

One can get more information about book and related topics from:

1. Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Likeable-Social-Media-Customers-Irresistible/dp/0071762345/
2. Presentation at Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/bostonmike/likeable-social-media-how-to-delight-your-customers-create-and-irresistible-brand-and-be-generally-amazing-on-facebook-and-other-social-networks
3. Author’s company: http://www.likeable.com/

Friday, March 23, 2012

Book Review: The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption

Book Review: The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption by Clay A. Johnson: Publisher- O'Reilly: ISBN- 13: 978-1449304683

The Information Diet is an smart idea but presentation is not up to the mark. Clay repeatedly compares information with eating habits. Though comparison is good but same idea is repeated throughout the book.

I started reading this book with high hope but ….

The contents of book might be fit for 30 page booklet but surely not for 182 page book.


Disclaimer: I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Book Review: Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works

Book Review: Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works by Ash Maurya: Publisher- O’Reilly: ISBN- 13: 978-1449305178

Running Lean is one of the essential books for Lean stratups. Books take you to journey of Lean Startup and focuses on Customer focused approach. Ash takes gives you very prescriptive dose of running a startup while minimizing Risk and maximizing the flexibility.

Ash draws heavily from Eric Ries book (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses).

The book's chapters are:

1. Introduction
2. Meta-Principles
3. Running Lean Illustrated
4. Create Your Lean Canvas
5. Prioritize Where to Start
6. Get Ready to Experiment
7. Get Ready to Interview Customers
8. The Problem Interview
9. The Solution Interview
10. Get to Release 1.0
11. Get Ready to Measure
12. The MVP Interview
13. Validate Customer Life Cycle
14. Don't Be a Feature Pusher
15. Measure Product/Market Fit
16. Conclusion
Appendix - Bonus Material - comments and insights on topics including: building a slow burn startup, thoughts on premature funding, achieving flow, pricing models, teaser and landing pages, sales letters, continuous deployment, conversion dashboards

The book is essential for any Start up, not only Tech Start ups.

Disclaimer: I did not get paid to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I have no relationship with the publisher or the author.

Further Reading: There are score of books on Lean Business Practices and especially few in startup arena. Running Lean has drawn heavily from :

1. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
2. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
3. Business Model You: A One-Page Method For Reinventing Your Career

One can get more information about book and related topics from:

1. Book’s web site: http://www.runningleanhq.com/
2. Ash’s website: http://www.ashmaurya.com/
3. Lean Canvas: http://leancanvas.com/
4. User Cycle: http://usercycle.com/
5. Review: http://kevindewalt.com/blog/2011/02/26/running-lean-book-review-my-hacks

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Daily Stand up

During daily stand up meeting (of course project is using Scrum) how status is collected or stated in your teams.

1. Each pig gives his/her status and Scrum Master takes notes of that
2. Scrum Master iterate over each story and pigs involved in that story speak about their story

Under what conditions one will select one of the methods?