What Designing a Shampoo Bottle Taught Me About Business

You want to be in control of that shampoo bottle, not the other way around. 

During the brief period between graduating from business school and the start of my first real job, I felt on top of the world. I knew the theories. I’d read the case studies. I’d generated brilliant solutions and business plans for hypothetical companies. I had a brand-new briefcase and some sharp professional clothes. I was so ready to impress.

My First Day

And then that first day came, and I started my job as a marketing manager at Proctor & Gamble. I got my desk, my phone, a tour… and an assignment: “We’re developing a new shampoo product. We need you to figure out how big the hole in the bottle should be.”

Like many a newly minted hotshot before me, I thought, “You have got to be kidding me. I’m an MBA, not a designer! Don’t people who spend their careers designing shampoo containers already know the answer? Isn’t there a chart somewhere? Besides, what difference could it possibly make if the hole is four millimeters or six millimeters?”

Of course, I did not say any of that.

My next thought was, “Wait a minute. Maybe this is just a logic test. The answer is simple: Make the hole bigger so the customer will use more shampoo and then have to buy more.”

But as I started to research this issue, I realized it’s not a design decision. Forget the countless business-school case studies I’d read — this was my first real-world lesson in marketing.

Determined to do well on my first assignment, I used the consumer research tactics that were the heart and soul of P&G: I read stacks of existing research; talked to consumers in focus groups and one-on-one interviews; and shadowed customers as they shopped. Like a sponge, I soaked in their needs, desires, and pet peeves. I listened intently to their stories about the way our products made them feel.

A Real-World Education

I had just learned my first and arguably most important lesson in consumer marketing. You do not know what you do not know. Don’t forget to listen to the people who have a stake in whatever you are about to do.

Here’s the thing: Consumers are very particular about shampoo because the shower is a very personal, sometimes vulnerable place. It’s never feels good to be duped by some corporation’s plan to increase sales, but especially not when you have soap in your eyes and no clothes on. You want to be in control of that shampoo bottle, not the other way around. So, after hearing from our customers, we designed a bottle with a hole that provided just the right amount of shampoo — not too much, or too little.

Active listening is a vital skill for any leader. It builds and strengthens relationships between customers and brands, or managers and employees. It helps leaders appreciate that everyone has something to contribute to the business, the brand, the reputation.

Why It Matters Today

I’ve carried this philosophy with me throughout my career. Now, as CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, I listen carefully to our customers, partners, and employees as they navigate today’s ever-changing technology landscape. Hearing about their challenges — their unique journey to the cloud, or how they’re trying to make sense of big data, or protect themselves from cyber threats, or provide digital experiences anytime, anywhere and on any device — demonstrates what issues are most important to them, and ultimately helps me make better business decisions.

It doesn’t matter whether your product is a server or a shampoo bottle. Taking the time to recognize, understand, and appreciate what the people around you have to say will mean the difference between success and failure.

This article was first published on February 29, 2016 by Meg Whitman on her LinkedIn Page. 

Copyright © 2017 LinkedIn Corporation.

You Can't Fake Personality, Passion or Purpose

We’re known for our culture, and our culture is solely determined by our people.  

Each week, our jobs mailboxes are loaded with people wanting to become part of the Virgin story – but unfortunately not everyone can join the team. To help us find the best people for the roles on offer, we are guided by a few very-Virgin values. Here are the four principles that we feel make a successful professional.

The first thing we look for when hiring new staff is personality. In my eyes, personality always wins over book smarts. Company knowledge and job-specific skills can be learned, but you can’t train a personality. We look for people who are friendly and considerate, and who like working with others. From our airlines to our call centres, and our office buildings to our gym floors, you will always see smiling people working together to get the job done. These personalities make our staff successful, and, in turn, our businesses successful – they also keep our company culture vibrant.

We also place more importance on experience rather than qualifications. The person with the top grades and most credentials isn’t always the best person for the role. Time and time again I’ve seen people with a background of broad-ranging employment and skills hired for a job where they don’t necessarily tick the specialist criteria boxes, but become incredibly successful by offering a new level of understanding to the role. With this in mind, we focus on hiring people with transferable skills — team players who can pitch in and help others in all sorts of situations. It’s important never to underestimate the power of versatility. Somebody who thinks a little differently can help a business see problems as opportunities and inspire creativity.

Spanx's CEO Sara Blakely once said to me: "The smartest thing I ever did in the early days was to hire my weaknesses." I couldn’t agree more. I can attribute a lot of my success in business to hiring people who had the skills I lacked. For a business to grow there needs to be a healthy level of delegation. When my friends and I started Virgin, none of us were any good with numbers. Rather than try to act as accountants and do the job badly, we found Jack Clayton. Jack shared our passion, and had a knack for numbers that helped us become successful and grow.

If you’re the one hiring, evaluate where your company could improve, and seek out qualities in people that will help you make those improvements. If you’re applying for a role, look for ways in which you can add to, and improve, the business.

Nowadays, it’s rare that people work nine to five. We’re more connected than ever before, so many of us are working longer hours and with more commitment. With this is mind, it’s important to find and hire passionate people, who genuinely care about the business and its purpose. Purpose is no longer a buzzword. It’s a must-have. Passion and purpose will keep people focused on the job at hand, and ultimately separate the successful from the unsuccessful.

At Virgin, we’re known for our culture, and our culture is solely determined by our people. Our people are our greatest asset and the lifeblood of the brand, and are therefore crucial to the success of our businesses. They are what keep us relevant and ahead of the game. To make sure we continue to deliver a standout company culture, we make hiring our number one priority. While it may seem like a desperate rush to get somebody through the door to help carry the load, it is worth being patient to find the right person, rather than unbalancing the team. 


This article was first published on April 31, 2015 by Richard Branson on his LinkedIn Page. Copyright © 2017 LinkedIn Corporation.

You're Not The Only Unhappy Person On Facebook; Lifeline CEO

Indeed, in the 21st century, we have probably become the most connected group of people that has ever existed.

Fifteen years ago, you would likely be reading this on a dead tree rather than on the screen you are using right now. That puts you among your fellow Australian adults who now own an average of three digital devices -- typically a laptop, a smartphone and a tablet.

Studies suggest we're spending some 24 hours per week online, up to half of which could be spent on social media. Facebook status updates, Tweets, Instagram posts, LinkedIn profiles, and endless emails have become personal habits like coffee in the morning.

Again, 15 years ago, few foresaw the liberation many feel on setting up the "Out-of-Office" auto-reply for leave days. Indeed, in the 21st century, we have probably become the most connected group of people that has ever existed. At the same time, without care, we risk being the most disconnected and possibly discontent.

Recently appointed as CEO of Lifeline Australia, the community-based crisis support service founded some 50 years ago as telephones became ubiquitous in our homes, I've been thinking about what our increasingly technological lives may be doing to our emotional lives.

For Lifeline, technology has been and is a huge enabler of help for our fellow everyday Australians, including the 900,000-plus calls (and growing) this year from help seekers. The phone has been a beacon of hope for many. And, we've been expanding our web-based crisis support.

But as we confront a national emergency in suicide, with some seven preventable deaths every day and suicide fatalities far exceeding road fatalities, we need to ask ourselves what role new technology is playing -- is it helping or harming?

Some argue that when looked at from a simple time-management perspective there must be emotional implications: more time spent with devices is less time spent with humans. As suggested elsewhere, URL may be replacing IRL ("in real life"). The argument goes that human contact is instinctive and irreplaceable, and it's a hard one to refute when we look at the importance of close relationships and families to our well-being.

On the other hand, the Internet gives many people the opportunity to connect and be in relationships that time and place limit. Many of us now belong to virtual communities based on our needs and interests rather than our locations. However, perhaps as a part result, many no longer know our neighbors, and it's hard to see neighborhoods thrive when that is the case.

Equally, there's the phenomenon some call "digital amnesia", whereby some among us at least partly confect or curate an online persona, or one that appeals or compares well. Or, as one single mum said to me, am I the only unhappy person on Facebook?

Of course she's not, but her comment highlights the isolation and self doubt many experience in the digital domain, and that can fuel poor wellbeing. I've heard shocking stories of young women who ask their Instagram followers to vote on different possible outfits for school mufti days; I've seen data showing hospitalization of young women for self-harming up by 50 percent in the past 15 years.

Then, there's the matter of Internet content itself, ranging from cesspool to Sistine Chapel. We see new technology-enabled addictions arising, such as online gambling or pornography, at the same time that there's never been as many sites and apps providing information and services about emotional and mental health and well-being.

Watch a group of young blokes at a pub on a Friday night and you'll sadly see someone losing that week's paycheck on punts on their smartphone. At the same time, service providers know from site visit data that young people in particular look to the Internet for guidance when they need it.

Moreover, Internet information about emotional and mental health is clearly part of it being increasingly okay to talk about one's own issues, and okay to get help. At the same time, there's a tendency in some pop-generated content to wrongly mythologize permanent happiness while not acknowledging the inevitable realities of anxiousness, sadness, grief and other not-so-comfortable emotions. That's just somebody in the self-help industry making themselves happy and wealthy at the expense of those ultimately seeking compassion and listening.

Worryingly, research studies about online content regarding the topic of suicide indicate that negative, destructive and explicit suicide-related content dominates content that offers help, hope and prevention of suicide.

So then, what to make of this two-edge digital sword? For mine, technology is neutral, but we shouldn't be. We should harness the digital world for the good of our emotional world. We need to have "care-ware" to match software and hardware -- or a greater mindfulness about our usage of the Internet and our devices.

Technology expert Alex Pang calls it "contemplative computing" and it can look like: checking in on how much time we and our loved ones spend online; examining if what we're consuming online is about our hopes or our hatreds; testing ourselves to lead daily life without needing daily digital shares; having at least one or two good friends to personally talk to rather than thousands of Facebook friends to play with, or; taking a weekly "digital Sabbath". And, if we are in crisis, seeking out the services and sites of organisations who have been and would be helping even if the Internet was somehow unplugged.

And, because online won't go offline anytime soon, we also need public policy that recognizes the role of technology, including that of compassionate crisis tele-web lines, in promoting well-being.

So, by now you've probably scrolled to the bottom of the screen, and there's no worries with that. There's no rolling the digital clock back on the 21st century. But maybe have a good chat with your barista -- or your spouse, your kid, or your workmate -- too.

It could do you both some good.

This article is copyright © 2016 The Huffington Post Australia Pty Ltd.

Content is King; Bill Gates

Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting. 

The television revolution that began half a century ago spawned a number of industries, including the manufacturing of TV sets, but the long-term winners were those who used the medium to deliver information and entertainment.

When it comes to an interactive network such as the Internet, the definition of “content” becomes very wide. For example, computer software is a form of content-an extremely important one, and the one that for Microsoft will remain by far the most important. But the broad opportunities for most companies involve supplying information or entertainment. No company is too small to participate.

One of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone with a PC and a modem can publish whatever content they can create. In a sense, the Internet is the multimedia equivalent of the photocopier. It allows material to be duplicated at low cost, no matter the size of the audience.

The Internet also allows information to be distributed worldwide at basically zero marginal cost to the publisher. Opportunities are remarkable, and many companies are laying plans to create content for the Internet.

For example, the television network NBC and Microsoft recently agreed to enter the interactive news business together. Our companies will jointly own a cable news network, MSNBC, and an interactive news service on the Internet. NBC will maintain editorial control over the joint venture.

I expect societies will see intense competition-and ample failure as well as success-in all categories of popular content-not just software and news, but also games, entertainment, sports programming, directories, classified advertising, and on-line communities devoted to major interests. Printed magazines have readerships that share common interests. It’s easy to imagine these communities being served by electronic online editions.

But to be successful online, a magazine can’t just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm. There isn’t enough depth or interactivity in print content to overcome the drawbacks of the online medium.

If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines.

A question on many minds is how often the same company that serves an interest group in print will succeed in serving it online. Even the very future of certain printed magazines is called into question by the Internet.

For example, the Internet is already revolutionizing the exchange of specialized scientific information. Printed scientific journals tend to have small circulations, making them high-priced. University libraries are a big part of the market. It’s been an awkward, slow, expensive way to distribute information to a specialized audience, but there hasn’t been an alternative.

Now some researchers are beginning to use the Internet to publish scientific findings. The practice challenges the future of some venerable printed journals. Over time, the breadth of information on the Internet will be enormous, which will make it compelling. Although the gold rush atmosphere today is primarily confined to the United States, I expect it to sweep the world as communications costs come down and a critical mass of localized content becomes available in different countries.

For the Internet to thrive, content providers must be paid for their work. The long-term prospects are good, but I expect a lot of disappointment in the short-term as content companies struggle to make money through advertising or subscriptions. It isn’t working yet, and it may not for some time.

So far, at least, most of the money and effort put into interactive publishing is little more than a labor of love, or an effort to help promote products sold in the non-electronic world. Often these efforts are based on the belief that over time someone will figure out how to get revenue.

In the long run, advertising is promising. An advantage of interactive advertising is that an initial message needs only to attract attention rather than convey much information. A user can click on the ad to get additional information-and an advertiser can measure whether people are doing so.

But today the amount of subscription revenue or advertising revenue realized on the Internet is near zero-maybe $20 million or $30 million in total. Advertisers are always a little reluctant about a new medium, and the Internet is certainly new and different.

Some reluctance on the part of advertisers may be justified, because many Internet users are less-than-thrilled about seeing advertising. One reason is that many advertisers use big images that take a long time to download across a telephone dial-up connection. A magazine ad takes up space too, but a reader can flip a printed page rapidly.

As connections to the Internet get faster, the annoyance of waiting for an advertisement to load will diminish and then disappear. But that’s a few years off. Some content companies are experimenting with subscriptions, often with the lure of some free content. It’s tricky, though, because as soon as an electronic community charges a subscription, the number of people who visit the site drops dramatically, reducing the value proposition to advertisers.

A major reason paying for content doesn’t work very well yet is that it’s not practical to charge small amounts. The cost and hassle of electronic transactions makes it impractical to charge less than a fairly high subscription rate.

But within a year the mechanisms will be in place that allow content providers to charge just a cent or a few cents for information. If you decide to visit a page that costs a nickel, you won’t be writing a check or getting a bill in the mail for a nickel. You’ll just click on what you want, knowing you’ll be charged a nickel on an aggregated basis.

This technology will liberate publishers to charge small amounts of money, in the hope of attracting wide audiences. Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products-a marketplace of content.

This essay is copyright © 2001 Microsoft Corporation. 

Mark Zuckerberg on a Future Where the Internet Is Available to All

The Facebook Chief Writes That Connecting Everyone on the Planet to the Web Can Create Opportunity and Reduce Poverty. 

There have been moments in history where the invention of new technology has completely rewired the way our society lives and works. The printing press, radio, television, mobile phones and the Internet are among these. In the coming decades, we will see the greatest revolution yet, as billions of people connect to the Internet for the first time.

Today, only a little more than one-third of the world is connected—about 2.7 billion people. It's easy to take the Internet for granted and assume most people will soon have the access and opportunity we have, but that just isn't the case. Connecting everyone is one of the fundamental challenges of our generation.

The Wall Street Journal published its first edition on July 8, 1889. Explore the history of the past 125 years through the Journal's headlines, see an interactive version of the first front page, and track the companies that have been in and out of the Dow.

When people have access, they not only connect with their friends, families and communities, they also gain the opportunity to participate in the global economy. Research by McKinsey & Co. in 2011 shows that the Internet already accounts for a larger share of economic activity in many developed countries than agriculture and energy, and over the previous five years created 21% of GDP growth. Access to online tools lets people use information to do their jobs better and in turn create even more jobs, business and opportunities. The Internet is the foundation of this economy.

Connecting the World

Connecting everyone in the world does more than share these benefits with billions of more people. Bringing the other two-thirds of the world online will enable them to invent and create new things that benefit us, too. If we can connect everyone, all of our lives will improve dramatically.

But this isn't going to happen by itself.

Not only do the vast majority of people have no access to the Internet, but even more surprisingly, Internet adoption is growing by less than 9% each year. That's very slow considering how early we are in its development and that this rate is only slowing further.

A common belief is that as more people buy smartphones, they will have data access. But that isn't a given. In most countries, the cost of a data plan is much more expensive than the price of the smartphone itself. For example, an iPhone with a two-year data plan in the U.S. costs about $2,000, where $500 to $600 is for the phone and about $1,500 is for the data.

In turn, the vast majority of data costs go directly toward covering the tens of billions of dollars spent each year building global infrastructure to deliver the Internet. Unless this becomes more efficient, we cannot sustainably serve everyone at prices they can afford. And unless we change this, we will soon live in a world where the majority of people with smartphones use them offline and still don't have access to the Internet.

There is a lot of research into how to deliver the Internet in completely new ways. Some of this work involves satellites, planes, lasers and beaming Internet from the sky. This research will eventually be necessary to connect everyone since some people live in remote areas where there is just no infrastructure to connect them. But this isn't the problem most people have.

In fact, almost 90% of the world's population already lives within range of an existing cellular network. For everyone in those areas, we don't need to build completely new kinds of infrastructure to help them connect. We just need to show why it's valuable and make it affordable.

The challenge for our industry will be to develop models for Internet access that make data more affordable while enabling mobile operators to continue growing and investing in a sustainable way.

Efforts like Internet.org—a global partnership founded by Facebook and other technology leaders—are already under way to solve this by working with operators to provide free basic Internet services to people world-wide. Our society has already decided that certain basic services over the phone should be free. Anyone can call 911 to get medical attention or report a crime even if you haven't paid for a phone plan. In the future, everyone should have access to basic Internet services as well, even if they haven't paid for a data plan. And just as basic phone services encouraged more people to get phones, basic Internet services will encourage many more people to get a data plan.

If these efforts work, we can expect to connect billions of people within the next decade—and this will transform their lives and communities.

Human Progress

A recent study by Deloitte found that expanding Internet access in developing countries would create 140 million jobs and lift 160 million people out of poverty, and that this newfound opportunity would even meaningfully reduce child-mortality rates. Across sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, the Internet will help drive human progress.

Perhaps the most important change might be a new global sense of community. Today we can only hear the voices and witness the imaginations of one-third of the world's people. We are all being robbed of the creativity and potential of the two-thirds of the world not yet online. Tomorrow, if we succeed, the Internet will truly represent everyone.

Nothing about this future is guaranteed. The coming years will be a battle to expand and defend the free and open Internet. Our success will determine how far this vision of a connected world can go. Connecting the world is within our reach, and if we work together, we can make this happen.


This article is copyright © 2014 Wall Street Journal.