The Value of trust

Nederlandse versie


English version

The hidden side of everything

Definitely worth reading is Freakonomics in which Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner search for the hidden side of everything.

Steven en Stephen also decided to create a weblog dealing with important questions. Take a look!

Additionally, one of the questions answered in the book is Why crack dealers still live with their moms; definitely worth watching is the following movie in which Steven Levitt gives an answer on this question. Definitely worth watching!

Inspiring quotes to remember

(and also remember to come back sometimes because quotes will be added)

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well

Anneloes Raes

Logic will get you from A to B

Imagination will get you everywhere

Albert Einstein

What would the universe look like if I were riding on the end of a light beam at the speed of light?

Albert Einstein

Q: Where do you get your ideas?

A: I don't. They get me!

Alan Fletcher

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew"
Albert Einsten

"Whereever you are
Life is a treasure
Because of the people we love,
the places we have seen
and the memories
we have made along the way"
Vanessa Rauber

"Originality is undiscovered plagiarism"

"I can tell you how to get a nobel price...

...have great teachers"

Paul Samuelson

"How can I know what I think until I see what I say"

"If we knew what it was we were doing it would not be called research, would it?"
Albert Einstein

"Just lower your expectations of life to the point you aren't disappointed by anyone or anything"
Stephen Covey

“A man always has two reasons for what he does: a good one, and the real one."
Quoted in Owen Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship (1930).

"Op dagen waarop je het gevoel hebt dat je beter in bed had kunnen blijven liggen, doe je 'alsof' het een van je beste dagen van je leven is'
Jan Gunnarsson en Olle Blohn Uit: Hostmanship

Quiet rebels

According to Ellen Lewis IKEA always has three choices when launching into a new market;

1. it could accept that they do things differently oversees and avoid doing business in such countries

2. it could comprise and adapt in order to make offerings more acceptable to foreigners 

3. or it could stick to its guns and challenge local believes and tastes. 

IKEA always chooses for the last option and positions itself as a typical challenger brand , sometimes leaning on the Swedish identity. IKEA chooses to shake up the status quo. Being a challenger brand allows one to take more risks, for example in advertising, saying things other (local) brands could never say. In this respect IKEA was the first brand that used a gay couple in television advertising in United States, in 1994. Youtube displays pages of hits searching on 'IKEA banned commercials' (by the way some or really funny; and worth it seeing)

Strangely enough, IKEA's founder Ingvar Kamprad, does not approve of marketing, he sees it as a cost. As a result IKEA's marketing and advertising is always functional; the opening of a new store, but it does never subscribe to the fact that a brand has an image that is said to be maintained. Still, it is not a surprise that although just a very small part (8% in UK, opposed to 30% of local competitor MFI) of the budget is spent on advertising, IKEA wins awards and prices because it's not the amount of advertising but the content of the message that counts. IKEA prefers to let the world come to it's own conclusions. (now, come to your own conclusions by clicking)

Agents of change!

Wikipedia describes an outsider as "to one identified as on the periphery of social norms, one living or working apart from mainstream society, or one observing a group from the outside". The same counts for organisations; outsiders do business little bit different than the rest of the organizations in the field. Often this attracts people, not only because they make sense, but also because of the fact it's different. Outsiders shake things up, and how. Well, Let's say we'll see how...