The Quisenblog

Let’s say you’re sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas. On a particular hand, you find yourself holding a 15 while the dealer has a ten showing. Lousy hand, to be sure. So what’s your play?

A logical ploy would be to play the odds. A quick calculation helps you determine that if you take another card, you have a 54% chance of busting. And your chances of drawing to an 18 or higher are less than one in three. So your logical move would be to stand on your 15. Right?

So why do knowledgeable blackjack players advise you to hit on 15 (and again on 16, should you draw an Ace)? Because they understand the goal of Blackjack is NOT to avoid busting. It is to have a winning hand. And, as experience shows, in most instances 15 isn’t going to stand up.

It will be a long night at the table if your strategy is to simply stay in the game and rely on the competition to fail.

And so it is in business. When presented with a situation or opportunity, we quickly assess our probability of success. And if our odds of failure are 50% (or 20% or sometimes even 10%), we “stand.” But we forget. Our goal in business (as in Blackjack) is NOT to avoid failure, but to succeed. And as in Blackjack, standing on 15 is not going to lead to much success.

When the odds are in your favor, the calls are easier to make. The risk of failure is less. But what separates the world class Blackjack player from the tour bus crowd (besides having a humongous bankroll) is the courage to not freeze up when the odds are NOT in your favor.

A couple of examples of companies who refused to “stand on 15” come to mind. One is Kellogg, who in the teeth of the worst economic climate in more than a century, and against the advice of its financial people, launched and promoted a new breakfast cereal, Rice Krispies. This event was the turning point for Kellogg, who for the last 70+ years has been the undisputed leader in the breakfast food category. Then there’s Apple. We forget now, but the first iPod was launched just a few weeks after 9/11. Both companies could have stood pat. They could have waited to be dealt a more advantageous hand. But they realized they had plenty to gain. And you think the hand you’re holding now is bad?

Play to win. Not to not lose.

Posted by Mickey

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Mickey On Clients, Ramblings blackjack, courage, iPod, Kellogg, Las Vegas, probabilities, Rice Krispies

Today’s the 30th birthday of the Sony Walkman, the portable music player that changed the way we listened to music and sold over 340 million units.

The original Walkman, while portable, was downright gargantuan by today’s standards, about the size of a paperback novel and weighing in at nearly one pound (14 oz.). It had only three or four hours of battery life and could only handle one 90-minute cassette tape.

So how would a 13-year-old today, whose frame of reference for portable music players is an iPod, iPhone, Zuni or other mp3 player, react to an original Walkman? I ran across this TechCrunch article that followed just such a lad. He agreed to wear a Walkman for a day, and give his impressions. Quite interesting. You can find the article here.

TechCrunch: Kid Swaps iPod for Sony Walkman, Gets Confused

Some choice excerpts:

“It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”

“I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down ‘rewind’ and releasing it randomly.”

“I’m relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can’t imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.”

Yeah, but it did a heck of a job playing those old England Dan & John Ford Coley tunes!

Posted by Mickey

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Mickey Media, Ramblings England Dan & John Ford Coley, iPhone, iPod, mp3 player, Sony, TechCrunch, Walkman, Zuni