I am fully conscious of the summer season, the heat it brings with it, and the need to enjoy more our leisure time. No wonder the British call it the silly season. In some other countries it is called “the cucumber time”. As such this week and for the coming few weeks, I shall be writing about two or three different topics in the same contribution. This explains why I chose the title Summer Snippets.
The Richard Branson notebook
Recently Richard Branson published photos of his notebook of 1972, which may shed light on the secrets of his success.
Throughout his career Branson has achieved a great deal, founding the Virgin empire with more than 400 companies and over 50,000 employees, and in the process becoming one of the richest people in the world with wealth exceeding $5 billion.
Yet life was not always rosy and rich for Branson. He had abandoned his studies early. His headmistress used to tell him: “You will either end up in jail or become a billionaire”. She was right on the second point.
On this notebook, 35 years ago, he wrote the eight things he needed to do to improve himself. Branson is known for his love of drawing up lists. They help him to stay in focus but also help him determine objectives and realise his dreams. In fact a cursory Google search would show up a number of lists attributed to him such as eight top tips for being productive and things to do on starting a business.
The invention of the ATM changed the nature of the relationship between commercial banks and their customers
In his autobiography, Losing My Virginity, Branson writes that he keeps four types of lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of things people say, and lists of people who can make things happen. He does point out then, that to-do lists are only useful if you do them.
What all this really means in practice is that people in business should have the resolve to set objectives and work hard to achieve them. Success in business does not happen if one does not know where one is going and one does not work hard to achieve it.
The idea in the bathtub
Half a century ago we had the installation of the first automatic teller machine in London. It was in 1967 that inventor John Shepherd-Barron invented what was to become the first ATM (although there are claims that the invention of the ATM was not his). The idea is reported to have come to him while taking a bath. This is something similar to what happened to Archimedes, when he laid the foundations of the theory of hydrostatics.
He offered the idea to Barclays Bank, which accepted it immediately and installed the first machine in London in 1967. The machine used personal identification numbers (an invention also claimed to have been made by Shepherd-Barron) and checks impregnated with the (slightly) radioactive isotope carbon 14 to initiate a withdrawal. The magnetic strip on cards came later.
The machines were first introduced in Malta more than 20 years later, in 1989, although by then many had got used to seeing them in cities around Europe.
The invention of the ATM changed the nature of the relationship between commercial banks and their customers, to the point that nowadays several have not been in bank branch for years. It was the first time banks were providing a 24-hour by seven day service to their customers.
This is why business needs to be continually attentive to changes in society and anticipate the needs of their customers with innovative goods and services. ATMs may one day become obsolete in their own turn as the use of cash is reduced significantly.
To my mind the common element in both snippets is the need for creative thinking. Malta is proud of one of its offspring, Edward de Bono, hailed universally as the father of lateral thinking. I believe we could use some of his thinking techniques to address our problems and come up with pro-active approaches towards resolving them.