Software and Sushi are two of my favourite things.

I like the customizability of sushi meals. There’s always a sushi meal that fits with my appetite. I also like the inexpensiveness of sushi. Or actually the inexpensive price per item. Three Euros for a Temaki, two for an Uramaki, etc. Low price per item means low pain in the buying process. Moreover I like the zenlike design of sushi sets.

Like with the sushi, some software editors offer component-based software, where clients choose from a “menu” the modules they need.

Sushi restaurants & software companies success factors:

1.     High quality components

2.     “A la carte” pricing

3.     Product design

I’ve been thinking about companies pursuing longevity.

Companies are not around forever, though a common view is that permanence is good. That’s why companies build huge headquarter buildings. The reality is that the average life expectancy of all firms is only 12 years. Some [Link to Arie De Geus] attribute mortality to managers focus on the bottom line, rather than human factors.

Greatness is fleeting, friends: places with the highest growth rates have the highest rate of corporate mortality. My company? It’s the exception that proves the rule.

Marketers are individuals that take energy from life and well being.

Paula Radcliffe trained 250 km per week jumping into ice bath after running, before failing to win the Olympics marathon in 2004. Trying to rationalize her excellence-misfortune, she said that life is about juggling five balls in the air. Health, Family, Friends, Integrity and Career. Career ball is made of rubber, and you can take more risk with it. The others are more fragile. You may throw the career ball higher because if you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four may shatter.

I’m  throwing high the career ball and move to EnginSoft, today. I keep on caring of the other four.

The motivational book Who Moved My Cheese? features two mice and two humans living in a maze -a representation of our ever changing environment, and looking for cheese -representative of happiness. One day they are faced with change: someone moved their cheese. The humans, having counted on the cheese supply to be constant, rant at the unfairness of the fate and head home hungry; while the mice, having noticed the cheese supply dwindling and prepared for the change, rush in search of a new cheese.

No rush, friends. Our cheese won’t move. It has already moved, and keeps on moving. Our cheese is moving to Chindia. On Linkedin, thousands of engineers are applying for your job (and mine).  Grid Computing and Open source might be the new supply of cheese. At least for a while.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but the most responsive to change.

Although marketing gurus suggest to avoid doing business with friends, as it’s the easiest way to end a friendship, thousands of partnerships are created and run by friends.

25% of all European Small & Medium Enterprises are based in Italy, and despite what gurus say, most of them are friend run. Or better most of them are family run businesses. Take Barilla for example (a food company), who received the 9th annual “IMD – Family Business Award,” joining names like Lego, Henkel and  Zegna. Seems that family run businesses are more successful than friend run ones.

Maybe we should consider the following exception to the gurus advice: don’t start a business with a friend,  unless you’re planning to marry him/her.