My Review

Delivering Happiness cover

I enjoyed the book, which was a mix of autobiography and riches to risk to riches business story. Apparently he was a born entrepreneur: resourcefully avoiding piano and violin practice while starting several small businesses with his parents’ blessing – worm farm, button mail order business, magic tricks, and more.

Yet, what makes the book valuable for the rest of us is where he details moments where he failed and what he learned. Critical to Zappos success, it seems, was what he and his partners learned from an early failure hidden inside a success – the loss of culture that occurred in the growth of their first successful venture – LinkExchange (eventually acquired by Microsoft). He and his partners vowed not to grow Zappos that way, and Zappos has created and maintained a strong culture that they feel is critical to success of the business and maintaining it as a place the founders and the employees want to work.

And, everyone knows that their Las Vegas customer service team is amazing. In this book, he helps us understand how that evolved and what Zappos does to support that WOW culture. It has been codified into ten core values (Zappos website page on the core values), but what is obvious from the book is that the culture predates the values being crystallized. I participated in the session to draw up the core values for my current employer, and I admit to being more than a little jealous of Zappos’ core values. They are inspirational and wonderful. My favorite Zappos core value is:

create fun and a little weirdness

It just seems to recognize that teams are built by people being themselves (a little weird), through bonding events (by definition, these events stand out, so are also non-normal), and by laughing together.

Another critical learning was not to outsource key components of their business. The Zappos team outsourced their warehouse logistics in Kentucky, and then bore the brunt of dissatisfied customers and reinventing the warehousing operation to solve the problem (taking it back in house).

What impressed me about the book is Hsieh’s (and partners’) open leadership style, and his openness in sharing internal Zappos communications and their core values with the rest of us. The book reprints emails sent at times of stress and change, including a note from around the time of their layoffs in 2008, and then the one announcing acquisition by Amazon.com in 2009.

Giveaway x 2

I received a complimentary copy of the book through the Delivering Happiness advance copy giveaway program for bloggers. They were quite clear that I should provide an honest review.

Well, in true Zappos “Deliver WOW through service” style, they sent not only my advance copy, but an extra advance reading copy for me to share. If you’d like my giveaway copy of the book, please leave a comment on this post or on the Facebook note where this blog will be syndicated. I will choose a commenter at random on June 15 and award the book!

If the award period is past, if you didn’t get the book I’m giving away, if you prefer hardcover, or if you dislike commenting on my blog, of course it is available at Amazon.com/deliveringhappiness and at the book’s website DeliveringHappinessBook.com.

I heavily use a handful of social media sites: Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, Ravelry (knitting community), and Flickr. I value each for different things, and Facebook is my least favorite. Especially since now they’re trying to take over the Internet.

Yet, Facebook is where my friends and family are, so I go there to hang out with them. Since I do not do a lot to maintain my Facebook presence, I pull in feeds to it from several places. I do pull items in from my Flickr account and from this blog.

I have mixed feelings about the broadcasting I’m doing on Facebook via the blog. I like it that my friends engage with what I write – leaving me their reactions or just an “atta girl”. Yet, by feeding the blog into Facebook, I’ve let Facebook capture the interaction on the blog post. So, instead of comments on the post, I get comments on my notes in Facebook. One level away.

I like this less than comments on the blog itself, but most of the kind folks who comment on Facebook would never encounter the posts except as notes on Facebook.

A conundrum indeed. I value the interactions more than comments in “the right place”, so I’ll continue to do this. Unless, that is, Facebook drives me away…

Podcamp Michigan 11/8/2008

I didn’t even tweet it, though I should have. But, I did find, in my inbox this morning, a twitter notification from, of all things, Podcamp Michigan. Ask and ye shall receive. Or, in this case, “receive even though the ask was inchoate and unarticulated.”

A podcamp is an unConference focused on blogging, podcasting, and social media. Should be fun. I’m planning to attend. You?

Coordinates:

• Podcamp Michigan Twitter
• Podcamp Michigan Upcoming
• Podcamp Michigan Blog
• Podcamp Michigan Event Details
• Real-world coordinates: 11/8 9AM-4PM at Embassy Suites Hotel, 28100 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI

Particularly as I contemplate moving from being a project manager to becoming an account/engagement manager, I wonder if I’ll have apologies scheduled on my calendar more or less often…I would hope not, but moving into a more customer service role may require a different skillset.

So, i moseyed on down to the Genius Bar at Briarwood Mall, with an appointment. And although the diagnostics the technician ran said my hard drive was fine, he did say that hard drives can “chirp” before going out. So, he replaced my hard drive, and -aaaaaaaahhhhhhh- no more infernal beeping.

I came to work the next morning and I started to download my backup from time machine and was amazed that everything except the things I’d excluded at the urging of our IT guy (applications and my music) came back after a few hours of pulling down the backup from the server.

This is the second hard drive to go on my MacBook. I got it last June (2007). Last July, I did drop it from a few feet above the ground (long story), so I’m directly responsible for the first hard drive crash (about six months after the drop), but I don’t know what I would have done to cause the second….

Last time, I said it was the best ever hard drive crash. Now I think it was another level easier.

I am thrilled to be able to recover so quickly through time machine and grateful to be up and running again. Now if only my iPhone would allow me to sync my music from the iPhone to my laptop. Looks like I’m going to have to re-rip the CDs I’m interested in having there…

Here’s one from my del.icio.us account. Seems a bit more representative because it has accumulated over a longer time.