"The reason VCs seem formidable is that it's their profession to. You get to be a VC by convincing asset managers to trust you with hundreds of millions of dollars. How do you do that? You have to seem confident, and you have to seem like you understand technology.

VCs themselves have no idea of the extent to which the startups they like are the ones that are best at selling themselves to VCs.  It's exactly the same phenomenon we saw a step earlier. VCs get money by seeming confident to LPs, and founders get money by seeming confident to VCs."

More recently I watched another TED talk (I am addicted to them) by Noreena Hertz where she questions people's sometimes complete trust of experts.   She thinks there are some real dangers to shutting off our own internal decision making mechanism and highlights the recent economic crash and other areas where experts have dramatically failed - such as amputating the wrong leg.

"But experts do get things wrong. Did you know that studies show that doctors misdiagnose four times out of 10? Did you know that if you file your tax returns yourself, you're statistically more likely to be filing them correctly than if you get a tax adviser to do it for you? And then there's, of course, the example that we're all too aware of: financial experts getting it so wrong that we're living through the worst recession since the 1930s."

This got me thinking about our role as an IT advisor to our customers.   Our customers look to us as experts in many areas of IT.  While we are too humble to say we know everything there is to know,  since we onboard a new customer almost weekly we definitely have seen our share of IT problems and found ways to make things better for all involved.

We encourage our customers to include us in an open dialogue about their IT and Business challenges and welcome the opportunity to help them with as many as we can.

But what happens when you don't understand your expert?  

"You see, being ready to take experts on is about also being willing to dig behind their graphs, their equations, their forecasts, their prophecies, and being armed with the questions to do that -- questions like: What are the assumptions that underpin this? What is the evidence upon which this is based? What has your investigation focused on? And what has it ignored?"

We think it is important to be able to talk in your own terms with your trusted partners,  especially in an acronym filled field like Information Technology.

So if you are a small business who knows they need advice with their technology needs,  don't be shy to ask your technology advisor to explain why they are making the recommendations they are.  If they keep falling back on charts, "industry standard" and acronyms - you have to wonder how deeply they understand your needs and the solutions they are recommending.

Here at Sinu we welcome trying to explain the Business goal behind our decision and how it will help improve your overall business - not just the challenge at hand.

We think as the world becomes more complex and everyone has more of the world's information at their fingertips,  they will need experts to help guide them through the wealth of available knowledge.  But most importantly they will need experts they can understand and trust because the thinking of their advisor makes sense to them in their own terms.    We think these new types of relationships between business and other companies in various areas are going to create great companies and hopefully balance our economy with the increased importance of small businesses run by people who really know their business and not so much the mega-corporations that by their size have to rely on experts - who are sometimes wrong.

From the Atrix, a smartphone so powerful it can run a laptop; to 3D TVs that don’t flicker (not to be confused with Flickr); to the Bloggie – Sony’s affordable 3D camcorder; to a Polaroid camera that can print…designed by none other than Lady Gaga!

More choices…

iPhone is now on Verizon. It’s the democratization of the iPhone and people love it!

This is a strange and interesting paradox. While people love the iPhone because of its inherent simplicity and ease of use, as opposed to cell phones with many other options (remember, the iPhone did not even offer MMS until last year), when they have too few choices (having to use AT&T), they rebel!

In Barry Schwartz’s 2004 book “The Paradox of Choice,” he argues, quite convincingly,  how and why the abundance of choice in modern society is actually making us miserable, feeling more like restraints than freedom.

We see this everyday... Our customers want more options but want to expend less time and money. They want simplicity in their technology department to free their minds to work on other aspects of their businesses.           

All of us here at Sinu spend a lot of time thinking about the right balance between a plethora of technology choices and simplicity, finding ways to strike the right balance in each piece of IT. 

Whether there will be a stampede of people to Verizon stores to trade their BlackBerries for iPhones come February, or whether the next great technology comes from somewhere unforeseen, we are working hard to explore all the complex choices, recommend the best solutions, and strive to make IT decisions simpler for our customers. 

It is well put together and I think a lot of people don't know these things but never bother to ask,  or might not be very interested.

We are increasingly moving towards a world where the web and browsers is unavoidable.  It is possible that the generation growing up has an inherent understanding of these things, but I doubt it.  After all most adults today don't really have any idea how the phone system works - and they use it constantly.

In any case, check out this great little book - you might learn a couple of things.

http://20thingsilearned.com/

Like everything else,  business success is a combination of factors. If the logo was the most important thing,  then how do you explain this?   http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

I agree that putting out the best version of everything you is always good.   I also find that companies that value beauty in their branding usually carry this over into the internals of their product/service as well.   Simplicity and beauty have their own rewards in creating solutions that are a joy to work with, support, sell, etc.   This attracts people who have the same values the the cycle is self-perpetuating.   Look at Ideo, FrogDesign and their customers.   

Even companies that seemingly have no reason to care about design/beauty eventually find that they have more freedom and stability over time when they start to.  See High Tech Computer or the company you all know as HTC.   They used to make phones from schematics for many other companies but at some point they started sharing their ideas.   I think we will see some great things from them because somehow they created a culture of creation and beauty during their dreary days as an assembler.

For Sinu,  seeking beauty in the solutions we implement and the companies we work with has served us well.   Often times the companies we see as elegant when their early startup years,  grow up to be very successful.  Maybe we are just not seeing the "ugly" companies/solutions but at least we are able to use the elegant meter as an early detection system.   So far so good...

- Larry, CTO

Nine Lives Media Inc. Names Sinu to the MSPmentor 100

Second-Annual Research Report Identifies
The World’s Most Progressive Managed Service Providers

February 17, 2009: Sinu has landed on Nine Lives Media Inc.’s second-annual MSPmentor 100, a distinguished research report identifying the world’s most progressive managed service providers.

“Sinu has been defining managed services since 2004, and we’re pleased to be recognized by MSP mentor as a top contender in the space.” – John Christie, COO

The free MSPmentor 100 report, available at www.MSPmentor.net, is based on data from MSPmentor’s global online survey, conducted October through December 2008. The MSPmentor 100 report recognizes managed service providers based on a range of revenue and management metrics.

“There’s no doubting the momentum of managed service providers within the MSPmentor 100,” said Joe Panettieri, editorial director of MSPmentor. “As a whole, MSPmentor 100 companies generated nearly $800 million in managed services revenue in 2008, up a dramatic 46 percent from 2007.”

MSPmentor, produced by Nine Lives Media Inc., is the ultimate guide to managed services. MSPmentor features the industry’s top-ranked blog, research, Webcasts, podcasts and videos. It is the number one online media destination for managed service providers in the world.

About Sinu
Sinu is a Tribeca, NYC based company that offers an outsourced IT Department Service.  Sinu's service is an outsourced technology “department” for small business and nonprofit customers. We are different from traditional IT companies because we provide and support your IT infrastructure for a fixed cost. So we're rewarded for success, not failure.

About Nine Lives Media Inc.
Nine Lives Media Inc. (www.NineLivesMediaInc.com) embraces the changing IT media landscape. In fact, we help to shape it. We focus on highly targeted IT audiences, specialized content and lead generation services. We disrupt established markets and we shape new ones. Our first three destinations (MSPmentor.net, TheVARguy.com and WorksWithU.com) feature the top-ranked media blogs in their specific markets.

Contact:

Sinu
285 West Broadway
NYC 10013
212.380.1230
info@sinu.com

Nine Lives Media Inc:
Joe Panettieri, Editorial Director
631-423-3536 or joe@ninelivesmediainc.com

This should be required viewing at schools:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Gladwell has written about how the military has settled on 150 people per 'company' to ensure that "orders can be implemented and unruly behavior controlled on the basis of personal loyalties and direct man-to-man contacts".   He also mentions that some companies like Gore-Tex have used these guidelines to build an effective organization.  

Gore doesn't need formal management structures in its small plants - it doesn't need the usual layers of middle and upper management - because in groups that small, informal personal relationships are more effective.  "The pressure that comes to bear if we are not efficient at a plan, if we are not creating good earnings for the company,  the peer pressure is unbelievable." 

If 150 is the ideal size to prevent "unruly behavior" then there might be a ideal team size for smaller subdivisions like a military squad where more detailed interaction is necessary.  This number seems to be around 12.

We have seen this pattern repeated in various team sizes.

• Basketball: 12-15 active players on a team
• Soccer: 11 players on the feild
• US Jury: 12 jurors
• Baseball: 10 starters (AL Rules, Go Yankees! ok, this one might be a stretch..)

I have read one theory that connects these sizes to the nomadic, hunter/gatherer origins of humans where tribes and clans were roughly these sizes.   Our brains might be wired to only "completely trust" 12 people and be best at remembering about 150.