“You can always do what you should do if you’re willing to put in the time and energy to develop a new set of skills. If you only extend into places where your skill sets serve you, your skills will become outmoded.” (Jeff Bezos, Amazon)

Good advice. I wonder why so few people take it seriously and consequently accept responsibility for their own destiny. A few weeks ago I had blogged about a similar quote in a different context: “Sharks must move forward, or they’ll die”. Or, as Plato interpreted Heraclitus: “πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει”. People who assert that they do understand, but don’t walk as they talk, are a boring disappointment. One has to leave his comfort zone to grow, has to aspire to fail for being able to gain experience, has to act for being able to live.

“The Reader” is a good fit to this line of thought.

Rosenfest in Tübingen

Chrissy on Florida …

Had an interesting conversation with Christian Klein today. My opening question was: Where are diamond prices heading, according to WSJ they dropped significantly, so what’s happening on the market? His response was as expected: Price for top quality slightly increased, and will further increase in the near future, while mass market merchandise dropped significantly. A snap shot of the market: 1 ct top quality is 10k EUR, whereas similar merchandise from India is traded at 1.5k EUR, if at all. Larger top quality stones, 2ct and above, are currently not available on the market.

Christian also provided a solid analysis explaining this situation: The majority of mass market producers is operating with excessive capital leverage, and in order to serve their investors they need to sell at any price. Unfortunately demand has faltered, due to the impact of the worldwide economic conditions on consumer demand. Guess what happens when you map overcapacity with dropping demand? A side effect is that the producers stopped buying raw diamonds, and consequently mines were closed. But the closure of mines also caused a reduction of supply of high-quality raw diamonds. And guess what happens when you shorten supply while demand is stable? As a comparison: You may have lost up to 50% in the stock market, with your housing investments, or through “absolutely safe” bonds – and at the same time investors in diamonds gained 5% to 10%.  Not a bad deal.

But if you’re familiar with this market you know that there’s an underlying issue (actually more than one, but I’ll focus on the economical aspects): DeBeers has lost its monopoly. And they no longer make the market, determine the price. And because of their reduced influence, they also stopped investing into the marketing activities necessary for making the market. Why should they, if 50% of the market (their competitors) would benefit from their investment without them having a chance of any return? So they withdrew.

Now you have a complete disaster at the lower end of the market, and at the same time significant ROI on the upper side. And who’s educating prospects, potential buyers, investors? The media. Clueless. Without the background information necessary to understand this complex market.

We also discussed the question why the retail channel (jewelers) don’t step up. Simple answer: As long as they sell something they don’t care. Christian confirmed that his company receives a lot of complaints from end-user customers (with whom his company does not deal at all) about the lack of consulting when it comes to protecting their investment into diamonds. Once again, it’s information (knowledge) which determines success or failure.

This was a tremendous learning experience for me: Sometimes it’s useful to maintain a market ‘protected’. A monopoly sometimes does not only serve the interests of a single stake holder, but most of the time also serves the interest of a broader eco system. If the protection mechanism is removed, the whole eco system is at stake. And in tough economic times, as today, the whole market may be completely destroyed. Experts predict that most mid- and low-market producers will be wiped-out in the near future, that their retail channel will cease to exist, and that their financing banks will go belly-up. Does that sound familiar? I think it’s a good time for buying diamonds – no compromises 4C top quality.

Hmhm – Not sure if I had posted that before, and I couldn’t find a way to figure out.

“Plans are a step in the process, not the end result. Senior management has to be comfortable with the reality that a plan ‘enables’ success, but does not define it. If you hold out for a ‘killer’ plan then you will be waiting a very long time and likely give up when you finally have a plan that can’t be achieved.” (Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft)

Too bad that there are so few executives who understand the differences between vision, mission, and plan.

One of the many reasons why I love ballet:

Louise Nadeau in Paul Gibson's The Piano Dance (Photo © Angela Sterling).

Her final bows are scheduled for Sunday, June 7th.

"There's nothing worse in life than the ordinary." (Menace Suvari in 'American Beauty')

How right the lady was. So let me join the Scorpions in Walking on the Edge.