

Go for the win-win situations - tomh-
http://swombat.com/2011/3/11/go-for-the-win-win-situations

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keithba
In economics, this is called a Pareto improvement:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency>

The idea is that if there are inefficiencies in a system (or market), we can
create win-win situations by reducing the inefficiencies.

A classic and useful example of this is comparative advantage and opportunity
cost (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage>). Both parties can
gain if they have different relative efficiencies, even if one party has an
overall production advantage. (This is why countries will import goods and
services they could produce domestically - it frees up resources to produce
other stuff that they can produce more of.)

This is because it is inefficient to be good at everything you are good at all
at once - the opportunity cost is too high relative to importing from someone
else.

For instance, you may be better at coding (for instance, in Ruby or Python)
and creating HTML/CSS from PSDs than anyone else, but since creating HTML/CSS
from PSDs takes away time from coding, you can outsource the HTML/CSS creation
to someone who may be slightly slower than you, but that's OK, since the
opportunity cost for you is worth it: more time to code.

So - if you want to create a long-term win-win situation with another party -
you should find out what you can produce for a relatively lower opportunity
cost than they can, and then sell it to them. You will win, and they will win.

~~~
akkartik
I was aware of the idea, but thanks for such a viscerally relevant example.

