Monday night I had the opportunity to attend an Agile Groupies meeting.  It’s a semi-regular gathering of folks (developers, business analysts, product managers, etc.) interested in a specific approach, Agile, toward software development.

For those of you not familiar, Agile development focuses on smaller development teams, working on smaller deliverables, in highly iterative, somewhat less structured approach.  Part of the thinking is that if you are delivering in smaller, more discrete ‘chunks’ of working product, that the overall process will be more ‘agile,’ more adaptive to ongoing change during a product’s overall life cycle. The idea is to move away from ‘heavy’ less flexible disciplines, and back toward lighter, freer, approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s a quick post sharing some of my first impressions after having picked up a new Kodak Zi8 camcorder.  A number of you are in marketing, use Flip cameras already, or are just considering one of these new devices.

Chris Brogan, over at www.chrisbrogan.com, was one of the first folks to create any sort of ‘spark’ for me with this new class of device.  Sure, by now we’ve probably all been to events with Flip cams.

They’re neat, cool, but the ‘value’ wasn’t quite there.  Part of that I attribute to having a ‘good’ digital tape camcorder and being put off by the overall process hassles (record an hour, take an hour to download, then process, then encode, then…).  Odds are, if you’re not a video aficionado you’ve had the same dying desire to repeat the experience. Not.

It wasn’t until I started paying attention to Chris’ vlogs and some of his various experiences (Flip, Zx1, Zx6…) that I really appreciated their value.

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Came across an interesting HBR post by Anthony Tjan today, “The Pros and Cons of Bundled Pricing.” If you don’t have time to read it, Tjan discusses the respective benefits for customers and vendors, depending on which side of the fence the reader is on.

Personally, I enjoyed reading the post having sat on both sides of the fence as purchaser and provider of services, sometimes at the same time. It is a difficult dichotomy to balance especially if you are trying to negotiate for win-win relationships.

One thing I learned early on in my career is (when providing a ‘solution’) to

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I’ve been interviewing business leaders in preparation for my presentation at next month’s It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival.  I won’t give away too much before the March 17th event, but there are a few common topics that have come up.

One topic, Flexibility, was mentioned, unsolicited, in each interview. Their respective domains included Manufacturing, Finance, and Human Resources.  As you may expect each brought the topic up in a different context.

From a manufacturing perspective, there is a need to be flexible in how companies are organized.  Many manufacturing concerns use organizational models first developed in the post-World War II era.  Companies like IBM, United Technology, Ford, GM, and the like, developed rigid, deep, hierarchical organizations.  As a result, their ability to change to meet current needs was all-but beyond their grasp.  Not until experiencing near-death experiences, such as with the Domestic 3, were they finally desperate enough to change.

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Meetings.  They were romantic notions at some distant point in my past.  Boy! I can’t wait until I’m important enough to attend meetings, to lead meetings.  That’ll be the day!  Ever have a similar thought yourself? Ever<g>?

Then, somehow, reality found you, captured you, and enveloped you.  Guess what? You’ve found yourself the victim of meetings.  The silly things that seem like they’re designed to waste your precious time, ways of being ‘busy’ yet not accomplishing a darned thing.  And, not even the least bit romantic.

Problem is, if you’re in the corporate world, I think a lot of this comes down to having had someone teach us, mentor us, on what a meeting should be like.  Meetings are (or should be) important events.  They’re invaluable for the face-to-face time we need, for getting a group of people to communicate in one time, in one place, what they’re thinking.  What they’re agreeing to.  At least that’s the notion.

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Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series, Starting Your Own New Business. The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business. Below, is the high-level presentation delivered Friday, February 19, 2010.

This high-level presentation discusses what are perhaps the most key topics important for successfully moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.  The target audience is new entrepreneurs considering business for themselves.

Leadership opportunities can be found in all kinds of places. Sometimes they pop up in the most unusual of circumstances and you adopt the role without even thinking about it.

Not too long ago, I led a group of motorcyclists on a ride. We started out in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Traffic was heavy enough that even with GPS, safely and correctly leading the group through the lump of spaghetti masquerading as a series of closely clustered interchanges proved challenging.

15 minutes, and I’ve already had to make a half-dozen impromptu leadership decisions—each one with 5 friends mentally critiquing my every move.

So about 10am in the morning, we’re somewhere north of Asheville, as our small group begins to work its way westward. We’ve left the big city rush well behind us, we’ve unwound ourselves, and eventually roll into a small town that the crush of time seems to have left alone. It’s the sort of town where everything’s almost sleepy, peaceful, with that small town ‘clean’ about it.

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[Hey! They made me:)] I’m rather tickled actually.  This week I received word that Alltop has added this blog (www.jtpedersen.net) to their Leadership section.

This is something of a big deal for me, personally.  It shows you’re not alone in feeling there’s content here worth reading…adding value.

So, here’s my thanks to Alltop, to Guy Kawasaki & Team, for including www.jtpedersen.net in an increasingly important site.

Cheers!

I’m pleased to let everyone know, March 17, I will be speaking at the It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival Conference.  You’re encouraged to come.

Dennis Jeffrey of Tekni Consulting is the event’s organizer.  Heading into 2010, we begin to catch our breaths, having simply survived 2009.

Now, is the time for revival!  But, not revival just as a dictionary would describe it.  One definition is, ‘…restoration to use…’  We need not to simply revive, restore, or return to pre-‘09 conditions, we need to find ways to thrive, to strengthen ourselves and move forward positively.  With this in mind, I was happy to accept Dennis’ invitation to speak.

My discussion is part of the event’s Management track, focusing on Change.

The world around us continues to evolve; nothing new there.  But many organizations, even as they change what they look like, have largely stayed the same inside.  Social, technical, global evolution has now come so far organizations simply have no choice but to finally begin changing who they are inside.

Register Now! Early Bird Pricing until February 15th! Price is only $89/ person, group rates available.

For those of you who have followed my blog, you understand that my focus is on providing thoughtful business leadership.  Come listen as I discuss areas often neglected by leaders, allowed to fall by the wayside, which are increasingly important in today’s world—areas that need to change.

In preparation for this event, I am actively interviewing business leaders and soliciting input—including yours, dear reader.  I encourage you to provide your input regarding how businesses need to change in order to thrive, moving forward.  Feel free to Comment, or send me an email (results@jtpedersen.net).

From my perspective, Seth has written perhaps his most impactful book yet. The Linchpin is a new category of person, one who engages their personal ‘art’ in what they do, who can see the course to take when a map doesn’t exist.

This book is a mix of looking at how we think; how we decide; how we got here; and, what is going to be needed to be successful moving forward.

To become a linchpin is to become indispensable.

Seth does a good job encouraging the reader to apply their ‘art’, that ‘extra something’ you enjoy doing, to become indispensable, to leader your organization forward–regardless of your position within it. Rather than simply be a cog in the boss’ machine, do more, be more, whether you reap direct reward (e.g. $$) or not.

Along the way, you might learn a few other things. One of which, led me to post, "Mid Life Crisis Explained.”

The world has changed. Permanently. We can struggle to maintain status quo, or, at least contemplate the options Seth presents.

Recommended.