JT Pedersen » Collaboration

Who Needs to be In on Software Licensing Change?

JT — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:12:08 +0000

This morning I discovered an engaging article, “Making a Successful Software Licensing & Entitlement Management Project a Reality.”

The crux of the article is a focus on two groups, Product Management and IT, that need to be involved when deciding to make changes to your company’s software licensing and entitlement systems. (It was a mouthful, sorry ‘bout that)

Having spent a lot of time in licensing issues, ranging from contractual , to operational and support concerns, as well as helping drive technology selection, I felt some embellishment was called for.

Beyond Product Management and IT, there are two key groups that should be involved, which the article either omitted or ‘lumped in’ with ‘everyone else.’ They are Product Support and Operations.

From a Support perspective, it is important they are included well before deployment. Managing licenses, and their related support issues, can have a very strong impact on how your product’s received. Failing back end databases, licensing migrations, authorization paths, (enterprise) server authorizations, and the like are sophisticated concerns. If Support’s not involved, not trained, and not well-on board, you’re setting yourself up for CEO-level phone calls.

Deployment (licensing) technologies are ‘necessary evils.’ The challenge is to make sure your problems (need to protect yourself against IP theft), do not become customer problems.

Because of support issues, Support should be involved early on in the decision process. Their lessons learned can be invaluable and should not be ignored or overlooked.

As for key drivers in the process, I did find it interesting Operations was not considered a fore-ground player in the process. Quite often, Ops is involved because of cost of goods concerns, inventory management issues, and inflexibility meeting market demands.

Once the product (with its new licensing) goes to market, it is often Operations that carries the ball for making sure licensing processes are working 7/24.

Everyone will agree that constituent parties need to be onboard and work together. One addition I would make to the article, is that the key party being impacted should also be onboard. This is the person who will be directly impacted by revenue gains/losses/limitations due to licensing issues.

In many cases, this is the CEO his or herself. If s/he understands the impact, the odds are s/he’ll be a key supporter—driver even—of change. In other cases, that key person, the one owning the P&L, may well be the Product Manager.

(photo credit: Sachin Ghodke)

Possibly Related

Crisis, Chaos, Panic, and Its Corollary

JT — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:39:18 +0000

This past month, I had the opportunity to do some software consulting. It was an interesting environment. Everything was a swirl of chaos, panicked surprise deadlines, and daily crises. During one meeting, responding to the latest short-cycle deliverable, one person commented, “…we never have time to do things properly. Are we going to have time to do this one right…?”

The longer I spent with the organization, the more full my calendar became with meetings. Some meetings rehashed previous ones, others tried grappling with the latest perceived conflict coming down ‘from on High.’ Others were simply crises responses.

As an outsider, two core issues seemed to be very consistent. Yes, there were others, but two in particular. First was poor internal communication between groups. Second was a lack of clearly defined processes; everything seemed ad hoc, seat of the pants.

Most people tend to bristle when more structure is placed in front of them, when flexibility, creativity, even the ability to initiate something, is taken away from them. Yet what I experienced was an environment that begged, not for overbearing structure, but for a bit more than there was.

Perhaps 50% of my time was consumed helping the team respond to crises. Invariably, these ‘crisis’ activities stemmed from the organization not being aware of what other organizations were doing. The organizations had strong interdependencies yet upstream decisions were ineffectively, incompletely communicated with those being impacted downstream. The result, budgets being impacted by ‘unplanned’ million-dollar ‘surprises.’ Senior management of entire organizations being sidelined by the need to respond to the crises, and in turn their own staff.

Why the lack of communication? As a temporary visitor I can hardly claim to understand all the contributing factors. To a degree, they really don’t matter, right now, here, today. What was apparent to the observer, to me, was a lack of structured process. Whenever Organization ‘A’ made a decision, it was often done without downstream consideration, and worse, the decisions had no way of being effectively broadcast.

It’s an interesting corollary: Decisions made in a vacuum can often create explosive pressure.

Whether large scale, or small, professional or personal, we have all experienced the frequently negative outcome of decisions made in a vacuum. In some cases, it serves to illustrate why leadership is ‘lonely at the top.’ There are occasions where decisions simply have to be made, and it often rests on the shoulders of a sole individual.

As a percentage of the whole, that is the rare occasion though. The easiest way to minimize potentially negative downstream impacts, is to involve—to some degree—the other parties impacted by the decision and resulting actions. The annual family vacation is more likely to be successful, if everyone has a chance to at least provide input. The same is true at work. We can rush in, make hasty decisions, and be surprised by the results. Or we can engage people in a process, and have a reasonably confident expectation as to what the results will be.

Which do you prefer?

(Next article: Few Like Rules; Fewer Still Like Corporate Anarchy)

(photo credit: Audrey Johnson)

Possibly Related

Information Radiators–Which Do You Use?

JT — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:31:50 +0000

Information radiators. Hadn’t heard that phrase before last night’s Agile discussion. What’s an information radiator, the best example was cited by Helene Gidley. Helene used the example of the ‘thermometer’ charities use to show progress toward a goal. Driving down the road, in a glance, you can tell if there has been progress and how much.

We spent a fair amount of time discussing ‘information radiators’ in the work place. In software development arenas, these can include Gantt charts, pie charts, burn up or burn down charts, graphs of new bugs reported against bugs fixed, and so on.

While we all had good examples, some the group wanted to hear more about, others less exhilarating, there was one almost overlooked. Us. You, me, each other, we are all very powerful information radiators. A person’s body language, words they choose, tell us volumes and are easily forgotten in a world of charts, graphs, and tables.

As the discussion evolved, the group also spent time discussing radiators’ scope. Some information radiators are intended only for the workgroup level. Others need to serve mixed groups, at peer level in the same organization (developers|developers), or different hierarchies (development|management|executive staff). How information is consumed, distilled, and redistributed (if at all), is very important.

Finally, there is the concept of collocated teams and organizations with very geographically dispersed work groups. The radiators we pay attention to can vary wildly. Some remote contributors had key contacts ‘in the office’ that kept them up to date. Others rely on IM presence indicators, while in one extreme case, an individual’s company actually has remote robots. The remote staff actually use a robot, controlled by a joystick in their home office, to ‘drive’ themselves into a person’s office to conduct a discussion. Me, I’m happy with IM, thank you very much. The robot is cool, but…

So, questions bare asking: What do you use as an information radiator? What works for you, in your line of work? What might you add that could contribute significantly in your workplace?

(photo credit: Rafal Krawczyk)

Possibly Related

Do You Have: Social Media Paranoia

JT — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 20:54:07 +0000

This past week I enjoyed a discussion about how companies are making use of social media. Or, not. It seems fair to say based on casual observation and reading that the majority of businesses still don’t get it. Or, at the very least, they’re not actively participating which is effectively the same thing. You have to participate before you can ‘get it.’

The catalyst for discussion was a Fast Company blog on, “What Should CEOs Tweet?” One correspondent commented that his own company blocks social media and actively discourages it totally. He said they even had to watch a video discussing the ‘terrors’ of social media.

Paranoia can indeed be good. After the Wikileaks indication that the president of Afghanistan’s ‘paranoid,’ I thought, "…and I would be too, if I had every gun in the region pointed toward me at some point." Probably why he hasn’t been assassinated yet.

More to the point though, I believe social media is here to stay now. Based on my observation and reading, it appears the majority of businesses still don’t understand social media. Or, at the very least, they’re not actively participating. Which, really, is the same thing. You need to actively participate in social media before you will ‘get it.’

Folks, social media is here to stay. Be paranoid if you wish, bury your heads in the sand. But realize it is human nature to want to share or broadcast information as far an wide as possible. It’s been true since stone tablets, papyrus paper, Gutenberg’s press, telephone, fax machines, and more recently, email. Every major evolution has let us make available more information, more freely, than before.

Fighting Social Media is like yelling at the wind!

Seriously, social media because of it’s broad appeal, breadth and depth of reach, is too entrenched to go away. Rather than yell at the wind, businesses need to learn how to harness it, or at a minimum, live in harmony with it.

There are two popular books out right now. On a more personal level is Chris Brogan’s (and Julien Smith) Trust Agents. The other is Charlene Li’s Open Leadership. For businesses, Open Leadership is a practical, pragmatic, and far-reaching discussion about how to integrate it into the fabric of existing companies.

If you’re in business, you cannot afford to ignore social media. Being an emu (think: ostrich) will only be helpful in letting your competition finish eating your lunch and then going on your vacation.

Possibly Related

Leadership Demands Team Coordination

JT — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:56:52 +0000

Does it not?

Read Dan and Chip Heath’s article in Fast Company today, “Team Coordination Is Key in Businesses.” Quick overview, they used three real-world examples emphasizing their point. In short, while you can do brilliantly, alone, for an organization to be successful you simply must work together.

It’s likely you have experienced situations where, even when individuals performed their roles just fine (admirably even), the main activity itself failed. If everyone ‘did their part,’ the odds are it was a lack of coordination causing the failure.

This is something hard to teach, often learned only through painful experience. Early in my professional career, I strived to be the brightest star, or the shiniest tool in the tool bag. As my horizons moved beyond being an individual contributor, it quickly became clear how important coordinating with others was to my—or my teams—success. How often do we each tend to work hard at being the ‘star’ rather than making sure we fit well with others?

Which is more important? The saw or the saw’s tooth?

Military boot camp teaches this in dramatic fashion; some lessons are by design, others not. One such example struck me after lunch one day. I had just returned to the barracks, double-timing it down a 10’ wide sidewalk. At an intersection I had to stop for traffic to clear before crossing. Later, as part of an 80-person company, I was marching back down that same side walk, in lock-step with the cadence being called out. As a polished company, a team, it felt as though there were nothing that could stand in our way. I almost felt like daring someone to stop in front of us at an intersection!

Later, I was the senior sensor operator on a naval aircrew, tracking submarines. Successfully tracking a submarine requires the utmost in fever-pitched team coordination. The best crews have sensor operators, pilots, a tactical coordinator, and navigator almost reading each others minds—communicating freely—and anticipating each others needs.

Just as incredible as coordinated team’s successes can be, their failures can be every bit their equal. One mission pitted us against a friendly sub in a training exercise. At the time, we were the Wing’s top-ranked aircrew. For over an hour everything was going beautifully. Then, ironically, the ‘tacco’ or tactical coordinator ignored requests for an equipment change. He ‘felt good’ with the situation, ignoring his team’s repeated requests, until finally it was too late.

The submarine took advantage our complacence and disappeared. After a half-hour trying to re-attain the target, it was clear: all was lost. It was a perfect example of how, if just one person drops the ball, if one crewmen thinks they’re the ‘star’, an entire mission and $100Ks can be wasted in an instant.

More recently, in the real world, my team was struggling under the burden of endless ‘fires.’ We were performing our own tasks without problem. Internally, I knew my team members were all doing their jobs. Yet, we seemed to never be able to damp out the fires.

We created a list of all the major points of interaction between our team and others. Things like sales people reaching to individuals for special requests; project timing pressures; customer requests; equipment failures; and, the like. Then, we created a matrix noting how often each problem occurred and the time involved with each incident.

Surprisingly, the most ‘visible’ sources of problems had the least impact. A relative ‘sleeper’ turned out to be how we managed change requests. The process was dated, lacked key information, and allowed too much informality (e.g. tracking). After redesigning the change request process, the team met with external parties to educate them as to the need, the mutual benefits, and the new process itself. Four months later, as changes worked through the system, we finally noticed that, yes, the wild fires were starting to subside.

Not too many of us are able to succeed entirely on our own.

A team, no matter how big or small, can only succeed if everyone talks with one another, coordinating their actions. In the end, a well-coordinated team looks as if it were one.

Photo credits
Wood texture: Rosille
Wood stack: Marta Sobo

Possibly Related

Incredibly Useful iPhone Apps

JT — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:01:07 +0000

Even though I’ve had my iPhone for quite a while now, I continue to be amazed at the sheer range and depth of application offerings available for it. Even when there were ‘only’ 20,000 apps available, there was always something available to solve the need of the moment. Now there’s over 133,000 apps, the sky’s the limit.

One of my favorite examples was while having coffee with my friend and minister. He was bemoaning the fact he had the Bible installed on his smartphone, but that it wouldn’t let him read anything past about Matthew or Mark. Sure enough, I was able to find, download, install, and show him a copy of the Bible on my iPhone, with 6 translations, in about 2 minutes. There really is, an app for everything!

So here are some of my own ‘top’ apps for the iPhone, based on my current activities:

Air Sharing Pro
Incredible tool and perhaps the most powerful app I have on my phone. As a WiFi accessible external drive it provides conventional foldering and document viewing not otherwise available on the iPhone. It also functions as a web server, complete with login capability, letting you do file sharing. This is useful for teams needing an impromptu workgroup file server, perhaps while preparing demos out of a conference/hotel room, or coffee shop. It even let’s you send document to a printer if configured. And, I’ve only scratched the surface…
.
Bing & Google Search Apps
These apps are very similar tools for streamlined use of their respective services. Both let you either key in your query or use voice input. Even though they have strong similarities its interesting how different hey are.
- Google’s search app loads noticeably quicker. Raising the phone to your ear, it automatically switches to audio input, then starts ‘thinking’ as soon as you lower the handset again. Works very well.
- Bing’s search app take longer, but it has a far more pleasing interface, showing you Bing’s daily image. One thing I really like is Bing will accept voice input via my Bluetooth earpiece if I’m using one—Google will not.
- I enjoy using Bing’s search app more. If I’m in a rush, I’ll use Google’s.
  .
Tweetie & TweetDeck
Here’s a pair of well-recognized tools for Twitter users. As with the search tools, which you use at a given moment depends on the moment.
- TweetDeck is hard to beat. Very functional, syncs your search/list/group columns with TweetDeck on your PC. While it is very good in its own right, being able to have a PC-equivalent version, that you can sync columns with, is very effective. Good for extended use.
- Tweetie is also good though not as feature-rich, making for a much quicker launch. There are times when you want quick, simple, and effective. If all you’re planning to do is a tweet (or two) and then move on, Tweetie’s the way to go.
  .
The Weather Channel
What’s to say. Works well, delivers more weather info in the palm of your hand (e.g. hourly or 10-day forecasts, animated radar, and more) than you could get 5 years ago watching TWC for an hour. Want entertainment, do multiple refreshes during a major spring storm, and watch the 10-day forecast go wild:).
.
Facebook / LinkedIn
Current iterations both work much better than earlier; especially in LinkedIn’s case.
.
WordPress 2
If you use a WordPress blog (self-hosted in my case), this is a good-to-have. Supports creating Posts and Pages. Most important, let’s me manage and reply to comments while on the move.
.
WiFiFoFum (WiFi Scanner)
This delivers a basic WiFi ‘scanner’ functionality to your iPhone. Useful in scanning relative location of WiFi hotspots in your vicinity. Provides both tabular and radar display modes, and whether they’re secure or not. Can be helpful getting a better picture of ‘what’s around you’ than simply looking in the iPhone WiFi table. You can also use the app to connect to an identified hotspot without having to go through the iPhone’s own WiFi settings interface.
.
Bump
This is similar to the notion of ‘beaming’ contact information to others’ phones at a meeting. Both iPhone users must run Bump on their phone. The sending party selects the contact info to share, and then they ‘bump’ their phones together. Neat idea, fun when it works, which isn’t often enough for me. Worth a mention though…I’d like to see the concept work better.
.

Share your favorite iPhone app with us. We’re all on the outlook for useful apps—half the battle is just knowing they exist.

Possibly Related

Is It Agile or Software Anthropology?

JT — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:50:18 +0000

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.For this meeting, the discussion focused around panelists discussing how Business Analysts work with the development team. At a very high level, a Business Analysts (BA) represents customer needs, and formally crafts the requirement documents (we need the product to accept X as input, look like Y, and output Z).

The discussions were interesting. The challenges varied by size of the organization represented, including how well BA inputs truly communicated what needed to be done, as well as where Agile methods frequently had been seen to fail.

What I’ve found is that Agile development meetings tend to migrate into a discussion of how organizations communicate internally. This meeting was no exception. Key issues were quality of BA deliverables; Development’s keeping track of dependencies; mapping work against planned deliverables—either within a team or when working with other teams; and, anticipating or working around structural ‘platform’ issues.

The recurring theme though was—how individuals and teams communicate—in order to overcome their difficulties. The examples are really not significantly different than with any other software development team. The quality and completeness of BA deliverables (including acceptance specifics), development estimation and progress tracking, and including such things as user acceptance testing (or lack thereof), are the same regardless of the specific discipline(s) used within a software organization.

The key to success is clear: Smooth, rapid, delivery of a product demands effective, clear, and complete communication between all involved parties. It is better to risk over-communicating than the alternative. And, only through frequent communication can teams hope to adapt to change (they need to know about it).

Maybe we should call these Software Anthropology meetings.

(image credit: Artiom (Artem) Chernyshevych)

Possibly Related

Dead Pecker’s Corner

JT — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:59:02 +0000

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.

The main intersection has a store of some sort on one corner, a gas station on the far right corner, and sidewalks, street, and parking lots seem to be one integral piece. No rudely intruding curbs. If it weren’t for the concrete sidewalk, you’d not be able to tell where the road ended and parking lots began. It’s the sort of town where everyone is mindful, polite, and big curbs aren’t needed for the sake of enforcing civil obedience.

It really had been an absolutely beautiful morning so far. The days at this year’s HSTA Sport Touring Association Rendezvous had quickly become routine: ride early, because by lunch time the energy in the clouds would build up, darken, and the second half of the day would have you riding through a very dense atmosphere…the sort of density you wear as opposed to just ride through.

So here we are, blue skies, some fluffy white clouds, and the heat of the day just starting to make itself known. We’ve all fueled up and rolled our rides off to the side, out of the way. Relaxing, standing in the hot sun, I note there’s this group of men sitting across the street, lining a stone wall, sitting under the only readily available shade to be had.

After a bit, keeping to ourselves by the bikes, it occurs to me: Why am I standing in the sun like this, I’ll just mind my business, and go sit down on that wall under the trees.

So it’s only about 30 feet from our bikes to the shade. As I meander over and start sitting down, one of the fellas starts trying to stop me from taking a seat. “Hey, you don’t want to sit here…” He’s the chap, fifth from the left in the picture.

Sometimes, you just need to take a risk.

So here I am, sitting a couple feet from the last guy in the line, and this friendly looking fellow stops in front of me. Leaning over, just loud enough for the others to hear, he says, “I tried to stop you from sitting here. You know what they call this don’t you?” Looking down the row to my right, I see this line of older guys all leaning past the one in front, looking at me. “No. What?”

They call it Dead Peckers’ Corner.

I just couldn’t contain myself. I burst out laughing. It only took a second, looking at these older guys, to see just what he meant. We introduced ourselves briefly; I sorely wish I could remember the chap’s name. These guys were all here, enjoying themselves, sitting, chatting, and enjoying the morning.

This chap, we’ll call him Bob, proceeds to tell me how the oldest among them is well through his 80s. Bob seems downright proud to let me know it’s the locals who’ve labeled the corner Dead Peckers’ Corner on their behalf. So there lays part of the story.

Now, see, it’s real comfortable in the shade…

I called across the street and invited another of our riding party to come on over. After all, it’s comfortable and cool, why stand in the sun? So, we’ve all been laughing, and he comes on over. Sure enough he takes a seat and up pops Bob, “I tried to stop your friend… You know what they call this here place now, don’t you?” “No, what?” A whole new round of laughter burst out welcoming the new member to the club.

One, by one, we encouraged all but one of the group to come join us. Each time, the cycle repeated itself. I figured if we all seemed to be having such a good time, I’d eventually get the entire group to come have a seat. Yep. Except for that one hold out, Hal.

So, here’s four of us, all sitting on a wall with silly smiles on our faces. “Hey, HAL, come on over!” Now, at this point, why he’s still standing all alone in the sun I’ll never know. Sure enough, with a hint of guardedness on his face, Hal comes on over…

It was a truly special moment for all of us. We got to enjoy a nice seat in the shade, join a respected local club, have a friendly joke at our own expense, and a great laugh. It wasn’t just me, I suspect there’s a reason I’ve had a few requests for the picture…

If it weren’t for being willing to take a risk, albeit a teensy-weensy one, along with the ability to convince others to follow, a great time that was…would have never been. Being a leader isn’t just about title and position. Most often, it’s about seeing an opportunity and being open to take advantage of it.

Possibly Related

It’s Worth $1M. But, I’m Scared

JT — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:09:29 +0000

This paraphrases the situation a friend of mine, selling a sophisticated yet simple product, frequently encounters. The fact the company he’s selling for can’t get past the objection reflects an indifference to customer sensitivity. A lack of customer-centricity.

The question today is how to compete moving forward. If you’re in a market like the U.S., Western Europe, or Japan, you face a mature slower-growing economic environment—current economic challenges notwithstanding. Using the automotive industry as an example, growth of 20, 30% annually is considered good. In North America, 2-3% is considered good.

So if your market is mature and you can’t count on a rising tide to float all boats, how do you prosper?

The days of competing primarily on product and price, particularly for commodity-oriented offerings, are dwindling. If you’re selling a car, there are numerous ‘family sedans’ with almost identical feature sets, for nearly identical prices.

This suggests a new way of competing must become prevalent.

Increasingly, having a strong customer focus appears to be that way. Think of it now as the 3 Ps. You have to be able to compete on the first 2 Ps, Price and Product. The third, is Partnership.

Partnership is important for both your business partners as well as customer, but for now we’ll focus on our customers.

Partnering with your customer, having more than a purely transactional relationship, is one of the key drivers behind social media. Social media enables a company to make itself directly accessible to the consumer—without forcing them through 3rd party channels. It allows the consumer to increasingly identify with the company and/or its brands. At the same time, it allows companies to understand its customers in order to further improve products while also tweaking them to more closely match consumer interests and desires.

Success = Price, Product, & Partnership

Thinking in terms of Price, Product, and Partnership, we can take a closer look at my friend’s product sales dilemma. At a high level, his company has developed a new generation manufacturing tool dramatically improving production. In on example, live demonstration showed a bottom line improvement of $1M/yr in production costs for less than $20K in new tooling. If you could show a 2,000% ROI, you’d jump all over it! Or would you?

Senior company managers, most with financial backgrounds, cannot understand why, with numbers like this, the customers aren’t flocking to use their product.

While laziness and nervousness may be contributing factors, perhaps the biggest is simply inertia. Approval processes (e.g. process changes, supply requests, purchase approvals, etc.) can often deter change. At the same time, allowing the status quo to continue is low risk. No one gets fired for maintaining the status quo. Making change risks failure, risks unwanted visibility, and realistic or not, risks employment.

In this case we have an example of having Price and Product, but missing on Partnership. With a new product there is often a credibility gap. Even if a customer’s own testing shows stellar results, simply selling on price and product requires the customer to bear all the risk—alone.

Consider a possible customer-centric, customer-focused approach. For a strategic customer, consider giving them product (we’re talking <$20K in this case) up front, in exchange for an ability to do real-world data collection, use of their name and endorsement if successful within specified metrics, and a portion of the identified ROI. Now, you have ‘skin in the game’, you’re personally invested in your customer’s success, they’re not feeling alone, and there’s an opportunity for both to win handsomely. All of a sudden, instead of simple transaction, you’ve made an investment possibly leading to a long term relationship.

In my view, observing change and challenge around us, it will become increasingly important to develop effective, productive, relationships with everyone around us. There is always someone who can under cut us in price, or produce a more finely tailored product, but they cannot beat us on relationship if they don’t have one.

(photo credit: Achim Sondermann)

Possibly Related

How to Communicate Effectively in Writing

JT — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:58:38 +0000

Ok, so you have just read the title. You know what the article is about. Your expectations have been set. And, it has been pretty straight-forward thus far hasn’t it?

Over the past few months there have been a number of different articles debating whether we (in the US) are getting better or worse in our writing. The debate is often pretty black and white. One side cites examples of how Twittering (with its 140 character limits), SMS (phone texting with its 160 character limits), Instant Messaging, and the like are all promoting poor writing. The other side cites examples where people (particularly our younger generations) are incredibly effective at adjusting their messaging to suit the medium, and, how with all these new mediums—we are writing more than we ever have.

Regardless of which side your views fall on, there is still a need to maintain some level of effectiveness when writing. Providing answers to the basic questions (Who? What? When? Why?) is a good guideline. Yet, it seems to elude many these days.

Titles

For instance, when writing a blog post (or news article), it is fine to use creative titles. I would recommend it actually. If the title is boring, why is anyone going to want to read the article accompanying it? The title, no matter how creative, should at least give a hint as to what follows.

From today’s email bag, consider these real-world titles:

“Small business in New York City”
“How to bring traffic top networks?”
“might be useful for you, your business, or a client of yours”
“Introduction”
“Free Webinar”
“Enterprise Technology Management”

One has to wonder if they’re really serious about drawing you in. Is the writer serious about motivating you to click the link or look down beyond the 18 point title font? How much more effective might these titles have been:

“Small business in New York City is Doing Something“
“How to Bring Top Traffic to Your Networks?”
“This Thing might be useful for you, your business, or a client of yours”
“Introduction to Something“
“Free Webinar for This Topic of Interest“
“Enterprise Technology Management, And What It Means to You“

An effective title can add so much more value to you, the reader. And, can be more effective in getting each of us to do whatever-it-is-they-want-us-to-do. Go figure.

Structure

What we write, what we say, how we say it, and, how we present it is a direct reflection upon each of us. This is something many writers seem to overlook. For instance, every email should be treated as a letter. Sure, we might skimp if it’s to someone we’re really close to—but I’m sure they may still appreciate the courtesy.

Basic email components:

Subject:
What is it about, why should you/I/we care? In today’s age, an email without a subject is almost certain never to be read. If a SPAM filter doesn’t delete it, the recipient (especially if they’re busy) is likely to.
Greeting:
Hi Bob, Hi Sue, Dear Whomever…
Body
Closing Salutation
Sincerely, Respectfully, Thank you…
Signature
Who is this from?

Most people will feel this is remedial, basic, perhaps beneath them. Yet I encounter numerous people, for instance job seekers, sending out email (representations of their workmanship) that neglect a subject, greeting lines, and email signatures. If you wish the recipient to respond to you, letting them know how in your email signature can be helpful.

Tools like Twitter, IM, SMS, and email are fabulous tools. We need to guard against their casual nature from eroding effectiveness, courtesy, or professionalism.