Posts Tagged ‘Process’

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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One can argue whether economists are cheapskates, or not. The debate can certainly be entertaining, such as in this Wall Street Journal article.  There’s even an old economics joke tied to their, umm, stereotypical tendencies.

It goes something like this, “…an economist is walking down the street with a friend when they happen upon a $100 bill laying on the ground.  As the companion reaches down to pick it up, the economist says, ‘Don’t bother—if it were a real $100 bill, someone would have already picked it up.’” (Andrew McAfee and Andrew Lo.)

Andrew wrote an article comparing companies’ use of IT with that $100 bill.  The notion is that ‘everyone’ has the same technology.  We all have, or have access to, tools like email, internet, smart phones, computers, and the like.  So, technology itself should be a non-competitive tool. Right?

While Andrew continues to discuss inconsistent use of these tools—fewer than 5% of all firms do the job well—I’d like to briefly look beyond just ‘IT’ per se.

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As someone consistently striving to be a top performer, my performance review experiences have generally been good.  They’re normally delivered well-past a HR-dictated deadline and contain few surprises.  And, unfortunately, they’re also often not worth the effort required.

This is probably part of why the review process is so dreaded.  Fundamentally it comes down to a manager being engaged and setting aside adequate time.  Time, unfortunately, is a major issue.  The larger your staff, the larger a block of time that’s required, bolted onto days, weeks already jammed full.  Reviews are often like the English lit papers you wrote in college or high school—the less time you put into them, the shallower they were, and it was apparent to whomever read it.

If I have only one piece of advice for managers, be engaged and set aside plenty of time to do it right.

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When was the last time you asked, “Why?” Has it been awhile? Reflecting back on some of the more confrontational issues I’ve been involved in, it occurred to me that the one question often not asked is simply, Why?

If you have studied Six Sigma, you’ve heard about asking the 5 Whys. Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System, is said to have liked using the 5 Whys. The intent is to repetitively ask questions until you understand the simple, core reason, underlying an otherwise seeming complex problem.

Consider this example Read the rest of this entry »

Previously, I wrote a post discussing the need to challenge institutional knowledge.

Since then, I have come across a number of articles related to the basic notion.  An example I wanted to point out for you today, is Seth Godin’s own posting, The problem with doing it by heart.  He does an entertaining job of pointing out just how readily we keep on doing things the same ‘ol way, because, “…that’s the way it always comes.”

Do you do things on autopilot just because, that’s the way you‘ve always done it?  It bears emphasizing the ongoing need to avoid complacency, the need to continually monitor one’s self, one’s organization.

Coffee Shops

If you know me much at all, you know I like coffee shops (a lot). Some time ago, I learned the working lunch has its uses. One good use, is simply relationship building. But as a tool for getting something done, the Working Lunch really isn’t that productive, and it’s expensive (even if we’re only talking my waist line). The goal? Get someone out of the office for an undistracted discussion, or, meeting someone whose schedule is jammed.

Using a coffee shop for a meeting is much more cost effective ($4 vs $40?), can be scheduled any time (6:45a, 1:30p, 6:45p), and have last as long or as little as both parties desire. Love ‘em. Read the rest of this entry »

Generally considered Universally True: It costs more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.  Whether we’re specifically talking about SaaS providers, or not, this seems to be lost on so many businesses.  How much more profitable might a wireless carrier be, for instance, if they focused on keeping existing customers, rather than incessantly focusing on new?

Listening to the likes of quarterly reports from Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, for instance show companies focused on gaining more new customers than the number of old ones they lose. How much more profitable might they be if Read the rest of this entry »

For years, when I thought of the ‘wave’ in a marketing context, I thought of Coca-Cola. Well, the old wave is about to be trumped by a New Wave. And it isn’t from Coke.

May 28, Google provided developers with an introduction to a new product due yet this year, called Google Wave. You can learn more at wave.google.com.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I encourage you to watch the first ~40 minutes of the presentation, here:

My roles have typically involved multi-party coordination, including a broad mix of data type exchanges during collaboration. Wave has the potential of
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Phil Fersht, a recognized BPO analyst, shares with us a discussion with Lee Coulter.  Coulter, SVP of Kraft Foods Global Shared Services Group, highlighted some high-level thoughts on BPO, where it’s successful, where it has yet to perform.  There are two areas I want to append to the discussion:

1)       Behavior is a key player behind success. Lee is right, behavior of both client and provider are the more likely determiners of long-term success.  The MSA (master service agreement) is something often toiled over for months, sometimes it’s never even truly completed. Eventually it gets stuck on a shelf and simply gathers dust. Once the process has matured (e.g. after 90 days), it’s typically looked at very infrequently.

As a result, Read the rest of this entry »

Someone recently highlighted an ‘article’ presented by PNMsoft (BPM, workflow automation).  The opening premise is, “A common myth is that technology has not yet advanced enough to create a paperless office.  Nothing could be further from the truth. The main obstacle is not technology, but people.”

Nice try, but not quite.  Technology is not the issue, nor is it people, it’s a business issue.  ‘Greening your office’ is a struggle for many senior managers.  You face the same two core issues facing the green movement in general.  While you want to do right by the world (e.g. Go Green!), you also need to do so cost-effectively (you know, profitably).  The correlations to your needs are Read the rest of this entry »