» Next Entries
Category
Management
-
Management
Results Only Work Enviroment – I’m already a fan
01.15.08 | Permalink | View CommentsI love it when I find something brilliant I didn’t know about (thank you Seth).
I totally buy into the idea that in the workplace, results is what matters. Working hours are a leftover from the industrial age, physical presence is almost redundant because of technology and meetings a complete waste of time in most cases.
I’m already a fan of some of Jim McCarthy’s ideas and what Seth pointed me to was McCarthy-esk in a lot of ways. It’s good to see a company such as Best Buy adopting a radical approach to the workplace called ROWE (results-only work environment) that produces results. It’s nice to see your thoughts validated through proven methodologies.Read about it here and the inventor’s blog. -
Management
The Experience is the Product. Even Steve Jobs has to be reminded.
01.10.08 | Permalink | View CommentsGreat story in Wired about the development of the iPhone and the impact on the wireless carriers. I like this part:
So that summer, while he publicly denied he would build an Apple phone, Jobs was working on his entry into the mobile phone industry. In an effort to bypass the carriers, he approached Motorola. It seemed like an easy fix: The handset maker had released the wildly popular RAZR, and Jobs knew Ed Zander, Motorola’s CEO at the time, from Zander’s days as an executive at Sun Microsystems. A deal would allow Apple to concentrate on developing the music software, while Motorola and the carrier, Cingular, could hash out the complicated hardware details.
Of course, Jobs’ plan assumed that Motorola would produce a successor worthy of the RAZR, but it soon became clear that wasn’t going to happen. The three companies dickered over pretty much everything — how songs would get into the phone, how much music could be stored there, even how each company’s name would be displayed. And when the first prototypes showed up at the end of 2004, there was another problem: The gadget itself was ugly.
Jobs unveiled the ROKR in September 2005 with his characteristic aplomb, describing it as “an iPod shuffle on your phone.” But Jobs likely knew he had a dud on his hands; consumers, for their part, hated it. The ROKR — which couldn’t download music directly and held only 100 songs — quickly came to represent everything that was wrong with the US wireless industry, the spawn of a mess of conflicting interests for whom the consumer was an afterthought. Wired summarized the disappointment on its November 2005 cover: “YOU CALL THIS THE PHONE OF THE FUTURE?”
On the outset it seemed to make so much sense. Two CEO’s had it all figured out. But when things that were completely irrelevant to the consumer started to impact the consumer experience of the product, it turned into a failure. Never forget that the experience is the product. Never compromise on it.
-
Management
Complacency will be the architecture of your downfall
11.10.07 | Permalink | View Comments
The highlight of the conference was without a doubt the presentation from Jeremy Gutsche, Chief Trend Hunter at TrendHunter.com, who said “Complacency will be the architecture of your demise”. He told a story about Smith Corona, at one time the largest typewriter manufacturer. They saw the rise of the personal computer but essentially said “there will always be people who need a typewriter”. They are now bankrupt.
That made me think. How many times do you hear somebody say “yeah, but people still want to…..”. All the time right? These words by itself is telling. It acknowledges that a change is inevitable, but combined with the refusal to accept it, with the argument that change doesn’t happen overnight. And it’s based on the comfort with the status quo, the fear of the new and perceived risk associated with it. That’s not leadership, that’s complacency.
From now on, whenever somebody says something like “yes, but people still want to…”, please respond with “complacency will be the architecture of you downfall.” -
Management
Jared’s ‘The Death March for Advertising’
07.31.06 | Permalink | View CommentsJared wrote a great article about the state of advertising.
-
Management
Crazy Jim
04.19.06 | Permalink | View CommentsThat’s how we refer to Jim McCarthy at Tourism BC. I had the chance to spend 10 minutes with Jim last year. Those were 10 very intense minutes. Jim doesn’t beat around the bush and he left me one of his hand written business cards and a DVD of a presentation he did years ago when he was still working at Microsoft. I think his approach scared a few people here so we never hired him to work on one of our projects. But after watching the DVD and reading one of his books, I would love to have the opportunity to work with him or take his BootCamp one day.
I’ve been listening to the Podcasts he hosts with his wife Michelle. Every time, a little bit of their methodology about building effective teams is revealed. I haven’t read his book Software For Your Head yet so sometimes I have no clue what they’re talking about. It’s some cryptic language around “protocols” and terminology such as “checking in”, “alignment”, “decider” and more. But I get the gist of it and I usually find something useful in there.
The best one so far was the piece about meetings and in particular about discussions because they usually don’t resolve anything and is basically a waste of time. Michelle summed it up nicely for me: “What I’ve come to notice is that lack of awareness on most people’s part is that time and energy, what is precious, is being wasted [on meetings] and the higher the number of people the more time and the more energy that is being wasted”. So meet to resolve instead of instead of meet to discuss would be my summary without all the crypto talk.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the most important aspect of a successful project is having an effective project team. That means smart, competent, committed team members that share a vision, work toward that vision, help each other and have fun in the process. I believe if you achieve this, everything else flows out of it. So if you’re working with teams, listing to Jim and Michelle will definitely provide you with some ideas around creating effective teams.
-
Management
Great marketing doesn�t always start with marketers
12.06.05 | Permalink | Comments OffI have to be honest. Part of why I made a radical career change in the late 90′s was because “the internet was going to change the world”. Not too much later I was worried I made the wrong move. These were the days of marketers who didn’t get it; banner ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, spam, bad email marketing come to mind. But we’re back on track and great innovators have shaped a new internet experience and you can even call it web 2.0.
What has made me really excited recently is how Microsoft is showing a vulnerability through blogs and efforts such as channel 9. The interview with Bill Gates looks so genuine that’s almost endearing. I almost forgot that Bill is the richest man in the world. What Robert Scoble and his comrades are doing is the new marketing.
To that effect, Scoble points to a posting that describes it well.
It�s so easy to draft up a marketing plan that runs through the checkboxes – banner ads, check. Keyword buys, check. DM (if you have budget), check. List buy + email drop, check. Content kit call-to-action that collects PII for your me-too newsletter, check. These, for the most part, work in terms of generating leads and moving people through the pipeline. We have the stats to prove it, which is why marketers always fall back on tactics like these. Lord knows I have time and again.
(…)
Don�t be obvious by using the same tried-and-true tricks in the marketers bag. Don�t fall back to them just because they are safe, even if you get burned by being out on the edge. The challenge to all of us in the field is to look outside our profession to those who are doing great marketing, even if it�s not so easy to recognize it as such at first glance.At Tourism BC, our recently launched blogs are very successfull and people are talking about doing more. Things are officially exciting again.
-
Management
Software Development Process
06.30.05 | Permalink | View CommentsI’ve developed a keen interest in managing software development (again) recently. Scobble pointed me to David J. Anderson, a program manager at Microsoft and I came across this awesome webcast. Very cool, I hope this doesn’t spark another obsession to learn for me, I can only handle so many at a time. Can’t wait for Scoble’s video.
There’s good stuff in his blog as well. Last Monday’s entry is called “Not so formal“.
Where there is low trust, there must be documentation, verification, audit and potentially punishment. Where there is a lack of trust, there is fear. Where there is fear, there is a lot of people taking cover and protecting themselves. Such protection is waste – muda. It takes the form of overly long schedules, overly detailed specifications, precise plans and elaborate change procedures to track all of the changes, audit trails and assigned accountability and responsibility – there must be a scapegoat.Amen.
» Next Entries
Social Links Sidebar