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Management
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Management
Crazy Jim
That’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.
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Management
Great marketing doesn�t always start with marketers
12.06.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Great marketing doesn�t always start with marketersI 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.
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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.
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Management
Software Development Process
I’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.
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William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog
William Bakker is Chief Strategist at Destination Think!. These are my personal thoughts.
