Why Business Conventions are Important

I just received a list of "truisms" from my Dad. You know, one of those email lists that make the rounds.

Here's an item that caught my attention.

"Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without."

This is funny because it's partially true. I've been on conventions before, as have my staff. Our reasons for going were noble -get up to date on the latest technology, see new applications at work, generate new ideas, network with peers and of course, have a little relaxation time away from the office with the team.

Meanwhile, it's business as usual back at the office. Projects get done, questions get answered, customers get served... It does cause one to wonder whether you can really justify the expense.

It also seems to be the case that;

a) The more conferences you go on, the more your staff want to go on.
b) If two people went to a specific conference last year, 5 people want to go this year.

It can get out of hand quickly.

Here are some things I've tried, to create some balance between treating conventions as a learning opportunity vs. a paid vacation.

1. Choose your conferences very carefully. If you haven't attended a specific conference before, use your network to determine whether anyone else has attended and found it worthwhile.
2. If you decide to attend a conference for the first time, send one person, not an army.
3. Have some clear trip objectives before getting on the plane.
4. Have conference attendees prepare a trip report, so they can share their learning with the rest of the team upon their return. (This also helps you as a manager, better understand what your employee garnered from the experience.)
5. Integrate conferences into your annual personnel review and development conversations - so your employee knows how the experience is expected to affect/improve their job performance or their resource network.

How do you handle convention attendance at your company?

Quiet Competence

I am impressed by the UK's new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

Within days of his ascension to the top of British government, he was faced with a terrorist threat - the discovery of two car bombs, in central London, followed the next day by a botched attack on a Glasgow airport.

Instead of frightening his people, he went on TV and told them that the British police and government were investigating. As a result of vigilant police work and with the aid of CCTV cameras, within two days seven doctors were arrested and charged with the acts. A day later another co-conspirator was arrested in Australia.

To me this underscores the fact that basic technology (closed circuit cameras) and fundamental police work are effective tools, not only against common street crime, but also against terrorism.

The UK didn't stand up their army. They didn't blame a foreign country. They sought to bring the perpetrators to justice. Remember the good old days when that's what we used to do?

There was no rhetoric about fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. The Defense Minister didn't get on TV and tell people about his gut feelings. The only people eager to mention al Qaeda, were the US networks, eager to jack up the tension.

Several weeks later, the UK was hit with devastating floods. Six people died as a result, including two premature newborns, who weren't rescued in time for medical treatment. While the world watched, I noticed that something was missing.

Then it struck me...

There were no Brits standing on rooftops holding signs saying "Help US!".

Britain marshaled its rescue services and they went about their business - just like FEMA used to do in response to hurricane devastation (when they were a standalone government agency, run by competent leaders).

The other fact, that won't get any press, is that no one in the UK will suffer medically from any effects of the flooding, because they all have access to universal health care.

Gordon Brown's tumultuous first few weeks have been soothed by a combination of calm, steady leadership and government executing their duties to serve their citizens.

A quiet competence.

How are YOU attracting Talent?

The following is a video made by the folks at Connected Ventures, a young media company. The video struck me as entertaining... and scary...

Entertaining, at face value, but scary, in that they're also using it as a recruiting tool.

If you're a company competing for college graduates for web development, advertising, communications or marketing positions, how would your recruiting efforts compare?

How would an infusion of this kind of creativity, energy and enthusiasm work at YOUR office?

These guys are hiring.



Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri and Vimeo.

Color Me Cynical

Get used to these colors (or slight variants of them).

Why? Because you'll be seeing them over the next decade, as big bad well established global companies try to re-invent themselves as advocates for environmental responsibility.

Yes, those colors evoke memories of sunshine, earth, water and air.

And you're about to see them repeated and repeated in logos, print ads, internet sites and television ads everywhere.

I've noticed that giant energy company BP has updated their logo... Sort of an ulta-modern sunflower. Makes you think of meadows filled with flowers. I think I hear birds singing.

GE has recently been flogging TV commercials about their environmentally friendly diesel train engines, airplane engines and nuclear power plants, featuring similar color cues.

Most recently I've been seeing these colors pop up for use within the Pharmaceutical industry - evoking that feeling of "feeling better naturally". Don't believe me? Check out that ad for the drug that cures "Restless Leg Syndrome" - definitely a solution in search of a problem.

I've searched my memory banks and can't remember ONE TIME when someone complained to me about their restless leg.

Well, at least now we have an environmentally friendly cure!

Why trick us into believing that these companys are environmental stewards? Because it's much cheaper than actually being environmental stewards.

Color me cynical.

YouTube - U Think?

Last night we witnessed an interesting Democratic "debate". CNN hosted a debate among the Democratic candidates for President, using questions posed by YouTube users. I thought the format was particularly interesting for a number of reasons.

First, I liked the fact that "real people" got to ask the questions. I think it underscored the fact that these candidates are auditioning to serve the people. The format made it seem as if the candidates were responding to individual voters, not practicing yet another stump speech.

The format too, helped underscore the reality of the problems behind the question - the two brothers caring for their Alzheimer afflicted parent asked a question about health care. A lesbian couple asked whether the candidates would allow them to marry, parents of soldiers currently deployed in Iraq asked questions about the war.... very powerful stuff.

The questions weren't tempered, as they are sometimes by the media. After all, the media has a "relationship" with each of the candidates to protect. They can't ask the harsh questions or be particularly critical, because the next day, they may need a quote or response from the very candidate they've rebuked. By using real voters questions, they were given a "free pass".

While the questions and issues, for the most part were the same ones that reporters might have asked, the format left the impression, that the reporters weren't acting as middlemen in the Q&A process. (Although, it should be noted that slightly more than 1% of the almost 3,000 YouTube submissions were actually aired and that CNN alone chose the questions.)

While the entire production was carefully managed and the questions culled, it nonetheless left me with an impression of being a more "authentic" (honest?) exchange than previous debates.

And God knows, we could use more of that.

10 BIG I.T. Timewasters

1. Helpdesks who focus on fixing problems instead of solving the underlying cause of the problem.

2. Unnecessary paperwork, creating unusable documentation. (Note I didn't say all paperwork.)

3. Developing "traditional" (paper based) system training, instead of video based training.

4. IT structure - too many approval (management) layers, causing delays in paperwork, project approval or project completion. Having to run every decision "up the flagpole".

5. Meetings which aren't results focused and therefore last too long.

6. Working on the wrong things. (Enhancing systems which should be replaced, or which aren't a priority - just because you're resourced that way...)

7. Duplicating tasks. Writing a status report for your boss. Writing a project update for your users, then writing a seperate update for your staff. RSS, wikis can VASTLY reduce the amount of communicating you currently do.

8. Not being bold enough. My team once did an entire ERP upgrade in 12 weeks - because we challenged ourselves to get it done. Had we decided to take 6 months, it would have been done in six months, because we would have done tasks that would have not contributed (in a meaningful way) to a positive outcome. By artificially shortening the deadline, we did the things that really mattered.

9. Not trusting your staff. If you can't trust them, why are they working for you? Provide them with appropriate training and coaching or get rid of them!

10. Being focused on I.T. results, instead of business results. If you measure everything you do in business metrics, your internal customers will be MUCH happier. You'll help reinforce I.T. and business alignment.

My Favorite Website This Week

I just tripped over MediaPutz.com, who host weekly nominations for MediaPutzs - "journalists" who distort the truth or act in ways to position themselves as the story, instead of reorting ON the story.

Enjoy.

New Business Opportunity?

More than ever, I'm hearing people complaining about airlines losing luggage. It's always been a complaint, enhanced by the hub and spoke airlines system, where most times, both you and your luggage have to change planes before arriving at your destination.

FAA rules prohibiting what we can carry onto flights, force most people to check their luggage rather than carry it with them in the cabin.

Seems to me that UPS and FedEx are missing a huge opportunity here.

Wouldn't it make sense for (arguably) the best parcel delivery services in the world ship your luggage directly to your hotel?

It seems to me that they could offer huge travel benefits:

1. Travel light. Just get on the plane with a good book.
2. No worries about whether your luggage will make your connecting flight.
3. Your luggage would not be held hostage, if your flight was cancelled. Rebook on any airline.
4. Traceable luggage handling (package tracking) means that even if it does get lost, it'll be found. No airline can guarantee that!
5. When at your destination, no waiting to reclaim luggage. Just get off the plane, grab a cab and arrive at your hotel.

It would offer hotels the opportunity to enhance their services as well - delivering your bags directly to your room and secondly, shipping your bags via FedEx or UPS, back home when your stay was over.

Maybe this is a service that Hotels should be offering? They could build the service costs into their room rates.

What's holding the airlines back? They could help eliminate or reduce a huge source of service complaints. It would help reduce the strain on airline security. it would take some of the burden off of luggage handlers. It would speed up the check-in experience. It would make travelling more pleasant.

It obviously would cost more to ship bags separately, but if UPS and FedEx spent time building this business model, I'm certain that prices would drop over time.

And we might all be a little happier for it.

The Sound Bite Election

I fear that the 2008 Election will be won or lost on the "Sound Bite" battlefield. Instead of a well thought out debate about what the candidates propose to do about the major issues, candidates will be elected based upon how "catchy" their responses to questions are.

Witness the most recent Democratic debate at Howard University. When asked about the spread of AIDS among the black community, Hillary Clinton stated; "Let me put this into perspective. If AIDS was the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 to 34, there would be an outrage...outcry in this country."

The crowd ate it up.




Now, she went on to state a number of initiatives that she would promote to help reduce the effects of AIDs on the African American population, but THIS was the sound bite that was covered on the evening news.

When are we going to ask more of those who wish to govern the country?

Questions like:
1. Are you accepting corporate and special interest campaign contributions? If so, how can you assure voters that you aren't being bought? What do your corporate sponsors expect in return?
2. How will you pay for Universal Healthcare, Border Security, Social Security?
3. How will you address our trade deficits?
4. How do you propose to pay down our national debt?
5. When will you restore ALL our freedoms granted under the Constitution?
6. How will you eliminate our dependence on oil?
7. What do you propose to do about our failing educational system and our horrendous drop out rates?
8. How will you address the war in Iraq?
9. What will you do to improve transparency in government policies? earmarks? deficits?
10. How will you restore the Justice Department's independence from the Executive branch and Congress?

The answers to these questions are difficult to encapsulate in a sound bite or on a bumper sticker. They require a conversation, analysis, contemplation.

Let's not waste the next 6 months on meaningless sound bites. Our votes are much more important than that.

Let's vow to challenge ALL those would would be our future President and get them to answer the TOUGH questions.

Can Stopping Illegal Immigration be this Simple?

My 15 year old son just got a job at a local sandwich shop. Since he's underage, they require a work permit.

In our town, work permits are issued by the school (when in session) or any local bank branch. So off we went to our local bank. After presenting his Green Card (we're not citizens yet), his Social Security Card, his birth certificate and a photo id, we waited 24 hours for the Bank to process the paperwork.

The next day we picked up his Work Permit (cost $5). On the reverse side of the permit are all the restrictions imposed upon a 15 year old (hours of work etc).

On Monday, he's expected to show up at work with the Work Permit and copies of all the documentation we provided for the Bank, so his employer can file all the applicable documentation.

Its a relatively painless process. We follow the rules, the local employers follow the rules. I'm assuming we must have some local enforcement, because this is his third job and we got Work Permits for all three.

I tell this story because we managed to do all this without the Federal Government having to pass a comprehensive immigration bill.

I'm assuming similar rules apply in all States. If you don't have the proper documentation, no work permit, no employment.

Enforce the existing rules, stop building a fence. Without the prospect for employment, the tide of illegal immigration will become a trickle - or stop altogether.

Can it really be this simple?

Confident or Arrogant?

I just ran across this Businessweek slide show which has tips for the company Newbie. Liz Ryan's entire article provides valuable tips that resonated for me.


Several years ago I joined a new company. In my first week, it was very apparent to me that my new company was awash in improvement opportunities, some of these the CEO planned to exploit with a new ERP system (that no one else wanted).


While we "won the battle" by installing the new system, we lost the war, in that our team was seen as arrogant.


I saw us as being confident.


While we did garner most of the benefits we anticipated, we didn't get them all. Had we taken the challenges a little more slowly, building relationships and garnering confidence with our business partners as we went, we might have garnered 100% of the expected results.

Hire Beware!

Several months ago, a former associate of mine was hired by a very large company into a very senior role.

Now I know this guy. And I don't have a very strong opinion of him. I knew him to be vain, somewhat paranoid, highly political and quite devious. Many of his peers felt he was somewhat dysfunctional. He would avoid dealing with any confrontation directly, instead delegating all tough issues to his staff.

His major talent, was his ability to "manage up" - fooling his boss into believing he was effective.

Almost everyone else knew differently. He was not a guy I felt proud to be associated with. Yet a successful company is now excited to have him on board.

It makes me wonder about recruiting. How does one really know the person they're about to hire?

Hiring mistakes at the senior level can be so expensive. Termination is expensive. Damage to the hiring manager's reputation is expensive. Damage to the department or to corporate morale is expensive. There's a lot at risk.

Yet hiring decisions, in many cases, comes down to "feel" - in essence, a beauty contest. Are we comfortable with the candidate? Does he seem to know his stuff? Does his experience fit our needs?

"Steve" (not his real name) definitely knew his stuff. That wasn't the issue. His issues surfaced in the way he went about his job. And typically, that doesn't show up in an interview.

References aren't a great way to weed out candidates either - who offers up bad references?

Some companies use scientific testing (although not usually at the senior level), some use "gang interviews", some use 360 interviews, with the candidate being interviewed by superiors, colleagues and subordinates. But none of these techniques come with any guarantees.

I think there's a huge business opportunity out there for anyone who can come up with a better way of making hires - especially at the senior level. And in about 12 months from now, I'm betting there will be at least one major company who'll want to second that motion.

What about a 23% Approval Rating Don't You Get?

They still don't get it.

That's what I was thinking as I watched Anderson Cooper interview Rahm Emanuel yesterday on CNN.

CNN's "Keeping them Honest" segment called every congress-person and asked for their list of proposed Earmarks. Initially less than 10% of our government agreed to publicly list Earmarks they had asked for. About 15% said absolutely not - unless there was a legal requirement to do so. Over 300 never responded to the inquiries at all.

Rahm Emanuel, who was aghast at the coverage of the issue, appeared with Anderson Cooper to defend the progress that Dems had made in turning the entire process transparent.

He argued that Dems were going to force Earmarks, which end up added to other legislation, to be identified by the sponsoring Congressperson. He argued that is substantial progress towards the path to transparency.

Nice try Skippy.

When more than 90% of Congress is unresponsive to public requests for proposed Earmarks, it's very clear (at least to the Public) that Congress doesn't appear to understand that it is they, who are supposed to be serving US.

For Rahm Emanuel to appear on CNN and defend Democratic earmark initiatives as being "progressive" would be like the Army Corps of Engineers defending themselves after Katrina by saying that "not all the levies broke."

Regardless, New Orleans was under water.

Congress has a 23% approval rating.

What is it that you don't understand?

Mr. Emanuel was acting like the Dems were about to "cross the finish line" on Earmarks. Bad news Congressman, you're not running a 100 yard dash. You're in a marathon.

When the public gets a 100% response from its elected representatives on Earmark requests, when Dick Cheney's office discloses what information his office has classified as secret or declassified, when Government contracts are forced to be open-bid, when the President stops trying to amend legislation with signing statements, when the Executive branch stops hiding behind the notion of Executive Privilege and ignoring subpoenas from Congress, when shadow email systems are exposed as a circumvention of the Hatch Act and the perpetrators punished, when the Executive Branch releases its stranglehold on the Department of Justice,
then we'll be at the 1 mile marker in the race for transparency, Mr. Emanuel.

Our expectations are simply a little higher than yours.

Before you appear on CNN again, at least make sure that everyone in your party has disclosed their Earmarks. Otherwise you simply appear foolish and inept.

Where's the News?

Is it me or are mainstream TV media ignorant of the Internet and its effects upon them?

I've been noticing newscasters trying to use Web 2.0 buzzwords with the same comfort as George Bush, when he talks about "the Internets". Over the past year, Jack Cafferty has learned to use email, which he now reads to us in "The Situation Room". And don't get me started on the internet polling that almost every show does (Lou Dobbs, I'm talking especially to you).

A few days ago, about 24 hours after the "I Have a Crush on Obama" viral video was making the rounds, some reporter was interviewing the creators and announced with awe that more than a million people had viewed the video.

The creators corrected the intrepid reporter and told her that there were more than 30 video sites on the Web - not just YouTube, (where it had been seen more than a million times). So in fact she was under reporting its impact significantly.

More and more, news shows are showing YouTube video clips. CNN has begun the I-report, where viewers can upload their local stories. It seems to me that CNN and others have delegated the responsibility for accurate, investigative reporting and replaced it with commenting on the reporting.

Isn't that what bloggers do?

So my question is: Next year, where will we tune for current, original, accurate, source-checked news content? Lonelygirl15 or CNNs Baghdad Bureau chief?

Since it takes mainstream news outlets at least 24 hours to report on items of interest on the Web, I'm betting on Lonelygirl.

I Don't Know

These three words can result in a dead end or the start of a journey of discovery. Which happens at your company?

Tech Advice from MSNBC?

I was reading an MSNBC article today called 7 Steps to better e-mail management and came to the conclusion that MSNBC had run out of Tech News..

Here's the summary.

1. If you're a business it's better to use your own domain name rather than a free email service.
2. Learn how to use your email client.
3. Quickly act upon incoming email so your inbox doesn't fill up.
4. Use folders
5. Use filters & rules
6. Be secure
7. Backup your email

Did you find these tips insightful? Neither did I.

In fact I disagree with a couple of these suggestions. I never put email at the top of my priority list, (rush to read all current mail) nor do I use folders. I tend to keep everything in my inbox (except junk) and use Google Desktop search if I need to quickly find anything. For me, it works far more efficiently than maintaining a discipline of folders.

But along the same lines as the above listed suggestions, here are a few more lame ones:

8. Stop "cc"ing yourself on every email you send. They're already in your Sent folder.
9. Stop using the "Reply to All" button when responding to emails. No one cares.
10. If you are about to reply for a second time on the same email exchange, stop. Pick up the damn phone.

Class dismissed.

Next Father's Day....If I'm Good.

My son Jeff showed me one of the potential Father's Day gifts he considered. Given some of the office environments I've worked in, this would have come in very handy!

It's a USB powered mini-rocket launcher, you can control from your PC. It features the ability to rotate 360 degrees and supports angle of fire up to 45 degrees. It can shoot foam rockets to a distance of twenty feet.

The answer to your question is NO.

I got a book instead.

Glenn Beck - End of Days?

I was channel surfing this week and came across the Glenn Beck show (CNN HN) with the caption "End of Days?" In the past I heard Glenn Beck warn about the "coming apocalypse" and turned it off. A year later, the rant apparently still continues.

Just out of curiosity, I searched YouTube to see whether anyone else has picked up on this... and found:



I wonder how CNN journalists who cover real news from war zones, feel about this type of broadcasting on their sister network?

I'm sure this helps CNN HN's ratings. It certainly doesn't do much for CNN's credibility. For me, this type of broadcasting is much more offensive than anything ever uttered by Don Imus.

Maybe Glenn is right. For me, it is the "end of days" - of my viewing of CNN HN.

Will the Real You Please Stand Up?

I am a huge fan of the Internet. I enjoy discovering new ideas, new blogs, new products, new technologies, new sites.

There is a dark side to the whole Internet business though. And I'm not talking about the porn sites or the Internet stalkers. I'm talking about the level of discourse brought about by anonymity.

Everyone has seen the cartoon of a dog sitting in front of a computer, with the caption "On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog".

The more time I spend on the Internet, the more I see it. Hateful, sexist, racist comments made in anonymity. You know - the kind of behaviour that would embarrass your colleagues, friends or family, if made public. When posters hide behind pseudonyms all rules are off. And I think that in many cases, it lowers the level of discourse - name calling, slander and just plain lies all done under cover. It doesn't add to the conversation. It interrupts it.

I'm an advocate of free speech and would never suggest that these people not be able to express their points of view - no matter how rude or hateful. And I'm not saying that anonymity should be banished. But I'd like the option to filter out anonymous posts.

The challenge, is how to implement an identity technology that would force "the real you to please stand up".

If we all had the option of using a 3rd party identity validation - which would automatically attach our real names, city, state/province and country, along with the icon of the authenticating source, we might be able to allow posts to be filtered, (authenticated vs anonymous).

I know it wouldn't solve all the problems, but it might raise the level of discourse on the web. My hope would be that if we can hold people accountable, they might act more responsibly. And perhaps the Internet would be a slightly better place.

1 Button: Voice of the Customer

Has your company talked about "the voice of the customer"? You know, a conversation which starts with the realization that you have no idea what your customers are saying about you, your products or your service?

It usually starts in the Marketing department, right after the CEO demands that the company try to attract more of your customers' share of wallet.

"Maybe it's time we listened to the voice of the customer!"

The outside agency is hired, the surveys and interviews begin, are analyzed and then presented back to your company. Once again, you've delegated customer relations to an outside agency. It's seen as a project, not a process.

Maybe it's time you saved the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars and installed something on your website to do the same thing.

It's called a FEEDBACK button.

This function would allow customers (or prospects) to suggest product or service improvements, compliment or berate you. It would give your customers a direct communication channel - so you could hear the voice of the customer - in real time, everyday.

Brave companies make the process transparent, allowing visitors to see others' comments and your responses.

But that's not the way we like to work. In fact big business goes out of its way to setup customer service from an internal point of view, not the customer's POV. That's why we hide behind complicated voicemail menus, almost never reaching a human. That's why we don't offer FEEDBACK buttons.... because responding to customers would be sooooo inconvenient and time consuming.

Instead of spending several hundred thousand dollars every few years on Voice of the Customer projects, just hire a couple of extremely friendly (and tenacious) interns to forward, follow-up and respond to the customer email you get from your new FEEDBACK button.

And you'll get to hear the voice of the customer everyday.

And you'll likely earn the extra share of wallet.