Four More Ideas - How to Create a great Website

Seth Godin has a quick read blog this morning on How to create a great Website.

Good ideas all. We (3 of us) just finished (for now) the 5Rules website, complete with Forum and company Blog. All 10 of Seth's principles rang true.

Here are a few more suggestions.

1. Steal ideas shamelessly. Don't copy! I mean take a look at your favorite websites and determine WHY they're your favorites (easy navigation, graphics design, simplicity, complexity, whatever...). Then morph those ideas into your own unique site. Our 5Rules site was inspired by 3 or 4 other sites in completely different businesses.

2. Buy/rent/Open Source vs. Build. For the sake of speed and cash, if your site requires things like a blog or a discussion forum, there are plenty of open source options for you out there. For 5Rules, we used Wordpress for our blog and are using Vanilla for our Product Forum. Our web development team (okay, it is one very talented guy) modified some designs we liked, to better brand our sites.

3. Give credit where it's due. If you're going to use someone's design and modify it, make sure you acknowledge the original designer. It's only right. Our modified blog design was based on Talian designed by VA4Business. And we say so in the blog footer.

4. With respect to Seth's idea #10 - Never Settle... Understand that websites grow, morph. You're never done. Make certain that the critical aspects work well, but perfect is not the launch criteria. Otherwise you'll stay in development forever.

Beware Renovators Remorse

After almost a lifetime in the Information Technology world, I've learned a few things. One of them is; Beware of Renovator's Remorse.

Renovator's Remorse is a condition that intrepid homeowners occasionally succumb to. A condition that has them saying "While we're at it, we might as well..... (insert unplanned improvement here)".

The temptation is almost unavoidable. Once you're tearing out a wall, you "might as well", upgrade the electrical or redo the plumbing... and in an instant your project goes from a room remodel to a major renovation. Your budget and timeline go out the window.

It's the same way with I.T. projects.

You begin with the mission to add some new functionality to a program. Once you're looking at the code, there's an almost irrestible temptation to fix it all. Rewrite code to make it more efficient. Clean up ugly or incoherant sections. Build better subroutines, take advantage of new technology, re-engineer the application...

And you do so at the peril of your project.

And your reputation.

It may make perfect sense to do all these things as long as you build them into your project estimates. After all, in the case of I.T. it's not YOUR money you're spending. And while you may be the beneficiary of more sustainable/supportable programs, the business may not be willing to pay the price or wait that long.

So be honest with your customer. If you sense a huge advantage in rewriting code instead of just adding it, explain it up front and get agreement before you dive in.

And next time, build in some time and expense into your job estimates to cover the "while we're at it" moments.

The "Truth" Is Out There

I hope that every business knows that the bar has been raised.

It used to be that if you had a dissatisfied customer they would tell ten people. With Web 2.0 tools, they can now tell ten thousand. Google shows 13,700 hits for the phrase "Best Buy sucks".

In my previous post, I complained about Best Buy's warranty return process. Just for fun, this morning I tried a search on Technorati. Here's what I found.

Companies had best be warned to pay attention to their process and performance more than ever. Because it's no longer possible to "control the message" or "contain the crisis", once it's out in the web world.

If you haven't yet aligned yourself around customer focus or choose to proactively address service or product issues, it'll be done for you.

And not in a way you'll like.

Your strategy will have to be better than buying up all the "yourcompaysucks.com" domains. You may actually have to search out these people, examine your processes, critique your staff.

Sometimes you'll have to "fire a customer".

Regardless, now would be a very good time to sit down and decide whether you need someone trolling the web, searching for naysayers - to ferret out the unsatisfied and proactively address their concerns.

Because you don't want your reputation to be placed in the hands of others.

Slow Learners

For the SECOND TIME in a year, our family is shipping another Xbox 360 back to the people who manage Best Buy's warranty program.

My first experience wasn't particularly enjoyable.

It was partially my fault. I was stupid enough to return the product to the store where I bought it. The salesperson thanked me for visiting, but told me that I had to return it to the 3rd party warranty claims provider - as stated in my extended warranty.

Okay - that's on me.

But then I went to their website to enter a claim. Pretty easy, except that as I was completing the claim, I was given the option of having a postage paid mailing label mailed to me or I could choose to get one via email. Since I was already online, which do you think I chose?

That's right -except the email never came that day. Or the day after. Or the day after that.

In all, it took 4 calls to finally receive a mailing label - by snail mail! Once I got over the hurdle of getting to the starting line....the rest of the process went pretty smoothly. About 2 weeks later, I received a Best Buy card, with the amount of my purchase loaded on it.

Needless to say, this time I was hoping for a better experience - after all I had spoken with BB's people four times on the last return - surely they have made some improvements in the process!

As it turns out, they have. And they haven't.

Once again, I submitted my warranty claim online. Good news! They knew who I was and what I had purchased. This time I was offered 3 options for receiving a mailing label.

I could print one out immediately or I could have one emailed to me (which I would have to print out later) or I could receive a mailing label by snail mail.

I chose to print a return mailing label immediately. Lo and behold, everything worked!

Sort of.

On my previous return, I had instructions to photocopy my receipt and my warranty registration brochure and to include them in the box with the defective goods. No such instructions this time. Just a mailing label. No instructions in the brochure. No instructions on the website.

Given my last experience, I thought I had better call - just to be sure.

I got through pretty quickly and was informed that there must have been some sort of "glitch" and that YES, they still required all the photocopied documentation to be returned with the damaged goods...

Does Best Buy ever test their processes? (or third party processes?) Since they seem to be such slow learners, here's a couple of suggestions.

1. If I'm submitting a claim online, give me two options - save the mailing label to my PC or print the mailing label. If I'm online, I'm not a candidate for snail mail.

2. Get rid of the requirement to photocopy or mail in copies of receipts. You already know how much I paid for the damn item and you've already accepted my warranty as being valid. Stop with the additional paperwork.

3. Give me two refund options - either send me a Best Buy card via snail mail or better yet, once you've received the damaged goods, setup a Best Buy certificate to be picked up at the local store (about 1 week faster than snail mail). Then you have me IN THE STORE with money in hand.

Oh, and tell Microsoft that they make crappy Xboxes...

Beating Expectations

My beloved Brewers closed out their season this past weekend, with a come from behind win against the Padres.

As a fan, it was an entertaining year. The Brewers had a winning season for the first time (in what seems like) forever. They set a new team record for home runs - 228. Fans showed up in droves, setting a new attendance record (2.876 million).

Our team featured the NL home run champ (Prince Fielder) who just might be the National League MVP and we witnessed the exceptional play of (hopefully) the Rookie of the Year, Ryan Braun.

The Milwaukee Brewers held onto first place for something like 131 days during the season.

Although we missed the playoffs (due to the dreaded Cubs), the Brewers put on a pretty entertaining show. This year, fans turned out in droves and stayed until the last pitch, because you never knew when the Brewers would pull one out.

Next year will be an entirely different story. They will face their toughest challenge yet.

Our expectations.

You see this year, no one could have predicted the success the Brewers would have. Sure, we knew Prince Fielder was going to be a star and that the team featured a very young and talented group.

But after 15 non-winning seasons, expectations at the start of the season were pretty low - perhaps non-existent. The Brewers are a young team - talented, but not seasoned. And so, all the Brewer's accomplishments came as a VERY pleasant surprise.

It's what made this year's second place finish almost bearable.

But in the wake of such tremendous success, they've created expectations - for their fans and for themselves.

For the first time in a quarter century, next year the fans will fill the seats - not with the hope that the Brewers will win, but with the expectation that they will win. Next year it won't be about setting personal records, success will be measured by team performance in October.

Next year won't just be about beating the Cubs. It'll be about beating everyone's expectations. Next year could be their toughest challenge yet.

The Corn Broom Story

I was watching one of those home improvement shows on cable yesterday. During a shopping expedition to furnish a log cabin, the TV Host came across a vendor who crafted corn brooms from scratch.

"How long does it take you to create a corn broom?" was the first question.

"Five months and 45 minutes." came the reply. "Five months to grow the corn and 45 minutes to attach the handle."

A small country vendor thought of his broom making processes in the same way that some of the most sophisticated manufacturers think about theirs - from the generation of raw materials through finished goods.

Many of us might have just answered "45 minutes".

But thinking in terms of the overall process is what will help us generate "green goods" - with environmentally low (or no) impact. It will force realistic accounting of all the energy and environmental impact of the end to end process. It also helps identify process "waste".

For many of us, it's a whole new way of thinking.

Dissed by YouTube

I recently uploaded my first video to YouTube.

I'm working with some partners on a new software company and we thought we needed an instructional video. Somehow I was volunteered.

At any rate, I recorded and narrated a Powerpoint presentation and uploaded it to YouTube. My relationship with the popular video site was going well, until I took a look at my account and came across this message.

Now that's a bit judgemental.

Would it have killed YouTube to say something a little more positive? Like "Tell your friends!" or "Invite your friends!"?

I'm just saying......

Lessons of our Forefathers

I hope we all learned a lesson yesterday.

Despite 24 hrs of almost universal condemnation of Columbia University for inviting the President of Iran to speak to a group of 750 students, the event went off as planned.

Outside the venue, were thousands of protesters; some protesting Iran's poor record of human rights, some protesting Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust, some decrying Iran's support of terrorism.

The University's president opened the speech, highly critical of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The university staff and students were able to ask pointed questions of the leader and to listen to his vague, evasive, rambling responses.

They allowed him the opportunity to expose himself for the fraud he is. And this event made a much more convincing argument against his beliefs and actions than would have been made had he been prevented from speaking at all.

America was extremely lucky to have founding fathers that understood this lesson and had the foresight to embed Freedom of Speech into the Bill of Rights. It's no accident that this freedom is contained in the First Amendment.

Perhaps it's time we revisited the beliefs of our forefathers. They were pretty smart.

Rinse and Repeat

Need to sell more shampoo? Add the instructions "Shampoo, Rinse and Repeat" to the label. In spite of the fact that these actions to not make your hair any cleaner, a certain portion of consumers read and follow directions.

And the result is, you sell more shampoo.

In Government, if you want to make a case for a position or promote passage of a new law, the strategy is eerily similar. Make up a number and repeat as required.

Don't believe me?

How many illegal aliens are in the country? If you answered 12 million, you're right.

And you're wrong.

You're able to quote the number that the media and Government keeps repeating. In fact, no one actually knows how many illegal aliens are in the country. Not the governement. Not the media. Not me. Not you.

They're illegal, remember? It means that they've crossed the border without documentation. Unnoticed, uncounted.

Yet somehow, we know how many there are. Because the number is quoted and repeated, over and over, by politicians, by media "talking heads" - without any scrutiny of the number's origin. Repeating it makes it "fact". Once it becomes a "fact", then you can justify building a huge 2000 mile (or 720 mile, or 15 mile - how long is it supposed to be?) fence across the border with Mexico. Or you can use the fact to villify all hispanics, both legal and illegal.

Rising crime. Blame it on the "illegals". There are 12 million of them, don't you know. Long wait in the Emergency room? You're waiting behind 12,000,000 "illegals".

Making up numbers isn't the sole pervue of the United States.

In Canada, the RCMP, in an effort to draw attention to software piracy estimated the cost to the country at $30 Billion dollars. They now admit the number was made up.

I finally understand why my 7th grade English teacher was so insistent about essay footnotes.

It's time we learned that before we can begin to solve a problem we need to understand the problem. We need actual facts. And we need to hold those "number quoters" accountable for their accuracy.

Thank God for O.J.

In case you've just awakened from a coma, O.J. Simpson is back in the news. Apparently, in an effort to recover sports memorabilia, he invaded a hotel room, complete with armed thugs. To his surprise, the police were called, and he, along with several accomplices, were arrested.

In an ironic twist of fate, he faces more years in prison than he did during his last brush with the law, when "someone" murdered his wife and her companion.

The media circus is back in town (well, Las Vegas). Even Marcia Clark (remember her?) has been seen lurking around the proceedings. Local news has aerial footage of Simpson and lawyer driving to the airport, where he departed for a little R&R in Florida.

And so the mindless 24 hr "news" coverage begins. I fully expect a new evening cable show to be spawned as a result. Conan, Letterman, Kimmell, Leno, Stewart are wringing their hands with glee. More comedy material!

And I say "Thank GOD for O.J."!

Finally we get a break from that boring war in Iraq, with all those people dying. No more stories about "out of control" Blackwater security consultants (aka mercenaries) killing those pesky Iraqi civilians.

No more stories about GM on the verge of a major strike (and on the verge of bankruptcy) as a result of soaring health care costs.

No more stories about our government treating our troops like crap - with their extended tours, short leave time, lack of up-armored vehicles and poor health services upon their return.

No more stories about that boring Presidential campaign, with all the talking heads berating each other instead of solving our country's problems.

We have illegal immigrants pouring over the southern border. We have a financial crisis in the mortgage markets. We have China poisoning our pets and our children. We have Iran making a nuclear bomb. We have a 50% dropout rate in our high schools. We have a vanishing middle class. We have tens of millions of people without healthcare. We still have a dysfunctional New Orleans not yet recovered from Katrina. We still have a big hole in the ground where the World Trade Center used to stand. We have massive debt. We have a government and a President with the lowest public opinion ratings in history. We have weekly examples of government leaders' scandals. We don't even have an Attorney General!

Thankfully we don't have to worry about all that.

Because now, we have O.J.!

Lessons Not Learned

By 7:00 am yesterday, the news was spreading like wildfire. Both my kids were awakened by their cellphones - a highly unusual event, since their crowd spends most Sunday mornings sleeping. So we knew the news wasn't going to be good.

And we were right.

For the second time in nine months, a classmate was killed in a single car drunk driving accident.

Seb was one of those kids who was liked by everyone. But he had a problem that no one addressed. He was a big partier.

He had just turned 17.

The circumstances of his accident were almost a cliche. Drunk. Speeding. At night. Not wearing a seatbelt. Lost control. Crashed into a tree. Ejected from the vehicle.

It's a story that is repeated over and over in the United States every night. It barely gets a mention on the news. Ironically, it happens too often to be newsworthy.

And so, all yesterday, Seb's classmates gathered to console one another and to share stories about what a great kid he was. An impromptu memorial was conducted at church. Last night, about 60 kids held a candlelit vigil at the place where he died.

As parents, we resisted revisiting the standard lecture about drinking and driving - opting instead to wait until the immediate sorrow cleared... Until the message could be absorbed.

I think every one of us went through the same list of questions in our minds... Where were the parents? How did he get the alcohol? Why didn't a friend stop him from driving?

It's easy to be critical of the circumstances when the tragedy happens to someone else. Until you've raised teenager's, you can't appreciate the challenge. You hope that your lectures are heeded. You hope that the kids can't get their hands on booze. You hope their friends would take away his keys. You hope that everyone would learn from the tragedy.

But it seems not to be the case.

I mentioned that this is was the second time this happened in the last nine months.

The very same story played out last January. And that time, the victim was Seb's best friend.

The Experiment

Just over a year ago, I started writing this blog. I started it as an experiment. I've always been interested in technology and especially interested in knowledge management, sharing and innovation. I wanted to find out more about what Web 2.0 was all about.

And so I signed up for a free Blogger account and started writing.

I've learned a few things about the experience.

First, my writing sucks. But I think it's getting better. I'm trying to use 5 words where I used to use 10. I check my spelling. And I've learned that errors jump off the page only after I hit the "Publish" button.

Writing a blog (on an almost daily basis) is a selfish thing to do. It's my alone time. This is my time to reflect on the day's events, what's going on in my life and what's going on all around me. It's time set aside for me to reflect - to assess what I've learned or observed that day. Frankly, it's a habit I've only recently developed. It's for me.

As I write this, I'm the only one awake at our house.

As a product of the TV generation, I've invested a large portion of my life in front of a television. While much of that time was enjoyable, it was time spent emotionally reacting to content, laughing, crying, getting angry - not much time spent thinking or analyzing. Blogging has helped me appreciate the power of reflection and introspection. (I call it Webtrospection.)

Maybe I'm just getting old.

At the same time, blogging is a selfless act. I'm sharing these thoughts with subscribers and anyone else who happens to trip over my blog. I don't have any expectations. I don't expect anything in return.

If someone finds a thought or observation useful, fantastic. If this entry encourages someone to start blogging themselves, that's terrific.

Our grandparents used to relax on the front porch, observe their world and converse with neighbors as they walked by. To some extent, blogging is today's equivalent of sitting on the front porch. You meet some new people, enjoy some old friends, share some stories.

I've also learned that the blogosphere (I hate that word) contains some fascinating characters with radically different lives and disparate points of view - an infinite number of "channels", waiting to be discovered. My number of RSS feeds grows with each passing week.

There are a lot of interesting people out there.

And so the experiment I started a year ago, to better understand blogging and the Web 2.0 experience will continue.

It's been an interesting experience with many unexpected benefits.

Video Doesn't Forget

I watched in stunned silence.

Last night, the President announced he was going to begin to withdraw troops from Iraq to pre-surge levels. The "talking heads" on one of the cable news networks summed up the move by saying that George Bush was "kicking the problem down the road" - to the next President, in an effort to shape his legacy.

Are you kidding me?

Perhaps this might have worked 35 years ago. Not in the digital age.

The problem with trying to shape one's legacy in the digital age.... Video doesn't forget. Digital content doesn't "forget". The internet has seen to that.

Bush 43 has been the most digitally documented President in history. The blogosphere exploded on his watch. The government is run on email. More citizens are weighing in (pro and con) on the internet than ever before.

Individual blog content links to online news articles, which links to MSM (main stream media) digital news content which links to online video sources. All the news shows are being archived in digital form.

Now leaders' legacies will be shaped by email, blogs, DailyKos, VoteVets.org, YouTube, all the major networks, the cable networks MSNBC, CNN, FOX, The Tonight Show, The Daily Show and on and on..... all just a click away...

For this President, these impressions and images can't be muddied with time.

The Iraq War may be a "comma" in America's history. But it will be a well documented one.

Bush's strategy to leave office with head held high, ensconced in the belief that the war is just and "winnable" and that history "will treat him kindly", is completely out of his hands.

Certainly there have already been a large number of books written on his Presidency (pro and con) and there will be more to come, but the digital archives will remain universally available. His legacy, perhaps for the first time, will be left to future observers of massive digital archives, rather than be shaped by kind autobiographers, failing recollections and time.

Like never before, all of our descendants, will have first hand access to mountains of digital forensics with which to interpret a President's legacy.

And all future Presidents would be well served understanding that.

Breaking News: Assholes Bad for Business

Okay, this may be one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse....

A Harvard Business Review article states that Assholes are bad for business. As reported by 1-800-CEOREAD, The book based upon the article has just received a Quills Award (Business category).

Who knew?

Google and Amazon to the Rescue?

This report by the BBC describes how Google and Amazon are participating in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett.

As you may recall, Fossett's single engine airplane has gone missing since Sept 3rd. So far, land and air searches have come up empty.

And so Google recently updated the Google Earth satellite photos of Nevada. And with Amazon's Mechanical Turk project, are enlisting volunteers to scan the photography searching for plane wreckage, which should appear as a 21x30 pixel size on your computer screen.

People can simply do a better job of recognizing potential clues better than computers, at least for now.

Suspicious images can be reported to Mechanical Turk for followup analysis and investigation.

Kudos to Google and Amazon for coming up with the idea.

Christmas Morning with HP

I bit the bullet the other day and bought replacement ink cartridges for my HP Officejet printer. I've tried those ink refilling places but (maybe it's me) the ink never seems to last that long - and the cartridge electronics don't work when they're re-filled, so when you're out of ink, you're OUT of ink.

After taking out a small loan, I made my purchase of both a black cartridge and a combo color cartridge.

If you haven't purchased printer ink recently, be warned: Each cartridge costs about the same as a tank of gas.

Built into the price of the replacement cartridges is HP's cartridge recycling program. I was pleased to find within the cartridge packaging, a self addressed, postage paid envelope, with which you could return the used cartridge to HP. I don't know what HP does with them when they get them, but at least they leave their customers with the impression, they don't end up in a landfill somewhere.

The "green" message is somewhat muted however, by all the excessive packaging that surrounds the cartridges. First, the external packaging is at least twice as large as it has to be - suggesting to the consumer that the package may contain two cartridges (and at that price, who wouldn't expect two?)

Nope. It's just air.

Perhaps the Marketing department wanted better shelf visibility. Perhaps the size of the packaging is designed to intentionally mislead. Either way, using extra cardboard is hardly eco-friendly.

Also contained within the packaging is a separate piece of paper with instructions on how to replace the cartridge (at least I thought that's what it was - I just tossed it.) Why not print the instructions on the inside of the package itself?

Finally, the cartridge came sealed in an airtight aluminum foil wrapper - to preserve the freshness of the ink.

By the time I had my hands on the cartridge, the table was filled with garbage. It looked like Christmas morning at our house. Wrapping everywhere.

I commend HP for their recycling efforts, but if HP is really serious about being a good environmental citizen, I'd suggest they revisit their packaging.

Coaching All Aspects of the Game

Ryan Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers talented rookie 3rd baseman, hit a home run last night, in the 12-2 Brewers drubbing of the Houston Astros.

And the Brewer's Manager, Ned Yost wasn't too happy about it.

Certainly he was pleased with the 3 run homerun, but what didn't impress him was Braun's "swagger" just after he hit it.

Normally, after a hit, Braun takes off for first base, head down - all business. But last night something else happened. In a very uncharacteristic move, Braun walked towards first base, showing very little respect for the opposing team and calling more attention to himself than was necessary.

And Ned Yost let him know it as soon as he returned to the dugout.

Ryan Braun is a very talented player, but he's a rookie. Ned Yost wants to groom a great player and wants to build a winning team, which means that egos aren't allowed. He appreciates that Milwaukee is a midwestern city, where people work hard and appreciate the work ethic of others - a place where we're all a little uncomfortable with big egos.

And so Ned did the right thing and brought him down a peg or two.

Let's hope that twenty years from now, as they're putting Braun's name and number up on the wall at Miller Park, he remembers the lesson of Sept 5th, 2007 that taught him the difference between being a good player and a great one.

And that he credits Ned Yost for teaching him all aspects of the game.

The Cost of Indifference

When I call my local Pizza place, they know a lot about me. They know the last pizza I ordered. They know my favorite pizza toppings and they know where I live. The pizza's good. The delivery is fast. They treat me pretty well.

Over the last 10 years our family has probably spent $5000 on Pizza.

Contrast this with my car dealer. Whenever I walk into the dealership, they have no idea who I am or what car I drive. They don't know how many times I've been in for service. The routine is always the same.

"May I help you?" the salesperson asks.

"I've purchased cars from here before. I thought I'd check out the new models."

"Do you know who your salesperson is?"

"I have no idea. They seem to change every time I come in".

"I'll go and look it up. [returns after a minute] Your salesperson is no longer with us. You've been assigned to Mr. Jones, but he's not here right now. Can I help you?" (oblivious to the irony of me being passed around yet again.)

Apparently, "being assigned" to someone at this dealership, means that they get to write up the order, should you happen to walk in and want to buy a car. They don't call to introduce themselves. They don't advise you when the new models are in. They don't remind you to come in to get your oil changed or to schedule maintenance inspections. In fact, they do absolutely nothing. Except wait.

Over the past ten years, I have either purchased or leased six vehicles from this dealership. My guesstimate is that the value of these purchases was around $180,000.

And they still have no idea who I am.

Which is why they are now my former car dealership.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't have a big ego. If the dealership had just managed to call me by name ONCE, after ten years and $180,000, that would have been nice.

I didn't fire them overnight. In fact, it happened gradually over the past 4 years. Four years ago I strayed into a Lexus dealership and they convinced me to purchase one of their vehicles. Their sales and services teams are spectacular. When I show up at the dealership they recognize me and call me by name!

I've never really looked back.

Both my kids now drive cars from sister dealerships (to the Lexus dealer), where the sales and service are also excellent.

So, now my former car dealer has lost not only my business, but have also lost two new consumers who have begun their car ownership experiences, with the competition.

And it all started with indifference.

My Umbrella Story

What kind of idiot goes shopping for patio furniture in late August?

This kind.

Last Wednesday, someone, (okay, it was me) left our patio umbrella up. A brief, but strong storm rolled through our neighborhood later that day. Our glass topped table, powered by strong winds (and that damn umbrella) was tossed into a very hard stone retaining wall in our backyard - with predictable results.

The umbrella was unsalvagable (good riddance) and the table was a write-off.

Our patio set had given us a solid decade of service and so off we went to find a replacement.

We tried all the usual haunts - big box stores, brand name outdoor stores, but found very little selection and outrageous prices (especially for this time of year). Out of ideas, we tried the Internet. There were surprising few patio furniture stores in the area (we live just north of Milwaukee).

One search result was a store called On The Deck, located in Oconomowoc, a 40 minute drive away. Frankly I wasn't very impressed with their website and I had low expectations, but it was a great day for a drive to lake country. And so, off we went.

We found the store, located in a very old building, on the main street, perhaps 50 yards away from the lake. We almost missed it because the space they occupied looked like it was originally designed to hold three (relatively small) adjacent stores. I guess I was expecting a more modern single story commercial building.

As we entered the dimly lit store, the old wood floors creaked. We were greeted by a treasure trove of patio furniture and accessories. We wound our way through the rabbit's warren of rooms, created by the unmodified floor plan of the three original stores. Each room revealed more selection, more surprises.

And then we discovered the best thing of all.

The two ladies who ran the store.

Pleasant, engaging, knowledgeable and patient - they walked us through the choices and spent way too much time with us, scouting the entire store for just the right umbrella to match the set we were interested in. About an hour later, we finally completed our purchase.

The whole experience was a flashback to a time when all the stores in your hometown were run by their owners (who were also your neighbors). Back to a day when product quality, good value for money and personal service were business cornerstones.

Even if you aren't searching for patio furniture, I'd recommend paying them a visit. You'll certainly enjoy the ride to Oconomowoc and the trip down memory lane.

Now, if I can just remember to close that umbrella every night!

A September Like All The Rest?

I fear that this September will be a repeat of every other September I've spent in Milwaukee, watching the Brewers fade from memory (and even further from contention) just as the Packers season begins.

Last night my beloved Brewers lost yet again (for the 7th time in their last ten games) to the dreaded Cubs, landing them below .500 for the season and ensconcing them in third place in the Central Division.

You can feel Brewer confidence slipping away. Players and fans, resigned to yet another disappointing season.

Yet this season wasn't like every other. The fans showed up in droves to see a young exciting team jump out to a great start - all smiles and swagger. We're hitting home runs like never before. We have lots of speedy base runners and huge amounts of raw talent. It would be nice to have a starting pitching rotation (are you listening Ben Sheets?) for the entire year, but injuries are part of the game.

We're a good young team. We could be a great young team.

Over the past 5 years, our management style has been one designed to develop young talent - to nurture players along to their potential. The Brewers have long suffered a shortage in that department, and I applaud the team's management for investing in their farm system and growing the next crop of future Brewer talent. It's exciting to see Cory Hart, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy take the field.

But it may be time for a change. Don't get me wrong, the Brewers' strategy of investing in talent development should continue but at the Major League level, it think it's time we managed to win.

Too often I see Ned Yost leave in pitchers too long - hoping that they'll pitch out of trouble - hoping for a confidence building turnaround. I understand that thinking. At the Major League level, though, I think we need to shift the balance somewhat towards being less patient.

When you teach your kids to ride a bike, at some point you have to let go of the handlebars.

Now is that time, Ned. Go Brewers!

A Gift for Boomers

As an aging boomer, I can appreciate the innovative spirit of those companies trying to bring us products to make our lives better.....

Brought to you by First Street, this device moderates sound on your TV, quieting those loud obnoxious commercials and increasing the volume when people are whispering.

I thought it was just me. I'd pay $10 more if it completely muted the damn commercials.

Why is Saying NO so difficult?

One of the toughest challenges of any I.T. department isn't installing that complicated system, or upgrading the network or integrating that new acquisition or even Sarbanes-Oxley compliance efforts.

It's saying No (or not yet) to enhancement requests. Setting an honest expectation.

Yet without clear, concise, easily understood expectations, our business community's default expectations are "Yes". They're waiting to hear the answer to "when?"

And so it goes. Development requests come into I.T. The B/A says we'll take a look at it. And it never goes any further or the project gets estimated and added to the never ending "list". Or worse yet, the B/A makes some sort of commitment (trying to be helpful) that has little chance of being met.

The requester is disappointed (or irate) and I.T.'s reputation takes yet another hit.

Who's at fault here?

Not the business person, who is trying to improve a business function or reduce costs or service customers better. To them, why wouldn't I.T. want to get their project done? Who can argue with serving customers better or improving costs?

Not necessarily the I.T. business analyst who's listening to the request and estimating the project. After all he/she rarely has any say in how projects get prioritized. They usually aren't in the position to give a Yes or No, yet that's what is expected of them.

The process is the problem.

Imagine for a moment that your company had no I.T. function. Let's say it's 100% outsourced. (Some of you may not have to use much imagination... but I digress). If you need a system enhancement, you'd have to detail the expected benefits of the enhancement, then get the projected estimated by your outsourcer, before you'd have a complete picture of the project complexity and estimated payback. If the investment was large enough, you'd likely have to go through a capital expense procedure, where you'd take the business case to your company controller or CFO and (s)he'd make the decision whether to proceed or not.

The clear advantage to putting the decision in the hands of the Finance leaders is that;

1. They can hold the business accountable for the business case benefits. This has several advantages. Armed with the expectation that the business will be held accountable for the benefits, helps eliminate spurious "nice to have" requests. This reduces requests and related business expenses estimating projects that will never be approved by the business.

2. CFO's can make system project decisions armed with the overall business priorities perspective. Something that I.T. could seldom do.

This process turns I.T. Projects into Business projects.

Which is what they should be.

Development Tips from the Dictionary

The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary contains a clue for anyone installing Enterprise Applications.

On page 173 (of the New Third Edition), you'll find the word customer. The very next word listed is customize.

As any veteran project manager will tell you, try with all your might to install enterprise systems (SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards etc..) without customizing. The benefits of using standard are tremendous - lower maintenance costs, fewer bugs, ongoing vendor support, easier and faster system upgrades, overall improved reliability and lower I.T. costs....

But if you must customize, make sure the functionality is where it matters most. Next to the customer.

Your customer doesn't care what General Ledger you use. Your customer doesn't care what HR system you use. They don't care what Warehousing, Inventory, Shipping or CRM system you use.

They care that you use it well.

Customization that directly helps your customers find what they're looking for, purchase and pay for it quickly, or return a defective product easily, will most likely be worth the application effort and cost.

Otherwise, take an Application tip from Webster's. Don't "customize" unless it's next to "customer".

Competing with Customer Service

The New York Times reports that Netflix is starting to compete against Blockbuster using live customer service! Imagine that!

They're replacing an email model with live customer service reps, located in Portland, OR.

In fact, they've eliminated the customer service email service from their website and given their Customer Service phone number prominence, so if you have a problem, you're encouraged to call.

What a concept.

In an age where many companies would send service overseas, Netflix is betting that prompt, courteous service in "domestic English", will win over their customers. I hope they're right.

In an age where many companies operate giving their bottom line more attention than the needs of their customers, this is a bold move.

I've long thought that putting customers first, drives bottom line success. It seems to work in other industries (Nordstroms, Southwest Airlines, Lexus for example). I hope it works for Netflix.

If it does, it'll be a win/win for both Netflix customers and Netflixs' bottom line.

Viacom vs. Google

I am watching, with interest, the current spat between Viacom and YouTube (now owned by Google). Viacom is suing Google over alleged copyright infringements by YouTube users who post snippets of Viacom video.

As reported in Huffington Post, Google wants to depose Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert as part of their defense.

Can Viacom be making a bigger mistake? Both Stewart's show and Colbert's show are really current event's shows. They themselves use video clips of news events in their satirical efforts. But this content has a very short shelf life. When is the last time you saw an "old" Colbert Report or Daily Show?

The satire fades pretty quickly. I can't believe there's ANY money to be had in syndication of these shows.

On the other hand, the YouTube video posts serve as FREE commercials for Viacom shows. They provide an Internet community with selected samples (usually really good samples) of the type of comedy these shows feature on a daily basis.

Viacom, why cut off your nose to spite your face?

I'm just asking.

Mind Mapping

Thought I'd link you to a great article on MindMapping on the LifeHacker blog.

Breaking News

Fox News to start delivering News!

Today I came across this article which describes how Shepard Smith will be revamping his nightly show on FOX.

Fewer (or no) teases about upcoming News. No more Hollywood fluff pieces. Could it be that Shepard Smith wants to bring some credibility to FOX News?

To be honest, I've never been a big fan, but if anyone is willing to try to cram News into a News program, I'm willing to try it out. I find it unfathomable that with the mega problems facing us these days, that the networks still find the time to show skateboarding dogs and waterskiing squirrels...

Maybe, just maybe, they're beginning to learn that just because you have video of something, doesn't make it newsworthy.

That's what YouTube is for.

So, bravo Shep. I hope you succeed.

Point Made

Last week I posted about how the recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis reminded me of the Y2K crisis.

I ended by stating that once the initial shock was over, the infrastructure crisis would dissolve into the background of our sub-conscious until the potholes in our local roads got so bad, that we'd start complaining again.

Well, this morning, CNNHN conducted a text message poll asking whether people would be willing to pay a 5 cent surcharge on their gasoline to be used towards infrastructure repair and upgrades.

Over 70% of the respondents said NO!

Point made.

Why Is Email like the Weather?

Because people always complain about it but no one ever does anything about it!

I am one of those people. Just like 90% of software users (my estimate), I only use a fraction of the available features - just enough to get what I need done.

Email is no exception. I've been using email for about two decades now. My inbox regularly fills up with spam, unsolicited advertising, emails designed to phish information, dreaded joke emails, mixed in with emails I'm interested in seeing (with varying degrees of importance). Like everyone, I bitched and complained, but never did anything about it.

After a particularly bad week of receiving more crap than meaningful communications, I finally got off my butt and did something about it.

I learned a new (for me) feature.

I use Outlook Express as my mail client. It has this feature which allows me to create a "rule" - describing how the software should handle a specific email. After opening each email, I click on Tools/Rule Wizard, and lo and behold, I'm guided through a myriad of options as to how to handle similar emails. I can have the system delete them before I even see them. I can move them automatically to a folder (existing or new). I can forward them automatically.

A whole host of options!

And this week, I've spent almost no time scanning my inbox for the stuff I need to read.

This feature has solved another issue for me. I've never been very good at organizing my emails into folders. I just leave everything in my inbox. It is not unusual for me to have more than 20,000 messages in my inbox. However, the Rules Wizard has also solved that problem as well. By creating folders and having the application file them for me, I'm much better organized than before.

The feature takes about 5 minutes to learn and will payback many times over.

Now, time to do something about the weather........

Y2K All Over Again.

I remember the months leading up to Dec 31,1999. In the world of I.T., everyone does. We were all scrambling to remedy Y2K - caused by the condition whereby in databases throughout the U.S. (and the world), the year was formatted using two decimals.

I was a CIO at the time and remember the incredulity on my peers' faces when I described the condition and the possible outcomes. After some debate, I was able to marshal some incremental funding and directed all our efforts to review tens of thousands of lines of code, to remedy the situation. Not only was this an issue for custom development, operating systems needed to be patched, old legacy applications needed investigating and desktop applications needed to be at a sufficient rev level to address the "invisible" problem.

My business counterparts weren't happy. Their new system had to wait while we remedied Y2K.

My whole team worked extremely hard and we made it though, without a hiccup - as did most of the I.T. world. There were precious few examples of systems breaking down. In fact, after all was said and done, I think that I.T. professionals suffered for all their hard work.

There were so few examples of system failure, that many business leaders thought the entire situation was entirely overblown. In many executives' minds, the problem wasn't invisible - there was never any problem to begin with.

I tell this story, because this week in Minneapolis a major bridge collapsed. This has received around the clock news coverage. This bridge collapse, say some, should be an early warning - a call to address a crumbling national infrastructure. A situation which could take $1.6 Trillion dollars to fix.

Some estimate that we are only spending 20% of the funds necessary to keep our roads, bridges, tunnels, levies and dams and electrical grids in good repair. Even for new projects, TIME magazine will be reporting that we aren't building new/replacement infrastructure even close to the durability standards that some countries do. In fact, the newly rebuilt levies in New Orleans are NO MORE DURABLE (built for the same 100 year lifespan) than the ones which were washed away by a Level 2 hurricane two years ago.

The problem is real, but the perception is that all is well. Unless bridges begin collapsing on a weekly basis, the news crews will return back to Washington and New York and move on to the next story. The events in Minnesota will be perceived as just a statistical abnormality - a freak of nature. We'll all start thinking that it can't happen here, in my backyard. We'll resume thinking about infrastructure health by how many potholes need fixing in our local roads or whether the state gets federal funding for that new highway.

It's Y2K all over again. Except this time, no one's listening.

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.

What is Business 2.0 Doing?

This morning I came across a Gizmodo plug for their Senior Editor in a Business 2.0 contest entitled Who Matters Now? The online magazine is hosting a poll, asking readers to vote for those people who inspire, inform or infuriate.

What the hell does that mean?

Has the Paris Hilton phenomenon struck Business 2.0?  I would expect better of them than to run a contest strictly based upon noteriety.

When the founder of Digg gets in excess of 200 thousand votes and Nicholas Negroponte gets only a few thousand, I know we're headed down the wrong track.  

Can I.T. be Green?

I decided to check back in with Dell's Ideastorm site to see the latest developments. The site is still going strong and most importantly, the customer dialogue continues.

In May, Dell announced the availability of a Linux operating system (Ubuntu) on three PC models - an offering created as a direct response to overwhelming demand on IdeaStorm (where customer submitted ideas are voted "up" or "down" - in a process made famous on Digg.com).

Most recently the conversation has steered towards environmental initiatives. Dell's customers have been asking how Dell can produce "greener" products.

And now Dell has decided to focus on this initiative.

To be fair, Dell has always promoted PC recycling efforts and has made attempts to use earth friendly components in their PCs. Michael Dell says they're one of the greenest companies in the Fortune 50. Dell supports a plant a tree program and their founder recently announced a personal commitment to match donations to this effort for the next three months.

Dell will be measuring their carbon footprint with an effort towards reducing it. And they'll be looking up and down their supply chain to hold their partners equally accountable.

Of course the reasons for "going green" are many. The Greener Computing website features an article on The Rise of The Chief Green Officer.

All this begs the question; What are YOU doing to reduce your carbon footprint within your I.T. department?

Here are some ideas:

1. For years I.T. departments have had to be careful when disposing of outdated PCs and laptops because of environmental concerns with some of the components. How about extending the life of these machines by replacing the licensed software with Ubuntu and donating the machines to schools, or charities? Giving these PCs an extended life will keep them out of landfills.

2. Do you offer everyone the ability to work from home and avoid the gas consuming commute to work? Is working from home done on an exception basis (inclement weather) or can employees do this more frequently? Could it be an option for your team?

3. Do you still have paper based processes at your work? If so, make these electronic. Once a process begins with a piece of paper, it automatically generates an environmental impact. Whether the paper gets used for a short period of time then gets tossed or whether the paper is moved around the organization for approvals, then gets filed. Electronic workflow processes dramatically reduce the environmental costs of routing, storing, archiving, shredding and disposal.

4. Hopefully, your company is already purchasing recycled paper for its printers. But have you done a print audit? If your company is using the same amount of printer paper as it was five years ago, you may not be taking advantage of the multitude of technologies which allow you to publish and subscribe (blogs and RSS feeds) or to hyperlink documents to one another or to collaborate (TeamRooms, Sharepoint, wikis) to reduce that mountain of paper we all consume each year.

5. Does your company continue to print its annual report? Why not simply put it online as a pdf document? Or offer a print on demand solution (at Lulu.com or similar site) to allow interested parties access to a printed version only as required.

6. Are you asking your employees for suggestions as to how to be a greener corporate citizen? Are you listening and acting on the suggestions?

If your company is adopting innovative solutions towards reducing its environmental impact, let me know how. I'm happy to publish your ideas.