Filleting Cabella's

Want to better understand the competitive landscape of the 21st Century? You need look no further than my friend's father in law, Captain Jim.

Captain Jim runs a charter fishing business out of Milwaukee. He's renowned for taking people out on Lake Michigan and actually catching fish!

He's also proven to have some pretty amazing skills when it comes to landing web visitors, search engine rankings, YouTube views and clickthrus on his websites. Who knew that a guy who spends much of his time navigating Lake Michigan would be so adept at navigating the World Wide Web?

Need proof? Try Googling "Milwaukee fishing". Yup - that's him (Bluemax Charters) ranked at #2.

Want to witness the Charter fishing experience first hand? Here he is on YouTube, complete with video customer endosrement!





Here's one of his videos.. His videos are attracting about 15 views per DAY. (Prediction: Captain Jim is gonna need a bigger boat.)




Need fishing spoons? There he is (badgertackle.com) at #3.



Cabella's (who just opened a mega store last year, just north of the city), is ranked #9 on the same page. They're also found as a Sponsored link (along with some other national outdoor sports companies). While the big boys are paying for clicks, Captain Jim is ranking higher for a number of reasons.

1. He's passionate about fishing... and it shows.
2. He builds a connection with his customers....and it shows.
3. He's an authority on Lake Michigan fishing and has endoresments and how to videos to prove it.

Now put yourself in the place of the marketing team at Cabella's. You sell thousands of products..... and you're in competition with thousands of Captain Jims. The competition is so small, so fragmented, that it's not even on your radar screen. Until it's too late.

And that's how you fillet Cabella's. One product at a time.

Is Your Website Green?

On Digg today was a link to an interesting blog widget. When installed on your blog, the widget calculates the "carbon footprint" of the electricity used by your blog's visitors' computers - calculated based upon the length of visit on your site.

They also offer the ability to purchase carbon offsets, to help make your web presence completely "carbon neutral". Carbon offsets are a "tax" meant to subsidize the development of "clean" energy development and deployment, like solar, wind powered generators etc...

Interesting concept.

About 15 years ago, I was Director of Marketing for a business to business catalog company. We were environmentally aware (I couldn't call us sensitive, since we mailed hundreds of thousands of catalogs) and so we did a couple of things to reduce our environmental impact. First we printed all catalogs on recycled paper stock, using water soluble inks.

Secondly, we reduced the amount of catalogs we mailed, by actually asking mailroom clerks to help us "clean" (update) our mailing lists (which in the business world, get out of date pretty quickly).

We also used account scoring techniques (to help us better predict who would buy) to reduce our mailings into each company.

I think if I were in the same position today, I'd consider applying this widget to my online shopping website and convince my boss to devote a portion of our sales to the purchase of carbon offsets.

If your corporate mission statement contains phrases like "environmental responsibility" or if you're selling "natural" or recycled products, this widget might just help reinforce your environmental responsibility message.

Is this something your company might do?

Am I alone in this?

On Being Remarkable

Seth Godin always talks about how companies need to be "remarkable". Here's an example of what he means...

Who would have thought that a flight attendent would receive applause after the manditory announcements! As of this writing over 78,000 people have "tuned in" to Southwest's announcments.

Now that's remarkable.

Letter to Santa

I heard this morning that people have already begun their Christmas shopping - no doubt inspired by the Christmas tree displays already popping up in the stores.

And so it is with this premature Christmas spirit that I'm composing a letter to Santa.

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is a user friendly, well designed, simple to use, web hosted ERP system.

Thank you.

Dave

It won't happen, of course. Not that I've been bad this year - but even Santa has his limitations.

The problem with ERP systems is that they're designed to be everything to a very few (huge) companies, rather than trying to appeal to a much larger audience of small to mid-sized businesses. They're "sold" at the Board level but have to be used by everyone else. So little consideration is given to the thousands of end users - they're just something that the implementation team has to "deal with" as the system goes live. A necessary evil of big system projects.

You see, the marketing of these systems has changed, but the product hasn't. It's too difficult for the application architects at Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft to reduce "functionality" (aka features) because they've spent a lifetime building them in.

Simplifying your application is very hard work. Making complicated systems easy to use is almost impossible - especially when you've never done it before.

It's the reason that in ten years, much of the country will be using someone else's product.

Fast forward to Christmas Day, 2017... You open up your gift from Santa.

Inside, just underneath all the wrapping is a shiny new hyper-link to your new ERP application, complete with userid and password. After you login, you're greeted with:

A friendly video guide then walks you through your "role" in the new system. (S)he explains how the Purchasing process works, and how you as a Purchasing Agent, will do your job. After a video tour of the application, you're presented with an invitation to test out some of the functionality.

The text is inviting, not intimidating. The designers want to ease you into testing out the system for yourself. Because the application is so well written, intuitive, with "chunked" input screens so you never feel overwhelmed by data fields. It features icons that guide you though the application without having to ask for help.

Sprinkled throughout the application are links to more video help and company forums

It's written with the application user in mind.

And it explains why the guys at 37signals (from whom I swiped the images and examples) write applications that are so popular.

And it's the reason I believe that something better is coming to replace those bulky, over-engineered ERP applications.

Now get writing guys.....

Why Enterprise Software Sucks....

Here's a great post on Signal vs. Noise about Why Enterprise Software Sucks. If you've ever been involved in a big ERP, CRM or HR systems implementation, you know what these guys are talking about.

Storytelling as a Change Management Agent

I just stumbled upon Steve Denning's presentation at a BIF (Business Innovation Factory) Conference.

Steve was the driving force behind a corporatewide knowledge sharing initiative at the World Bank. He relates how storytelling was an effective means of getting the notion "heard" in the midst of huge resistance to the idea.

Here's the video.

How Sticky are You?

Welcome to Guy Kawasaki's Stickiness Apptitude test. It was inspired by the Heath Brothers' book "Made to Stick" - one of my new favorite books.

This simple and fun test helps measure how "sticky" your ideas, innovations and communications are.

It takes just a few minutes to complete.

Enjoy.

Dumbing Down S.M.A.R.T. Goals

If your company isn't getting the desired employee performance results from the use of S.M.A.R.T. goals, the guys at 5Rules tell you why.

Hooked on Video

I have railed for some time now, that marketing and training MUST make the transition to video. No one I know takes the time to read brochures, marketing materials, policies or procedures. We barely have time to read our emails.

But we always find time to watch a video. We're a nation of watchers.

Latest example.... Steve Jobs (okay it was some server) sent me an email today announcing Mac's new OS X (Leopard).

I don't own a Mac. I don't intend on buying a Mac in the near future. But I watched anyway. I had to. I admit that I'm hooked on Mac marketing.

But then I got thinking. Even though I don't own a Mac, why doesn't my PC do these things?

Even though Apple wasn't selling me anything (today) they started planting seeds of doubt about the product I'm currently using. They got their message across.

And after all, wasn't that the point?

Seven Leadership Secrets

Great advice from Carmine Gallo in the article Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders.

The Power of Transparency

Need to build up department credibility within your organization? Start thinking about transparency.

One sure way to improve your standing, is to begin measuring what's important to your customers (whether they're internal or external) and publicly reporting your results.

This technique bares your performance to the world. While it may be a tough pill to swallow, when you first do it, it does accomplish a few things.

1. First it shows that performance improvement is important to you, your team and your customers.

2. It demonstrates (or sets the expectation) that you're doing something to improve.

3. It frames the challenge objectively rather than subjectively. You can begin to have fact based discussions.

4. It tracks improvement progress.

5. It begins to focus your team on corrective action rather than on explaining away the problems.

6. It helps identify whether you're measuring the right things. (i.e. if your metrics improve but your customer's aren't happy, it's time to re-examine what you're measuring!).

Some basics about transparency....

1. Setup customer feedback mechanisms for all your critical processes or services. These can be suggestion boxes, electronic surveys, blog comments...whatever works.

2. Allow comments to be anonymous. Yes, there will always be a few idiots who take advantage of this, but in the end, I think it allows for more honest feedback.

3. Communicate what you're doing to improve and why it matters. (For technical departments, R&D, or I.T.) think in terms of a WIIFM (what's in it for me?) statement, rather than relying on technical jargon. Respond to suggestions (either individually, if possible) or in summary form, on an internal website or a group email.

4. Start somewhere. Becoming transparent can be a daunting task. Pick one process, measure and post the results. Communicate your improvement efforts. Survey occasionally.

Transparency is part of an ongoing process. It's a management philosophy. It's an ongoing dialog. If you're not doing it now, it's worth trying.

The Special Sauce

What do Disney, Southwest Airlines, Google and Apple have in common?

A lineup of job applicants at their doors.

People like to play on winning teams. They see Disney as a leader in entertainment. Southwest is a value leader in the airline industry. For tekkies, there are no (perceived) greater places to work than within the highly innovative walls of Google and Apple.

And so, these companies don't have retention problesms. They don't have trouble attracting talent. They have their "pick of the litter".

My bet is - your company doesn't.

What is it that makes these companies so attractive?

Do these companies pay more than anyone else? Nope.

Better benefits? (In some cases, yes).

Work/Life balance flexibility (definately, but in many cases their employees work longer hours).
Opportunities to work with leading edge ideas, technologies and brilliant people? Definately. In fact Google sets aside a portion of every work week for their employees to experiment, learn, try new things.

All of these companies offer employees the chance to contribute and to make a difference. To build their own personal legacy. To learn. To grow.

Companies like these understand that their ongoing success is based upon keeping that creative and innovative spark alive.

They treat their employees like a big deal.

Because they are.

SWAT Development

Alex Iskold worte a great piece in Read/WriteWeb on The Future of Software Development.

You should read this and take your Application Development Manager to lunch to discuss it.

Many of the predictions at the end of the article are coming true. What we're finding at 5Rules is that it doesn't take an army to write a great application. It takes a small group of talented people, supported by great tools (PHP, Ruby) and a desire to create a better mousetrap, that can get things done far faster than a large contingent of developers.

There was a time when we all envied large development shops for their vast resources and endless capabilities. Nowadays, I just pity them. They're encumbered by their own weight and mired in endless (pointless?) design and development processes - a victim of their own size.

I think that Alex Iskold has it about right. The future will be comprised of small, highly productive teams, rapidly developing, deploying, modifying and redeploying applications to meet business demands. No longer will there be a tremendous advantage to more cheaper resources. The pendulum has swung. Smaller teams of local talent will be able to better define the application, and armed with libraries of PHP and Ruby code, will be able to rapidly prototype and deploy.

It will be the Age of SWAT application development.

Problems with Knowledge Management

The biggest problem with Knowledge Management?

Its name.

I recall using the phrase to a very senior executive at a former company. Suddenly a wry smile appeared on his face. Translation: The I.T. guy has gone insane....

If the conversation makes it a couple of minutes longer and we begin to talk about

• digitizing information
• making information easy to store, find, update and access
• linking resources (people, tools, tasks, experiences and learning)
• learning lessons once and sharing the learning (aka; not failing the same way twice)
• allowing everyone to contribute
• working smarter, by leveraging expertise and experiences
• encouraging company wide dialog and interaction

then the wry smile disappears and attention gets focused.

The big problem is that I.T. guys have marketed the concept all wrong. The name "Knowledge Management" makes us think of Big Brother. It harkens thoughts of restricted access, of "eyes only" information. The Crown Jewels. The "Castle Keep."

When in fact, it should be just the opposite.

The second big problem with Knowledge Management is that we don't compensate employees to record information and to use information provided by others.

Information is power.

And power is to be closely guarded. It's a very tough sell in some organizations to understand that the power of documenting, indexing and sharing information far exceeds the potential contribution and knowledge of a few Superstars.

Being selfless isn't easy. There's nothing in it for you.

Until you try it.

Don't Click It

Want to get a sense of how difficult it is to break a habit? Ever wonder why Change Management is the toughest part of any I.T. project? You need look no further than Don't Click It.

This experiment in interactive design sets to eliminate the need to mouse click while navigating a website.

See it for yourself. You can also discover how others have reacted to the interface.

Is this a good idea? Would it work on your website?

My two cents... Interesting experiment, but I can't figure out what problem they're trying to solve. I don't have a mouse-clicking "problem" at the moment. It really doesn't tire me out. I'll suffer from eyestrain long before my fingers will ache!

But it does demonstrate how "ingrained" the clicking habit has become.

My First Squidoo

I wrote my first Squidoo lens today. It contains the same information as in my e-book and is based upon Lessons Learned through two Global ERP implementations.

I wanted to explore the whole Squidoo lens writing process. Let's see if it gets noticed!

Disagreeing with a Hero

I recently read a column in Expert Voices at http://www.cioinsight.com/ called CIO as Chief Process Officer, not Strategic Leader.

It's a summary of a conversation with Dr. Michael Hammer - a hero of mine, who invented the word re-engineering and along with James Campy, wrote a terrific book called Reengineering the Corporation. I've seen Dr. Hammer on several occasions, listening to his advice on How to Succeed with SAP. Believe me, he knows what he's talking about.

The latest article is a continuation of his thinking about Process reengineering, and he espouses a new theory that CIO's should become CPOs - Chief Process Officers.

While I agree with much of what he says, I have a hard time completely swallowing the concept. Yes, CIO's are generally very familiar with company processes. Their departments support the technology that support the processes and they have an extremely good "under the hood" view of how things work together - or not. And it's for this reason, that Dr. Hammer believes they should become process champions within their organization.

Good reasons all, but it rings a little hollow with me. Here's why.

Once you anoint a Process Guru, almost instantly, you excuse others from the responsibility. "I don't have to worry about process - that's Dave's job" - is a sure path to failure. We tried the same model with the CIO role...before the advent of I.T. Steering teams. Steering teams brought in other executives into the technology decision making process.

And overall, companies use of technologies, investment, project selection/prioritization and execution benefited as a result.

Dr. Hammer points out that successful processes require strong leadership, the right metrics and commitment. But he's a little vague on how to get there.

It's a little like the old joke: "How do you make a million dollars in Real Estate?"
Answer: First, start with two million dollars.

I think that answer may lie in Process Steering Teams. Senior executives need to agree which processes need improvement, determine the success metrics, provide the necessary process training/education and dedicate the bset resources to help redesign the processes (usually achieved through value stream mapping exercises). They determine where the pilot should begin and who should be involved in the process. Compensation plans need to be aligned with process improvement goals.

To me it's exactly the same challenge as Change Management. Successful efforts are driven by all top leadership. It's a priority for the company - not just a project of the week. The ultimate goal of the Process Steering Team shouldn't be to refine derelict processes. It should be to turn mid and lower level managers (in fact, all employees) into process champions.

The ultimate goal should be to have everyone at your company focused on process inefficiencies - not just a CPO.

Toyota is generally regarded as the platinum standard for manufacturing efficiency. Their processes are no secret. The huge challenge in imitating Toyota's success is that lean processes are part of Toyota's culture - ingrained through decades of process focus. The other huge benefit that Toyota garners is standardized processes. Everyone uses the same processes. To accomplish this, everyone must understand the process, why it works and what the success metrics are.

Process innovation can't be sustained by one person.

It's everyone's job.

And until we recognize that making and executing lean processes is everyone's goal, new CPO's may suffer the same fate as many early CIOs - very short tenure.

And Another Thing.....

One more thought about taking time to "celebrate wins" during tough projects....

Don't forget to include the SMEs (subject matter experts) from the business. They're tasked with helping your team define new processes, test the system and sometimes even deliver the training - while at the same time doing their FULL TIME jobs!

As a project manager, make sure you take the initiative in recognizing their contributions as well and recognize the additional workload and strain that they're under.

The occasional joint celebration (IT team and SMEs) helps recognize everyone's contributions and helps with team building as well.

Project Pressure Cooker

I was teaching a friend's MBA class last week. We were talking about How I.T. Adds Business Value and discussed some lessons learned during big system implementations. One of the students asked a question relating to "celebrating wins".

It was a great question.

Big system implementations can be extremely stressful - especially on those within the core team. Deadlines loom, thousands of decisions must be made, unexpected problems always crop up. The pace of work quickens and the pace can last for months. Big projects (to use a football analogy) can feel like a year long "2 minute drill".

Regardless, the team needs to soldier on.

To maintain sanity, it's critical to "chunk the project". Divide it into milestones. Celebrate the accomplishments. Reduce stress. Recognize achievements.

The celebrations don't have to be huge events or expensive outings.

Take the team bowling one afternoon. Let them all go early on a Friday to spend some time with their families. Celebrate $1 hotdog night at the local ballpark. Have a potluck lunch. Hand out tickets for a local play. Take them to the county fair. Find ways they can spend time away from the project and better yet, more time with their families.

Occasionally, stress relief doesn't come from celebrations, it comes from flexibility. Sometimes you just need time away from the office. We allowed people who needed to concentrate on executing a task to work from home - away from the constant din of a common project workspace. We utilized IM (instant messaging) to keep remote workers accessible.

There are literally thousands of ways to help keep the team functioning at a high level.

You need to treat your project team differently because they're in a different situation. Resist the temptation to listen to the critics (those outside the project) who lament the "perks" that the project team receive. Those critics usually fail to notice the 12 hour days and the weekend work that is necessary to keep big projects on track. Very few would volunteer for the "perks" if they truly understood the project workload.

And above all, "install pressure values". Make it everyone's responsibility to be vigilant - to look for signs of stress and address them before they begin to affect the health of the individual or the team.

Win or lose, you're all in this together.

The Great One

I've resisted any hockey analogies in this blog......until now.

I was thinking about how we recognize achievements in business - record sales, record profits, sometimes team recognition for a job well done. I may be stating the obvious, but in business, seldom are great accomplishments achieved alone.

I came across Wayne Gretzky's scoring records recently. For those of you who don't know hockey, Gretzky was the best ever to play the game. He retired many years ago and still holds 61 different scoring titles. His nickname was "The Great One". How cool is that?

Of interest to me, were the number of records he held for assists. He wasn't simply great because he scored goals (and he scored LOTS of goals). He was great because he made the rest of his team great as well. He made plays to allow his teammates to score. And needless to say, he played on a lot of winning teams.

We keep assist stats in hockey, baseball and basketball. On every hockey goal, credit is goven to the scorer and the one or two players that helped make it happen. In baseball, every out is recorded by position and the scoring identifies everyone who touched the ball in the process.

In business we tend not to keep track of "assists" - but who wouldn't want to work in a place where everyone was looking out for each other's success? - a place where co-workers were recognized for helping others? Shouldn't we find a way to recognize business "assists"?

"The Great One" scored 894 goals in his career. He also had 1962 assists. For every goal he scored, he helped two teammates score as well.

So the question is: "How could you recognize "assists" at your company?

The WIIFM Lesson

I was at lunch yesterday with a couple of former vendors of mine. Both are software and services providers.

The conversation turned to CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Among the three of us, no one could identify a successful CRM installation. And these guys have been around a long time.

You see, most CRM implementations have a fatal flaw. The entire system depends upon the salesperson entering the related account information, the forecast, the opportunities, the call reports.

And none of this activity actually helps THEM, sell anything. And that's a problem, because that's what you pay them to do.

All of this activity is generally done to provide management with "visibility" to what's going on. The marketing department uses the information to tweak marketing programs and measure the performance of lead generating programs. They get all excited about increasing share of wallet or penetration into an account. The cross-selling opportunities make them salivate.

But salespeople are not compensated to enter data. It's not what they do. They are relationship builders, investigators, probers, problem solvers. They aren't reporters.

They enjoy closing deals. It's what you pay them for.

The lesson here is, before implementing ANY new system, make sure you appreciate and understand the WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) factor. If you can't quickly articulate how an individual (or department) will benefit from the new system or process in a meaningful way, don't bother starting the project.

And for heaven's sake, make sure that your compensation plans support the project goals and aren't aligned against them.

Because it's the employee buy-in and process execution that will drive any benefits. Not the software.

So take a critical look at your CRM processes and find a way of getting the information into the system, without taking your salespeople off their customer's premises.

One idea a former CEO had was that salespeople should simply verbally report opportunities, progress on deals and trip reports etc to an assistant, via phone, as they were travelling to the next customer.

The assistant would then enter all the information into the CRM system.

One assistant could handle several salespeople, would become familiar with the software and could act like a "quarterback" in terms of the data management process. "Hey - last trip you identified an opportunity to sell Product A to Customer B" where does that opportunity stand? Do you still think that pending sale will close before the quarter? Is opportunity XYZ still at a 75% probability? Do you need me to schedule a visit for Jim to do a technical presentation?

Salespeople would then do what they're good at - talking. And sales assistants would do the data entry, thus eliminating the problems of CRM data capture - and keeping the salespeople in front of customers.

Seems to me, that these simple changes would make the entire process more effective. What do you think?

Money For Nothing (and your chicks for free)

This week we received a couple of charges from our Canadian Bank. We have been with the Bank for about 3 decades now. In fact, long ago, I used to work for them. While we live here in the U.S., we still maintain the Canadian account to pay for gifts for relatives, and to pay Canadian tuition for my son.

This month we were greeted with a $2.50 "maintenance charge" and a $1 "statement charge" - for an idle account.

They aren't keeping up with customer expectations in the world of Web 2.0.

I can blog at a dozen sites for free. I can have personal websites hosted for free. I can use any of a dozen free email services. I can publish e-books for free. I can store photos, download and view videos, join social networks - for free.

There was a time when having idle accounts actually did cost the Bank money - back in a time when we had to balance the accounts to ledgers BY HAND!

I think the Bank's customers are saavy enough to figure out that these charges are remnants of past business practices and don't have a place in the 21st Century.

It's nothing but gouging.

If they don't understand it now, they'll get the message when I ask them to close my account.

Encouraging Dissent

Garry Emmons writes in a recent issue of Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge, about Encouraging Dissent in Decision Making.

He argues that candor and honesty, in opposition to general consensus, add value to the conversation - help lead a group to a more thoughtful conclusion.

I suspect he's right. And he sights several examples of what happens when dissenting voices stay silent.

I was a little disappointed by his recommendation that companies find a way to compensate dissent and honesty in the expression of a contrary opinion.. A noble cause to be sure, but an impractical one. It simply goes against human nature.

If the crowd wants to drive toward a specific conclusion, there's very little personal benefit in raising one's voice in opposition. In fact, in many cases, there's only downside.

I think the discussion process needs to be fixed. If you want to enable opposing opinion, enable it. Once your group has reached consensus, split the group up into two smaller teams. Smaller team sizes allow individual voices to be heard better. Each team's goal is to list several reasons why the previous conclusion is a bad one - or is based on flawed reasoning or how it could be adversely affected by market shifts.

Make it EVERYONE's job to dissent. Build it into the process.

That way, individuals who strongly feel that the original outcome is incorrect, could argue their case with impunity - after all, this has become part of the decision making process. No one is at "fault" for participating in the critique. No one is seen as being an obstructionist.

I believe the outcome would be better decisions without the personal career risk.

Ed Sullivan Teaches Multitasking

Why is it that some people just get MORE work done than others?

I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. I think it has something to do with Ed Sullivan.

Yes, I said Ed Sullivan.

Many of us will describe a typical work day as keeping several balls in the air - reminescent of the juggling acts we used to see on the Ed Sullivan show (back when the world was broadcast was black and white).

Personally, I think high achievers are more like those plate spinning guys - the act where the performer balances multitudes of spinning plates on long poles, keeping an eye on the plates that need additional inertia to keep from falling.

Those high performers have several things in common.

1. They understand that keeping ONE plate spinning isn't much of an act.

2. They understand that the performance is really about adding additional plates and keeping them all spinning. They have an understanding of how many plates they can keep going at once.

3. They have focus. Distractions aren't allowed.

4. They provide just enough attention to each plate (task) to keep it moving.

5. They resist the temptation to keep all plates spinning at the same velocity - instead, they pay attention to the plates that slow down, providing just enough effort to prevent them from falling.

High performers have mastered their "balancing act". It makes one wonder....

How many of your employees might get booed off the stage?

P.S. I originally omitted recognition for the photo at the top of the blog. Thanks to John Park @ http://www.platespinning.com/ for the photo!

What 7 Months of Liquid Canuck Looks Like!

Here's what seven months of blogging looks like........


Remember BHAGs?
The Irrelevant Giant
Ask the Right Question!
Grow and Die
The Circular Firing Squad
Realizing the Obvious
You Can't Handle the Success!
Stop Writing Manuals and Start Creating Videos!
The Apathy War
Really Clever
Brand Betrayal
There's Nothing Like an Open Mind
Thinking Outside the Stall
School's Never Out
School of "Hard Knocks"
Business Led or You're Dead
More Business Organics
Introducing 5Rules
Maybe the Apple was Just Bruised
Rotten Apple?
The Power of Surveys
Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?
Have You Mashed Yet?
REALLY Scooped by Guy Kawasaki
Windshield Wipers and Data Integrity
The Importance of Mindset
Hiring Athletes
Great Grandma's Roast
WTV - Video Sampler
A Business Gem
David vs. Goliath I.T. Tactics
WTV... The New RTFM
Who's Your Bubba?
Swiss Army Applications
Business Organics
Simple is Hard
Lean Application Development starts with Great Bus...
Soak Time
Bubble 2.0? I Don't See It.
What's the Blogging Equivalent of "Phoning It In?"...
Tell a Thousand People
I.T. Lesson for General Management
Can You Make Sense of This?
Good to Great I.T.
Talent Borrows. Genius Steals.
New Poll
Making Wiki's Work (or Not)
How NOT to Sell to a C.I.O..
What is our Mission?
Process Barnacles
Too Many Times, it's True....
On Rediscovering Words....
Business is Personal
uʍop ǝpısdn
Never Mind
My Movie Rant
Tomorrow's Lesson Today
New Poll
The Bizdev Rule that Every CIO Must Know
Pulling Together
Web 2.o is a Harsh Mistress - Part 2
Technology is Changing Everything about Campaignin...
Is Aggregation a Good Web Business Model?
What Signs Say and What They Mean.
Big Brother Watching Safari?
Email Activism
Lights, Camera, Action!
Putting It On The Line
Hmmmmmm
On Safari
Offshoring Success Stories - An Oxymoron?
How to Discover Leaders in Your Company
Lulu Buttons Now Working
Wiki 101
How NOT to use Technology!
Lean I.T. is Waaaay Overdue
Attensa to the Rescue?
Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Dell Ubuntu prices now released
SOA Irony
Which Wiki is right for you?
18 Reasons People Think Your I.T. Dept Sucks
Do you suffer from PM Bloat?
Turning Customers into Fans.
A Blast from the Past?
Mac Ads: Made to Stick
"Reply to All" Electroshock
Time for some Serious Magic!
A Little Self Promotion....
My First E-Book!
Ubuntu, IdeaStorm and my friend Dave....
The Doctor is In - Part 2
The Doctor is In
My Favorite I.T. Ads Ever
Linux is Centerpiece for Negropontes $100 Laptop
Fountain of Youth for your old PC?
RSS Explained
A New #1
Why is BOLD a bad word?
IdeaStorm Strikes Again!
Eating My Own Dog Food
3 Experiments to Try Right Now!
From Email to (M)email
Web 2.0 - Now on Sale for $1.99
Web 2.0 - The Dark Side
Hello World!

Remember BHAGs?

This weekend, I was posting on our new company blog at 5Rules about How Everything Old is New Again.

And it got me thinking. I wonder how many "old" lessons are out there that need to be re-learned?

And THAT led me to thinking about BHAGs.

Some of you may be too young to remember "Big Hairy Audacious Goals". BHAGs were introduced to us by James Collins and Jerry Porras more than ten years ago, in their article entitled "Building Your Company's Vision".

At the time, BHAGs were all the rage. They were in use at some of the country's biggest companies. IBM, Motorola, Philip Morris and Walt Disney Co. all embraced them.

In 2007, no one talks about BHAGs anymore.

Somehow the whole notion died off. Perhaps some of us tried BHAGs and were disappointed. Perhaps none of our senior management read the article. Perhaps none of us had the attention span it took (about 10 years) to keep the BHAG alive. Perhaps BHAGs were undone by the need to make the quarterly numbers for Wall St.

Maybe we should have tried LHAGs instead. (Little Hairy Audacious Goals).

I've had good experience with LHAGs.

Most recently my team need to perform a version upgrade to a major ERP system (PeopleSoft). Anyone who has done this can tell you that it is generally a 6+ month project. It involves identifying all customizations you've done to the system and "retrofitting" the changes into the newer version. Then you need to individually test each function, followed by an entire integrated system test - not to mention rewriting all the training.

It's a mini-ERP implementation. And sometimes you need to being in additional staff to complete the project.

We decided to create a LHAG. To successfully complete the upgrade in 8 weeks, without any additional outside help.

I won't bore you with all the details except to say that while we missed our 8 week target (we did it in 12 weeks), we still accomplished it in half the time it would have normally taken. We didn't use any additional resources. Occasionally, self-imposed constraints are a good thing.

It forced us to rethink the entire process. To prioritize. To sweat the big stuff. We were able to reuse original test scripts (saving us time) and to amend training documentation in a way that forced successful module tests. We focused on testing new functionality and verifying that the old processes still worked.

We might not have known it was possible, if it weren't for the decade old insights of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras - and the introduction of BHAGs.

So dust off those old business books and turn something old into something new again.

The Irrelevant Giant

As reported at CIO.com today, Microsoft announced that it will be putting it's office applications suite on the web.

They are late to the party AGAIN.

It's an obvious attempt to head off Google's entry of sharable web based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software (which I happen to be using at the moment).

It's hard to tell from my perspective whether Microsoft actually wanted to enter this space or whether they felt they HAD to.

My gut tells me that they've been "playing defense" for some time now.

I'm certain that all the geek pundits will begin blogging about Msoft's imminent/eventual demise.

I don't think Microsoft is in danger of imminent demise. I think they're in danger of becoming irrelevant.

And that's far worse.