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A Must See

Yet another fantastic TED talk. Tip of the hat to Gene Wrights blog....

World of Mouth

Thanks to Shannon for sending this along....

To Be Honest....

I do a lot of writing at work - email, memos, general communication.

The other day my boss was reviewing something I'd written before we published it.

He was stopped dead in his tracks over the phrase "to be honest".

"Aren't we always honest?" he asked.

I had used it as a throwaway phrase without thinking much about it. I was sharing the fact that a change in company policy benefited both our employees and (to be honest) our company.

Perhaps I should have said "to be clear" or perhaps I should have discarded the phrase entirely.

To be honest (wink) I wrote it without thinking.

When writing, brevity and clarity matter.

Presentation to MSOE MBAs

As requested, here's a copy of the presentation I gave last night at MSOE. Enjoy.

20 Ideas In 20 Minutes Rev5

View more presentations from guest5678bdcc.

Inertia is Expensive

It's interesting how we take business services for granted. You hire a company to provide a service. They do a good job for you and the next year, raise their rates 3-5%. Year after year this practice continues.

Everyone is happy. Your payroll service or cleaning service or web conferencing service meets your needs. Where's the problem?

In business, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. We're pre-programmed to solve problems, to fix things, to make people, processes and products better. With this mindset, why would anyone take the time to look at non-problems?

Even if you see an opportunity to save some cash on these services, we usually do a mental accounting of the effort it would take to change suppliers and quickly decide in favor of the status quo.

After all, change is difficult and how would your company react to a change from a good (but expensive) vendor, if the change had some hiccups? Most of us would argue that the potential savings aren't worth the personal or business risk.

Your current vendors count on that. They provide good service and in return, take their incremental increases year after year.

The wild card in this arrangement is technology. New web based services change the game. They put more traditional businesses at risk, if their customers take the time to look. I'm not advocating that you should change out good vendors - just keep them honest.

Recently our company made a couple of calls to competing vendors only to find that we could be saving as much as 50% on some business services. During these challenging economic times, these savings can easily add up to real savings!

You don't have to change vendors - just keep them honest. If you discover huge potential savings, let your current supplier know that YOU are aware of the opportunity. You may be able to negotiate savings without changing suppliers.

Until you actually look, you'll never learn the lesson.

Inertia is expensive.

How to Get Customers - Simply

After recently describing how to lose a customer in 3 easy steps, here's a refreshing post from the guys at 37signals, about how simple attracting customers can be.

How To Lose a Customer in 3 Easy Steps

In the past 48 hours, a long time service provider to our company, lost our business. You too can easily shed customers if you follow their example.

1. Make it difficult for your customers to interact with you. Last week I spent 15 minutes navigating voicemail, automated attendants and then a "generic call center person" who wouldn't even give me the name of the salesperson I needed to speak to. Their response? "A salesperson will get back to you within the next 2 business days." Not good enough. Not in these economic times. Force customers to do business the way YOU want to, at your own peril.

2. Take your customers for granted. This whole saga began, because we happened to notice the amount of money we were spending to rent some equipment (a time clock). The payroll service had been in place for a decade (and was working acceptably) and so no one bothered to determine whether the service was still price competitive. Like many service providers, the pricing inched up year over year - not by a big enough margin to raise any flags, but over a decade, the pricing became significant. Because I could not get an answer to a very simple question about the pricing for the time clock (see #1 above) we began examining the pricing of the payroll service itself.

3. Ignore your competition. No one at our office can remember the last time anyone from the payroll service provider has ever contacted us. Their business model is geared toward a successful initial setup, then milking the processing fees until the customer wakes up and leaves. They count on the fact that their customers will be lulled into a state of apathy....until they aren't.

My call to a competitive payroll service was returned within 20 minutes. I had a quote on my desk within 90 minutes. Potential annual savings for the identical range of services was 5 figures.

A 10 year customer gone... in 90 minutes.

You too can achieve these amazing results by following these three easy steps!

Building Customer Communities

Last week, I attended a three hour presentation on SharePoint functionality. it was sponsored by a local I.T. consulting company.

SharePoint, for those of you who don't know, is a Microsoft application platform that enables companies to easily communicate, collaborate, share documents and can act as a portal for basic information workflow. SharePoint, used well, helps companies share knowledge and execute better.

For several weeks prior to the seminar, the sales team were beating the bushes, trying to attract local companies to sign up - to invest a morning listening to their internal expert share knowledge about how SharePoint works.

For the most part, I enjoyed the presentation, but afterwards sent a note to my rep with some suggestions because it seemed ironic that a company purporting to be SharePoint experts weren't using their platform to share knowledge and build a community of potential customers!

The approach might have been - now that you have SharePoint, let us show you how to get your company to use it well and how to build a collaborative culture within your company. Instead, they invited a room full of geeks to show them features and functionality of the software, in the hopes that somewhere down the road, we might need some development help.

Why not help the geeks sell the idea of collaboration within their own companies and then drive consulting from the dozens of business people who want to collaborate more effectively or work more efficiently?

Why not build a community of people who want to collaborate by developing and hostin an attractive and useful SharePoint Community site to foster enthusiasm, share stories, share knowledge and attract potential customers from the millions of people who were not at the seminar?

My advice to our hosts? Stop the local lecturing and start building a global community! Find ways to help the geeks evangelize. Make it easy for their end users to quickly gather confidence in using the tools. Once end user creativity is unleashed, the development consulting opportunities will abound.

User Voice

I've long been a fan of "voice of the customer" technology. I've blogged several time about Dell's IdeaStorm project, where customers get to suggest improvements to Dell's products and services and the customer community gets to "vote up or vote down" ideas submitted by the community.

I'm really excited by a brand new web service called User Voice. This web service easily allows any company to start up their own customer conversation. The service comes in several different "flavors". The feedback tab you now see on the left hand side of my blog, is an example of the free version.

I'll leave this tab here for several weeks and encourage any readers to post blog topic ideas of their own and vote on those ideas submitted by others.

The application is very easy to set and use.

The toughest part of the entire process will be for User Voice customers to summon up the courage to actually begin an honest conversation with their customers!

Interesting Googlism

A talk with our Web stats provider revealed that now more than 50% of Google searches are unique and contain 4 to 6 words in the search string.

What this means is that not only does the "Long Tail" exist, it's thriving.

Recently we were trying to determine why our site visits were increasing, while our keyword rankings were staying relatively stable.

To test the theory, we tried a bunch of long tail searches for our products and found that our websites were always ranking at or near the top of the results pages.

We're blessed to have VOLUMES of well tagged information on our websites and blogs, but this little gem came as quite a surprise.

What did we learn?

Provide loads of valuable content (especially in blog form) and you'll be found on the web.

Buy the ink and we'll throw in the printer for (almost) Free

My Dad doesn't know it yet but he's about to be a guest blogger. Here's an email I received from him yesterday...

Hi Guys,

Thought that I'd bring you up to date with my latest bargain.
My little HP printer ran out of black ink so I went to Zellers to get another black cartridge. It would have cost $30 but I went for the bargain -- both colour and black for $69. It doesn't sound like a bargain but they came with a Lexmark 5495 which will handle photos, scan, make copies and fax with its own built phone. It even has auto feed for copies etc.and slots for all the photo media sticks. It is amazing the extras they give away with their ink!

Dad

Bright, Bold and Ambitious

I have always been a fan of big ideas and bold initiatives. I discovered Shai Agassi thanks to Garr Reynolds' blog Presentation Zen. Shai Agassi was incumbent CEO at SAP software (we won't hold that against him) when he discovered his new calling - ridding the world of it's dependence of oil for our transportation needs.

This is the kind of out of the box thinking that is bold, ambitious, and after listening to this TED presentation, entirely achievable.

I love great new ideas, clearly and passionately expressed. Shai Agassi doesn't disappoint.

Mixed Message

I just received a webinar invite from Ziff Davis entitled "Can You Be Safe Without Vista?"

It's designed to promote the additional security features that the Vista operating system provides, but I'm not certain that's the message they are sending.

The problem is that the webinar is co-sponsored by Microsoft.

So, let me get this straight.

The very people who wrote the operating system you're likely still running (XP, for most of us) are telling their customers that our legacy operating systems, also written by Microsoft, aren't secure.

Imagine if GM sold you a crappy car, then invited you to an open house where they spoke about why you needed to purchase the newer model because the old one was so unsafe?

You wouldn't expect GM to close many sales.

Microsoft shouldn't either.

Sending and Receiving

Back when I was Director of Marketing for a B2B catalog company, I constantly battled our Product Managers over the catalog content and layout. Let's call it having a "creative difference".

The product managers would always want to load up the copy with every conceivable benefit and feature. They were looking to make the presentation as comprehensive as possible - to cram their entire story on a quarter page.

Now don't get me wrong - attention to detail is a good thing. As long as all the work you're putting into sending the message is being received by the customer. If we were lucky, a customer might spend as much as two seconds looking at a product page. What really mattered in getting readers to linger, was great page layout design, a compelling headline and a fantastic photo.

Think about how you leaf through all the advertising that comes in the Sunday paper. Is it the compelling copy that gets your attention? Probably not.

Taking a day to tweak copy for a product that gets a fleeting glance may not be the best use of your time. Understanding that just because you send the message, doesn't mean it's being received as you'd like it to be.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this designer who radically improved newspaper circulation by dramatically improving it's design. Same columnists, editors, just a different design.



First, you need to capture attention. THEN, your message has a chance to be received.

New Rule

In hommage to one of my favorite comedians, here's my New Rule:

New Rule: If you plaster my email inbox with advertising I have NOT asked for, you must stop it immediately if I opt out.

Kohl's has recently been sending me a ton of email advertising. I have opted out of this advertising several times. The note they display during the unsubscribe process is that it can take up to two weeks to actually take effect.

That's fine...

As long as Kohl's is okay with me shopping at your stores and leaving without paying, as long as I promise to come back in a couple of weeks or so to settle up.

Expectations

Setting an expectation is a double edged sword.

On Saturday morning, if the paper isn't delivered, it can ruin the start of your day. We like predictible. Same is good.

A visit to your favorite restaurant, when the chef has an "off night" can wreck your evening.

Recently Seth Godin celebrated his 3000th blog post, IN A ROW. Daily, for almost a decade, he's been sharing his thoughts each morning.

For anyone, this is a Herculean feat.

Delivering fresh throughts on a daily basis, without missing a day is unheard of.

This morning, when I logged on and checked my RSS Feed reader, there was nothing from Seth.

He didn't meet my expectations. I was disappointed.

Now Seth didn't promise me that he would post every day. He never committed to posting before 7 am. In fact he made no representations whatsoever. But based upon his record of daily insightful posts, he set an expectation.

Or rather I "assumed" an expectation.

Today's post may arrive in my RSS Reader as I'm writing this, but it's already too late. I'm already feeling a little let down.

That's the trouble with fans. We're fanatical.

A Lesson in Change Management

1. Don't berate those who think differently.
2. Don't criticize.
3. Show them a better way.

Liquidity

Vocabulary Word of the Day:

LIQUIDITY

Definition: Liquidity is when you look at your retirement funds and wet your pants.

Messages to the Banks - Make Lemonade

The U.S. Banking industry is missing a HUGE opportunity. At the moment they've circled the wagons, admitting no wrongdoing, protecting executive bonuses. For them it's business as usual - except for the fact that they're receiving HUGE bailout money (mine and yours).

America has turned sour on all things Financial. To us it represents greed, betrayal, recklessness and dysfunction.

It is a huge opportunity for the industry.

Imagine how well an entirely new strategy would work if just one banking CEO changed direction.

Here's how his press release might read:

America,

We at (insert Bank name here) would like to apologize for our part in the economic crisis in which America finds herself. Over the past decade our Bank has undertaken unacceptable risks in our mission to drive profits for our shareholders. Our compensation plans provided bonuses for those most successful at driving the very behavior that helped our nation into the crisis we now face.

We accept responsibility for our actions and from this day forward pledge a new beginning.

We are working hard to repair our balance sheets to balance our assets with our liabilities. We are movong away from a 35:1 debt/asset ratio and are working to achieve a very conservative 5:1 ratio. Our progress towards this goal will be monitored by independent 3rd party accounting firms in conjuction with the SEC and Fed. Today we are announcing a new policy of transparency, and will show each and every account holder how we intend to keep these promises.

We are announcing today that 30% of all future profits will be returned to the taxpayer until such time as the TARP money we have received is paid back. This may well take decades, but it is our commitment to every American, that we consider this money a loan.

Finally, we are addressing compensation. Our bonuses, if any, will be based upon both our profitability and our journey towards a conservatively structured, sustained balance sheet. Every customer of this Bank must be assured that their assets are safe and that all creditworthy customers have access to the capital they need to run their businesses and their lives.

If your current bank is NOT pledging similar response to this crisis, may we suggest that you open an account with us.

Together we'll forge a healthy and sustainable economic future for America.

Signed,

Joe Moneybags,
CEO
insert Bank name here.

America has a huge capacity for forgiveness. It's time that the Banks stepped up and admitted their mistakes and told America what THEY are going to do to fix things. I think for a "first mover", the rewards could be substantial.

Think About Corporate Newsletters This Way

One of my favorite newsletters is McKinsey. Loads of great information. McKinsey offers free information to subscribers as well as a premium information to its members. For about $150 per year, I can become a premium member.

To those of us who haven't become premium members yet, McKinsey offers tantalizing articles to induce us to make the leap. They deliver relevant, compelling headlines with a teaser opening paragraph or two, as incentive to make the transition to membership. (I'm almost there.)

It got me thinking.

What if Marketing departments created Corporate Newsletters, that they actually had to sell? How would the content be changed? How might the headlines be written? How would they create more value for the customer?

Instead of an "I'm glad we published another one on time", perhaps we'd change our focus to "we got another 50 subscribers!"

After all, isn't that what we're shooting for?

Time=Money

I've recently come to the realization that I spend the better part of each workday trying to accelerate things.

Working with people to:

• Develop faster
• Execute faster
• Create faster
• Innovate faster
  
• Imagine faster
• Decide faster

Perhaps, it's all based in the belief that time equals money. Perhaps it's because I'm an impatient guy.

If a team believes it will take a year to accomplish a goal, it will.

My job is to question those beliefs. And if I'm successful, my team will begin to question those beliefs as well.

And that's when things begin to happen faster.

S.W.A.T. Marketing

Now I know what you're thinking. He must mean SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Marketing....

Not so fast.

I'm talking about SWAT Marketing.

The kind of Marketing that enables a company to go from marketing concept to reality in minutes and hours, instead of days and months.

Armed with ideas, a computer, a simple repeatable process,an easy to use web framework, and a video camera, yesterday our beloved marketing team put together a new website in under an hour.

Now it wasn't completely finished (from a content perspective). They never are. But it was available, crawlable, accessible, searchable in under 60 minutes. It wasn't PERFECT, but it WAS.

What used to take many meetings and many days discussion, lots of design (and re-design) to make perfect, our team now focuses on simply MAKING. Perfect can come with the additional content and refinements that will surely follow.

And by that time, our website will already have begun generating leads.

Just like the last one did.

Happy 20th Birthday WWW!

The guy who invented the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, tells you what's next.

Cleaning Up Shopping Carts

photo
Originally uploaded by dbw53022

Yesterday I heard a great story from our Sales Manager. He recently visited an Apple store, looking to purchase an iMac. Now they didn't have the keyboard that he wanted so it was recommended that he order online.

While at the store, he placed his order into an online shopping cart, but before actually purchasing the computer, decided to wait a few days to make the decision.

And so he abandoned his shopping cart. We've all done it.

And usually that's the end of the story.

But not in this case.

Withn 24 hours someone from Apple, whose job it is to "collect the carts" called him and asked how they might help complete the transaction. After a brief discussion, the Apple rep identified a marketing discount program that my colleague qualified for.

Within the span of a ten minute conversation, the transaction was completed. What began as an unfulfilled shopping expedition, ended as a transaction.

Now the moral of the story isn't to suggest you go online shopping and intentionally abandon your shopping cart. It's to point out that
with a little extra effort, you can capture "lost" business.

Cleaning up those shopping carts, is just ONE way.

We are all Rube Goldbergs Now.

This site is dedicated to the spirit of Rube Goldberg - the inventor of complicated, whimsical machines designed to do simple tasks.

The spirit of these inventions are to join together simple machine interactions in an interesting way, to achieve the desired result.

Nowadays, software services enable us all to become Rube Goldberg.

Using off the shelf capabilities, I recently used my iPhone to take a picture, upload it to Flickr, then blog about it on one of my Blogger accounts.

All in minutes. All for free.

The recipe ingredients are:
1. Download the (free) FlickIt application to your iPhone.
2. Link your FlickR account to your blog (takes just seconds).
3. Take a picture with your iPhone.
4. Upload to FlickR.
5. Use "Blog This" functionality on FlickR to post a blog entry on Blogger.










Voila!

The point of all this is that every day, new software services and capabilities are being created by talented developers. It is up to each of us to put together the pieces and work (or play) more efficiently.

This is an exciting time. Stay on the lookout for new, cool capabilities and make Rube proud!

A Plug for Loft 8

I just completed a short vacation to Florida with my brother and nephew. As frequent readers already know, my bro runs an Accounting firm in Ontario.

Whenever we get together, he usually brings along a little "swag" for the trip.

Typically he comes bearing logo golf balls, emblazoned with the name of his firm and with the instructions - Dave, when you lose these, it had better be logo side up, in the short ruff.

This year he came bearing a golf shirt, from Loft 8, emblazoned with his company logo.

Now I have a closet full of shirts bearing the logos of companies I've conducted business with. They never get worn. They sit at the back of the closet, never seeing the light of day. As a marketing vehicle, they fall short, in that the sponsor's name is never displayed in public.

My Loft 8 shirt will be the exception. Swag is meant to be seen. And in the case of logo clothing, if it isn't worn, it isn't working.

It is the most comfortable golf shirt I own.

In these tough economic times, every Marketing investment should have a payback. If you purchase golf shirts to hand out to business associates, consider Loft 8.

They'll be worn.

They'll be seen.

End of endorsement.

Crappy Pretzels. Cheap Airline.

Pretzels
Originally uploaded by dbw53022

Every once in a while I notice a tidbit of Marketing genius. For some reason, on my return flight from Florida, the crappy little snacks they hand out on the airlines caught my attention.

The label on the bag was brilliant.

"How to Eat Gourmet Pretzels on a Low Fare Airline."

Instead of reminding each passenger of the crappy snacks that they receive on each flight, the labelling served to enforce the fact that our fares were likely lower than the cost to drive the trip.

They took the tongue in cheek approach, reminding people how inexpensive their trip really was.

So instead of a complaint. They got a smile. (At least from me.).

The 18 Hole Interview

Today, Seth Godin writes about Google's "memory" and the affect it has on personal branding. Long story short, don't do anything on the web that might come back to haunt you later. Google can be an effective applicant screening tool.

Nowadays, recruiters and hiring managers use it all the time.

Images, blogs, tweets, recommendations, business, personal and social connections all provide insights into the type of person you are (versus the type of person you claim to be, in your resume).

I'm currently enjoying a couple of days golfing in southern Florida. I love golf. (In my case it is an unrequited love.)

Somewhere on the back nine, it struck me that a round of golf might be another great filter. Imagine taking three equally qualified finalists golfing, to help determine who to hire.

How people play the game provides valuable insights into a person's character.

1. Are they risk takers or do they play it safe?
2. How well to they manage the course? Adjusting for pin placement, wind, undulations of the green..
3. Do they take the opportunity to "improve their lie" - change the rules of the game to accommodate their situation?
4. Are they honest? Do they count all their strokes and assess the correct penalties?
5. Are they easily frustrated?
6. How well to they socialize with the other players (after a good shot, after a bad shot?)
7. How do they handle adversity?
8. How do they perform under pressure?
9. Do they listen to (or ask for ) advice from other players or their caddy?
10. Did they have fun? Were they relaxed?
11. Would you want to golf with them again?

My advice: Once you've used Google to cull down candidates for that important senior position, and conducted the interviews, book a tee time before making an offer.

Image credit: www.pro.corbis.com

The Death of Facebook

I'm starting to see signs that Facebook is not long for this world.

My suspicions began the day my wife signed up for an account. It wasn't long before she had friended many of our kids friends. And then neighborhood parents began to join. The 40+ crowd had come late to the Facebook party but they're planning to stay.

Now neighbors poke each other, write on friends' walls, upload photos. The competitive ones treat it like a popularity contest and race to friend the most people.

What was once the domain of the teenagers and the twenty something crowd is quickly being seeded with "old fogeys". And so it's my prediction that Facebook will eventually die off - or at least fundamentally change. Like a hip new nightclub whose patrons change allegiances to the newest club in town, the younger Facebook users will seek a new spot to hang out, leaving Facebook to us.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to tweet.

Webcrumbs

One of my favorite blogs is Seth Godin's. He's a permission marketing evangelist and long time blogger.

At 3,000 posts, he's the Hank Aaron of blogging.

And I'm sure he's not on performance enhancing steroids.

Think of the number of webcrumbs his posting legacy has created. 3,000 thoughts, ideas, inspirations, all search engine indexed, all leading back to Seth.

Makes one wonder why businesses have been so slow to take it up. Discipline? Effort? No immediate payback? Or worse yet... nothing to say?

Solving Tomorrow's Problems

In the I.T. world, we're all about customer service. Our goal is to solve problems quickly. Wade through those helpdesk tickets. Get people back on track and productive again.

Sometimes we lose sight of the real goal - avoiding the situations that cause the problems in the first place.

The Toyota Production System, teaches getting to the source of a problem by asking "Why?" five times. The thought is, that by following this chain of logic (how did we ever get to this point?) backwards, one can identify the source of the problem and remedy it.

For too long, some I.T. departments have been the "whipping boy" of their organizations - bearing the brunt of crappy Microsoft applications, victims of their own programming shortcomings and slaves to short term infrastructure decisions.

Truth is, for the most part, I.T. departments are playing defense. They act like the little boy who plugged the dyke with his fingers.

I think that realization hit some of my guys yesterday as we discussed a framework for administering reporting security. It became evident that in the course of quickly trying to
appease the security needs of individuals, we were undermining our ability to manage security "as a whole".

We were unnecessarily complicating our daily processes to serve the needs of a few.

And so, we tried a different tact.

Let's play offense.

Why don't we educate our management team on how we manage security and why it makes sense to do it that way. Let's involve our customers up front, in a decision making effort to develop a framework in which we can balance the need for information security with the level of effort to administer it.

Some I.T. folks undermine their own effectiveness by not even trying to engage their customers. "They'll never go for that!" or "There's always an exception to the rule." And so the status quo perpetuates the "cycle of doom".

I have the benefit of perspective. I don't have Helpdesk tickets assigned to me. I'm not neck deep solving time critical problems. So it's incumbent upon me to lead the charge with our user community to shed some light on how we do things and why and to invite them to participate in future policy and infrastructure framework decisions.

I call it solving tomorrow's problems.

If we spend one meeting per week talking and thinking strategically, we'll have a very successful department.

Generic Curse - Part 2

Earlier I wrote about the Generic Curse - a condition where industry competitors copy each other's strategy to the point where all that results is poorly executed sameness within an industry. Bland, and boring

And it continues to happen.

Witness the latest announcement by Microsoft, to open retail stores (Apple anyone?).

This of course, won't work. But it will be interesting to watch it fail. eWeek has a humorous look at what a Microsoft Store might look like.

I think Microsoft's time might be better spent building products people want to buy, rather than expanding channels to buy them.

Meeting Deja Vu

I participated in a meeting this past week.

I exited the meeting with a feeling that we hadn't accomplished much. Certainly the challenges were laid out and a couple of suggestions were raised. Some attendees decided that additional information was required.

What was missing?

For starters, we made the cardinal sin of declaring the meeting over before we assigned specific "to dos" and deadlines. There were no specific action plans to advance a solution.

Afterwards, I mentioned this to a colleague who had also attended. His response surprised me.

"I've worked here for ten years and have attended that meeting at least ten times before".

Very telling.

Has this ever happened to you? Ask yourself the following questions.

1. Are you taking comfort in activity vs. accomplishments? i.e. If we're meeting, we're doing something about it. Even if we aren't.

2. Are you executing well? Setting tasks, assigning responsibilities, establishing deadlines?

3. Is the meeting topic important, but not urgent? Perhaps the topic is important enough to draw ten people into a meeting, but doesn't make it to our individual top three tasks once we return to our desks.

4. Who is in charge? Who owns the initiative? We assembled a group of independent people (each responsible for a different product line or sales channel) but we weren't working within a common strategic plan under the guidance of a VP of Sales.

If you answered Yes to any of the above questions, you're suffering from Meeting Deja Vu.

Now that you recognize the disease, how are you going to treat it? Here's a suggestion.

Reality Check

I ran across this brief video of Guy Kawasaki talking about his new book, called Reality Check.

Enjoy.

The Generic Curse

A colleague and I were at lunch yesterday. We went to a local chain restaurant. The waiter greeted us using the same phrase they do at EVERY chain.

"Hi my name is "Shane" and I'll be serving you today. Can I get you some drinks while you look over the menu?" as he writes down his name on a napkin, in case we can't remember.

As drinks arrive, I notice that this menu looks a lot like every other menu from every competing chain restaurant. Honestly, if the restaurant's name hadn't been on the first page, the place could have been an Uno's, Chili's or Applebees.

Same banter, same service, same prices, same atmosphere, same food.

The only reason we ended up at this restaurant was that the place we really wanted to go to was jammed. So we settled for easier parking and "no surprises". Makes a Brand Manager proud.

Sameness deserves to be relegated to second place.

How do you stand out from your competition?

Effort is underrated.

In June of last year, I wrote a blog post on Starters vs. Closers which generated some buzz around the office.

If the descriptions of the two types of people didn't motivate you to "raise your game" to get tasks accomplished, consider another great reason.

Your reputation.

We all know people who work hard, but never seem to get their tasks completed. Over my lifetime I've seen quite a few. From a manager's perspective, they present a real challenge - not because they aren't willing to work hard - but because people are judged by their accomplishments.

And accomplishments are completed tasks/projects.

Effort is underrated.

And sometimes not rated at all. Especially when it comes to merit review time.

Moving a task forward from 50% complete to 55% complete is not an accomplishment. Moving 20 tasks forward by a percent or two is not an accomplishment. Have the largest "to do" list may give you a sense of being needed, but it works against you at merit review or bonus time.

Because no one has the desire (or the attention span) to listen to stories about how projects inch forward.

Make it easy for your Manager to recommend merit increases based on your track record of accomplishments, instead of based on your effort. (Note: trying something bold and failing is an accomplishment, because you've learned a lesson in what doesn't work. To fail, you must have completed the project - it's the outcome that didn't meet expectations - not your execution.)

If I could offer a few pieces of advice, they would be:

1. Trim your to do list to 3 or 4 of the most critical tasks.
2. Only add to the critical task list, when you knock one off.
3. Seek to "turn" your projects frequently.
4. Focus on accomplishments. Your reputation (and probably compensation) is counting on it.

My wife learned this lesson when creating her "honey do" list. Keep it brief and achievable. Then make up a new list for next weekend.

She's smart enough to know that a "honey do" list of more than 3 items, would probably never get started, let alone accomplished.

She's a smart woman.

Order of Magnitude Metrics

My brother Bob runs an accounting firm back in Canada. He's a sharp business person and has a real gift for speed-of-light billing and more importantly, collecting.

Bob classifies his receivables in a 30/60/90 report.

To most accountants, that means 30 days, 60 days and 90 days outstanding receivables.

Except Bob measures his receivables in minutes.

What changes would occur at your workplace if you changed the order of magnitude of your business metrics?

Consequences

Too often as we look at our business processes, one comes across the situation where whole new activities spring up and become ingrained in "what we do" simply because someone isn't doing their job right in the first place.

I once worked for a large printing company that couldn't invoice jobs until they'd received all the invoices from their suppliers, because they didn't trust their purchasing processes. They waited two additional weeks while they checked and double checked their margins on each job. Millions of dollars of invoicing delayed every time.

How about the case where someone else is assigned the task to follow up on pre-qualified leads that the sales team should be calling?

Or the late (or non-existent trip report) after an outside sales person makes a call. Somehow the expense report gets submitted.

Let's face it. Would you always drive the speed limit if there were no traffic cops?

I didn't think so.

Consequences help get things done right the first time and can help kill off the temptation to create an additional process to fix a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Siftables

Want to see how people will be creating music, editing video and teaching the next generation?

Look no further than David Merrill's brief TED talk on Siftables.

Fascinating stuff.

Prairie Dogging Innovation

It seems to me that the speed of innovation is accelerating and I'm not sure businesses are prepared to leverage that fact.

It was a scant two years ago, for example, that the iPhone was introduced. Two years later, there are over 20,000 apps available for it.

But who has the time to understand what they all do? Fact is that more apps are introduced each day than we can keep track of. Some would write off many applications as flashlight apps (basically screensavers), some will use a selection of productivity applications.

But others might uncover opportunities to innovate at the speed of light.

Let me cite a personal example. Our sales manager wanted to create a contest to engage everyday shoppers around the world to help our company spot marketing opportunities. Basically the goal of this contest is lead generation.

It is a radically different idea than we've ever tried before.

Unfortunately, we were struggling with the technology to achieve it. We didn't want to spend too much money or time to put it all together. So we put the idea on the back burner.

Yesterday I was reading one of my favourite tech blogs, where they profiled a new iPhone application, so I thought I'd check it out. Turns out this application provides us with about 90% of the functionality we need to execute our new lead generation idea.

So, about 30 minutes after the technical article had been published, I was able to download, test and evaluate the application, then write it's author to setup a meeting for next week. Probably with a few hours coding, we could have exactly what we need.

All of this activity happened between 7 am and 8 am on a Saturday morning.

The point of all this, is that it can't happen unless your organization has "Prairie Dogs", who pop their heads up from time to time to stay alert to new innovations, technologies and possibilities.

Secondly, they need to be "turned on" (engaged), with what your company is trying to achieve.

If you have these two ingredients, plus some freedom to execute, there's no telling how quickly your company will be able to innovate.

Executing vs. Innovating

If you were starting up a competing business to the one you're in today, how would you do it?

Unless you were well capitalized, resources (people, time and money) would be scarce.

So what would you do?

Chances are, it's not what you're doing today.

Trade Shows would not likely make the list, since they're very expensive to display at and in this economy, who's going to spend the money to attend?

Expensive and gimmicky corporate websites probably won't make the list either, since they take some time and considerable expense to develop.

Perhaps a printed customer or industry focused Newsletter? Not likely, because you can't measure whether they got delivered or even if they're read.

As a former Marketer myself, I completely understand and respect that "momentum" has a significant impact on a Marketing schedule.

It's time to prep for the next catalog.
The quarterly newsletter is due next week.
We need to put together the booth for the next Trade Show.
Where is the Marketing collateral for our new whatchamacallit?
The web stats need to be reported.
Time to get those leads entered into the CRM system.

Really, there's no time to try something new....unless you stop something old. We get caught up in the cycle of executing, rather than spending time innovating.

More Survey Advice

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog which described shortcomings in an emailed McKinsey Survey I received.

Today, Seth Godin adds his two cents on customer surveys.

Bottom line. Your customers' attention is too precious to squander.





Photo credit: www.jeffcohealth.org/

An Economy Without Consequences

If your expectations are that we'll all suffer through this economic downturn over the next year or two (or maybe longer) before "things return to normal", think again.

I fear that our expectations are to return to cheap money, no money down mortgages, 0% financing on new cars etc.

I don't think so.

In order to make sure this doesn't happen again, rules will be put into place that force creditworthy lending to take place.

When I went for my very first pre-approved mortgage, my banker asked whether I had my 20% down payment ready, then proceeded to verify my employment and income, then told me how much money I would quality for. The amount I qualified for was based upon industry wide standards (a ratio of my income), which prevented over zealous borrowers to get in over their heads.

And if I was dissatisfied with the number, I could always go to another bank, where the very same criteria would be applied to my mortgage application. This tight regulation "forced" a model of borrowing responsibility and prevented the chaos that we've seen over the past couple of years.

It was a built in hedge against economic downturns, because people still had some wiggle room in their budgets to meet mortgage payments, if they suffered a temporary income problem.

Sometimes I get the feeling that our expectations are that when this crisis is over, that things will return to "normal" - with normal being a state of unrestrained consumption and unrestrained borrowing.

That will not be the case.

Our long term economic survival will depend upon MUCH larger saving rates, less personal borrowing, and more "living within our means". I think that we'll be forced into an age of "taking personal responsibility" for ourselves.

We won't be able to count on social security, universal health care, medicaid because the country can't afford it (if we waste Trillions on bailouts).

Let's face it, our economy has to go through a contraction. Some car companies must die. Some major banks must die. It's absolutely necessary for the economic "cycle of life" to continue. There must be consequences to gross mismanagement. Banks must pay the price for taking on too much risk. Investors must pay the price for blindly putting faith in investments with unrealistic returns (Madoff anyone?).

Lessons must be learned, or we're bound to repeat the same mistakes.

We'll have learned this lesson when "debt-free" becomes "cool".

Would You Take this Survey?

This morning I received the following McKinsey email.

Dear McKinsey on Strategy subscriber:

Please help us in our continuous efforts to make the McKinsey Quarterly a publication that meets your expectation by taking a few minutes to complete a brief survey about the articles in the McKinsey on Strategy Newsletter that you recently received.

To have your views included, please complete the survey by Tuesday, February 17th.

Note that you need not complete the survey in one sitting as long as you finish it by Tuesday February 17th. You can stop at any time and close the window. Click on the link in this email to return later and complete the survey.

To thank you for participating.................

Now, I enjoy the articles. McKinsey have a lot of very smart people working for them. But if you're trying to intice me to complete a survey, one of the things you should NOT do, is to assure me that I don't have to complete it "in one sitting".

I may be willing to give you five minutes of my time, but unless I'm on the payroll, it is not likely I'll be giving you more than that.

Take note the next time your company sends out a survey.

My Day with Microsoft

Last Saturday, when the weather outside was a balmy (for this time of year) 52 degrees, I spent my day with Microsoft.

Not out in Redmond. Not chatting with Bill or Steve.

Simply trying (mostly in vain) to apply a security patch to my Windows XP o/s.

To be fair, this PC lives in our upstairs loft. Primarily, it's used by my better half, for email and web browsing. Recently it was running very slowly and she asked me to take a look at it.

First thing I noticed was that the security updates were lagging and so I upgraded Silverlight and visited the Security download site. So far so good. Began downloading service pack 3 (fine), then the install began. After taking inventory and backing up files and checking registry keys, the install proceeded along for about 20 minutes and then suddenly aborted with the error message "Access Denied".

Twenty minutes later, the install had reversed itself and I had to restart the computer. This was a routine I would become very familiar with as the day wore on.

Found Microsoft help, tested to make sure I had admin rights. Tried again. Access Denied.
Disabled anti-virus. Tried again. Access Denied.
Ran utilities to clean registry, scan and remove adware and viruses. Tried again. Access Denied.
Found a registry hack on Google. Tried again. Started looking at Mac ads. Access Denied.
Finally found a more comprehensive blog. Copied down a command, created a reset.cmd file and executed that. It basically swept all memory. making sure all locks were removed.
Tried again. Success!

Well, THAT only took 8 hours.

And I have 5 more updates to go.

Ran outside quickly to experience the warm weather seconds before the sun set. I bet it was a glorious day.

Who Knew?

There were twenty ways to improve laptop battery life?

Anybody have any other suggestions?

My Stimulus Plan - Part 2

If you've read my last post on how I would stimulate the economy, you've probably come to realize by now, that I'm no economist.

However, undaunted, here's Part 2.

Some stuff I wouldn't do to stimulate the economy.

I wouldn't offer tax breaks to small business or the middle class. GASP! Not that I'm a mean guy. I think both these people deserve all the breaks they can get. Heck I work in a small business. I just don't think that during this economic climate, the mindset of either middle class or small business would be to invest in job creation or spending.

I'm probably wrong, but if you put $1,000 buck in the hands of everyone, I'm guessing that after food and rent, we might actually pay a charge card bill. It's not likely you'd find us in a new car showroom.

Small businesses would likely hoard any additional capital to make sure they could meet short term obligations, like payroll (which I suppose you could argue is really job retention, not job creation). I'm okay with a temporary payroll tax cut for small business to sustain employment.

At any rate, in a climate where people are uncertain about their future, it is against human nature to run out and spend, spend, spend. No spending, no economic stimulus. That's why the government has to do it.

Perhaps we can help people in a different way. How about government backed loans at 5% for home owners, who are about to lose their house due to inflating ARM interest rates. Doesn't apply to 2nd homes, rental property - just primary residences. These loans would be 100% backed by the government and managed by your local bank. Unfair you say? Yes it is. But it's also unfair for those of us lucky enough to be able to pay our mortgages to have to live in neighborhoods where houses are becoming abandoned, deteriorating our home values and the quality of our neighborhoods.

I like the idea of subsidizing car purchases with tax rebates, but I'd do it for cars that offer 30 mpg or better or hybrid technology. No sense in creating demand for our old, bad, gas guzzling habits.

I also like the idea of subsidization for weatherizing homes and business and subsidizing green power projects.

How about a 2yr 100% interest tax credit on capital investments over $100,000 (excluding buildings). If manufacturers wanted to upgrade equipment, they could do so with zero finance effect for two years.

Oh, and lets complete the levies, and rebuild the hospitals, police and firehouses around New Orleans. And lets make sure they're built to 500 year flood standards.

Just a few ideas. Members of Congress, feel free to make these your own.

My Stimulus Plan

I find it very unsettling watching how the government is working to put together a stimulus package to help us out of our economic rut.

While I think that everyone wants the result to be a kick-start to our economy, I can't find two people who agree on how it should be done.

My little brain thinks that having the government spend money is a good way. I think this for a couple of reasons.

First, the money gets spent. It flows into the hands of companies who will rebuild our infrastructure, provide for some number of new construction jobs and we'll be left with tangible output - better roads and bridges. We can all argue whether the roads and bridges are in bad enough shape to spend money on repairs, but given last year's infrastructure bell weather in Minneapolis, I say go ahead.

I think rebuilding schools isn't a bad use of the money either. After living through many local referendums on school repairs, expansion etc, this is a perennial area where local residents never agree on investing the money. Now might be a great time to shore up our crumbling educational infrastructure - how about wi-fi in every school classroom (after we fix the roof)?

I know nothing about Smart Grid technology. Sounds like a good idea (based upon its name alone). If computers can route energy across the country in a manner that uses it more efficiently, that sounds like a good idea to me. Give me one of those.

Investments in technologies to get us off gas and oil also seem smart for both environmental and security reasons. I would love to be alive on the day we no longer import any oil from foreign countries.

Heck, I'd also invest in re-supplying the military. By that I mean creating better up-armoured vehicles and equipment that works, just in case we actually have to go to war. Unlike Rumsfeld who says that you go to war with the army you've got, I'd actually like to see us become battle ready before we send our kids into harm's way. And while we're at it, let's build some more drones to keep pilots out of harms way. Maybe we could have these patrol our southern borders as well instead of posting border agents every 10 miles or so.

I'd also love to see us build/expand a national rail grid, so we can move goods more fuel efficiently across the country. As some recent rail ads point out, one can move an 18 wheeler's worth of goods 425 miles on one gallon of fuel, when done by rail. Along with improved rail, we'd need improved distribution centers - operated like Asian ports. Instead of box cars, most rail cars would be flatbeds with stacked containers, easily picked and placed on local trucks for transportation to their final destination.

Spending money to migrate our health care system to computer based records and spending money on migrating all of government as well, could save us tons of costs in the future.

I'd also invest in upgrading radar and ground traffic control at every major airport in the country. Much of this infrastructure is well past it's end of life and frankly, many of us are living on borrowed time, when we hope that plane to warmer climates. Perhaps we can create a few jobs by having people scare away the birds from the end of our runways, while we're at it!

How about developing a foolproof voting system, that provides for electronic vote counting and two printed receipts - one which can be placed in a ballot box (in case of electronic failure) and one which the voter can take home as proof of who they voted for. Then perhaps the greatest democracy on earth wouldn't be held hostage to poor printing practices (butterfly ballots), sloppy handwriting, hanging chads or poor mail delivery for absentee ballots. Then force every state to use the same process (at least for federal elections).

Develop a foolproof, tamper evident identity card that would reference a database, that would contain your photo, name, birth date, blood type, DNA, fingerprint and retina scan information. People could voluntarily sign up for this card and optionally tie it's use to credit card or debit card usage. So, when someone steals your credit card, when scanned, the user might be forced to validate the transaction with a fingerprint, or be denied. It's not perfect, but it could help with fraud and identify theft. Oh - and perhaps it could be tied to a trusted traveller program, that would allow vetted people carrying this card, to bypass security at airports.

I'd also fund or subsidize converting taxi's, buses and short haul delivery vehicles to more eco-friendly fuels or perhaps electric.

While it's definitely not a short term investment, build a nuclear power plant or two. Migrate away from coal powered plants. In Europe, they've found ways to recycle spent fuel rods and we should look towards any energy generation that doesn't put crap into the air. By the way, regardless of what those folks in Kentucky tell you, there's no such thing as Clean Coal. What doesn't get spewed into the air generates coal ash, which as we've recently witnessed, is pretty nasty stuff. Nothing like having heavy metals in your drinking water.

Tomorrow. Stimulus I wouldn't do.

Stop Reinventing the Wheel

I read with some interest today that Wisconsin lawmakers are thinking about legislation to help curb our Drinking and Driving epidemic.

As usual, our representatives are trying to reinvent the wheel.

If anyone is serious about reducing this problem, it simply requires stiff penalties and strict enforcement.

Want to see how it's done north of the border?

Clever Mashup

Occasionally, I watch morning news shows, a part of which involves the hosts holding up the front pages of the New York and Washington newspapers and calling out the headlines.

Here's a far better method of determining what's going on.

It's called newseum.

A clever mashup of newspaper headlines and google maps showing the hometowns of the newspapers.


Photo credit: www.artsjournal.com/bookdaddy/2008/07/

Our Newsletter Debate

We had a brief debate last week on the value of printed newsletters. We've done them forever and in fact also do "scaled down" (best of) electronic versions as well.

Being the stubborn minded person I am, my "inner-geek" was arguing for the demise of our printed Newsletter.

This morning, over a cup of coffee I decided to list the reasons why printed newsletters should die out.

Here they are:

1. Printed Newsletters are not "green". Even when printed on recycled paper, they still require lots of energy to print and distribute and end up having to be recycled by the recipient or worse yet, end up in a landfill.

2. Printed Newsletters have no direct and easy opt-out feature. Most don't contain any information on how to stop them from being sent and if they do, most customers find it easier to simply throw it out every time it comes.

3. With a printed newsletter, it is impossible to tell if your message is being read. If you can't measure the effectiveness of the campaign, why are you continuing it?

4. Printed media does not easily support a dialogue. With an electronic version, you can contain an email reply link. Best you can do with a printed version is supply a phone number or an email address. But if the person reading your message in print form isn't close to a computer at the time, you might lose out on that idea because of immediacy. Electronic versions have the advantage of being read on a computer where a reply is only a click away. (Advocates of the printed form would argue that being able to read it away from a computer is an advantage.)

5. Production cost is much higher with printed media. At our work we take a day or two to generate mailing lists, then coordinate getting the Newsletter printed, addressed and mailed. The entire effort involves three or four internal people, plus two outside vendors. The timeline is measured in days. With email newsletters, your list is already available. Your aren't restricted to a specific number of Newsletters (budget constraints) and once the content is generated, you're good to go. Time, from conception to delivery is measured in hours, not days.

6. Cost of list cleaning is far higher with printed newsletters. You have to pay for return receipt, then manually update your database. The electronic counterpart is a bounce back email address, which can be removed/corrected quickly without the cost of returned postage.

7. Printed Newsletters contain only static content, print and images, whereas their electronic counterparts can contain audio and video as well as dynamic links to other resources and websites.

8. Electronic versions can be short articles, with links to more comprehensive stories. I argue that this offers an advantage to both the reader and the producer. The electronic format isn't limited by page size, whereas a 4 page newsletter is just that. And the electronic content can easily be re-purposed on websites, microsites, blogs and video channels.

So these are my arguments for killing off the printed newsletter. But all marketing departments should be aware that regardless of Newsletter format;

1. If the content isn't compelling, educational or of interest to your reader, don't bother with EITHER format.
2. And if your reader hasn't asked to receive your newsletter, you're creating spam.

Want further proof? Check out Seth Godin's post on permission marketing.

Cloud Computing for Small Business

This recent article at ReadWriteWeb concludes that small businesses are clueless about cloud computing.

I'm not sure that's true.

I work in a small business and know about cloud computing. We don't take advantage of it for a variety of reasons. (Full disclosure, we have an internal I.T. staff.)

We do have some of our services hosted in the cloud. Our website and a company extranet are both externally hosted (at different locations). At one point we even toyed with having Exchange hosted.

When it comes to our proprietary data, our small business has a couple of concerns

1. Privacy of the customer data on a hosted service. For the most part this is simply a concern that once you leave the data under the care of others, how can you be absolutely positively sure that no one else can see it? It's a trust issue.

2. As a small business owner, one always thinks about vendor contracts. What happens if I'm unsatisfied? What if I want my data back? How easy is it to move to another hosting service?

3. Finally, once you've outsourced your I.T. it's difficult to bring it back in house. This is usually a one way decision and for a number of small business owners, one they don't want to be locked into. For very small businesses, the decision is probably much easier.

4. Hosting companies need to make it easier for business owners to commit. They're used to marketing to I.T. types and need to start speaking business people language. Put together bundled packages for the 10 person company, the 100 person company and the 250 person company. Charge a base rate for email, a website, a virtualized application server and 500 Gb of disc space, then charge a per user/month maintenance/support/management fee. Even offer to host/manage their IP phones.

My advice to Rackspace (and others)? Think about marketing your services in a different way.

Getting More LinkedIn

Not a paid advertisement!

As more and more colleagues are looking for new positions, I'm advising them to develop their business networks, since more than likely, their next opportunity will come from someone within their network.

I've been a member at LinkedIn for over a year, and today just discovered that it has become a much more powerful tool with which to market yourself.

Watch:



Like most application users, I typically use about 10% of the features of any application. Until yesterday, I used LinkedIn to post basic profile information only. I added a few contats and requested a few introductions. That was pretty much it.

I plan on adding the blog webpart into my profile and plan on playing with other features as well. I'd encourage anyone who's serious about building an online profile to check these features out.

Let me know what works for you and what doesn't!

How to Stop a Knowledge Leak.

Jason Rothbart at ReadWriteWeb has an interesting perspective on the effect that workforce reductions have with respect to the body of Corporate knowledge.

And some ideas as to what you can do to prevent corporate knowledge from walking out the door.

The Cost of Getting on the Same Page

It may surprise you to realize that the biggest part of any ERP project budget (in many cases 50% or more, of the total) is devoted to knowledge management - the extraction and migration of information between your implementation team, your consultants and your business community.

In the Planning phase, your team helps the consultants understand the business opportunities and challenges, the current processes, the desired future state and the (potentially new) organizational design.

Next comes the Design phase, where the process overviews are developed to make sure that the new processes meet critical business requirements. The users provide feedback to the consultants and your team to solidify the new design.

The consultants then Build (configure) the system and perform knowledge transfer (showing your team what they're doing and why).

During Testing, your team then uncovers data, security, work flow, reporting and transaction processing bugs within the configuration and communicates these issues to the consultants.

Once the system is stable and reliable, your team devotes several weeks to system documentation, the development of training materials and the delivery of training in preparation for Implementation.

Throughout the effort, Project and business leaders are communicating the need for the new system, the expected benefits and how the new system will affect processes, tasks and the impact on the organization - all the Communication and Change Management tasks.

In some projects I've been involved in, the cost of all these knowledge management and transfer tasks is equivalent of funding four years' college tuition for 300 students! That is a LOT of money.

Networking for Life

I had lunch with a friend and former colleague this week. He's in the midst of a job transition (who isn't these days?) and we talked about the value of maintaining network contacts.

His career has included positions as Controller, General Management, Corporate Change Leader, I.T. Leadership, Global Sourcing and Supply Chain leadership. He's even worked in several countries.

He's a very organized individual and admitted that one of the ways he stayed organized as he rose from position to position, was by doing an audit of his collection of business cards and culling those (for his successor) who no longer were relevant to his latest position.

I admit that I used to do the same.

These days it absolutely, positively, pays to stay connected. In this economy, no one's job is 100% secure and chances are, that if you need to search for another job, you'll land it as a result of your personal or business network. So, if you haven't explored any of the online business networking sites (LinkedIn, Plaxo as examples) it might be wise to do so.

It's easy to connect with past colleagues from previous companies, link to the same people you have in your Rolodex, our Outlook contact list. Begin to make it a habit, that when you meet someone and collect a business card, connect with them online as well.

Search out groups and communities of people in your field. Many of these are available to join right from your preferred networking site. Participate in these groups. Answer a few questions. Show off your expertise. Begin to think about developing your online reputation. Almost all HR professionals I know, now search online as part of their recruiting or candidate evaluation process. No longer are resumes enough.

Finally, don't be afraid to ask a friend or business associate for a recommendation. In most cases, they'll be more than happy to oblige.

These days expecially, it pays to be networking for life.

The Department of Homeland Vetting

I propose the creation of a new Government Department - the Department of Homeland Vetting.

Its sole purpose would be to conduct annual ethics audits of all those in powerful government positions. The department would closely look into

• Outstanding (delinquent) Tax Issues
• Pending or current personal litigation
• Immigration status of any personal staff
• Criminal convictions
• Lobbying ties and and significant business investments
• PAC Donations received
• Previous sexual harassment and/or discrimination claims
  

And if you didn't pass the annual vetting - you're OUT.

Am I the only one who's getting concerned about the very high average of nominees for cabinet positions and senate seats who can't seem to pass these tests? How many unpaid taxes and ethics violations are out there among the legislators who weren't considered?

In the past 2 weeks, Caroline Kennedy, Tim Geitner and now Tom Daschle have been caught up in vetting controversies, unrelated to political ideologies or competency.

And these are the people who are considered worthy of nomination!

Perhaps the DoHV should conduct an annual vetting of Congress, our Executive Branch, State Governors and State Legislators.

At least it might get them to pay their taxes on time!

If I get too many traffic tickets the government won't renew my driver's license. Yet we allow ethics violators and those who have long overdue income tax obligations to run our country.

And of course, it's not just Washington. Look no further than Wall St. for examples of private sector moral and ethical ineptitude.

Is it too much to demand that our leaders have an ethical compass?

Amanda's Posse

Meet Amanda (not her real name).

Daddy's little girl isn't just helping out with the chores. She's an archetype. On the surface, she's mimicking her parent's behavior helping to keep her home neat and clean.

Thirty years ago, the weight of the family vacuum cleaner would have prohibited her from doing it at all.

And sixty years ago, she'd be using a broom and dustpan (probably with unsatisfactory results).

But technology advancements are allowing her to accomplish tasks that once could only be done well) by those with far more practical experience.

Imagine how she'll change the way work gets done, once she hits the workforce. This interesting article at readwriteweb details how the generations are using the Web and related technologies.

Extrapolate some of the findings of this article to our little girl as she enters the workforce. On day 1, when most of us would be figuring out where the washrooms are, she'll arrive at work with

• 5,000 Facebook friends
• A mobile phone with 1,000 contacts, 750 Productivity apps (and one click access to call all her Facebook friends)
• A high degree of comfort with advanced web search techniques.
• A practiced ability to multitask that's beyond our current comprehension, honed by more than a decade of handling many different text conversations at once.

She'll be able to research any problem quickly, find out how others have handled it, get opinions from experts and colleagues alike and do it without really having to think about it.

You won't just be hiring Amanda, you'll be hiring her posse.

Image credit: www.theblogfathers.com