Planning, Startups, Stories

Great Moments in Office-Mind Sanitation

Once upon a time I worked for Larry Wells at Creative Strategies. He was president and founder. He was good to work for, a smart person, a fair and honest boss. I've fallen out of contact.

In the last two weeks I've aggressively cleared the clutter from my two main workspaces, my office at Palo Alto Software and my office at home. It was hard for me to do, but I was really longing for the great relief of cleared clutter. I took big boxes and emptied everything but the computers and their cables and speakers and monitors into them. All the drawers, shelves, and open desk spaces were cleared into boxes. Then, slowly, I replaced what I really needed, and threw out the rest.

Which reminded me of Larry's strategy to solve the same problem. Every six months or so he would have somebody clear out all the surfaces in his office and pack them into cardboard boxes, which were sealed, dated, and stored with large labels indicating the date. In between those anti-clutter orgies he would just leave everything piling up.

When he needed something that had been boxed and stored, he would guess the timeframe and have the boxes brought back temporarily, and he'd search them.

I think that worked for him.

And one final note: I'm tempted to become a clutter bigot, a reformed pack rat, but for two worries: first, I'll look like a real idiot when I get project oriented again and clutter up (far too likely, although I'm dead set against it); and second, I don't want to get into the pattern behavior of the reformed smoker.

Good Idea for Thanks in Presentations

If the best part of your presentation is in the beginning when you thank the conference organizers, then ignore this post.

And if you're one of those last-minute types (like me, I'm afraid), almost late to the room and the session, still reworking your slides until it's time to go, well then, this idea won't help you with that either.

For those who do manage to prepare some things ahead of time, Seth Godin's post this morning, Saying thanks in a conference presentation, offers a good idea, relatively easy to implement, for those boring first five minutes of the presentation when you thank everybody who did everything for the conference:

Prepare for the talk by taking pictures of each person. If they're shy, you can even do photographs in groups of two or three. Good photos, clever photos, funny photos... photos that are interesting are best.

Then, create a new presentation. Put each photo on its own slide, preferably with a well designed ID below it (it should be on a black box, with a nice sans serif font reversed out. Like you see on cable TV news.)

String one after the other. Build a dissolve transition between each one. Program it to put up a new slide every two seconds--don't go too slow!--and to loop the presentation.

Ten minutes before you're due to start, while everyone is finding their seats, run the presentation. It'll cycle 5 or 10 times before you start speaking. When you get up, start your presentation and just dive into the meaty stuff.

I think that's really cool, but now I'll have to watch myself for the procrastination factor even more than normal. This neat trick is not one I can do at the last minute.

Technorati Tags: presentations

Insight: Software Alone Won't Do It

Consider this:

In my experience, it's not the lack of software that causes frustration for small business owners, rather the frustration stems from the over-abundance of software and features available.

That's Bill Brelsford over at Small Business Marketing Tips & Strategies in his post last week, Software Alone Won't Cure Your Marketing Blues. Bill looks at a list of marketing frustrations cited by small business in a survey published at Inside CRM.

1. Too difficult to follow up with cold, warm and lukewarm leads consistently and efficiently 
2. Can’t properly track and manage prospects and customers 
3. Need to integrate online and offline marketing efforts 
4. Poor email deliverability 
5. Too much manual grunt work in the sales and marketing process, no automation 
6. Can’t track sales activity 
7. Lack of centralization, too many different programs and systems 
8. Too costly to maintain servers and IT staff 
9. Too difficult to manually manage multichannel campaigns 
10. One-dimensional marketing

Reviewing that list, Bill points out that process and strategy should come first, before the software. Items 1,2 and 6 on that list are issues of procedure, and discipline, not tools.

They can easily be handled with a Big Chief Tablet, a #2 pencil, and a consistently executed process.

Then there are the items that a software vendor would add to the list, and finally, Bill concludes:

I don't want to sound like I'm anti-software, far from it. I have just found that a great source of frustration comes from purchasing marketing automation tools before there is a marketing plan or processes to automate. As I mentioned in this previous post, I think the right approach is to have a process first, and then pick the right tools to help you automate that processes.

Well said. And I think that same logic applies to other tools in business, not just marketing automation.

What's Wrong with This List of Painful Professions

Pop quiz: what do these 10 various occupations have in common with each other?

1. Police
2. Firefighter
3. Long-distance truck driver
4. Pilot
5. Musician
6. Blogging
7. Motorcycle racing
8. Construction worker
9. Nurses aide
10. Dancing

I see some of them as the five-year-old's dream -- police, firefighter, pilot, dancer. Some as the 15-year-old's dream -- musician, motorcycle racing. And then there's blogging. 

According to 10 Painful Professions on abcnews.com today, what they have in common is chronic pain.

Police, firefighter, truck driver or pilot, dancer of course, and motorcycle racer, absolutely. But wait a minute. Blogging? Does that say blogging? Who writes this stuff? Just last month the New York Times said blogging can kill, and now it's blogging on a list of the top 10 most painful jobs.

Here's the expert quote:

Sean Conroy, director of pain management services at Beaumont Hospitals, said bloggers are the extreme version of any administrative work that requires using a computer because bloggers spend more time locked in one place.

"Many people who read computer screens lean forward and tilt their head up, causing back, neck and jaw strain," Conroy said. "Typically we don't think of bloggers and jaw pain."

See, you always have to have an expert quote for one of these. And then there's the up-close-and-personal example:

Kim Stagliano, managing editor of the blog Age of Autism, describes the blog world like a game of cat and mouse. Everything is faster on the Internet -- and bloggers feel the need to catch up.

"I always feel like I'm behind," Stagliano said. "I always think, 'Is this story old now, did I grab it fast enough … OK, now what's next.'"

Stagliano handles all the physical work required to keep the blog active. She monitors the interactive components of the site, answers comments and now enhances the blog's appearance.

"I'm constantly clicking, going through stories, writing, posting content, clicking," Stagliano said. "Some days I'm on from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m."

That too, is required; somebody who can be the example.

Here's a true confession. Dear reader: don't worry, I'm doing fine, thanks. Blogging is much better for my health than running the whole company was. I'm not "constantly clicking" from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. myself -- (should I be?) -- but I appreciate the thought. Makes me feel brave. Damn the carpal tunnel, full speed ahead.

Whew, having said all that, tongue back out of cheek, here is a very interesting quote from that same story:

"The instance of chronic pain goes up with job dissatisfaction, a feeling of helplessness about your job," Freedman said.

That's Mitchell Freedman, director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. All kidding aside, I'll bet that's true. 

Good Advice, Bad Advice

Good advice? In the first few weeks of my first real job, I was heading out to cover a student demonstration in Mexico City when my then boss, the bureau manager of UPI in Mexico City, told me: "Come back with the story, or not at all. If you don't get the story, don't tell me the reason why not."

Bad advice? That's harder, isn't it? Don't you have to be somewhat vindictive to remember bad advice?

More good advice (this one is a quote): "I don't know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everybody." That's from Bill Cosby.

And this one, from David Kreps, who taught decision science at the time: "you have to know what knobs you have to turn."

And Hector Saldana, my favorite client during my middle career in consulting: "90 percent of success is just showing up." That wasn't his originally, but he used it often. He also told me once "good management is nothing more or less than knowing when and how to say no."

Fortune has a feature called The best advice I ever got. Twenty-five well-known people with a picture and a paragraph each. Chairmen and CEOs and celebrities and politicians. There's a comment area for the rest of us. Here are some quotes from some of them, (unattached from the people, by the way; that seems like a less distracting way to compile advice):

• I've observed many CEOs, heads of state, and others in positions of great authority. I've noticed that some of the most effective leaders don't make themselves the center of attention. They are respectful. They listen. This is an appealing personal quality, but it's also an effective leadership attribute. Their selflessness makes the people around them comfortable. People open up, speak up, contribute. They give those leaders their very best.

• Here is something to remember for the rest of your life: Don't spend your time on things you can't control. Instead, spend your time thinking about what you can.

• Always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don't get defensive. You don't scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, "Maybe they are saying something to me that I'm not hearing." So "assume positive intent" has been a huge piece of advice for me.

• If you have something good to say, say it in writing. If you have something bad to say, you should tell the person to his or her face.

As soon as I saw it I started musing about bad advice. What was the worst advice you ever got? That would also seem interesting to me. And then, lo and behold, one woman included did in fact go for the worst advice instead of the best advice. Here's what she said:

The worst advice I ever got was, "Don't work with your husband [Pan Shiyi]. Marriage and business don't mix." You can't imagine how many people told me this. But it's such a narrow view of relationships. In our case I think our [real estate] business success springs from our friendship.

When you have two people trying to figure out problems together, one brings out new things in the other and vice versa. Aren't human beings meant to be inspired in this way? With us, Pan works in a very intuitive way--even though he's the man. I believe in women's intuition, but I am also a product of my Western training [Cambridge, Goldman Sachs]. And so we approach decisions in very different ways and play different roles. He tends to come up with big ideas--then I'm the one who goes around trying to test them. He's brilliant at sales. I worry about construction.

If the business fails, well, that puts a strain on the marriage. But what if it succeeds? That can enhance the marriage. When it comes to business and relationships, I don't buy this idea of diversification. It neglects comparative advantage. The best way to lower risk is to specialize: Put the things that you love into one portfolio.

What about you? Could you name the best advice you ever got? How about the best you ever listened to? The worst advice?

How to Present Like Steve Jobs

I found a really nice post on BNET today with a good list of tips, great graphics, and solid presentation. I'm impressed with BNET, it's an excellent resource. 

Here's a link to that article: How to Present Like Steve Jobs, and it also links to a nice video, which I'm including here (and if you have trouble with it, you can click here).

 

This is an excellent video, mixing clips of Steve Jobs with explanations of what he's doing and why it works.

-- Tim

7 Rules for Email Etiquette

When I was a boy, back in the 1950s, my mother would read to us from Emily Post. She was the etiquette lady of those times. And that was really boring (a 3- or 4-syllable boring, which might be spelled BORING) and seemed useless at the time, but I can't say that it didn't help me once or twice at awkward moments, later in life, to know which fork was which.

Sometimes manners matter. Particularly when they're about making things easier for somebody else.

I'm still working on my cellphone etiquette, which I think is sorely needed these days.

And thanks to Joel Falconer for these simple rules for email etiquette. He posted them as Following Email Etiquette on Lifehack.org.

1. Use Descriptive Subject Lines

Joel points out that people scan subject lines. 

make sure it is concise, clear and scannable. Don’t use awkward phrasing or unusual words, because they take more time to re-read and understand, hence increasing the amount of time it takes your recipient to process the message.

2. Be Brief

He has an interesting insight on this one:

In 90% of cases, email that is more than a page long is too long. Unless you’re explaining complicated concepts or providing detailed instructions (because they’ve been asked for or need to be communicated for a reason), then get back to the core of your message and communicate it quickly. 

In my experience the kind of person who sends an opus for each email is the kind of person who assumes everyone is less intelligent than themselves or feels the need to explain completely irrelevant things. For instance, if you’re a graphic artist, you don’t need to explain the techniques used to create an image for a client when you hand over the work. They don’t care; that’s why they hired you instead of figuring it out for themselves.

3. But Don’t Be Too Brief

Hmm, that seems contradictory, but ...

Context is important.

When replying to messages, clip off as much of the previous email as you can while keeping key sentences quoted in your reply. Ensure you provide contextual details that may seem self-evident to you, but not to the recipient - this is especially true when you’re emailing lecturers. Your course is not the only one they teach, most of the time!

4. Don’t CC if You Don’t Have a Reason

“Just keeping you in the loop” is a frequent reason given for doing this, and while there are sometimes cases where this is a good idea, for the most part you shouldn’t send someone an email unless you want them to take action on it.

5. Reply-All Isn’t Always Necessary

No explanation needed on that one.

6. Use BCC for Bulk Mail

If you absolutely must send a bulk mail to your address book, always, always use the BCC field. It’s a basic privacy measure and not only prevents your recipients from receiving endless spam as a result of your carelessness (who doesn’t already?), but shows your recipient you have respect for their privacy and some intellect.

7. Don’t Use The Forward Button

don’t bother unless someone requires the specific information in the forwarded message to complete their job.

Joel's conclusion: "Email can be a massive waste of time. Help others cut their email time down and you’ll inevitably spend less time on it yourself." 

Presentation Zen Author Interview

Thanks to Pamela Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation for posting this video interview with Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen, via YouTube. I don't know Garr but I bought his book and I think everybody in business should read it. Start with this interview. (If you don't see the video here, then use this link.)

Deep or Wide, But Not Both

Choices. Trying to say too much. Trying to do too much with a presentation. Tradeoffs.

In The Craft of Scientific Presentations Michael Alley touches on a similar idea. In this book he suggests that you can go deep (depth) or you can go wide (scope) but it is very difficult to do both in, say, an hour lecture or conference presentation. The key, then, is to set realistic goals, and if you decide that you need to go deep then you have to seriously consider reducing the scope. Sometimes, in life as in presentations, you just have to make a choice about what's important, and let go of the rest (at least for the time being).

That's from Presentation Zen: Deep or wide? You decide. As you expect from this blog, it's put together very well.

He also has an interesting discovery near the bottom of this post:

You already know about the talks available at TED, but you may not be aware of the hundreds of presentations and speeches available for free that are part of the @Google Talks including Authors@Google, Women@Google, Candidates @Google, etc.

Stop It: Dreaming Isn't Working

(Note: I posted this earlier today on Small Business Trends. Tim)

I object to this new term 'sleepworking.' That's what they're calling dreaming about work. I say dreaming about work is dreaming about life, an extremely good sign sometimes, a bad sign other times, but not -- never -- as simple as more work.

Let's not pollute the language with this sleepworking prattle. As if dreaming about work counts as working. It's not just silly, it's also counterproductive. It messes with something important.

The latest along those lines is a Staples survey of small business, released this month. The headline is "Staples Small-Business Survey Reveals People are Constantly Working, Even While They Sleep."

According to the 2nd Annual Staples National Small-Business Survey, more than half of small-business professionals said that work has actually become part of their dreams. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said that they "sleepwork" (i.e. dream about work), and nearly 70 percent of those "sleepworkers" report they wake up and put their "work dreams" to action.

Come on, get real. Dreaming about work means you care. It might be struggle, excitement, the creative process, stress ... but when what you do during the day creeps into your dreams, that's not more work. That's involvement.

Dreaming about work can be wonderful. How many times have you come up with solutions to problems, or new ideas, by chewing on them in your subconscious mind? Work is what we do a lot of, many hours a day, most days; wouldn't it be awful to not dream about it? The dream means you're relating to it, thinking about it, and, ultimately, enjoying it. It's the challenge. It's the creative process. This kind of involvement has kept me happy for most of my adult life. When I lose that it is time to switch jobs.

True, dreaming about work can be bad too. Stress is bad. Worry is bad, at least unproductive stressful worry. Go listen to Robert Sapolsky on Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Remember the helicopter dream in the first scene of the movie Apocalypse Now? The helicopter noise and the throbbing engine seems inside his head while he sleeps. That's replaying stress.  That's bad.

Even in those cases, though, dreaming is a sign and a signal. It's not just more work. It's the real you fighting back at the you you're in danger of becoming. Or something like that.

The creeping (and I might say creepy) use of this dreamworking motif is just fun if you don't take it seriously, but it's also evidence of how we subvert language sometimes to serve our own purpose. The authors of the Staples study clearly wanted to show how hard small business owners work. They could have done it without bringing in this sleepworking theme. Consider the data they do have:

The survey also revealed that 98 percent of U.S. small-business owners and managers are working during their time off - including nights, weekends and vacations - and nearly 54 percent expect to work even harder in 2008.

The results revealed organization and teamwork are the top factors why owners and managers are working so many hours. Nearly 70 percent admitted they do not have a written business plan. Almost three-quarters consider themselves organized, but only 33 percent said they complete the tasks on their "to-do" list each day. Slightly more than two-thirds said they feel constantly challenged by not having enough time to get work done and nearly 44 percent said customer fulfillment takes up the majority of their time while at work.

When asked to compare their businesses to a track and field event at the Olympics, a mere 14 percent said their business operates like a relay race, with everybody working in tandem toward the same goal, whereas 26 percent think of business operations as a 100-meter dash, always sprinting and trying to do everything quickly.

So okay, this is interesting data. Not surprising at all, but interesting. So go with that. Leave my dreams out of it.