Never Mind Marketing

Lately, I have been nearly consumed with identifying the correct calling, job title, etc for a number of people. Society, in general, views people as a commodity and places “it” (an individual) in an area of need without much thought to the fit of that person.

Managers, or the ones in my circle, are realizing that one size does not fit all; and that people have gifts and talents that are not universal to all job descriptions.

I’ve found two pieces lately that encapsulate this concept well:

SCHOOL FOR ANIMALS
by George Reavis

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

FARMERS vs HUNTERS
by Seth Godin

10,000 years ago, civilization forked. Farming was invented and the way many people spent their time was changed forever.

Clearly, farming is a very different activity from hunting. Farmers spend time sweating the details, worrying about the weather, making smart choices about seeds and breeding and working hard to avoid a bad crop. Hunters, on the other hand, have long periods of distracted noticing interrupted by brief moments of frenzied panic.

It’s not crazy to imagine that some people are better at one activity than another. There might even be a gulf between people who are good at each of the two skills. Thom Hartmann has written extensively on this. He points out that medicating kids who might be better at hunting so that they can sit quietly in a school designed to teach farming doesn’t make a lot of sense.

A kid who has innate hunting skills is easily distracted, because noticing small movements in the brush is exactly what you’d need to do if you were hunting. Scan and scan and pounce. That same kid is able to drop everything and focus like a laser–for a while–if it’s urgent. The farming kid, on the other hand, is particularly good at tilling the fields of endless homework problems, each a bit like the other. Just don’t ask him to change gears instantly.

From Seth Godin’s Blog:

For most products and services, most of the time, people sign up for the cheapest reliable alternative plan.

If everything appears to be the same, then of course they’re going to pick the cheapest one that’s “good enough”.

In the face of this understandable strategy, you have a few choices:

• You can be cheapest (difficult to sustain).
• You can be more reliable (great if you can figure this out).
• You can be redefine the playing the field to be the only one (most preferred).

Buying a new microphone or lights for your DJ business doesn’t do any of these three to your competitive status, it merely makes you feel good. Same with re-organizing your office, painting the parking spaces or buying a new laptop. They merely keep you where you were.

The scalable, profitable strategy is to change the game, not to become the most average.

You can buy attention (advertising)
You can beg for attention from the media (PR)
You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales)

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hat tip to Randy for opening my eyes to the simplicity of this as an explanation of social media marketing.

source: Web Ink Now

From Guy Kingston “The Dog Ate My Business Plan”

Failed businesses need to learn to stop looking for someone else to blame. Business is risk. Sometimes those risks do not pay off. Accept it. When a business fails, make no excuses. No one is listening. No one cares. Instead, turn failure into a positive experience. Be honest about what you did wrong. Perhaps the whole thing was a bad idea from the start. Perhaps the idea was good but you handled it badly. Either way, once you have identified your error, move on to your next business, knowing that you are stronger because you will not make that same mistake again.

Recession on its own should not destroy a business. It merely exposes the weakness of its existing strategy.

Riffing off Donald Keough’s book The Ten Commandments for Business Failure, Risk Capital Partners investor Luke Johnson pens his own steps for killing your company for the Financial Times. If you want to survive, he advises avoiding the following:

• taking on too much debt
• becoming overly dependent on one customer
• making a mess of a major IT project
• signing a costly/long-term property lease, or
• forgetting your customers.

“In case you’re wondering: yes, over the years I’ve backed companies guilty of all these mistakes,” says Johnson. (Hat tip, peHUB)

Jeff Bezos shares his business tip ‘Short List’ … and it’s short. Great tips by Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos

Unfortunately, I see it too often; passionate business owners overwhelmed by the constant demands of owning or running a business. Running a business can actually get in the way of running a business!

I have put together some thoughts and key gems of information I have found useful over the years to help you run your business rather than the business run you.

KEEP THE PLAIN THINGS THE MAIN THINGS
Remember why you went into business? I’ll bet it wasn’t to have the most Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, or hits to a website. I’ll bet you didn’t worry about quarterly taxes, phone book ads, networking groups, or product packaging. Rather, you had a passion for something you did well. From creating crafts to helping people have better skin, you got into business because of a passion.

Step back and write down WHY you went into business. Make this the element your business revolves around.

ESTABLISH CORE VALUES
What is important to you in business? What are values you want evident in your daily operations? Individuals or small companies often avoid core values because they are unnecessarily made too complex. In actuality, they are simple. Make a list of four or five characteristics or goals you have for your business. Core values can range from “Meet 2 new people a day”, “Give away one sample to a needy client”, “Leadership Development”, or “Work above reproach”.

When starting any new business venture, I identify the key values (it could be a word, a short sentence, or a paragraph), type them out, print on nice cardstock, and frame it. These values then sit on my desk or office wall as a constant reminder. When I was faced with difficult decisions, I refer to them for guidance.

For an entire year, the value guiding one of my companies was “Build Relationships”, (Warning: this is a VERY broad value) in everything we did, it was to build and grow employee, customer, vender, and community relationships.

NETWORK. YOUR WAY
Business networking has been bastardized. There is a very real, and a very unfortunate, reason that I refuse to attend or be a part of 99% of business networking groups. Networking, at its core, is about relationships. People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. Too many network-attendees have forgotten that sales do not come from forcing a product down the throat of others; sales come from building a reputable connection with others.

If traditional networking groups have left a bad taste in your mouth, don’t give up on it altogether. Instead, call up a business owner with similar clients, or something you have an interest in. Buy them coffee and get to know them. Ask about their business, how they got started, their perfect client, etc. In return, share a little about your business. Don’t sell them anything, just talk to them.

This relaxed atmosphere does not lend itself to “Buy My Stuff Now” marketing, but rather facilitates relational-networking. I guarantee that person will remember you for years after your meeting.

TO-DO, TO-DO, TO-DO
One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received tackles the “To-Do List”. The list that keeps us awake at night, never gets shorter, and – eventually – gets abandoned in the dark abyss of offices everywhere.

The advice I received was: keep 2 lists.

What? How does that help me!?

They explained, keep two lists. One for “Today (or “Current Project”) and one for “Long-Term Goals & Ideas”. Ah! It seemed so logical.

Think about how often you have gone to bed discouraged that you didn’t finish everything on your list. But how many of those tasks needed to be finished today? Maybe you did 5, 6, or 7 small things, but are dreading the big ones – break it up! Break up huge projects into smaller tasks.

I jot down ideas for businesses that may never come to fruition, those ideas and tasks used to take up room on my “To-Do” list, now I am okay knowing that they don’t need to get done today and don’t discourage me from attacking the “Today List”

YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING – AND THAT IS OK
I hate payroll. Hate it. I hate adding everything up, inputting data into QuickBooks, managing new tax tables, etc. I hated it so much I would avoid going into the office on Thursday before payday. It actually crippled my desire to do other work – the work I loved!

It took me awhile to realize that my effort to save money was actually costing me more. I didn’t hire a bookkeeper because of the added expense to my young company, but I didn’t factor the time I was spending 1) avoiding work, 2) managing payroll, and 3) staying educated on new rules, etc.

I worked out a deal with my bookkeeper to exchange services – they were ecstatic to get free and discounted samples and I was relieved to not have to touch QuickBooks again!

Who can you exchange services for to lighten your load?

BONUS: ASK FOR HELP
There are thousands of business owners out there, and most of them are willing to help others. If you are truly stumped, ask for help.

What tips would you suggest for those struggling with running their business?

By Gary Hamel

The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy.

If your company hopes to attract the most creative and energetic members of Gen F, it will need to understand these Internet-derived expectations, and then reinvent its management practices accordingly. Sure, it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now, but that won’t always be the case—and in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.

With that in mind, I compiled a list of 12 work-relevant characteristics of online life. These are the post-bureaucratic realities that tomorrow’s employees will use as yardsticks in determining whether your company is “with it” or “past it.” In assembling this short list, I haven’t tried to catalog every salient feature of the Web’s social milieu, only those that are most at odds with the legacy practices found in large companies.

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
On the Web, every idea has the chance to gain a following—or not, and no one has the power to kill off a subversive idea or squelch an embarrassing debate. Ideas gain traction based on their perceived merits, rather than on the political power of their sponsors.

2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
When you post a video to YouTube, no one asks you if you went to film school. When you write a blog, no one cares whether you have a journalism degree. Position, title, and academic degrees—none of the usual status differentiators carry much weight online. On the Web, what counts is not your resume, but what you can contribute.

3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
In any Web forum there are some individuals who command more respect and attention than others—and have more influence as a consequence. Critically, though, these individuals haven’t been appointed by some superior authority. Instead, their clout reflects the freely given approbation of their peers. On the Web, authority trickles up, not down.

4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
On the Web, every leader is a servant leader; no one has the power to command or sanction. Credible arguments, demonstrated expertise and selfless behavior are the only levers for getting things done through other people. Forget this online, and your followers will soon abandon you.

5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
The Web is an opt-in economy. Whether contributing to a blog, working on an open source project, or sharing advice in a forum, people choose to work on the things that interest them. Everyone is an independent contractor, and everyone scratches their own itch.

6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
On the Web, you get to choose your compatriots. In any online community, you have the freedom to link up with some individuals and ignore the rest, to share deeply with some folks and not at all with others. Just as no one can assign you a boring task, no can force you to work with dim-witted colleagues.

7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
In large organizations, resources get allocated top-down, in a politicized, Soviet-style budget wrangle. On the Web, human effort flows towards ideas and projects that are attractive (and fun), and away from those that aren’t. In this sense, the Web is a market economy where millions of individuals get to decide, moment by moment, how to spend the precious currency of their time and attention.

8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
The Web is also a gift economy. To gain influence and status, you have to give away your expertise and content. And you must do it quickly; if you don’t, someone else will beat you to the punch—and garner the credit that might have been yours. Online, there are a lot of incentives to share, and few incentives to hoard.

9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
On the Internet, truly smart ideas rapidly gain a following no matter how disruptive they may be. The Web is a near-perfect medium for aggregating the wisdom of the crowd—whether in formally organized opinion markets or in casual discussion groups. And once aggregated, the voice of the masses can be used as a battering ram to challenge the entrenched interests of institutions in the offline world.

10. Users can veto most policy decisions.
As many Internet moguls have learned to their sorrow, online users are opinionated and vociferous—and will quickly attack any decision or policy change that seems contrary to the community’s interests. The only way to keep users loyal is to give them a substantial say in key decisions. You may have built the community, but the users really own it.

11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.
The web is a testament to the power of intrinsic rewards. Think of all the articles contributed to Wikipedia, all the open source software created, all the advice freely given—add up the hours of volunteer time and it’s obvious that human beings will give generously of themselves when they’re given the chance to contribute to something they actually care about. Money’s great, but so is recognition and the joy of accomplishment.

12. Hackers are heroes.
Large organizations tend to make life uncomfortable for activists and rabble-rousers—however constructive they may be. In contrast, online communities frequently embrace those with strong anti-authoritarian views. On the Web, muckraking malcontents are frequently celebrated as champions of the Internet’s democratic values—particularly if they’ve managed to hack a piece of code that has been interfering with what others regard as their inalienable digital rights.

These features of Web-based life are written into the social DNA of Generation F—and mostly missing from the managerial DNA of the average Fortune 500 company. Yeah, there are a lot of kids looking for jobs right now, but few of them will ever feel at home in cubicleland.

When the geeks at NCR in Australia threatened to go on strike, it was a move that could have paralyzed ATMs, supermarket cash registers and airplane check-in. This underlines the fact that IT has become so central to almost all corporations, that any disruption may cost a lot of time and money, which again means that keeping the geeks happy at work is an absolute requirement for a modern business. Happy geeks are effective geeks. The main reason IT people are unhappy at work is bad relations with management, often because geeks and managers have fundamentally different personalities, professional backgrounds and ambitions. Some people conclude that geeks hate managers and are impossible to lead. The expression “managing geeks is like herding cats” is sometimes used, but that’s just plain wrong. The fact is that IT people hate bad management and have even less tolerance for it than most other kinds of employees.

So where does it go wrong? Here are some top ways that managers can lead geeks effectively and respectfully.

1. Value training. If a boss thinks that training is a waste of money and expects you to teach yourself, you feel pretty demotivated in any job. Training matters, especially in IT, and managers must realize that and budget for it. Sometimes you get the argument that “if I give them training a competitor will hire them away.” That may be true, but the alternative is to only have employees who are too unskilled to work anywhere else. Also, if you pay them well and have good benefits, they won’t go somewhere else.
2. Give recognition. Since managers may not understand the work geeks do very well, it’s hard for them to recognize and reward a job well done, which hurts motivation. The solution is to work together to define a set of goals that both parties agree on. When these goals are met the geeks are doing a great job.
3. 

   Keep overtime down. Avoid taking the approach of wringing as much as possible out of IT employees just because you figure they don’t lead a normal life. Wrong! That’s a huge mistake and overworked geeks burn out or simply quit. It’s a complete myth that long work hours are good for business.

4. Avoid using management-speak. Geeks hate management-speak and see it as superficial and dishonest. Managers shouldn’t learn to speak tech, but they should drop the biz-buzzwords. A manager can say “We need to proactively impact our time-to-market” or simply use plain English and stick to “We gotta be on time with this project”. The latter makes total sense to everyone involved.
5. Don’t try to be smarter than the geeks. When managers don’t know anything about a technical question, they should simply admit it. Geeks respect them for that, but not for pretending to know. And they will catch it – geeks are smart.
6. Act consistently. Geeks have an ingrained sense of fairness, probably related to the fact that in IT, structure and consistency is critical. The documentation can’t say one thing while the code does something else, and similarly, managers can’t say one thing and then do something else.
7. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring the geeks. Because managers and geeks are different types of people, managers may end up leaving the geeks alone. This makes leading them difficult, and geeks need good leadership – the same as all other personnel groups.
8. 

   Include them in decisions. Never make decisions without consulting geeks. Geeks usually know the technical side of the business better than the manager, so making a technical decision without consulting them is one of the biggest mistakes a leader can make.

9. Give them the tools needed. A fast computer may cost more money than an older one and it may not be corporate standard, but geeks use computers differently. A slow computer lowers productivity and is a daily annoyance. So is outdated software. Give them the tools they need. Understand that tools come in many forms. Caffeine is considered a standard tool among Geeks. It’s good to keep a supply of the caffeinated beverages your team prefers handy.
10. Remember that geeks are creative workers. Programming is a creative process, not an industrial one. Geeks must constantly come up with solutions to new problems and rarely ever solve the same problem twice. Therefore they need leeway and flexibility. Strict dress codes and too much red tape kill all innovation. They also need creative surroundings to avoid “death by cubicle”.
11. Recognize the outcomes of not treating geeks with respect as outlined above. Happy geeks are productive geeks, and the most important factor is good management, tailored to their situation. Doing the opposite to what has been outlined in this article has serious consequences for your organization, including:
    • Low motivation
    • High employee turnover
    • Increased absenteeism
    • Lower productivity
    • Lower quality
    • Bad service

    Additional Information & Tips

    • Some of the most basic principles of management apply to all employees, geeks and non-geeks. Be fair. Be open.
    • Geeks are smart. Don’t assume smart people always have sound judgment- they don’t. Rely on the ones who have it; learn from them- evolve.
    • Geeks don’t like dead weight. No one does. If you have any, get rid of it, and your team will be better off. Teams only work when everyone is pulling their weight.
    • Find out what your geeks like besides work, and take an interest when you can. They’ll appreciate your effort.
    • If you’re a “geek managing geeks,” as many of us are, don’t wear your boss hat like a crown. They know you’re in charge- don’t carry it like a sign.
    • Caveat: not all geeks are the same; take the time to know the ones you work with. This article is not saying that all IT-people are geeks; some are, some aren’t.
    • This advice would work well with most employees, not just geeks.
    • Don’t call geeks, ‘geeks’. As noted below it is normally derogatory (and in some cases brings back horrible memories from high school).
    • The word ‘geek’ in this article is not used in a derogatory manner: “definition 3: an enthusiast or expertespecially in a technological field or activity <computer geek>.”^[1]
      • The word geek is normally derogatory, but it is thought of as meaning a person with skill and knowledge in the computer arena.

I worked from home for over 6 months before moving across the world and taking my first office job. For those wondering why anyone would give up working from home, there were a few reasons that contributed to my decision:

• Getting to work with like minded people in the same industry
• Traveling across the world and being independent
• Working with large clients I couldn’t have gotten on my own

That aside, I’d like to get into my tips on becoming more productive in the office, especially when you have access to the internet. I work in the social media industry and when you spend a lot of time on sites that promote amazing content, it can be difficult not to get in a situation where you have 20 browser tabs open and minimal work completed.

1. Set a time for emails
   Email is a very big feature in most office environments but this handy form of communication can easily become a huge distraction. Whenever we are at work, we are usually busy with one project or another; incoming emails just add more to the to-do list. In fact, seeing more emails come in when you are already working on a few projects can add to your stress levels and cause you to become less productive.

   What I’ve been trying, is to have a set time for emails. You could have:

   • A scheduled time each day to check email (i.e. 9am & 2pm)
   • A plan to only open them once current tasks are finished

   Of course, if you are going to do this you might want to speak to your boss / coworkers to explain the situation. The benefit of having a time for emails is that you are left to focus on the jobs you do have left, rather than worry about all your jobs piling up and getting distracted by responding to emails during jobs.

2. Ban yourself from websites
   I’m actually serious about this and this has been one of the best techniques to help me increase productivity. If there are certain websites that you keep going to during the day for enjoyment, even a few minutes now and then, then your productivity is going to decline and your tasks will quickly ad up.

   If you use Firefox, then you can install the Leechblock extension. There are other extensions that do the job but the thing I like about this is it’s actually takes about a minute just to unblock a website. Therefore you resist the urge to go and do it because it’s not just a ‘enter your password’ quick job to get back on one of your favorite productivity killers.

3. Don’t finish everything
   This is a tip that is most often given to programmers but I’ve found it to help me even when doing client reports or proposals. The idea behind this is that you don’t finish each day with all tasks done, unless the deadline is for that day.

   For example, if you are writing a proposal full of ideas on how to help a client, leave room for more ideas and head home. When you get back the next day you’ll be able to read your previous ideas and that will instantly get you back into work mode with your mind on the tasks at hand.

4. Change your lunch hour
   The times when I tend to be the most productive are when there are less people around me. For most of you, this is when most staff are on lunch. So for example, if most people go on lunch at 1pm then you should go at 12 or 2. That way, you have a complete hour of less distractions and noise.

   If you tend to go to lunch with a few people then see if they can change their schedules a little so that you can all become more productive. Just be careful to make sure that the rest of the office doesn’t follow suit.

5. Hide on screen distractions
   If you work on a computer then do your best to hide any on-screen distractions that might interrupt whatever you are working on. For example you may want to close things such as:
   • MSN or other instant messengers
   • Skype
   • Inactive programs such as Photoshop or Gimp
   • Distracting pop-ups and auto running programs

   Even when I’m writing, I completely cut off all on screen distractions. For most of my writing I use a text editor known asDarkRoom, you can see how this looks for writing this blog post below:

   Darkroom actually makes your whole screen black so that you can’t see anything else. This is a bonus because even if someone is chatting to you on an instant messaging program then you can’t see it until you are prepared to be interrupted.

6. Set yourself false deadlines
   This is a productivity / motivation tip that could really be used anywhere but works very well for me in my office environment. Basically it is about giving yourself false time deadlines so that you prioritize a task and push to get it done without wasting time.

   If you have 3 hours to get a report done then see if you can get it done in 2 and tell yourself that you must get it done in two. Of course, don’t lose quality in favor of quantity but I find this method means I just instantly cut out all noise and distractions and just focus immensely on the task at hand.

I advise people to only try the ones they think will help them the most; I think banning websites has been the most effective solution for me. If you are going to do all of these, then prepare to have more hours free than you know what to do with.

Dumb Little Man