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Brand Autopsy

A Vital Jack Welch Quote

Posted: March 3rd, 2007, 6:15am CST by johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

Tags: business quote jackwelch

“Too often we measure everything and understand nothing. The three most important things you need to measure in a business are customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow. If you’re growing customer satisfaction, your global market share is sure to grow, too. Employee satisfaction gets you productivity, quality, pride, and creativity. And cash flow is the pulse—the key vital sign of a company.” -- JACK WELCH --
source | CONTROL YOUR DESTINY OR SOMEONE ELSE WILL (Noel Tichy, 1993)

Dave Winer :: Scripting News

Today's links

Fetched: March 2nd, 2007, 11:32pm CST

Tags: monopoly adobe microsoft

Washington Post podcasts.

Ted Leung: "If web applications liberated us from the domination of a single company on the desktop, why would we be eager to be dominated by a different company on the web?"

Kathy Sierra :: Creating Passionate Users

Don't ask employees to be passionate about the company!

Posted: February 6th, 2007, 9:58pm CST by Kathy Sierra

Tags: staffing

People ask me, "How can I get our employees to be passionate about the company?" Wrong question. Passion for our employer, manager, current job? Irrelevant. Passion for our profession and the kind of work we do? Crucial. If I own company FOO, I don't need employees with a passion for FOO. I want those with a passion for the work they're doing. The company should behave just like a good user interface -- support people in doing what they're trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way. Applying the employer-as-UI model, the best company is one in which the employees are so engaged in their work that the company fades into the background.

Given a choice, I would work ONLY on projects that followed the Hollywood Model, where people come together with their respective skills and talents, and DO something. Make a web app. Create a book. Build a game. Develop and deliver learning experiences. The happiest moments of my work life were on projects where we pulled all-nighters because we wanted to, not because the corporate culture said we weren't a true team-player/trooper if we didn't.

Employees shouldn't be sleeping in cubes to prove they're "passionate employees." I want to work with people who have a particular set of skills (and interests) who view themselves and one another as either professionals/craftspeople (programmers, designers, engineers, animators, editors, scientists, authors, educators, architects, entertainers, etc.) or as producers and assistant producers (the people who pull it all together, support the craftspeople, and make it happen).

[UPDATE: I do not consider "caring about the user" as separate from "our work." In other words, I consider one who is truly passionate about their work to have "the effect it has on the user" as a fundamental part of that work. A tech book author/teacher who has brilliant wordsmithing and technical breadth but no effect on the reader is not a professional. A software developer who crafts
brilliant code that doesn't include that code's effect on the user is not a professional. Part of what makes us professional/craftspeople is that we value and never forget the POINT of our work, and the point is--for most of us--what it means for the user. It's quite sad that many of our professions have rewarded work without making the user the most important attribute of how we asses that work.]

I realize these aren't mutually exclusive--one can be passionate about their employer and the work they do, but it's a matter of which one employers value. And all too often, it's the wrong one.

The simple 4-quesetion test to see if someone has a passion for their work:

* When was the last time you read a trade/professional journal or book related to your work? (can substitute "attended an industry conference or took a course")

* Name at least two of the key people in your field.

* If you had to, would you spend your own money to buy tools or other materials that would improve the quality of your work?

* If you did not do this for work, would you still do it (or something related to it) as a hobby?

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PASSION FOR EMPLOYER, vs. PASSION FOR WORK

Passionate about the company:

* The ultimate team player who goes along with the group rather than voice dissent

* Works late nights and weekends because "everyone needs to pitch in on this project"

* Defends the company to anyone, anywhere that criticizes or questions its products, policies, or practices

* Puts responsibility to employer above responsibility to customers, without question

* Questions, but does not challenge the status quo

* Is well-liked because they do whatever is asked, enthusiastically

* Accepts (and uses) phrases like, "this is what corporate needs us to do."

* Cares a lot about his career path in the company; focused on getting management recognition.

Passionate about the work:

* Scores well on the 4-question test:
- keeps up with trade/professional journals
- knows who the key people in the industry are
- would spend his own money, if necessary, for better tools
- if they were NOT doing this as their job, they would still do something related to it as a hobby

* Works late nights when, "I'm just one-compile away from this awesome refactoring that's going to make this thing run 40% faster." In other words, they work late when they're driven by something they know they can do better on.

* Defends the quality of his own work (and, in the Hollywood Model, the work of his team).

* Puts responsibility to his own ethics and values--especially related to quality of work--over responsibility to employer.

* May not be extremely well-liked, but is highly respected and tolerated because he's known as one who, "cares deeply about doing the best possible job, and is very good at what he does." [update: the person must be liked well enough for people to want to work with him again... the Hollywood Model has a way of screening out a**holes... nobody calls them for their next project.]

* Does not accept, "this is what corporate needs us to do" when it conflicts with quality and ethics. Must be given a damn good reason why a corporate decision is worth the downsides.

* Does not care about upward mobility in the company. Cares about doing fabulous work and possibly the recognition of his peers in the industry. May stive for professional recognition.

Am I, as always, glorifying the maverick? It only looks that way if your perspective is a Big Company that puts teamwork and company loyalty above all else. In the Hollywood Model, our ability to get work--which means new projects--depends entirely on whether anyone on previous projects wants to work with us again. What you hope for--and what happens--in the Hollywood Model is that when a team is being assembled, someone says, "Hey, last time I worked on the Bar project, Roger did the graphics and he was awesome." And the assistant producer or project manager says, "What's his phone number?"

In the Hollywood Model--despite the glamorous name--whether the project is exciting or sexy has very little to do with whether we view our work together as exciting and sexy. The sound guy pushes the edge with intelligently-adaptive audio that changes subtly as the user navigates into different "places." It doesn't matter that the project is a boring bank's interactive annual report. The programmer (usually my role) builds an authoring tool to help the artists sync their work to the sound way before the engine is ready. The artists decide at the last moment that they aren't happy with something that nobody but they can see, and spend days tweaking something that they swear will have a subconscious impact (for the better) on the user.

There are plenty of companies--even big ones--who are able to foster this kind of enviornment (including some parts of Google, I've heard). And in many small start-ups there is virtually no distinction between passion for the company and passion for the work--they are, essentially, the same thing, driven by the same overall desire to succeed. The companies that have the greatest chance, in my opinion, are the ones who can hang to that. And I would start by thinking of project managers as "producers" and treating the "talent" like gold ; )

Finally, if you really want your employees to be passionate about the company, take lessons from UI and Usability: let people do what they want and need to do, and get the hell out of their way. Unfortunately, too many of our employers are like really bad software--frustrating us at every turn, behaving inconsistently, not giving us a way to learn new things and develop new, cool capabilities, etc.

Remember, when I say I have a passion for a particular piece of software, it's not really the software I'm passionate about. It's always about my passion for what the software lets me DO. Companies should work the same way. By acting like a good UI and letting employees express the passion they have for their work, you'll end up with employees who'd never consider going elsewhere.

Tara Hunt ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon

More on Higher Purpose

Posted: February 4th, 2007, 7:01pm CST by miss rogue

Tags: purpose

Let others play with “strategy” and “tactics” and “management”. Purpose is the game of champions.

– from the book Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companiesby Nikos Mourkogiannis

The concept of Higher Purpose has grown from an inkling of a gut feeling for me to a full-blown important meme for what I’m thinking…even more important than embracing the chaos.

As I’ve said before, this is not your mission or vision statement. It is not akin to Guy Kawasaki’s mantra. It’s not an exercise in exploiting people’s desire to believe in something. Hugh Macleod comes close with his statement, “The market for something to believe in is infinite,” but even that leaves open the door to the creation of something to believe in.

Nikos Mourkogiannis, in his book about Purpose opens his first chapter telling a very personal story about all of the women in his village being gunned down for standing by their principles. He promised himself from that day forward that he would live a life driven by purpose. He would continue to live a life driven towards freedom for all. His conviction is strong throughout the book, although I believe he idolizes the inauthentic ‘freedom’ brought on by loads of capital a little too much, not quite examining the costs that go with it, but his premise is entirely compelling.

He looks at a cross-section of American business and compares those business leaders with and without Purpose, some of them very open about their Purpose (like Henry Ford, who, on trial in 1914 argued “that businesses run solely for shareholder profit would ultimately make less money than businesses run for Purpose.” [p.26], and Warren Buffet). What he sees is that Purpose is the differentiating factor between a business that is good and one that is great…and a movement that is successful and one that is legendary. It’s the ‘next level’. That je ne sais quoi. Mojo.

I can tie this strongly back to my strong affinity for Marcus Buckingham’s ideas on leadership as well. Marcus Buckingham’s leaders aren’t those who aim to please, who are filled with empty confidence, who read ‘leadership books’ and regurgitate the lessons within them. No, Buckingham’s leaders are driven towards a greater vision. The successful ones articulate it in meaningful ways that people can get behind. Their passion for making the world a better place is infectious, but they also guide people towards the end in simple, easy to follow steps. They don’t try to solve everything, just something.

In one chapter, Mourkogiannis mentions the idea of a ‘Community of Purpose’. I haven’t quite finished the book, so I don’t know if he actually expands on what he means there, but when I heard the phrase, my struggle with Community as well as Higher Purpose in the context of making a living all of a sudden came crashing together in a way that made perfect sense. You don’t create communities around web apps or products or movies or even ideas…community is born around Purpose. The movies (like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’) and web apps (like Flickr) and events (like BarCamp) are merely the tools that help us find one another…that articulate what we already believe in. They make it simple for us to convene around those ideas and give us a point of reference to recognize one another.

They are our tribal markings. The more exact the Purpose is and the more clearly it is articulated, the more likely we are to connect.

Thus, saying your web app is for everyone makes it excruciatingly difficult for a person who uses it to know that their neighbour using it has anything in common with them at all. Designing a web app for elementary school teachers comes closer. Designing a web app to help elementary school teachers take their boring curriculums and turn them easily into really engaging lesson plans that will get kids interested in learning again is highly purposeful and will strike up powerful connections between the school teachers using it. If it does it amazingly well, you’ve got yourself the online version of the next Sesame Street.

Higher Purpose is powerful, but only if true. Ad hoc-ly choosing a Higher Purpose or sitting in a boardroom trying to brainstorm it is ridiculously fruitless and will result in really poor results. Similarly, having a true Higher Purpose, then waffling to be ’safe’ or get inline with investor requirements will also result in poor outcomes. It’s not really a Higher Purpose when nobody else will get behind it.

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Guy Kawasaki :: Signal Without Noise

The Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption

Posted: January 29th, 2007, 4:50am CST by GuyKawasaki
Here’s a compilation of silly and stupid ways companies are hindering adoption of their products and services. I must admit, some of the companies that I’ve invested in have made these mistakes—in fact, that’s why I know these mistakes are (a) silly; (b) stupid; and (c) hinder adoption.
1. Enforced immediate registration. Requiring a new user to register and provide a modicum of information is a reasonable request—I just think you should do it after you’ve sucked the person in. Most sites require that registration is the first step, and this puts a barrier in front of adoption. At the very least, companies could ask for name and email address but not require it until a later time.
  
  A good example of a site that does the right thing is Netvibes. It allows you to do a high level of customization without registering. (Thanks to Glenn Kelman)
2. The long URL. When you want to send people an URL the site generates an URL that’s seventy characters long—or more! When you copy, paste, and email this URL, a line break is added, so people cannot click on it to go to the intended location.
  
  Here’s an URL for a billiard table copied and pasted from the CostCo site. Just how many billiard-table models could CostCo be selling?
  
  http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11197553&search=billiard%20table&Sp=S&Mo=8&cm_re=1-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&N=0&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=All&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=billiard%20table&Ntt=billiard%20table&No=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1
  
  The justification often goes like this: “We create a long URL because people with Crays might break our code and see private pages. Seventy characters that can be twenty-six lower case letters, twenty-six upper case letters, or ten numbers ensures that no one can break our code since the possible combinations outnumber the quantity of atoms in the universe.” This is what keeps sites like TinyUrl and SnipURL in business.
  
  Also, speaking of URLs, it’s good to have an easy naming convention for URLs. MySpace, for example, creates easy-to-remember URLs like http://www.myspace.com/guykawasaki.
3. Windows that don’t generate URLs. Have you ever wanted to point people to a page, but the page has no URL? You’ve got a window open that you want to tell someone about, but you’d have to write an essay to explain how to get that window open again. Did someone at the company decide that it didn’t want referrals, links, and additional traffic? This is the best argument I can think of for not using frames.
4. The unsearchable web site. Some sites that don’t allow people to search. This is okay for simple sites where a site map suffices, but that’s seldom the case. If your site has a site map that goes deeper than one level, it probably needs a search box.
5. Sites without Digg, del.icio.us, and Fark bookmarks. There’s no logic that I can think of why a company would not want its fans to bookmark its pages. And yet many companies don’t make this possible. When my blog hits the front page of Digg, page views typically increase by a factor of six or seven times. It’s true that the Digg effect wears off quickly, but some new readers stick around and that’s a good thing.
6. Limiting contact to email. Don’t get me wrong: I love email. I live and die by email, but there are times I want to call the company. Or maybe even snail mail something to it. I’ve found many companies only allow you to send an email via a web form in the “Contact Us” page. Why don’t companies call this page “Don’t Contact Us” and at least be honest?
7. Lack of feeds and email lists. When people are interested in your company, they will want to receive information about your products and services. This should be as easy as possible—meaning that you provide both email and RSS feeds for content and PR newsletters.
8. Requirement to re-type email addresses. How about the patent-pending, curve-jumping, VC-funded Web 2.0 company that wants to you to share content but requires you to re-type the email addresses of your friends?
  
  I have 7,703 email addresses in Entourage. I am not going to re-type them into the piece-of-shiitake, done-as-an-afterthought address book that companies build into their products. If nothing else, companies can use this cool tool from Plaxo or allow text imports into the aforementioned crappy address book. When do you suppose a standard format will emerge for transferring contacts?
9. User names cannot contain the “@” character. In other words, a user name cannot be your email address. I am a member of hundreds of sites. I can’t remember if my user name is kawasaki, gkawasaki, guykawasaki, or kawasaki3487. I do know what my email address is, so just let me use that as my user name.
10. Case sensitive user names and passwords. I know: user names and passwords that are case sensitive are more secure, but I’m more likely to type in my user name and password incorrectly. One of the funniest moments of a demo is when a company’s CEO can’t sign into her own account because she didn’t put in the proper case of her user name or password. I’ve seen it happen.
11. Friction-full commenting. “Moderated comments” is an oxymoron. If your company is trying to be a hip, myth-busting, hypocrisy-outing joint, then it should let anyone comment. Here’s an example of one such policy:
  
  Q. Who can leave comments on GullyHag
  
  A. Anyone who has been invited, either by us or by a friend. The invite system works like Gmail. We’ve invited a bunch of our favorite execs, bloggers, and friends to comment, then given them invitations to share with their friends and colleagues. That way, the burden of inclusion, and exclusion, is shared.
  
  The concept that people have to be invited to post comments is pathetic—if you hold yourself out as a big cojones company, then act like it. Even the concept that one has to register to post a comment is lousy. There have been many times that I started to leave a comment on a blog but stopped when I realized that I’d have to register.
12. Unreadable confirmation codes. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t support spam or robots creating accounts. A visual confirmation graphic system is a good thing, but many are too difficult to read. For example, this is what I got when trying to create a Yahoo! account. Is that an uppercase “X”? Is the last character an “s,” “5,” or “S”? Maybe this only affects old people like me, but it seems that all one merely has to prove is that you’re not a robot so a little bit of fuzziness should be good enough. For example, if the code is “ghj1lK” and someone who enters “ghj11K” is close enough.
13. Emails without signatures. There have been many times that I wanted to immediately call the sender or send him something, but there’s no signature. Also, when I book an appointment with a person, I like to put in his contact information in case I need to change it. Communication would be so much easier if everyone put a complete signature in their email that contains their name, company, address, phone, and email address.
  
  On a corporate level, communication would be so much easier if companies stop sending emails with a warning not to respond because the sender’s address is not monitored. I don’t mean they should not include the warning. I mean they should monitor the address.
14. Supporting only Windows Internet Explorer. Actually, I’m not nearly as vehement about this as you might think. Supporting Macintosh, Safari, and other Windows browsers is a lot of work, so this is your call. If you define your market as only the people who use Windows Internet Explorer, so be it. You may have to really invest some effort into this one, but all the other items in this list are stupidly simple.

Dustin Staiger :: Casual Fridays

Building Mom and Pop Websites: 5 Questions to Ask

Posted: January 26th, 2007, 1:30pm CST by DUST!N

Tags: content Internet website

My friend Jason, who is a web developer, asked the question

Is there any value in “brochure” type web sites?

Not much, I think. Here’s why:

My philosophy is that “Mom and Pops” are better served by following a permission marketing approach with websites.

1. How can I create content people will COME BACK to read?

time-sensitive, changes often, relevant, anticipated

2. If I want to do #1, how do I manage it?

content management system, allocate employee time

3. If I’m creating content, how can I best leverage it?

blog, email newsletter, printed newsletter, op-ed piece

4. Can I send email coupons that customers can abuse without it hurting me?

(because they will take advantage)

5. Can I create offers they will relay to their friends?

forward to a friend link, create value

Guy Kawasaki :: Signal Without Noise

Is a Business Plan Necessary?

Posted: January 22nd, 2007, 11:00am CST by GuyKawasaki

Tags: business planning
Before you dedicate your life to crafting a business plan the length of a book, read these two paragraphs from the 1/9/07 edition of the Wall Street Journal in an article called "Enterprise: Do Start-ups Really Need Formal Business Plans"

A study recently released by Babson College analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated between 1985 and 2003. Comparing success measures such as annual revenue, employee numbers and net income, the study found no statistical difference in success between those businesses started with formal written plans and those without them...

“What we really don’t want to do is literally spend a year or more essentially writing a business plan without knowing we have actual customers,” says William Bygrave, an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., who says he generally advocates “just do it.” Entrepreneurs must be nimble, and will be more apt to stick with a flawed concept they spent months drafting, he adds.
I think that Prof. Bygrave’s study is so right. Here is the entire study if you’d like to read it. This is the plan’s abstract:
This study examined whether writing a business plan before launching a new venture affects the subsequent performance of the venture. The data set comprised new ventures started by Babson College alums who graduated between 1985 and 2003. The analysis revealed that there was no difference between the performance of new businesses launched with or without written business plans. The findings suggest that unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to raise substantial startup capital from institutional investors or business angels, there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan before opening a new business.

The phrase “unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to raise substantial startup capital from institutional investors or business angels, there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan” merits discussion. Most venture capitalists require a business plan as part of due diligence. This doesn’t mean they spend more than ten minutes reading the plan, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they believe it. :-) A great plan won’t make a lousy idea successful, and a lousy plan won’t necessarily stop a great idea.

Most of the plans that we see at Garage are too long and too detailed—to the point of reducing credibility. Here is my prior blog posting about business plans that you might find helpful. The gist of it is:
- Perfect your pitch, then write your plan.
- Use the business-plan exercise as a way to get your team on the same page.
- Keep it short: ten to twenty pages.
- Spend no more than two weeks writing it.
- Don’t get obsessed with with details in your financial forecast because it should be one page long.
However, don’t draw the wrong conclusion from this study: “Analysis, planning, vision, and communication are unnecessary.” This isn’t true. What is true is that a business plan should not take on a life of its own. It is a tool—one of many that may help you get funded (or, more accurately, hinder you from getting funded if you don’t have one) and may help you get your team working as a team. But it is not an end in itself.

Dustin Staiger :: Casual Fridays

Your Name in Ink

Posted: December 29th, 2006, 10:04am CST by DUST!N

Want to be an “expert source” for a news story?

Penelope has some great advice for bloggers and non-bloggers alike.

Paul Graham: Unofficial RSS Feed

The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

Posted: October 17th, 2006, 2:39pm CDT

"[T]his is a list of 18 things that cause startups not to make something users want. Nearly all failure funnels through that."

Ad: "Hackers & Painters" by Paul Graham

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Brand Autopsy

A Vital Jack Welch Quote

Posted: March 3rd, 2007, 6:15am CST by johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

Tags: business quote jackwelch

Dave Winer :: Scripting News

Today's links

Fetched: March 2nd, 2007, 11:32pm CST

Tags: monopoly adobe microsoft

Kathy Sierra :: Creating Passionate Users

Don't ask employees to be passionate about the company!

Posted: February 6th, 2007, 9:58pm CST by Kathy Sierra

Tags: staffing

Tara Hunt ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon

More on Higher Purpose

Posted: February 4th, 2007, 7:01pm CST by miss rogue

Tags: purpose

Guy Kawasaki :: Signal Without Noise

The Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption

Posted: January 29th, 2007, 4:50am CST by GuyKawasaki

Dustin Staiger :: Casual Fridays

Building Mom and Pop Websites: 5 Questions to Ask

Posted: January 26th, 2007, 1:30pm CST by DUST!N

Tags: content Internet website

Guy Kawasaki :: Signal Without Noise

Is a Business Plan Necessary?

Posted: January 22nd, 2007, 11:00am CST by GuyKawasaki

Tags: business planning

Dustin Staiger :: Casual Fridays

Your Name in Ink

Posted: December 29th, 2006, 10:04am CST by DUST!N

Paul Graham: Unofficial RSS Feed

The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

Posted: October 17th, 2006, 2:39pm CDT