Subscribe in a readerFebruary 15, 2008
Airbus says in talks on superjumbo casino - Yahoo! News
Sometime around Y2K I postulated that one day air travel would be provided free and funded by casino gambling. My assertion was that someone like myself would book a flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles and once we reached cruising altitude the blackjack and craps tables would open. That may very well be coming true.
Read More -> Airbus says in talks on superjumbo casino
Posted by Mike at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2006
The Minimum Wage - Read Between the Lines
Democrats, who draw support from organized labor, point to studies that conclude a modest increase would cause no significant job loss. They also cite a recent survey that found most small business owners believe it would not hurt them. In fact, most small businesses already pay above the minimum wage.
Why is organized labor interested in raising the minimum wage? A large percentage of these workers are teenagers. Another significant chunk are people working part time (for a variety of reasons). Most of them do not belong to a union (and therefore do not pay union dues) so why do the unions care? Because many of the collective bargaining agreements that are in place have built in salary increases that kick in automatically for union employees if the feds increase the minimum wage - that's why. They don't give a rat's ass about the poor. It's all about lining their own pockets.
Read More -> Democrats to raise wages for poor workers - Yahoo! News
Posted by Mike at 8:00 AM
November 13, 2006
Share Price Manipulation
If insider trading, press release puffery, and "earnings smoothing" are the tools used to prop up a share price, then frivolous class action lawsuits must be the tool to kill the share price. I received a letter today notifying me of yet another class action settlement from the boom years - this time related to Cisco shares. As with all the others, I waded through the settlement procedure and perused the proposed settlement per share.
This one?? Approximately 9 cents per share, less any court approved fees. The alleged crime? Share price manipulation. The lead plaintiffs feel this is a good settlement. They must be smoking crack and getting kickbacks from the attorneys. What a bunch of crap. I can't imagine what they're thinking - could it be that Cisco or its agents went out of its way to inflate the share to $55, but $54.91 was a fair price?? That's basically what the plaintiffs are saying here. What a load of BS.
And who really gets hurt?? If anyone, it's the current shareholders. The ~$100 million that it's going to take to settle the suit is coming out of their value. Oh, and I feel hurt because I spent 5 minutes reading over the materials, 10 minutes being pissed off about it, and another 10 minutes sharing this with all of you. The upshot?? Monday Night Football starts in a few minutes. I don't know who is playing, but it's got to be more entertaining than reading, thinking about, and blogging about lawyer drivel.
Posted by Mike at 7:46 PM
October 2, 2006
Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes
This has been my workout/traning motto for several years. Now it also applies to my company. Ownership changed hands last week and it has led to a lot of speculation and angst among employees. In the months leading up to the transaction, the secret was not well kept. If we had been in battle, the enemy would have killed us months ago. Couple that with a lack of transparency and direction and you have a recipe for paranoia and turf building.
Some of the usual side effects have already surfaced. A few employees have left, a number of rumors have started, and questions about the future of departments/culture/etc have arisen. The question I am asked most is "So MIke, what do you think?" My response - "Nothing changes if nothing changes." It really sucks to apply my training mantra here. I need to come up with a catch phrase. But it really is appropriate.
The sale of a business is pretty straightforward. The valuation was based on the tangible assets of the firm, discounted future cash flows, and some amount of goodwill. The new ownership team obviously feels that in their hands they can earn rents in excess of those earned today. Surprisingly, leadership did not change. There are a few different ways to analyze that move, you can discuss it amongst yourselves.
So what does the future hold? Beats me. All I know is that nothing changes if nothing changes. Personally, I'm ready for change. I'm ready to make our enterprise scale. I'm ready to lower transaction costs. And I'm ready to create better solutions for our employees and customers at the edge of our systems rather than holing them up in the middle. I am going to try to avoid turf battles over platforms, email systems, and the like. If the new direction is to run the enterprise on Ruby, SmallTalk, C++, VB, or whatever - it doesn't matter to me. That's just a language. That knowledge can be found on the net and in books - the knowledge of our business and industry isn't in any book, it's in my head.
Ok. I'll get off my soapbox now. Note that to date I have not disclosed my company and I'm not going to start now. But there is such great fodder for these little case studies that I just have to blog about events every now and then.
Posted by Mike at 8:48 PM
July 27, 2006
The Economics of War
I have always imagined civil wars being fought by two armies built on differing ideology. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has built an army based on economics. I can only imagine the dialogue at night:
man 1: So what do you do for a living?
man 2: I am part of the insurgency killing the afghan soldiers for the Taliban.
man1: Oh, so you don't like the way the country is transforming?
man2: Oh no it's great - the Taliban just pays better.
The Taliban has found a way to recruit fighters that is less about winning hearts and minds and more about the enduring appeal of cold hard cash.They are paying fighters up to $12 (6.50 Euros) a day to fight the fledgling Afghan National Army, which pays only $4 a day to its soldiers in the field, according to military officials.
Read More -> FT.com / World / Asia-Pacific - Taliban goes for cash over ideology
Posted by Mike at 9:16 AM
July 26, 2006
Using wages to fight illegal immigration
Michael Dukakis and Daniel J. B. Mitchell wrote an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times advocating a raise in the minimum wage. Their argument is that a wage in the $8 realm will entice more Americans to work in the lower-end jobs. They also assert that it will force workplaces with sub-standard conditions to clean up their act.
They get one part right: unemployment will increase as a result. But I don't get the whole argument about employers cleaning up their act. If they are currently employing illegals at sub-minimum wage levels and providing an unsafe workplace, will raising the minimum wage not further incent them to hire illegals? Why would a shady employer pay an American $8 an hour and spend a million dollars providing benefits and improving safety when he's already got a crew of Mexicans that will accept $4 an hour?
I agree that building a big wall isn't the best answer and I applaud these two for putting forth more ideas into our awareness set. The answer to our growing problem is out there and we need to all put our thinking caps on to find it.
Read more -> Raise Wages, Not Walls - New York Times
Posted by Mike at 7:42 AM
April 10, 2006
The French Definition of Victory
We give the French a hard time about a lot of things (and rightfully so). One of their fatal flaws is their resistance to change and a top-down culture of appeasement. The jobs law that Chirac backed down from today is a classic example.
But that aside, I think the so-called "victory march" is more of a death march. The jobless rate amongst the young French 21-26 is somewhere around 23%. Companies do not want to hire them because they are unproven in business. Complicating this fact is unless they went to one of the top schools, they received a state-paid education at a regular French university (and if they went to a top school, they are in either New York or London after graduation). Sounds good? No. A recent article in the Economist indicated that the government spends less per pupil on college students than it does on high school students. There could be numerous reasons that this isn't a bad thing, but I'd have to see hard proof. My college education has cost considerably more than my high school education did.
So is this a victory march? The students got their way, but I don't think they had enough information to protest the jobs law in the first place. And if the work ethic and hard labor costs built into their economy do not change soon, they will come to understand what a global economy really is - whether it is taught in their colleges or not.
Read More -> French students set for jobs law "victory march" - Yahoo! News
Posted by Mike at 10:29 PM
March 29, 2006
Fun @ Work
I was talking to someone yesterday about projects at work. I realized a common theme with her and many other people is ubiquitous meetings to talk about deliverables. The meetings took place so often, and without any real agenda, that I asked if she could substitute the word "deliverable" with "flair" and come out with the same meaning.
She could.
Stan: "Joanna, could I speak with you for a moment?"
Joanna: "Yeah, listen - I'm really sorry I was late with for that meeting but I.."
Stan: "It's about your flair."
For those of you who find no humor in this, check out Office Space
Posted by Mike at 7:54 AM
February 5, 2006
Advertising Brilliance
It's hard to make out the "GM" in the logo at the top of the building in this picture (the Cadillac symbol is unmistakable), but how many times over the last 2 weeks have you seen this image for free on tv? Ok, calling it advertising brilliance might be far fetched, but through this image GM has put their logo out there countless times as being associated with the Super Bowl in Detroit without any incremental cost per impression.
Sure, the stadium the game is being played in is called "Ford Field", but I have yet to see the logo or anything else that alludes to Ford Motor Company. I have had GM ingrained in my head as being related to this Super Bowl thanks to the repeated appearance of this image.
Posted by Mike at 8:24 PM
Super Bowl Commericials - A Missed Opportunity
Thus far, I haven't seen a commercial worth spending the $2.5 million to air. I think the biggest loser so far is GlaxoSmithLine - the maker of Geritol vitamins. They should have sponsored the Rolling Stones halftime show. Or better yet, the Rascal scooter people. I guess that just makes too much sense, though.
The show isn't bad, but I'm more impressed with the amount of work that it took to get that stage, lighting, and effects set up in 6 minutes, and then removed from the field after the show in another 6 minutes. I even caught a glimpse of a timer next to one of the audio monitors on stage that is used to keep track of the Stones' 12 minute allotment. A lot of planning and money went into these 12 minutes.
Alright, let's get back to the game between these two teams that I don't give a rat's ass about.
Posted by Mike at 8:08 PM
January 30, 2006
Gift Lists
It seems so simple in retrospect, yet I can't think of any site that offers it other than amazon.com
Posted by Mike at 11:30 AM
November 9, 2005
Bird Flu and Disaster Recovery
We have a lot to worry about as business people these days. Hurricanes, earthquakes, rioting, etc. can all put stresses on not only our infrastructure, but also our people. One of the lessons we learned from the 9/11 attacks was that a disaster recovery plan that doesn't address the skillsets of affected workers is an incomplete plan. It's great if your systems are up and running, but who is manning the fort?
KFC probably had no problem identifying itself as a potential candidate for financial risk should there be a major bird flu outbreak. Having operations in China (yes, I even ate at one in Chongqing but forgot to take a picture) probably sped up their realization of the problem. Word is that they are preparing to shoot television commercials (scroll down pretty far) to reassure the public about the safety of eating fried chicken should there be a widespread outbreak.
What steps has your company taken toward risk assessment and planning in the face of a pandemic?
[Updated 9-Nov-05 21:30 to correct typo]
Posted by Mike at 9:39 AM
October 20, 2005
Maintaining Email Inbox Serenity
Jason Womack points us to a CNN article focused on keeping your inbox clean. These are pretty solid principles. They refer to David Allen's Getting Things Done book/methodology, which I think should be required reading for any knowledge worker or executive.
Below is a picture of my inbox from this morning - you will notice it is empty. Everything has been filed according to whether it's reference material, material I need to review, stuff I'm waiting on others for, or stuff that I need to take an action on. If you were to look at my Outlook inbox that takes care of my personal life, you would notice that it is also empty.
Of course, for my implementation of Allen's system, I much prefer Outlook over Notes. Why? One fundamental feature -> I can tell outlook to show me how many messages are in a folder instead of showing me how many unread messages are in a folder. Thus, I have a tickler that there are 6 messages needing review, 15 needing action, and 4 waiting on others. In Notes, all I get is an unread count. I have found unread counts are great for initial processing, but not for managing this system. (LifeHackers: yes, I know I could mark them as unread in Notes so that the count would show up in the folders, but then I would have to consciously determine what was truly unread. That doesn't exactly lead to a 'mind like water').
Brad Feld recently blogged about an email prioritization system, and Fred Wilson added some thoughts into the discussion. They're both alluding to something off the shelf, but I think of it as more of a system that you have to implement yourself. I think the tools (folders, rules, etc) already exist in Outlook & Notes to let you do this. It just requires thought on your part to structure your folders. You may go as simple as having three folders high, medium and low; or you may have folders like 'From Project Team', 'From Client', 'From Partner', 'From Family', 'Other'. Then you have to create the rules to filter through the to:, cc: and bcc: fields to figure out which folder to dump the messages into. It would be painful up front to set up, but I think that is the way it has to be because of the vastly differing ways people would want to prioritize them.
Me? I'm just happy with my clean inboxes.
Posted by Mike at 2:00 PM
September 20, 2005
Project Scheduling
Bob Lewis has an interesting column up this week over on IS Survivor on the process for bypassing projects. The topic fit in pretty well with my rants this week, so I thought I'd send you over that way.
I have long thought that your project backlog should be treated like an investment portfolio. Rate the risks, returns, and effort and you should be able to choose the next project to work on with the resources you currently have. Why is that not ubiquitous? Have I been studying Finance for too long now?
In the end, transparency will win. One day, I will prove it.
Posted by Mike at 9:30 AM
September 18, 2005
Does Publix Read My Blog?
I complained a few months back about the spotty availability of the Boar's Head American sub at Publix. Lo and behold, they took it off the menu at the location I was having the problem. It's probably a coincidence, but either way, I'm fine with it. If you're not going to (or can't) service something at a consistent level, remove it from your offerings.
And just in case Publix is tuned into my blog, your store on Keith's Bridge Rd is the best. I can give you names if you like.
Posted by Mike at 9:59 PM
August 18, 2005
Your Personal Brand
I pointed you last week to David Lorenzo talking about personal branding. For those who did not take my advice then, you should listen to me now and believe me last week when I say check out these posts. He's leading you through strategies and thoughts surrounding developing your personal brand. It's just like the product marketing classes you took in college, only it's not as boring and the product is YOU.
Posted by Mike at 2:29 AM
August 5, 2005
China's Growing Impact on the World Economy
For those who don't think that China will have an immediate impact on the world economy, I give you Chinese comment spam (scroll up just above my comment). Courtesy of Ed Brill's blog. Follow those links and you can download ringtones for your phone. As if rapidly rising oil prices, increasingly cheap (price not quality) textiles, and outsourcing of computer hardware manufacturing were not enough to convince you.
While we're on the subject of China, I thought I'd pass along this interesting WSJ article about an American family in the heart of China trying to get along. The husband works for the Ford plant in Chongqing. It's an interesting read - I think Tammy could probably handle Beijing, Shanghai, or certainly Hong Kong - but Chongqing is probably pushing it.
As many of you know, part of my MBA studies are focusing on economies in transition - China being the largest and most popular focal point at the moment. For those of you who didn't know - yes, I am an IT veteran with an undergraduate degree in Computer Information Systems earning an MBA in Finance and studying transition economies. I find it all fascinating and very inter-related in ways that are having a profound impact on the professional work I do. I'm preparing some blog entries about China's transition toward a socialist market economy and will be sharing it with you starting in a few weeks (I'm that nice of a guy).
Posted by Mike at 6:00 AM | Comments (1)
August 2, 2005
My Personal Brand
Are you managing your personal brand? David Lorenzo has a good entry up about it, so I will let you read his thoughts on the subject.
I'm using an integrated approach. In face to face conversation, I generally convey the correct message both through words and body language. My website, business cards, stationery, etc. all carry the themes of technology, globalization, and business. I'll try to get an image of the front and back of my business card up. Whether you have direct contact, view my website, or receive some note from me in the mail, the message that is conveyed is that I am both a businessman and a technologist - what I feel is a unique combination that has proven me highly valuable to the companies I have worked for.
Remember - the people you meet only know you for what they can see. Your past history of greatness is not being replayed for them in a television above your head. You must always present yourself as you want to be seen.
Posted by Mike at 8:20 AM
August 1, 2005
Customer Follow-Up
Terry Storch from Fellowship Church writes about the importance of following up with your customers. Amen. How many times have you filled out a customer contact card or a comment card and no one ever contacted you? I ranted about this a few months ago when I filled out the request for an Owens Corning Basement Finishing System representative to contact me regarding a quote. They have yet to call.
Along the same lines - how much information do companies really need to collect on comment cards, warranty cards, applications, etc? My wife had a recent experience with an organization she volunteers for as membership coordinator. She recommended they publish a list based on a question that was on the membership application. The reply from a couple of other board members was that they should not do that under any circumstances. The question was only beneficial to the members of the organization, and without the list (which they could opt in or out of) was worthless. I told her she should recommend they axe the question from the application and find any other information on there that they weren't going to use and axe it, too. Remove the barrier of time required to fill out your application, feedback card, etc and you're likely to receive more information as well as better quality of information gathered.
Hats off to FC for following up on every contact. It's got to be time consuming, but how else are you going to hear the voice of the customer and make them feel like you want them to be a part of your organization?
Posted by Mike at 7:36 AM
July 19, 2005
Statistically Improbable
Gary Potter (the Sabre Geek) points us to a company involved in making systems to improve air passenger safety. I enjoy reading his blog to keep up with trends in the airline industry, but today's offering loses me in the statistical improbability of the company's argument, rather than its product offering. The company in question cites the need to speed up the roll out of one of its products, Trusted Traveler, by indicating that more than 1 billion people fly every day worldwide. That's 1 out of every 6 people. I'm a bit skeptical of that number and I'm guess Potter was, too. His entry quickly runs through the math of what it would take to sustain a daily worldwide passenger count of 1 billion passengers.
I did a little research on the two largest countries to see how many people were flying around each day. In India, the Union Civil Aviation Minister, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, quotes a figure of around 40,000 passengers each day out of their 1 Billion citizens. That figure was given two years ago, but I think even if that number tripled (imagine the infrastructure build out it would take to triple) that would still only be 120,000 passengers out of 1 billion citizens. Statistically speaking, India with its population that represents 18% of the world is only contributing .004% toward Symbol's assertion of 1 billion passengers a day.
Let's look at China. China has between 1.3 and 1.5 billion citizens. How many of them fly each day? SARS has probably skewed the numbers that past couple of years, but the fact of the matter is when people need to fly, they do. Last year saw a total of 103.8 million passengers flying in China, of which 100 million were a result of tourism. That puts the Chinese market at around 300,000 passengers a day. According to this article that I found these numbers in, out of the 1.3 billion citizens, flying is only affordable for 100 million of them.
I have no idea where Symbol got their figure of 1 billion passengers flying every day. The number of passengers out of 2.5 billion citizens is so small, that it makes it such that 1 out of every 4 people would have to fly each day in order to be accurate. That's just not happening (my money would be pouring into the transportation sector if it were). Maybe 1 billion pieces of mail fly every day - that would be a more reasonable number. But in terms of passengers, I would guess the number of people flying somewhere on our planet each day would be in the range of 1 to 5 million. Anyone know of a concrete number?
Posted by Mike at 7:36 AM
There are No Shortcuts to Building Relationships
Or, I could've titled this entry "My Sister Should Read My Blog More Often". The following two sites will assist you in building relationships in the China region. To truly build a trusting relationship with these partners though, you're looking at a 1 to 5 year process of talking, negotiating, and following through.
Invest Hong Kong - You can set up a new business in Hong Kong in 6 days and only spend a few hundred dollars. Amazing. These folks will help facilitate it. I believe they also assist in fostering relationships between business partners.
Alibaba - Looking for a supplier? Check out the pre-qualified (Gold-Level) suppliers at Alibaba. They have everything from auto bearings to moving sidewalks. Yes - there are the usual textiles, jewelry, etc. as well - these were just the more interesting ones I saw.
Posted by Mike at 7:00 AM
July 12, 2005
"Just In Time" Delivery of I.T.
Do you feel like your I.T. department is not responsive to your needs? Does it seem like they can deliver what you're asking for but not as quickly as you need it? Maybe if you applied the basics of concurrent engineering and some similar JIT principles, these perceptions would improve.
For whatever reason, I.T. is often left out of discussions which they should be apart of. It may be the perception that they are just the techies, but they oftentimes represent a great untapped resource for their knowledge and understanding of the business environment. Unlike marketing, accounting, and engineering, which each can contribute discrete work products without interaction across the organization (I'm not saying this is a good thing, it's just possible), I.T. usually has to take into account the interactions among all departments when building enterprise applications. This gives them a unique view of the workflows and politics within each department.
Aside from being a great untapped resource, I.T. is a department with scarce resources, just like every other department. The earlier that you involve them in your process, the likelier you are to achieve your deadline. Early involvement does a couple of things. First, it allows you to learn of tradeoffs and potential limitations early in the process - when it is easier and cheaper to make changes. Secondly, it gets your project put on the master production schedule. It's easier to get buy-in on deadlines the earlier they are involved.
Simply giving a heads-up that some project is about to be dumped off on them is not good enough. If you cannot specify the start date, scope of work to be performed, and requested deadline, you have not provided them with enough information for them to make changes in their work schedule.
Just to recap:
1) Involve the I.T. department early in the project to help indentify design constraints and trade-offs.
2) Don't discount their point of view simply because you think they're techno-geeks. They have a unique vantage point to view all the workflows and politics of your organization from.
3) Share your planning calendar with the I.T. department. You know what your big deadlines are over the next 6 months - let them know ahead of time as well. Sure, things pop up here and there - but not everything in business can be a surprise!
Posted by Mike at 7:00 AM
June 24, 2005
Being Market-Oriented
My wife is market oriented. She has led the development and now implementation of a new document management system (based on Domino, I might add) in her company. She now has the task that will make it or break it - training. Here's a snippet of the email she just sent me:
It's amazing what happens when you start asking questions and talking to different departments. I am going to be able to get everybody who attends my class one credit of internal training time courtesy of HR. As you know, we are all required to get a minimum of 28 hours of training each year.
When you share ideas and problems amongst departments, you can develop solutions to your customers' problems that may even create delight. Even if your customer is a fellow employee, as in Tammy's case.
So what would the opposite situation be? It would be product orientation. If she maintained the view that training for her product is important simply because the product itself was important, she would probably have a difficult time eliciting attendance to the sessions. By working with HR to gain training credits, she has created value for the trainees. And at the same time she's created value for herself - the more people that are properly trained, the greater the likelihood of a successful implementation.
I'm so proud to be her husband.
Posted by Mike at 9:16 AM
Marketers and Blogs
There has been a lot of talk this week about the effect of blogging on the marketplace. I've argued that you've got to Get Free Advice From Your Customers wherever you can and Hear the Voice of the Customer as much as possible. However, an article in AdWeek and this one in the Wall Street Journal indicate to me that marketers are willing to remove their human intelligence from the equation and rely more on the technology they (or their PR companies) possess.
I posted in the comments over at Ed Brill's site today about the opportunity for IBM to get in touch with the market through blogs. It's sad to say that this loose and distributed community (I'm talking about the blogosphere as a whole) was probably doomed from the start. As we turn over the reins to technology and PR companies to seek out information, surely we're not far away from paying to have them post propaganda in what will seem like grass-roots blogs (like mine!). Heck, according to Media Post, Microsoft is already attempting to hire paid bloggers.
Posted by Mike at 7:00 AM
June 21, 2005
Hearing the Voice of the Customer
Steve Rubel says you should employ the services of your PR agency to scan the blogosphere for criticism. This goes with my assertion last week that it is easy to get free advice from your customers.
With the advent of software and services to scan the net for dirt/kudos on your company, and the buzz about buzz marketing, how far are we from PR agencies setting up fake blogs to sing the virtues of various products? I envision sort of an online Oprah show. There would be various innocuous postings about this and that, and then postings that were geared totally for product placement purposes. Maybe Pontiac/GM should give this a shot with their G6!
Posted by Mike at 7:00 AM
June 19, 2005
The High Cost of Grade Inflation
Good data over on Marginal Revolution about grade inflation. Are we losing our competitive edge?
The Hope Scholarship was introduced to Georgia schoolchildren in 1993 with the advent of the Georgia Lottery. Any graduating high school senior with an overall B average would be given free tuition and books to an public college or university in the state. What have the consequences been? Inflated grades. I have had this conversation many times with "educators" at different levels and the underlying theme is that they do not want to be the teacher or professor that gave the student the C or D that made him/her not have the B average.
In 2004, approximately 58% of the student population had a B average or higher. My understanding of the grading scale was that C was average, so basically 58% of the students were above average? Shouldn't we be re-balancing the educational portfolio to make average actually be average? If so many are earning As, shouldn't we be developing curriculum to challenge them further?
Posted by Mike at 8:13 PM
June 16, 2005
Get Free Advice From Your Customers!
Great article on Continental's Community over at Church of the Customer. It just goes to show that those of us out here voicing our opinions on the net are not crack pots - we're really looking to make our experiences with companies better (which should yield better companies, no?).
A few weeks and months back I blogged about experiences (or lack thereof) with Owens Corning Basement Finishing System and the Publix deli. Last night, I was at my regular Publix talking to one of the regulars who helps me at the deli about the inconsistencies I'm seeing in some of the Atlanta area Publix stores. She said I should call and complain. I responded "Oh, no need - it's on the Internet."
The look on her face was almost priceless. I didn't think it really sank in, so I told her "Seriously - google 'publix complaints' and you'll probably find my website in there. And my email address and phone number is on the same site, so if they need any more info they can just call me." I guess it was over the top to tell her I posted my phone number on the Internet - the rest of my message was probably lost.
Companies spend a lot of money of focus groups, but they only get answers to very specific questions. Heck - the "New Coke" debacle of the mid 1980s came from a series of focus groups and Goizueta's fear of Pepsi becoming #1. As I said in the OC post I linked to above, companies have got to put someone in charge of managing customer satisfaction via the Internet. Much like the "Starwood Lurker" mentioned in the CotC post. Whether that person was commissioned to do that is beside the point, the company does not trumpet it - they are simply looking to correct wrong situations.
You know, I was once intimidated by marketing types at the companies I work for. Now I think I have an expansive view of business, markets and the world and I'm not so intimidated just because my degrees are in Computer Information Systems and (soon to be MBA) in Finance instead of Marketing. I would definitely enjoy doing more work in the marketing arena with people like myself who are gung ho about a product and willing to go all out to make our customers equally gung ho.
Posted by Mike at 12:30 PM
June 15, 2005
Perceived Value - A Good Case for LOB Chargebacks for IT Projects
Value can be simplified to represent the difference between the benefits of a good or service and the costs realized to obtain it. Every day in corporations across America, value is created without tangible investment. Projects are scoped, developed, and implemented with some end goal of changing a current process for the better. But because the IT department is treated as a cost center, or even a commodity, the perceived value of that effort is skewed.
Tom Evslin recounts his first experiences in the late 1960's being billed out as a consultant for a facilities management company. In his story, he paints two similar engagements that yielded very different outcomes. He shows that "price can create a perception of value." When the customer pays $300 an hour and has operational systems to show for it, it is easy to see the value proposition over paying $250 an hour to have an IBM system engineer that is unable to solve your problem.
I have experienced this in my days as a consultant as well. When I worked for GE Capital Consulting, no one batted an eyelash at paying $250 an hour and the customer's stakeholders that were invited to meetings showed up early. When I worked for a company that billed the lines of business back for IT projects, I had a very similar experience. The managers were very responsive to my needs and would see to it that whatever human resources I needed from their department for discovery, testing, or training were available in a timely fashion.
Unfortunately, I have also worked for places that did not have a formal chargeback system and in each case, my perception of their perception of the value we provided was indeterminable. Did it mean our product stunk? Yes and no. Without that whole-hearted buy in, you are prone to not receive the full dedication of brain cells needed to discover what a business's needs really are. When it comes time to test, it can be equally difficult to garner participation from the user community. When the application finally goes live, end users are left scratching their heads wondering what problem the app was meant to solve. So we may have coded the best application in the world but unless it changes the processes of the business in the manner that it was intended, the project was a failure.
So my assertion is this - implement a simple system for providing cost information so that business unit managers can have a project cost and an expected return on the project. You don't have to actually chargeback their P&L to reach your goal. This small step will aid them in perceiving value from your project team and just might lead to a better product being developed.
Posted by Mike at 12:19 PM
June 14, 2005
Digitization and the Downfall of Culture
Maybe it's not as bad as my instinct tells me it is. My fear: with the proliferation of on-demand downloads of single songs, people will miss out on good music. Prior to the radio and recorded music, people went to concerts, social events, and the like and heard what the musicians wanted them to hear. Sure, the musicians may have received some suggestions or requests, but they still had license to perform.
With the advent of radio and recorded music, we had critical ears deciding what songs would and would not be heard. This still exists today. For the music buying public though, you had to purchase the entire album if there was more than one song by the artist you wanted to hear at your convenience. Yes, singles existed in vinyl, cassette, and CD format, but were really only placebos. Fact is, you ended up buying the whole album.
And therein lies the beauty. You get the song you wanted to hear, and then there are 5 to 9 additional pieces for your listening pleasure. They may be a little too long, or slow for the radio, but that doesn't mean that it's not a good song that will enrich your existence.
Will digital music make it so that the critics are controlling our musical culture? I hope not. I hope that for 99 cents, you'll get the song you want to hear and maybe put out another 99 cents to get another song by that artist. And if you like that, keep on going and get the whole album. Otherwise, we'll end up with mass produced music with little variation or value (some may argue that there are a couple of categories of that music now).
Note that I'm not an RIAA mole, an artist, or in any position to gain from the sale of music. I'm just an avid fan of a lot of different music and I want to see musical artists continue to put their heart and soul into their work.
Posted by Mike at 12:30 PM
June 13, 2005
What's With the Ads?
I'll answer the question once, although it should be self-apparent. I am a scholar of technology, finance, and general business. For many marketers, Google Adsense is the nexus of all three of those planes.
There. Enough said.
After a 5 week hiatus, school resumes this evening. For those of you living out an MBA vicariously through me, tonight's class is MBA 8150 - SYSTEMS & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT. Here's the description out of the catalog:
This course focuses on the basic concepts, principles, and techniques for efficient and effective operations. Special emphasis is placed on the planning and execution of the operating systems of an organization. Fundamental operation topics such as operations stategy, capacity, just-in-time inventory management, resource scheduling, and supply chain management are covered in the context of both the domestic and international marketplace.
I'm taking 9 hours this Summer. No, I'm not insane. I'll keep you updated as my other two classes start with descriptions and reflections from each.
Posted by Mike at 12:32 PM
Web Content Management
Over the past 6 months, I have reviewed several commerical content management systems for possible implementation at work. They were all quite impressive, but were also a little overweight in features and price. I am now reviewing an offering from OpenCms.org. The marketing materials indicate a feature rich offering with a fantastic licensing fee (free!). There appears to be a pretty good developer community building the add-on modules for things like events calendars, news w/ RSS feeds, address books, search, and more.
If you're looking for a CM solution, I recommend you check them out. If we go with this product, I'll post a deeper review.
(Updated spelling of OpenCms.org 10:00AM EDT 13 June 05)
Posted by Mike at 9:08 AM | Comments (1)
June 9, 2005
Where is the Intelligence?
Internet access is seemingly ubiquitous this country. Sites on the world wide web are at almost every turn offering to serve up some sort of intelligent information. One great example is doing a white pages search through BellSouth. In case you don't find who you were looking for, there are several advertisements offering to search through public records and magazine subscriptions (for a fee). I imagine the day will come when Papa John's sells their order database to one of these companies and for a fee, you'll be able to find out where I live and whether I like regular or spicy Italian sausage.
But is this really the intelligence we need? I don't think so. Sure, I've led some great projects centered around digitizing intelligence. We've developed knowledge management applications to track competitor information. SFA/CRM is another knowledge center that comes to mind. But at the end of the day, these systems can only track concrete information that we planned for.
A good example is the multiple listing service in Atlanta. When you want to buy a house, you (or your agent) can look in the MLS for a home that has a certain number of bedrooms, bathrooms, a garage, a chef's kitchen and a big backyard. But that's just a great start. How long has the home been on the market? Are the current owners desparate to sell due to a corporate transfer? Is it haunted? These are facts that you can certainly get from word of mouth, but you're not going to find on MLS, much less on the Internet.
Another good example is job hunting. You can go to Monster or Computerjobs.com - but all these sites tell you is that there is a job available that requires XXX qualifications. Quite often, you don't even know what salary range the company has in mind or even who the hiring company is. However, using human intelligence, you can find out about potential openings, salary ranges, how good of a company it is to work for, etc. Vault.com tries to provide this type of information but from what I've seen - it falls short. Though I have gotten some good tidbits out of it in the past.
When it comes to aggregated, general, or highly standardized information, computers can be invaluable tools. However, when you're looking for the skinny on a particular situation, humans are still the most intelligent source of information.
Posted by Mike at 2:01 PM
June 3, 2005
Know the rules of the game
It sounds cliche, but the advice is solid. I was reminded of it as I sat at the blackjack table and was prepared to split aces. I am used to being able to split anything up to four times. As it turns out, you can only split aces once. If you end up with a pair of aces as one of the hands - that's it - you have a hand of 12.
You would think I would've remembered this from my experience 3 weeks ago at the Bellagio. Turns out that they hit soft 17's there. It clearly says that on the table felt. At Caesar's Palace in Indiana however, you had to do a lot of searching around (or learn the hard way) that you could only split aces once.
Good news though - they still let you split 10's (10-J/Q/K, J/Q/K, or Q/K). Of course, I have no idea why you'd ever want to do this. As a general rule, the casino will let you do the things that are in their favor (insurance / even money are good examples of this). Heck, you can even double down after being dealt a blackjack, if you wish (A-10 could be counted as 11 or 21). I have yet to see this done, but it will not surprise me the day that it happens.
So the next time you start a new job, visit a new client, hold negotiations with people from a different environment or country, find out what the 'rules of the game' are.
Posted by Mike at 11:45 PM
June 1, 2005
Dear Publix - I thought you said shopping would be a pleasure?
My lunch time routine is just that - routine. I go to the gym roughly the same time every day and then either go back to the office and have a bowl of soup for lunch, or I go to the local Publix for a deli sandwich.
For the past several weeks, I have been getting two different responses from my sandwich order (Half Boar's Head American on Wheat). One response is "Okay, it will be just one second while I go slice it." The other response is "We're out of American."
Note that to date I have not walked out of the store without my requested sandwich and I didn't make a big scene to get it. My question is how on earth could they possibly be out? They slice their meat 10 feet away at the same deli counter from which customers purchase their deli meat. Could it be that they no longer wish to sell American subs? If that were the case, I would expect that the menu would have the 'American' choice removed.
I suspect the problem is that some of these employees do not wish to spend their time slicing meat for my sandwich. Once I point out that I'm in there almost every day and every other employee has sliced it for me when they were out they oblige and do the same. The easiest solution would be to point out to whoever does the prep each morning that they keep running out of pre-sliced American meats and so more needs to be sliced (although I don't think they have been pre-slicing it on any given day since I have been in at different times and received the same responses). I have never seen the Publix mission statement, but I am willing to bet it is focused on delivering the best service to the customer.
I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel on this Publix.
Posted by Mike at 1:24 PM
May 6, 2005
The Myth of the Internal Customer
For most companies, IT is a cost center. The employees of that department are there by the good graces of the rest of the company. This line of thinking often gets us in trouble by accepting the fallacy of the internal customer as reality.
The concept is not all that bad. We want to identify someone or some group that we can satisfy. That's great - but why are we doing the project? Hopefully the answer to that question is to improve some interaction that we have with our customers.
Yes - there are going to be exceptions to that. Our customers generally do not care how we recognize revenue. So a project to restructure the way we book refinanced debt instruments will have very little bearing on the customer. But other so many other projects along the same line ultimately do affect the customer. Any change to the billing programs, accounts receivable aging, etc. ultimately affects some series of transactions we have with our customer. If we operate without recognizing the effect on the customer, we are blowing countless opportunities and perhaps jeopardizing a relationship that a sales representative has worked hard to build.
Another great example is with your websites. Often, it's not current customers that you are affecting, but rather prospective customers. Yesterday, I spent time working on the problem of website redesign. There are countless reasons to redesign our sites - but there is little thought into the value that we are going to add to the creation of relationships. Having a website is great, but if it does not convey what you do and make you distinctive from all the other people who do the same thing, the redesign will not be a fruitful process.
So for all of you information workers out there - take heart to my advice. Find how your current projects will affect the real customers. The ones who spend money on your products and services. If nothing else, if will make you feel like you have a greater purpose. But it will probably give you perspective on why you're working on a particular process and you'll be in a better position to contribute back to the business ways of improving it.
Posted by Mike at 10:27 PM
May 2, 2005
Write Everything Down
You should write everything down. I need to do this today. Tomorrow. When I'm at the pharmacy. When I'm at the computer. If you don't write it down, it will either occupy your mind at times you should be focusing on other things, or you will forget it altogether.
Organizing what you write down is the biggest challenge and will reap the largest rewards for you. I could go on and on about how much easier this has made my life. But instead, I will just point you to David Allen's book - Getting Things Done. Read it, implement its principles, and you will no longer worry about what you should be doing. It will be automatic and you can then focus on execution. He calls it "Stress-free productivity." I agree.
Posted by Mike at 7:55 AM
April 11, 2005
A Lesson in Teams
Sometimes, the textbook makes sense, but you just have to experience it in action to drive the point hoome. The text says that the more people you have working on a problem, the more solution alternatives (and ultimately the better solution) are proposed. However, the fewer people you have working on a problem, the quicker they are to implement the proposal.
This was proven tonight with a group exam (although I'm not sure that the prof was trying to drive this particular teaching point home). It was similar in length and difficulty to the one we took several weeks ago that took 30 minutes to complete (and I earned excellent marks on). Tonight's exam took 2 hours to complete. I feel like the quality of our answers was superior, but I don't know that they were 4X better than they would have been taken individually.
Posted by Mike at 10:22 PM
Leadership
I went to a public speech today and didn't feel it appropriate to express my critique of it in that forum. So I bottled it up to blog about and protect the guilty.
1) Leadership requires that you create a clear, unambiguous vision that can be shared by those you expect to follow you. Do not in one sentence tell me about being the product of Italian imigrants who scraped together the resources to come to America and see to it that you have a better life than they did, and then in the next sentence tell me that you think it is wrong for parents today to provide the same assistance to their children. It damages what little credibility you gained with me. According to your latter assertion, after you were born your parents should have sent you back to Italy so that you could struggle like they did.
Take money out of the picture, and you will still have centers of power. Money is only one form of reward, albeit one that everyone can identify with fairly easily. Without money, there will still be the "haves" and the "have-nots" - you will simply use a measure other than cash.
2) If you're speaking publicly, do not type out a 20 page dissertation that you read out line by line. I have no problem with talking points, but I saw what looked like an in-depth research paper on yourself. You didn't come across as passionate and I think all that paper is what did it.
3) Your political views are not germaine to the topic you said you were going to address. Spending 10 minutes (off and on) discussing them takes away some credibility from the clearly non-political message you are trying to convey.
Don't get me wrong - I got your message. I have given it a lot of thought. But I'm smarter than the average bear and a little more thoughtful in nature.
Posted by Mike at 10:07 PM
April 7, 2005
The Way of the Wiki
What's a Wiki you may ask? Check out it's definition at perhaps the greatest example of them all - Wikipedia.
My job as a technologist is to figure out innovative ways to allow non-technologists to perform their job functions better. In the old IT model, we focused on centralized processes - forcing people into certain models. There were many good reasons for this - supportability being one of the keys (that's just another word for control).
Along came the concept of alignment. IT departments became concerned with whether their initiatives were meeting the current needs of the organization and whether they were structured to fit the overall strategy of the company. Knowledge management caught on to some extent, and companies used products like Lotus Notes to enable collaboration to take place on a grander scale. Conversations could be turned into documentation and shared with the masses. But this technology still relied on centralization.
We are now entering a phase where IT departments won't be focused on alignment, but rather convergence. I think you will still have a core IT group focused on internetworking, storage, server farms and support - but the analysts, developers, technical writers, etc will be more integrated into business units rather than centralized in IT. Granted, this will probably take a long time, but it is a move toward decentralization and is clearly putting technologists at the edge of the network.
Moving collaboration and the supporting structures to the edge of the network is one of the first challenges we face. If you untether the developers and so on from their IT silo, they will need tools to allow them to quickly construct their support mechanisms. These tools need to be lightweight and fast.
I think the wiki will be one of these tools. And I'm not sure that a formalized IT process will actually bring it in the door. Compare the way of the wiki to the way Blackberrys entered the enterprise. Most IT shops I know did not embrace the Blackberry at first. It was the demands of their business users that brought them in the door. We were then left scrambling to do risk analyses, training, and infrastructure upgrades in order to support this "disruptive" technology.
I'm looking to avoid incidents like the one the Blackberry brought about. I am evaluating each of the problems we see in the environment against all of the tools that are sitting on the landscape and I think I have found one that a wiki system just might solve.
Recognizing change is the first step toward embracing it.
Posted by Mike at 6:18 AM
April 5, 2005
Purging Knowledge
There has been a lot of talk of knowledge management over the past 5 to 10 years. Organizations are obsessed with improving processes by having them documented - not just for those who are charged with carrying out those processes today, but for those who have to follow in their footsteps once the current holders of the knowledge leave the organization. One overlooked notion in this arena is knowledge purging.
We all have document retention policies. In some cases, that is thanks to Sarbox. In other cases, paranoid general counsels have advised this for years. But what about general knowledge? Why isn't that occassionally purged? You know what I'm talking about - "That's just the way it is done." I hate that answer. If I ask why do journal entries have to be made for every expense in a job costing system, "that's just the way it is done" is not a valid answer. Instead, exploration is required to figure out why that is the way it is done.
Business rules need to be documented for exactly this reason. The people that you have entrusted for the past decade to keep up the knowledge of the system are now overloaded with things they need to remember. They are also nearing retirement. The audit trail will tell us not only why "that's the way it is done" but also who says that is the way it is done. Armed with this information, the savvy business executive or effective business analyst can now cut through the noise and ambiguities to carve out what is truly required, and make tactical decisions based on solid, current facts.
Posted by Mike at 10:02 PM