Archive for the 'Blog' Category



Brave enough to collect and take feedback

I was watching foundat.io/n earlier today and Philip Rosedale (founder of SecondLife) was on talking about a survey he runs every quarter.

The survey collects anonymous responses to these questions:
1) Do you think I should remain as CEO or be replaced?
2) Regardless of the above have I improved / gotten worse at my job?
3) Why?

Philip then relays the numbers of the first two questions back to the team. With the insight that at some point he should leave the role as CEO and at that point he probably won’t want to go but the trend of the numbers won’t lie.

Secondly he would sit down and review the Why responses (after a couple of drinks). It is easy to brush off feedback when it comes from someone you know but when (as he says) you get the same feedback from seven different employees who don’t know one another you can’t argue with that.

Are you brave enough to collect and take feedback?

It’s a classic case of just holding your breath and doing it. The feedback helps everyone, those you ask, you and your company. We do it for our customers and it was amazing to hear three different customers give us the same feedback. Like Philip said it is a universal truth when you hear it in that manner.

 


Note: Foundat.io/n videos are released once a month, if you are a subscriber (like me) you get them early. Watch the Foundation Vimeo channel for the video to come out.

February 28th, 2011

Where ideas fit in

I’m talking about new unchartered ideas.  Ideas that are being executed for the first time.

They fit in at the head of the curve, where everything is new, the cost of change is low and change is rapid.  Indicative of new projects (can be within a large organisation), early stage and smaller companies.

Systems Ideas, ideas that have been executed many times & have a set of steps to build & demonstrate value fit in here.  The cost of change is higher, thus a systemised idea fits in & is more effective.  Indicative of maturing / larger companies.

 

February 27th, 2011

Support New Zealand

As many of you know I live in New Zealand, Auckland in fact, miles away from the earthquake that hit Christchurch yesterday.  This isn’t the same for some of my friends & family (but they’re ok).

If you can, please make a donation to the Red Cross to help with the recovery.  If you head over to GrabOne you can donate $5, $10 or $20 – each and every incremental dollar makes a difference.

Thanks,

-Ben

February 22nd, 2011

Random Acts of Kindness

This video is the result of a few smart (great guys) I know coming together and executing, enjoy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VGjNyMbM-E

How would you react?

February 16th, 2011

What will become of libraries?

in the digital age of libraries, what will they become?

Hubs, real physical hubs, just as with Twitter The Well, one of the original online communities, people strived to meet in real life (despite online connections).

Libraries will become places where we meet, gather, engage with each other and connect around content.

Or at least, till the next generation takes these libraries inside facebook.

February 14th, 2011

A lifetimes achievement, all in one place

Someone will research, interview, toil away for thousands of hours, employ a team of research assistants to help them collate the information.

The recommendations sum up this mass of intellect.

And then anyone can go the summation of this knowledge off the shelf as a book for ONLY $30.

February 13th, 2011

Make it serious, make it like a business

Does executing your side project make business sense?

Or does it only exist because you’ll put unreasonable hours into it?

Answering those questions helps put your effort into perspective.  It doesn’t necessarily have to make business sense yet but realising it doesn’t will change how you approach it.

February 7th, 2011

Let us train search results!

Einstein said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

The annoying thing is that when you are seeking information often the same results come up over and over.  It would be nice if we could ‘edit’ the results and say stop showing me this page.  Just like Facebook where you can remove content from your activity feed – do the same for search results.

Please Google, Bing, that would make a world of difference (to me and everyone else out there researching).

February 3rd, 2011

Shallow Performance Measures

We (my wife and I) were shopping over the weekend visiting (I’ll be honest) mainly ladies stores.

What I noticed is that most stores the attendant would come up and say hi, the most interesting was one who was on the phone wandered up said hi, shuffled two pieces of clothes and walked away to resume her conversation.

I thought that’s weird.  Then I remembered my friends (in retail) telling me that mystery shoppers come test you and score you accordingly.  One of those is ‘acknowledging’ every customer.

So what’s the shortcut to that? Saying hi by whatever means, even if it’s not helpful.  It’s a shallow performance measure and really the response to it reflects the culture of the store.

Not a good sign! A better measure in my mind would be to have a meaningful interaction with each and every customer.  And people are scored by customer satisfaction leaving the store.  Not being on the receiving end of forced communication.

February 2nd, 2011

IF….

You can sell yourself, you’ll never have a problem.

Being able to sell yourself changes and de-risks any new opportunity you pursue.

It means you can chase an idea and still earn a living.

If you can solve this problem, it erradicates many others that you’ll never have to experience.

February 1st, 2011

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