The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
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Posted by ebrown
This is an article I wrote for the Five Q blog – Enjoy!
“Strategy is doing the right thingsand tactics are doing things right.” Everything rises and falls on your web strategy, which is why it is critical to place such emphasis on it being part of the project process, no matter how large or small.
Strategy questions are the foundation for any organization’s web initiatives. Without a solid web strategy, everything else will crumble and fall. Imagine building a house. You don’t start by nailing siding to the framing; you begin by determining the purpose and needs for the house:
Having these determined first ensures that the plan foundation will be solid. A website is much the same way.
To build a web presence that you will not quickly outgrow, start with the following questions:
Can you see how these impact your project from the start?
These questions should be reviewed and revisited through your web project process as well as regularly after launch. Successful organizations are the ones that stay flexible enough to change, adapt, and grow when it makes good strategic sense.
Ready to get started? Take our self-evaluation form and take the first step toward building your successful web presence.
Comment Below:
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Posted by ebrown
This is an article I wrote for the Five Q blog. Enjoy!
With the rise of mobile devices–laptops, tablets, and smart phones–having a clear mobile strategy is a must. If “strategy” is doing the right things, and tactics are “doing things right”, then there are multiple things to consider when creating a mobile strategy.
Good decisions are made with good data. Reviewing your mobile trends in your web analytics tool will help you see trends as well as learn more about your mobile audience.
Key items to review in your analytics for mobile:
Having a good understanding of how mobile users are accessing and viewing your web content will help you better set the direction for your goals and metrics.
All good strategies begin by identifying your key goals for building and delivering your mobile brand. Some examples could include:
Once your goals are established, then you can set your clear and concrete metrics for success. Some metrics for success could include:
Remember that your goals and metrics should be grounded in data as well as flexible enough to adjust to keep pace with the activity your users are experiencing on their mobile devices.
Now that your goals and metrics have been established, you can consider some best practices in developing your comprehensive mobile strategy:
A trending discussion about mobile design revolves around Responsive Design and Progressive Enhancement.
Responsive Design allows your site to be designed to perfectly fit a specific platform/environment–smart phone, tablet, or desktop–with a single design. Through specific adjustments to the website code and style sheets, the design scales and responds accordingly per the device. Here is additional information about responsible web design and its adaptations for mobile.
Progressive Enhancement, on the other hand, “is a way of designing web pages so that the more features a user agent supports, the more features the web page will have. It is the opposite of the design strategy graceful degradation that builds pages for the most modern browsers first and then converts them to work with less functional browsers.” (About.com) A how-to guide for progressive enhancement is provided by Webdesigner Depot.
Knowing that the design is also part of the user experience is something to consider when crafting your mobile strategy.
Keeping the goals, metrics, data, and best practices in mind when developing your mobile strategy will lead to success. You will also want to include in your strategy:
Be sure to work closely with your web team to ensure that your goals and metrics are clearly being met throughout the mobile production process. As technology continues to evolve, you want to be sure that your mobile strategic efforts grow with your brand.
Comment Below:
Leave a Comment » | Business, Design, Freelancing, Generation Y, How-To's, iPad, iphone, iPod, Marketing, Non-profit, Technology, Tips | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
By Eric Brown
It has taken me a while to write this review. Not from lack of reading time, I assure you, I often have 2-3 books going at once. Scott McKain’s book, The Collapse Of Distinction: Stand Out and Move Up While Your Competition Fails, is not a book you skim through. I found myself taking it a bite-at-a-time. I often paused to reflect on and look for ways to apply the action steps outlined in the book. I have many pages dog-eared and chunks of the content underlined.
Some of the questions early in the book that bear reflection are:
If you are new to brand development or in the process of reviving your brand, answering these initial questions may be all you need in order to set yourself head and shoulders above your competitors. Yet, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you did not process the remainder of McKain’s material.
According to the author, there are 3 destroyers of distinction:
Think about it – what have you changed in the last year about yourself or your organization to freshen the approach with your customers and constituents?
McKain goes on to define what he calls “The Ebert Effect” named after movie critic, Roger Ebert.
When people, from their perspective, are inundated with indistinguishable choices, they perceive a product, service, approach, or experience with a specific point of differentiation to be superior.
This means creating small strategies that are recognizable as different from your competition. This is only one step to being different in the customers eyes. We are encouraged to move toward being distinct. The only way to do this, says McKain, is to create a foundation of distinction built on the following four pillars:
Each of the pillars works with the next. You cannot have one without the others if you wish to truly be distinct.
The book was more than a business book, it was a work book. It is laid out for those people who have the time to consume the book page by page. It also has executive summaries at the end of each chapter followed by action steps to put the material into practice – which I would highly recommend.
The publisher, Thomas Nelson, also added a unique feature. Published as a “Nelson Free” title allows the buyer access to three formats for the price of one! I got the hardback version and that gave me access to both an ebook and an audio version of the book. At this writing, it looks as though Thomas Nelson has continued this practice with only a small handful of their titles. A nice perk but not a must-have for many readers.
Nevertheless, if you are wanting to improve your brand distinction, The Collapse Of Distinction, is definitely worth the read. It is full of practical tips throughout and resources at the back of the book that can help you dig further into differentiating your company from the myriad of others vying for consumer attention.
Was this helpful? Please comment below
Enjoy!
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Posted by ebrown
When it comes to social media tools like Facebook, we are often asked, “How can I get more mileage out of [Facebook]?” and “How can I leverage Facebook for growing my organization?”
With the recent interface changes and the opportunity to reach over 500 million active users, Facebook has become the social media tool of choice. This month, we want to give you our 10 Practical Tips for Facebook.
Food for Thought:
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Posted by ebrown
What do you do?
We bit the bullet and went in. Now, the “extra cash” that was supposed to be for lunch was no more. Felt like the old bait-and-switch. Don’t think we will be doing this again.
Dear Lemonade Days staff, next time publish the price please. Especially if you’re going to hike up the admission.
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Posted by ebrown
It is offical: as of March 11, your Facebook pages are now using iFrames. What does that mean? For the average user, it really won’t mean much since the way you update your Facebook page will be the same, for the most part. For the more sophisticated user, here are a few things you will want to pay attention to: FBML has gone away and you can host your own media using iFrames.
Facebook Markup Language
The FBML tab is gone. If you used FBML on your old page, the tab will still be there but Facebook will not allow creating any new custom FBML tabs. Luckily, there are several companies that have come to the rescue and created applications you can use to continue to leverage FBML:
For more information about what this means for you, see Mari Smith’s post about iFrames and Fan Gates.
Other Items of Interest
Over the last months, Facebook has been making other changes as well, the most noticeable differences are Use Facebook As Page and Real-time Analytics for Social Plugins.
Use Facebook as Page
You used to access your Facebook page from the bottom of your profile, but now you can use the Account drop-down to use the feature Use Facebook as Page. When you click on this, you will be given a choice of the pages you own and can switch with a simple click. Switching back is just as simple: click on the Account drop-down and click Switch back to [your profile name]. Aside from the FBML changes, you can edit your page just like before by accessing all your tabs from the left sidebar.
Real-time Analytics for Social Plugins
Facebook also recently announced website and social plugin analytics to their Facebook Insights. This will allow you to gather more actionable data about your page and how well it is performing.
Food for Thought:
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Posted by ebrown
The company I work for, Five Q, has Subject Matter Experts or SMEs (pronounced “smees”) on a variety of topics. Our staff has expertise in web and marketing related areas, including but not limited to web strategy, usability, SEO, social media, information design, mobile strategy, user experience, email marketing, and project management. Our SMEs are continually researching new trends and directions in web technology. The distinguishing factor between a trend and a direction is that trends come and go, but a direction is a solid shift and movement in web usage and technologies. For our client partners, here are some of the prominent directions we see for 2011 are:
How do these new directions fit with your web strategy? Is your plan flexible enough to accommodate change? Five Q can help. Contact us today for more information.
Leave a Comment » | Business, Management, Marketing, Media, Non-profit, Social Media, Web, Work | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how WeirdGuy blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 6 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 8 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 761 posts. There was 1 picture uploaded, taking a total of 49kb.
The busiest day of the year was December 2nd with 596 views. The most popular post that day was Personality Types: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver.
The top referring sites in 2010 were zimbio.com, facebook.com, familyfriendlymorningshow.blogspot.com, google.com, and search.conduit.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for virtual iphone, consultative leadership, dictatorial leadership, animal personality traits, and animal personality types.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Personality Types: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver February 2007
79 comments and 2 Likes on WordPress.com
Leadership Styles: Dictatorial, Authoritative, Consultative, Participative September 2007
25 comments
Understanding the Animal Temperaments February 2007
3 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,
Your Virtual iPhone March 2007
16 comments
How Leadership Styles Affect Productivity September 2007
16 comments
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Posted by ebrown
Who do you like? Respond here
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Posted by ebrown
By Dan Coughlin
Innovative thinking means searching for and implementing a better way.
That’s it. Nothing more. Do not overcomplicate this topic. It’s not about pontificating on highly theoretical concepts and wasting a lot of money. Innovation is improvement in motion.
A business innovation is the process of creating additional value for your customers that they will pay for at a greater profit for your business. Your innovations have to do both: increase value to customers and increase the profits that your organizations make. Creating value that erodes profit is not a business innovation. It’s actually a self-induced death blow to your business.
The Process of Innovation
Step One: Focus, don’t spend.
For many years I worked with executives in one of the world’s largest companies. Each quarter we would study the business results of the industry in a wide variety of categories. Every quarter one of my client’s competitors, which was much smaller and had far fewer resources than my client, would win in several key performance categories.
I didn’t understand what was happening. The people at my client organization worked incredibly hard on a large number of projects to create and deliver more value to the customers. They invested enormous resources into these innovative projects. And yet this small competitor kept outperforming them quarter after quarter.
Then one day my client hired one of the key executives from this competitor. On her second week on the job I asked her, “How in the world did your former company keep outperforming your new company?” What she said I will never forget.
She said, “We had very, very limited resources. We couldn’t try a lot of things. We had to succeed with the few projects we could afford to do. We were forced to concentrate on delivering great value on one thing at a time. Here we have tons of resources. And that’s the problem. It allows us not to have to focus in order to survive. So we end up doing too many projects and overwhelming our front-line employees and customers.”
Within a few years my client’s organization was achieving incredible results that were lasting far longer than ever before. What was the difference? In spite of having massive resources to work with my client narrowed their focus to a few key areas. No longer did they allow themselves to go off on three dozen wild tangents. They poured all of their effort and concentration into improving just those few areas. Today they are achieving truly remarkable results quarter after quarter.
Note: recessions are good for innovation. It forces every company to operate within a tight budget and be extremely focused. This tight area of concentration generates far more useful innovations than the conceptual free-for-all that companies often use during good economic times.
In the past six months I have served as a business speaker to the National Automobile Dealers Association, National Association of Home Builders, and a national conference of a major residential real estate company. These were three of the hardest hit industries in the past three years. Yet I didn’t hear talk about gloom and doom at any of the meetings. I saw and heard a lot of ideas about how people were working to create greater practical value for their customers in a few concentrated areas. It was clear that everyone understood that innovative thinking was a requirement to survive through this recession and thrive on the other side of it.
What is the one area that you are going to focus on improving for your customers?
Step Two: Ask.
Of course, one way to find out the best area to focus on for customers is to ask the customers. I suggest a simple question such as, “If there was one thing about your experience with this product (or service) that you would like improved, what would it be?”
Now be patient. Customers don’t have the answer on the tip of their tongues. Allow them to think. If they can’t think of anything, you can follow up with probing questions on specific aspects of the product or service. Another approach is to ask, “What was of value to you with this product, what was not of value to you, and what would have been of greater value to you?”
Before you start to come up with an innovative product or service, identify the statement you are trying to fulfill. Write a one- to three-sentence description of the desired outcome. Say you want to create a new countertop in public bathrooms for the sinks and faucets. Your statement might say, “In the end, we want a countertop that stays dry so people can place a book or small bag on the countertop and the item won’t get all wet.”
Innovations don’t have to be about computers or cell phones or medicine. Innovation is about searching for and implementing a better way. That “better way” can happen in any industry.
Step Three: See.
Remember: insight comes from sight. If you want to understand the customer experience in order to improve it, then go see for yourself what it is that customers go through. Don’t just ask them for ideas on how to improve the experience. Go look for yourself.
A few weeks ago I bought a quarter-sheet cake for a Valentine’s Party at my church. I went to the bakery, and asked the baker if I could see the cake before I paid for it. She opened the box, and it said, “Happy Valentine’s Day, St. Lucas Women in Red”. I looked at the cake, I looked at the baker, and then I said, “Why does it say, ‘St. Lucas Women in Red’?”
She pulled out a sheet of paper, and said, “It says right here, ‘St. Lucas Women in Red’.” I looked at it, and I said, “I meant I wanted the frosting in red, not the words.” She said, “No problem.” She scooped off the red letters and replaced it with vanilla frosting.
At the party that night I told that story. Someone else said, “I had that same experience at that bakery.” If the owner of the bakery had been a customer of the bakery, then he or she may have gained the insight necessary to create a better experience for customers.
Step Four: Stop and start over.
Sometimes you have to start over from scratch. Don’t feel compelled to merely tweak what you’ve always done.
Several years ago McDonald’s sold Salad Shakers. The idea was to put the salad dressing in a cup with the salad ingredients. Then you shook it up and, voila, you had a salad. Only problem was there were a lot of problems. You had to ask for a plate to pour the salad onto after you shook it up, and the salad dressing oftentimes ended up on the customer’s clothing.
So McDonald’s stopped and started over. They gained insights from customers. They went and observed the Salad Shaker in action at restaurants. And then they came out with a completely new salad, their Premium Salad. This new salad has been wildly popular for several years and helped to significantly increase sales of Happy Meals.
Don’t be married to your current way of doing things. Once you’ve identified the statement you are trying to fulfill and have gained insights into what customers really want be willing to take out a blank sheet of paper and start with new ideas on what will deliver the value that you want to deliver.
Step Five: Improve.
A prototype is a model that represents what your idea will look like when it’s put into action. You can create simple prototypes for both products and services. Use cheap, basic materials to assemble your prototype. Use paper, napkins, paper towels, paper clips, cardboard, and Styrofoam. Don’t use expensive materials to make fancy looking models. That’s a waste of money.
When you are explaining your concept you can refer to the prototype and that may very well help the other person understand better what it is you’re trying to get across. My all-time favorite book on innovation is The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, who is the general manager of IDEO. My favorite quote from that book is, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand pictures.”
Start with five or six prototypes under the area of focus that you selected earlier. Study the prototypes, capture the best ideas, and then continue to make prototypes as quickly as you can as better ideas evolve.
Notice so far you have not spent very much money. You’ve invested time in talking with customers, observing customers, and developing prototypes. The process of innovation is not expensive. The primary investment is a mental investment, not a financial one.
Keep improving the prototypes until you land on the one that you are ready to actually create and deliver into the marketplace. This is where the costs primarily occur. You will have to spend some money in producing the product, training people on the new service they will be delivering, and on marketing the new product or service. However, notice that if you hold off on the spending until this stage you are able to provide something into the marketplace that has a far better chance of success at a lower overall investment from your business.
Step Six: Sell.
At some point you have to attempt to sell your innovation. You can’t innovate in a vacuum forever. You’ve got to put your idea out in the market and see how people respond to it. Innovation does not end with the first sale. Innovation is an on-going process. Find out what customers like and don’t like in your new product or service. And then keep working to make it better and better.
Step Seven: Find out if the proper connection has occurred
One important question to ask after your product or service has been in the market for awhile is, “Do customers feel they received the value that we intended to deliver to them?”
There is value to you regardless of the answer to that question. If customers feel they are receiving the value you wanted to deliver, then you can tell how much this value is worth to them. If customers believe they are receiving some other value that was unintended, then what is it? Perhaps that unintended value can lead to great profits for your business. If customers feel they are receiving no value from this new product or service, then you can work to determine if you need to scratch the idea or merely modify it.
My point is that I don’t want you to just stop after you’ve sent the new product or service into the marketplace. Allow customers to teach you what you don’t know about this new innovation. It doesn’t matter what value you think you put into the marketplace. What does matter is what value your customers think you put into the marketplace.
Keep searching for and implementing a better way. It is the key to surviving in tough times and thriving in good times.
About Dan Coughlin
Dan Coughlin teaches practical ideas that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including Accelerate, Corporate Catalysts, and The Management 500. Dan’s new book Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America’s All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach, will be published in May 2010.
1 Comment | Business, Creativity, Innovation, Inspiration, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Non-profit, Processes, Tips | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
Saw this on a friends feed and had to post. Can you relate?
Thanks to: Comics.com | Pearls Before Swine
1 Comment | Art, Creativity, Fun, General, Humor, Performance, Social Media, Technology, Work | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
Saw an interesting article today by Kurt Grandis. After a six-month productivity study of teams using Python and C#, Kurt states, “Given our development processes we found the average productivity of a single Django developer to be equivalent to the output generated by two C# ASP.NET developers. Given equal-sized teams, Django allowed our developers to be twice as productive as our ASP.NET team.”
A programmer friend of mine says, “You have to write 3x more code in C# just to do the same stuff….”
Read the article on Kurt’s blog and tell me what you think about Python v. C#
Leave a Comment » | Business, General, Management, Tech, Technology, Tools, Web | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
Saw this and had to share. I can relate to the humor of Bill Amend’s FoxTrot.
Leave a Comment » | Animation, Art, Fun, General, Humor, iPad, Mac | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
By Dan Coughlin
2009 was the most extraordinary year of my life not because of what I earned but rather because of what I learned. The year was filled with more learning experiences on more areas of my life than any other. My hope is that some of these lessons will be of value to you in 2010.
The Value of Life
The single biggest lesson for me was to value the value of life to a greater degree.
From July 2008 to May 2009 six important people in my life died: Aunt Loretta, Aunt Marie, Aunt Helen, my cousin Larry, my good friend Kevin Wade, and my dad. The hardest of all of these was losing my dad. Dad was an encourager. Even though I don’t think he ever really fully understood what I do for a living, he always kept encouraging me and showing interest in my work. Dad died six weeks before his 80th birthday.
Next to my desk I have a letter I wrote to him on his 75th birthday. It summarized many of the main events and routine happenings in our lives together. Dad made a copy of it, wrote a note on it, and gave me that copy. I never understood why he did that since the letter was from me to him. Now I’m so thankful he did. At the end of the note he wrote, “Dan, I love you forever, Dad.”
On his 75th birthday I took him to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game. We sat and talked all night. He told me about his volunteer efforts with the Hibernians and with Mother Theresa’s Soup Kitchen. I said, “Where do you find the energy for all of that?” He said, “You never know how long you’re going to live. You have to make the most of your time while you can.” Two years later he was in stage two of a terrible disease called Dementia with Lewey Bodies. A little more than two years later he was dead.
I’m so grateful that for the last eight days of his life I got to kneel by his side, hold his hand, kiss his forehead, and tell him over and over how much I appreciated what he did for me and how much I loved him. His last three words to me a few days before he died were, “…love you, too.” A few hours before he died almost everything shut down for him. His eyes glazed over, his mind was gone, his muscles stopped working, and the blood was leaving his feet and hands. However, his heart was pumping as strong as ever. I’ll never forget that. The strongest part of Dad until his very last second was his heart. I NEVER let a day go by without hugging my wife, Barb, and our children, Sarah and Ben, multiple times. Remember the value of life.
A few months ago members of my church helped to organize a special fundraiser for our good friend, Shannon, who lost her husband to cancer in 2008. It was an awesome night. 600 people showed up and we raised nearly $30,000. As Shannon stood behind the podium with her three young children and celebrated her husband Scott’s life, I was reminded again of the value of life.
These are tough economic times for the world. I know you’re busy trying your best to create and deliver value for your customers and to take care of your family. However, in the end life is about relationships. Life is about making time for our family and friends and really investing ourselves in their lives. In the end our lives are not that long and we never know how much time we have left with anyone. Focus your attention on people, not things and not honors and not rewards.
The Value of Time
This is connected to the value of life. I can’t imagine wasting time anymore. There is simply too much to do: my family, my work, my friends, my workouts, my volunteer efforts, my reading time, and so much more. Every month I have lunch and recess with each of my two children, Sarah and Ben. Total investment: 100 minutes a month. That’s priceless time to me. Every day I read for 30-60 minutes. Again, priceless. My wife, Barb, and I have four to five television shows a week we like to watch together by ourselves. That’s our fun time. I write blogs, twitters, and articles almost every day. That’s time well spent. I exercise for 60-90 minutes every day. Valuable. I have lunch with my mom at least every other week. That’s time that can’t be replaced. Every pocket of time can be filled with value or used to create value. See the value of time.
The Value of a Dollar
As with many businesses around the world, my revenues were down significantly in 2009. From that came something very good. I finally realized the wisdom of my two parents who were both born during the Great Depression. They always talked about the value of a dollar, and I always ignored them. If I had money, I almost always found a way to spend it. This year I finally learned the empowering feeling of not spending money. I realized the utter foolishness of advisors who suggested you have to drive a certain car or wear certain clothes or use a certain pen in order to be seen as credible. My value-added is in the user-friendliness of my practical ideas on improving business performance, not in what car I drive or what clothes I wear or what I write with. 2009 has been the beginning of what I hope is a life-long respect for every single dollar that I am responsible for.
The Value of Value
On May 30th Barb, Sarah, Ben, and I went to see the film, Up, by Disney/Pixar Animation Studios. I loved it. And I gained another lesson from this year. Pixar Animation Studios has now made 14 films since their first one, Toy Story, in 1995, and all 14 films have gone to #1 at the box office.
Apple’s iPhone came out in 2007 and it sells faster now than ever before. It didn’t even exist three years ago, and now in the midst of a terrible recession everybody has to have it and they find a way to get it.
Mitch Albom and Malcolm Gladwell came out with books within the past 12 months and they both shot to #1 on the bestseller lists.
Lesson Learned: Even in the midst of a terrible recession, companies and individuals who create great value generate extraordinary results. The absolute key for any business or any individual to prosper in bad economic times is to create and deliver incredible value that other people will feel they absolutely must have. What value can you deliver and what value can you help your organization to deliver that will help you to rise above this recession and be in greater demand than ever before?
The Value of Tough Times
People talk about 2009 as though it were the worst year of their lives. Ironically, one day we will all look back and realize that 2009 caused significant changes in behavior that led to incredible results. Let’s step back in time and look at two examples of where greatness found its starting point in the “worst of times.”
In her book, The Definitive Drucker, Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, does a great job of describing what Toyota Motor Company went through in its early days after it was founded in 1930. I admire Toyota as much as any company in the world. From Corolla to Camry to Avalon to Lexus, Toyota has managed to create magnificent cars at every price point from economy to luxury. They all ride beautifully and require very, very little maintenance. However, I think their real greatness can be traced to their earliest days.
The founder of Toyota was Sakichi Toyoda. The global business economy was so bad in 1930, that he changed the spelling of his last name to Toyota, according to Edersheim “because in Japanese the letter ‘t’ has one fewer stroke than ‘d’ – thus saving time on printing signs and advertisements – an early indication of the ceaseless focus on efficiency that would come to characterize the organization.” She goes on to say, “The car market in Japan at that time was small. Because the competition was so stiff and capital so hard to accumulate, Toyota had to do everything possible to minimize the time between when it purchased parts and assembled vehicles and when it received payment – hence, the birth of the company’s vaunted ‘just-in-time’ production methods.”
She then explains that the extremely difficult economic period of the 1930s caused the Toyota management team to discuss every decision in detail and only to move forward when every member had an opportunity to offer their perspective in group consideration. They simply could not waste any money. This same careful, collaborative approach to decision-making has carried on to this day.
Would these highly effective management approaches been developed if they had not been faced with a very tough economic situation? My hunch is that it probably would not have happened. Only when trapped in a very tough situation do most humans begin to scramble mentally and physically to figure a way out.
In 1997 Apple Computer had reached nearly to the end of its rope. They had managed to lose one billion dollars in the previous quarter, and they were perhaps six months away from bankruptcy. Steve Jobs came back as the interim CEO and the rest is history. He quickly moved the company from having 80 different computers and variations of computers to just four. He then carefully introduced two new concepts in 2001: a digital music player, the iPod, and the iTunes music store. By staying remarkably focused on doing a great job with a few products, Apple transformed itself into one of the world’s greatest companies and Steve Jobs was recently named CEO of the Decade by Fortune magazine.
These extremely tough economic times can have a very big upside. What is it forcing your organization to do that can ultimately lead to generating sustainable, profitable growth? What could it be forcing your organization to do that can improve its future dramatically?
The Value of Detoxing
A few weeks ago my computer had a terrible virus. I would enter websites and the internet would take me to the wrong sites. I quickly shut down my computer and called a terrific computer consultant. He worked his magic, removed the virus, and installed a much better anti-virus software than the one I had.
This reminded me of my major personal theme for 2009. I wanted to “detox my system” of a lot of bad habits. I define a toxic habit as anything a person does, thinks, or says that keeps them from performing at their best. I identified a number of toxic habits that I needed to focus on including eating, spending, emotions, language, immediacy, impulsiveness, and playing old mental tapes. Each day I reviewed how I did relative to these toxic habits. Like my computer consultant did for my computer, I was able to reduce the impact of these toxic habits little by little. I dropped 18 pounds and kept if off, realized the importance of not expecting an immediate positive result for every effort I made, and let go of some frustrations I have been carrying around for years. The lesson I learned is success is not just about learning new things and achieving new heights of achievement. Sometimes it’s about removing the viruses we build up inside of ourselves.
The Value of Prayer
This was another major learning for me. This is only the second time I’ve ever written about prayer in one of my business articles. If spirituality is not your thing, then you can skip this part. I’ve always prayed, but usually it was very sporadic and done only occasionally. This year I prayed consistently two to three times a week.
I never pray for results. I never pray for health or safety or any type of outcome. Essentially, I pray for advice on what to do. My prayer is basically the same one over and over. I ask God four questions: How am I doing? What am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What should I be doing differently? Usually I hear something I don’t want to hear, and it causes me to reflect on what adjustments I need to make. I think prayer helps me to be a better person, and I think it helps me to be more genuinely who I really am in all situations. Praying has helped me to be more comfortable in every setting. I don’t ask God for money or material things. I ask for insights. Based on those insights, I try to figure out what to do next.
The Value of Reading
This really isn’t a new lesson. It’s something I’ve known for 25 years. However, I thought you might like to see my reading list from 2009. I found value in every one of these books:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Uncommon by Tony Dungy
Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer
Enough by Jack Bogle
Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom
Leading, Living, and the American Dream by John Gardner
The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh and Steve Jamison
It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For by Roy Spence and Haley Rushing
Hit the Ground Running by Jason Jennings
The Shack by William Young
Development of Professional Expertise edited by Anders Ericsson
Broken Trust by Patrick Fleming, Sue Lauber-Fleming and Mark Matousek
Take the Risk by Ben Carson
Shooting Stars by Lebron James and Buzz Bissinger
Obstacles Welcome by Ralph de la Vega
Greater Than Yourself by Steve Farber
The Definitive Drucker by Elizabeth Haas Edersheim
Mockingbird by Charles Shield
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Dutch Total Football by Terry Michler.
About Dan Coughlin
Visit Dan at www.thecoughlincompany.com. Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009), which has been endorsed by Jason Jennings, Marshall Goldsmith, and Brian Tracy. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, Denny’s, and the St. Louis Cardinals.
3 Comments | General | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
By Dan Coughlin
It’s official. I’m at the halfway point in my career. Over the last 25 years of working with individuals and groups the topic I have focused on the most is leadership. It is my favorite topic of all. Here are five lessons I’ve learned about leadership.
Lesson #1: Leadership is Not a Label
In studying leaders and in working side-by-side with leaders as a management consultant in over 30 industries, I have always searched for what these individuals had in common. First, here is what they did not have in common: height, size, race, gender, sexual orientation, spiritual focus, political preference, or personality type. Leaders come in every size and shape. Some are men and some are women, some are tall and some are short, some are big and some are thin, some are light-skinned and some are dark-skinned, some are straight and some are gay, some are devoutly spiritual and some are atheists, some are conservative and some are liberal, some are quiet and some are loud. I found no title, income level, or authority that ever automatically made a person an effective or an ineffective leader.
Lesson #2: Leadership Means Influencing How Other People Think
After studying leaders for a long period of time, I discovered that leadership really means influencing how other people think in ways that generate better sustainable results both for the organization and the people in it. It is the person’s ability to influence how other people think that determines his or her effectiveness as a leader.
Lesson #3: Leaders Answer Four Critical Questions
I did find one thing that all effective leaders have in common. They all actively worked to answer the Four Critical Leadership Questions. Now they didn’t call it that and most of the time they didn’t write down these questions. However, each person did work to find the answers to these questions and then persevered to implement his or her answers.
The Four Critical Leadership Questions are:
Now let’s go through the four questions together and I’ll offer some additional thoughts for each of them. Take out a sheet of paper and write down your answers to these four questions as we go through them.
What outcome do I want to improve for my organization and why do I want to improve it?
Leadership is not acting. You can’t just walk into a room and say with a deep voice, “Let’s go out there and rock the world.” Leadership has to be geared toward improving some outcome. On your sheet of paper, write down the specific outcome you want to improve in your organization. Be as clear as you can be about what it is you want to have happen. Then write down as many reasons as you can think of as to why you want to improve that outcome.
Who do I need to influence in order to improve that outcome?
After you identify the desired outcome, then write down who needs to be involved in improving that outcome. Be clear about whom it is that you need to influence.
What do I need to influence them to think about?
Notice an important point here. The question doesn’t say, “What do I need to tell people to do?” If people are just doing something because they are told to do it, what happens when you’re not there to tell them what to do? The key is to identify what you want them to think about when you are not present. For example, if your desired outcome is to have customers who are vastly more loyal to your brand than your competitors, you might want to influence your fellow employees to think about the value of significantly more loyal customers. Once people start thinking about that outcome they can come up with all kinds of ideas on how to improve the customer’s experience. If they buy into the idea that vastly more loyal customers will improve their careers over the long term, they may very well focus to an even greater degree than you do and in more of a hands-on fashion than you can toward improving the customer experience on a consistent basis.
How will I influence them?
Now we are getting down to the act of leading, or influencing, others. There are 12 different types of leaders I’ve met or studied in my career. Each type can be effective in leading other people, and you can be more than one type of leader as you go about trying to influence your target audience to improve the desired outcome.
Lesson #4: There are Different Types of Leaders
In reflecting on the various individuals I have watched effectively influence the way other people think and generate significant and sustained results for their organizations, I have found that each of them provided one or more of the following types of leadership.
Types of Leaders
To familiarize yourself with these different types of leadership, here are a few exercises for you to consider doing.
Exercise #1: Think of three leaders who affected your life in an important way. Then scan the list above and determine which type or types of leadership they provided.
Exercise #2: Think of a time when you were an effective leader. Then scan the list above and determine the type or types of leadership you provided.
Exercise #3: Write down how you will influence the individuals you identified earlier in question #2. Which type or types of leadership are you going to provide to influence them to think about what you want them to think about?
Lesson #5: You have to Earn Your Platform in Order to Lead
Regardless of the type of leader you want to be in any given situation, you have to earn the right to be the leader. Speaking from a platform is not difficult. You walk up three steps, walk over to the middle of the platform, and start speaking. The greater challenge is to earn your platform as a leader, which is the privilege of having people trust you and be willing to consider your influence. Tony Dungy, the former Indianapolis Colts head football coach, talked about this in his book, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance.
What do you need to do to earn other people’s trust and their willingness to consider your influence? Essentially, you need to do what you said you would do and you need to be seen as being credible on the topic you want to influence them on. Anyone can be a leader, but no one is guaranteed to be a leader. Take the time to answer the Four Critical Leadership Questions, and then every day act in a way that other people can trust you and will want to consider your influence.
Once you have earned your leadership platform never take the privilege of having a platform to influence other people lightly. It can take many years to earn a platform as a leader and a few minutes to lose it.
Interviews with Experts on Leadership
A relatively new feature on my website is my Featured Book Recommendations section. In this section I provide an in-depth book review and conversation with the author(s). Currently this section contains interviews with three experts on leadership.
The first expert on leadership is Steve Jamison, who is in my opinion the world’s best author at interviewing extraordinarily successful athletic coaches and extracting their insights on leadership and teamwork. He has worked very closely in writing books with the late Bill Walsh, the former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, John Wooden, the former UCLA men’s basketball coach and winner of 10 NCAA Division I Championships, and Brad Gilbert, the extraordinarily successful tennis coach of Andre Agassi and Andy Murray. I reviewed his newest book, The Score Takes Care of Itself, which he wrote with Bill Walsh and his son, Craig Walsh.
The second expert on leadership is Jason Jennings, who has studied in-depth more carefully selected business leaders than anyone I know of. In his most recent book, Hit the Ground Running, he studied the 10 most successful new CEOs in the first seven years of the 21st Century.
The third expert on leadership is Roy Spence, CEO of GSD&M Idea City, who along with Haley Rushing from GSD&M Idea City, wrote the book, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For. These two have worked closely with leaders at Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines, BMW, and a host of other companies.
To read these conversations with the authors and the book reviews, click http://thecoughlincompany.com/featured_book_recommendations.html
About Dan Coughlin
Visit Dan Coughlin’s Free Resource Center on Business Acceleration at www.thecoughlincompany.com. Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009), which has been endorsed by Jason Jennings, Marshall Goldsmith, and Brian Tracy. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, Denny’s, and the St. Louis Cardinals.
2 Comments | Business, General, Leadership, Management, Work | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
By E. Brown
Now, a group who “gets it!” CourseSmart has released this movie of how eBooks are going to change and adapt — they have to — for the next generation of reader and learner. Also, the rumors of the Apple “iSlate” make this reality a lot closer than you might think. So, where might this leave the Kindle? You be the judge.
Do you think there will be a market for this product? How do you think it will revolutionize learning?
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3 Comments | Books, Education, eLearning, Generation Y, Innovation, iphone, Kindle, Learning, Technology, Writing | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
Seems I grew up too late for all the cool toys. I just missed the Big Wheel, too late for the PS2, and don’t get me started on the Nintendo DS. We had bikes, cards, and make-believe games (not saying that’s all bad) but I sure wish I could be a kid again. Now, along comes Wiiwaa for the Wii. Oh well, missed another one, but you still gotta check it out. Fun! Watch the video and then let me know what were/are some of your favorite games growing up?
1 Comment | Animation, Creativity, Entertainment, Family, Fun, Games, Gaming, Technology | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
By E. Brown (Repost)
Did you know that many people use the words, job, career, and vocation synonymously? Are you one of them? These words are actually very distinct with distinct definitions.
The Dictionary says of these:
Job – A paid position, responsibility, or piece of work.
Career – Time spent in an occupation for a significant period of one’s life.
Vocation – A strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or a person’s main occupation.
When thinking about your work, how do you see yourself positioned? Many newbies to the workforce see themselves in particular jobs for the money. Yet studies have shown that after 5 to 10 years, money is not the prime motivator many thought it was. Many lack passion in what they do, but it pays the bills so they stick it out in an environment they dread returning to each Monday morning. Today, employees are asking themselves if they are truly making a difference with their lives in regard to work. After all, in the western world, work is such a big part of one’s life, you cannot help but wonder if there is any lasting impact. “Is this all there is?” many are asking.
So, how about you? Are you in a job, a career, or a vocation?
Dan Miller offers the following definitions as you think about your life and its purpose as related to work. Read on.
Job - A job is the most specific and immediate of the three terms. It has to do with one’s daily activities that produce income. The average job is 3.2 years in length, meaning the average person will have 14 to 16 different jobs in his/her working lifetime. Jobs will come and go….
Career - Career comes originally from the Latin word for “cart” and later from the Middle French word for “racetrack.” In other words, you can go real fast for a long time but never get anywhere. That is why in today’s work environment, even physicians, attorneys, CPAs, and engineers may choose to get off the expected track and choose another career. You can have different careers at different points in your life.
Vocation - Vocation is the most profound of the three, incorporating calling, purpose, mission, and destiny. This is the big picture many people never identify for themselves. It’s what you’re doing in life that makes a difference and builds meaning for you, which you can review in your later years to see the impact you’ve made on the world. Stephen Covey says that we all want “to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.” Our vocation will leave a legacy. The word vocation comes from the Latin vocare, which means “to call.” It suggests that you are listening for something that is calling out to you. Everyone has a vocation or calling. (48 Days To The Work You Love, pages 38-40)
Anyone can do a job. The question is, have you been listening for your vocation? Are you fulfilling a purpose beyond the weekly grind? Are you proud and excited about the legacy you are leaving?
These are not easy questions to answer. They will take some introspection but in the end you will find the time you took was worthwhile. You will approach work with exuberance.
You will have fun.
You will find yourself content.
Contentment is not a word used much anymore. Yet, isn’t that something we all want at the end of the day - contentment?
Go. Pursue your vocation and at the end of your life you will find contentment!
Now tell me about you — are you in a job or vocation?
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2 Comments | Business, Family, Freelancing, General, Generation Y, LinkedIn, Management, Marketing, Non-profit, Tips, Work | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
Fun online Turkey Bowling game is back for the holidays. Give it a shot.
I actually did better this year than last. I got a 70! Try it and let me know what score(s) you get here on WeirdGuy blog.
Have fun!
1 Comment | Animation, Entertainment, Family, Fun, Games, General | Permalink
Posted by ebrown
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