This is what they want (a supercomputer and monitors for every window they might want open). Everyone else is using this and it even supports pair programming.
Your company has just announced it is merging with another company. This isn't just a small acquisition, it is big.
The problem is:
And it has to be done in a very short time frame (yesterday usually).
Someone is likely to suggest using Excel.
But splitting data in Excel and merging it later is a big headache. But that does not even begin to touch on the real issues of e-mailing Excel files around. If you need to update the data or Excel macros, it means redistributing and re-merging all the work done to that point in time. Now you have multiple versions of the files floating around. How do you track who changed what? How do you work on the same file with different team members?
Forget it.
What you really need is an online tool.
But your internal development group is either too busy with other priorities during the merger or you don't really want them having access to all the corporate employee data, at least during this process.
You can use an external software vendor. But the issue is that you have to pick one quickly because the clock is ticking.
Your best bet is to look at one you can trust. One that has been working with HR data and applications for a long time. Even better, one that can potentially partner with a reputable HR consulting firm to give value added advice on the slotting process and other merger "people" considerations.
We (Sunwapta Solutions) have been building serious applications and managing data for the HR, actuarial and financial services world for 10 years... and most recently, we have been building Employee Slotting and Salary Administration tools. The tools are new, fresh and web enabled. Just what you might need to manage your portion of the merger.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Optimizing Developer Productivity STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: optimizing-developer-productivity CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/04/optimizing-developer-productivity.html DATE: 04/04/2010 10:47:56 PM ----- BODY:In my last post I made light of the constant desire of (some) developers to want the latest and greatest in hardware; it can never be good enough. Smart managers know there is a balancing point between having the right tools to increase developer productivity and throwing money in the wind.
So exactly how do you justify and quantify the benefits of using faster tools in development?
The Business Case
Part of a manager's role is to make the most profit for the company as possible while keeping customers happy. The other part of their role is keeping developers as productive as possible; and this fortunately means (usually) happy too. Whether you are building software for internal use, software for a customer or a product for many customers; the goal is to get as much software capability for the least amount of cost. Hopefully, you are also thinking long-term supportability and upgrade too.
The developer's role is to build the best possible software as fast as possible and for the least overall cost.
The problem? How do you really measure developer productivity increases due to better tools?
You can look at the burn-down rates on user stories before and after. The problem with that though is that estimates are based on current capabilities. The team's ability to estimate and then complete work during a sprint automatically adjusts to accommodate new tools and processes; after all that is what agile development is all about.
Lines of code is a useless measure for productivity. It is more about the right lines of code than quantity unless you want to encourage developers to write inefficient code.
The best way I can think of to determine developer productivity and conversely, developer bottlenecks is "observation". Get out of the office and go watch developers do their work in as close to a real setting as possible. Make notes.
Then discuss the bottlenecks with the team. Where are the biggest time killers and frustrations? Is the task that takes 10 minutes twice a day more or less wasteful than the one that takes 30 seconds, 10 times an hour? Consider the impact on flow too. If you are waiting too much time when you are on a roll then you can lose the flow by having to wait.
Consider moving tasks that require a lot of horsepower, but not very often, to a server environment that can be shared by the team (continuous integration, etc.). It might make sense to optimize for the specific problem.
Sometimes the vendor of your developer tools will force your hand through increased hardware requirements.
So now you know what problems you are trying to solve and can make legitimate business decisions around where to spend money.
If you can give your developers an additional 2-5 minutes per hour, that translates to something like 50 to 125 hours in a year. Of course don't forget to subtract the realistic time it takes to load all of your tools and configure your new development environment.
All this assumes of course that you have additional paying work for them and that they are actually focused and not distracted in the first place.
If the developers are constantly interrupted by things like social media, e-mail, text messaging, and instant messaging, there may be few realized gains. The same holds true for meetings and other corporate distractions.
Ultimately, the best work gets done when teams can focus for solid periods of time without distractions; including waiting too much for slow hardware.
The Perception
Increasing productivity may not be a direct business value. Perhaps the productivity gains will not offset the cost of better (more expensive) equipment. Perhaps there are other factors.
But the remaining thing to consider is the perception of the majority of your developers. Do they feel they have adequate tools to do their job? If so this can lead to job dissatisfaction and higher than normal churn.
This will impact your bottom line too.
Conclusion
Developers and management have to understand each others' concerns. Management needs to help developers remove bottlenecks and roadblocks so they can focus on developing great code. Developers need to be constantly looking for ways to improve things and increase their productivity; delivering real business value.
And the two camps need to understand, communicate openly, respect and help each other. Us and them doesn't work anymore in today's fast paced world, especially in the technology world.
Great development is both a business and a development function.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: New Developer Computers STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: new-developer-computers CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/04/new-developer-computers.html DATE: 04/01/2010 10:30:59 PM ----- BODY:Productivity is frequently an argument made by developers to get the latest and greatest computers.
This is what our developers tell me we are using now.
This is what they want (a supercomputer and monitors for every window they might want open). Everyone else is using this and it even supports pair programming.
I suspect we will have to compromise; and balance productivity gains with cost. Sorry guys.
Notes: See TopNew.in for the story on the supercomputer. If I had posted this morning I could have told them this is what they are getting.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Using the Last Roll of Toilet Paper STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: using-the-last-roll-of-toilet-paper CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/using-the-last-roll-of-toilet-paper.html DATE: 03/29/2010 02:01:43 PM ----- BODY:Have you ever gone into the washroom to do your business and been surprised at the end to find out someone used the last of the toilet paper (and there are no extras in the washroom)?
Surely someone must of noticed that the roll was at the end. Why didn't they go get more (reactionary)?
Even better, why didn't someone notice that they were loading the last roll and go get more (proactive) before it was all gone?
How many areas of your business are like this?
Do you wait until the customer notices something or do you deal with it just before the customer is inconvenienced? Even better, do you deal with it before the customer even notices; making it a non-issue? Is it all a part of your delivery and support process?
Software development and information technology used to be about reacting to customers. Then as IT staff got more busy and short of people compared to the work, some of them started figuring out ways to deal with little problems before they become big ones, reducing future work and headaches. Are you the Maytag repairman from those commercials or being run ragged and stressed out?
In software development this has led to TDD, BDD, unit testing, automated user interface testing, automation, error logging, load testing, server failover, active monitoring, etc. Does this guarantee no future problems?
No.
But it does reduce the likelihood of being caught with your pants down and no easy way to clean up a mess.
And you can make the fixes without a high risk of breaking something else.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Good Code Today, Legacy Code Tomorrow STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: good-code-today-legacy-code-tomorrow CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/good-code-today-legacy-code-tomorrow.html DATE: 03/26/2010 05:54:28 PM ----- BODY:We recently came across a few potential clients with applications built around the turn of the millennium. These are business applications so presumably they have a team that is also supporting them.
We are talking Visual Basic 6 and Active Server Pages with DCOM.
Back in their day, these applications may have been well written code.
Now they want to migrate these applications to the latest .NET Framework, etc.
Back when we first moved to .NET Framework 1.1 coding best practices were quite a bit different than they are in .NET Framework 3.5 and soon, Framework 4.0.
Moving from VB and ASP to .NET put us into object oriented programming. To be honest though, it took us a few years to acquire the skills and experience to really develop good object oriented applications.
So good code today looks a lot different than good code yesterday. Things are evolving.
There are patterns like MVP and now MVC being implemented in .NET. Other technologies like AJAX, LINQ and Object Relational Mappers. WPF is supplanting WinForms, etc.
So the jump from VP6 or ASP is pretty big.
To really take advantage of the latest frameworks and best practices, they really need a team that has current "good" programming skills and experience. Maybe their in-house developers have been keeping up and maybe not.
Certainly migrating applications also involves understanding what the application does in the first place; domain knowledge. The danger is you basically end up with what you had but on newer technology. The real power is using the opportunity to make things better.
Essentially you would start from scratch but using the old system to help define user stories and tests.
However, the real take away from this discussion is...
Good code today will be tomorrow's legacy code.
So don't get too worked up about how great your code is today or striving to be perfect, for tomorrow there will be a better way of accomplishing the same things. Build good, supportable code now and focus on getting value into the customer's hands.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.144.191.223 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 03/30/2010 06:05:49 AM In 'Working Effectively with Legacy Code' book by Michael C. Feathers it was nicely captured that legacy code is code that is not worked on. Many times what we see is situation where code is written and then it's not touched for a long time for different reasons. There the gap starts to grow between the "good past" and "better present". As long as code (as a part of product) is maintained consistently, chances to end up with VB6 and classic ASP are slim to none. And this is not just a developer call, but also business buying into comittment to maintain the product. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: "Do What I Did and Get Rich" Books STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: do-what-i-did-and-get-rich-books CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/do-what-i-did-and-get-rich-books.html DATE: 03/24/2010 01:49:06 PM ----- BODY:I picked up a book recently about how now is the time to cash in on your passion; how to use social media to promote your personal brand.
Essentially the premise of the book is:
Everyone can make a great living doing this? Guaranteed? What a load of crap.
There is no magic formula for getting rich. And if there was, no one would share it with you via a book, because it would no longer be a magic formula for getting rich.
Yes, the Internet has changed the game. Yes, social media is important. Yes, you should always be thinking of your personal brand. Yes, you should be promoting your business brand. Yes, some people are making money in the ways the author describes.
But do what I did and get rich?
The things in common about most business and personal success stories are:
In starting or running a business, there are things you can do that will make it more likely for your business to succeed. Not doing certain things can make failure more likely. But there is no one answer.
Did I learn something from the book?
Yes, and I will continue to read and learn from others. But I do know there are no guarantees.
Not even writing a book about "Do What I Did and Get Rich".
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Agile Landscape (and Garden) Development STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: agile-garden-development CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/agile-garden-development.html DATE: 03/22/2010 02:44:10 PM ----- BODY:There are two main approaches to building out a nicely landscaped yard:
The "Waterfall" approach is typically taken by people who:
Planning out the hardscape (structural) parts of the landscape requires some up-front planning or a lot of difficult rework. This is much like software development where the choice of programming language, code design patterns (MVC, MVP, AJAX, etc.) and other architecture items need to be made early and can be hard to change later. Moving a 30x20 exposed aggregate concrete patio is non-trivial.
However, even these things are not 100% permanent and serious agile gardeners will evolve the entire landscape over time.
Agile gardeners usually like doing much of the work themselves, but will bring in experts for some of the difficult or impossible tasks. Since they are do-it-yourselfers, they are limited in how much they can accomplish in any one span of time.
There are several cycles of landscape development each year. Winter is the dreaming and sometimes planning phase. For me planning is like white-boarding, the details will emerge in the project. Spring, summer and fall each have their unique maintenance tasks and projects are normally implemented in one or more of these periods. Some tasks have to be done in certain seasons and "mother nature" makes those rules. For instance, fall bulbs have to be planted in the fall. Some plants can only be moved safely in the spring. You don't get to decide.
Now to be honest, here in Calgary, winter is probably 6 months, spring is 1 month, summer is 3 months and fall is around 2 months. 6 on and 6 off allows gardeners to rejuvenate.
The really agile part of landscape development is that the landscape is constantly evolving.
After you plant an orange flower beside a pastel pink flower you realize, what was I thinking and moving one of the plants to a new location gets added to the gardening "backlog". Now moving the plant to a new location usually means that something else will have to move as well, or you will need more space; either situation adds another item to the backlog.
Now the gardener is always thinking, what changes could I make in the next while that will deliver me a beautiful garden as soon as possible or for next year? This is usually how a gardener chooses items off the backlog.
Of course, there is nothing preventing you or your spouse from going to a greenhouse and picking up some new plants. These suddenly emerging requirements get added to the backlog and cascade into a bunch more work for the current "sprint" and follow-on sprints.
One year we acquired a number of trees and shrubs for 75% off. Unfortunately, there was no home for them yet and we had to "park" them in a temporary location. This wouldn't have been too bad if it was one year that passed; but after 2 years they got really big and the price of moving them is a lot of work. This is like a debt that is built up that eventually must be paid. So the initial savings were not as great as we thought. Lesson learned.
During the season, you are continuously trying to improve your gardening processes and getting better tools. Too much time spent watering? Mulch or irrigate. The goal is to get the best garden you can with the time you have to spend.
And remember, gardening is usually a team effort. Sometimes, everyone does everything and sometimes people specialize.
At the end of the gardening season, the ground freezes and you must stop working.
You get done what you get done. Your time line is constrained by nature and hopefully you managed your budget well. If so, then you got as much accomplished as you could and the team should be feeling good about delivering a working garden for next year.
Sit back, relax and dream about the improvements you can try next year.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Spring Is In The Air? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: spring-is-in-the-air CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/spring-is-in-the-air.html DATE: 03/20/2010 11:38:05 PM ----- BODY:Today, Saturday the 20th of March was the first day of spring. It was a beautiful sunny day; warm with a light breeze; just what you picture when you think of spring.
When you are living in Calgary (or most of Canada), winter is usually cold and dark with the sun much lower on the horizon. Some people suffer from depression in winter caused by the reduced sunlight. However, I suspect much of the depression is actually caused by realizing your favourite hockey team might not make the playoffs.
So spring brings optimism. (Football will be starting up soon; maybe they will do better.)
The season is changing and the dormant vegetation will be springing to life (in mid-May). Birds will migrate back and feast on the emerging mosquitoes. We get to spend more time outside mowing the lawn, painting the house, and communing with nature... and burning food on the BBQ. People rush out to enjoy our all too short summer; packing as much activity as they can into the season. Snow in July and severe thunderstorms are some of the surprises nature sometimes has for us in summer.
The economy follows a similar cycle and business has an certain optimism to it right now. It isn't summer yet... I suspect that it is a ways off yet. But already I can hear the buzzing of those mosquitoes. Here's hoping that blessings of the next economic summer outweigh the nuisances.
Remember to enjoy it as much as you can and just like the squirrels, remember to store some nuts for the coming winter. After all, the next winter will follow no matter how much we wish otherwise.
But as long as you have lots of nuts, winter isn't so bad. And if you happen to grow nuts in winter, you can make a fortune while everyone else is hibernating (or watching hockey).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Jogger Killed by Plane STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: jogger-killed-by-plane CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/jogger-killed-by-plane.html DATE: 03/17/2010 01:22:02 PM ----- BODY:I read in the paper today that a jogger listening to an iPod while jogging on a beach was hit from behind and killed by a small plane making an emergency landing.
What are the odds of that happening?
A year ago I read about someone jogging with an iPod and getting hit by lightning through the ear buds.
Obviously iPods attract danger and we should all stop jogging just to be safe.
(Or maybe safety is an illusion and we should all listen to iPods while jogging on the beach during a thunderstorm.)
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Is Your Business Encouraging Inefficiency? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: is-your-business-encouraging-inefficiency CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/is-your-business-encouraging-inefficiency.html DATE: 03/12/2010 11:44:45 PM ----- BODY:I was recently taking the LRT (train) here in Calgary and noticed a repair crew working on the train platform.
There were three people: one with a hoe, one with a chipper shovel and one with a corn broom.
Two watched while one person worked. The guy with the hoe would pull off a loose tile, the guy with the chipper would chip out the mortar and the guy with the broom would sweep up the debris. The two not currently busy would carry on a conversation.
While it is easy to pick on these kinds of industries, it is more valuable to try to learn from others.
Does your business provide the right tools to your employees so they can be productive most of the time?
Do you have some employees waiting on the inputs of others before they can do their work?
Do you have opportunities to cross train employees to perform additional roles so that you can move people around to adapt to changing priorities?
Do you have incentives in place to reward efficiencies?
Do you have hiring practices in place to bring on people who can generate efficiencies and do you give them the authority to implement them? (People with passion for their work.)
These are all part of optimizing your business.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Fe Fi Fo Scrum - I Smell the Blood of a Best Practices Man STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: fee-fie-foe-scrum-i-smell-the-blood-of-best-practices-man CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/fee-fie-foe-scrum-i-smell-the-blood-of-best-practices-man.html DATE: 03/10/2010 10:47:09 PM ----- BODY:It is the time of year when gardeners start seeding plants indoors. Beans, Jack and giants suddenly popped into my head. (BTW, if you hire a landscaper, gardening is a waterfall process. If you do it yourself it is more an agile and iterative process. Things are always changing and you are never done.)
In "Succeeding with Agile" by Mike Cohn he states:
"Although team members should always look to share with one another their newly discovered good ways of working, they should resist the urge to codify them into a set of best practices."
Best practices imply perfection; a destination. Agile (and Scrum) should be about continuous improvement. Best practices today should be thought of as the best we've come up with so far, not the best we can do.
Yes, you need to settle things down sometimes and do it consistently for a while. Pick the best approach you have right now and move forward. Analysis paralysis is not what it is about. Chasing the latest and greatest is not what it is about either. Both are recipes for not delivering working code for clients.
But keep in mind there might be a better way.
The ultimate goal is to build better software at a lower cost and with fewer bugs. If you don't your competitors will.
I've said it before... it is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy it and make it as good as it can be; you only get to pass this way once.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Who is Keeping Score? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: who-is-keeping-score CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/who-is-keeping-score.html DATE: 03/08/2010 07:08:46 PM ----- BODY:In order for you to hire the right (A) people, you need to build a scorecard defining their mission, expected outcomes and key competencies (reference is Who). This serves two benefits:
This flows from your corporate strategy which when compared to your current staffing levels will determine who you need to hire to achieve your vision.
So really, you should have a scorecard for all of your key employees. For us and the way we are set up, all our employees are pretty key to our success, but they might not all be directly tied to your strategy; some are focused on tactical work.
A scorecard is pretty much a performance management tool. Knowing what you want your staff to accomplish and communicating it to them seems to be an obvious and critical step in executing strategy.
The book gives one example of a question posed to 200 CEOs. "How many of you have in place written objectives for your direct reports? Only 10% raised their hands." So obvious and critical does not equal in common use.
If you further asked how many of you review and update the objectives and progress on a regular basis (i.e. more often than the annual performance review) I am guessing the number would drop.
So it seems to me that:
Oh, and let's make it a living, breathing document (and process) so it is never stale; the last thing you want is more documentation that sits on the shelf.
And remember, business owners and most key employees are busy people, so let's not make it too time consuming or difficult to use.
(P.S. This Spring we will be launching our version of a tool that does this while trying to keep things simple.)
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Being Indispensable and Type A Employees STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: being-indispensable-and-type-a-employees CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/being-indispensable-and-type-a-employees.html DATE: 03/07/2010 04:48:20 PM ----- BODY:I just finished reading "Linchpin - Are You Indispensable" by Seth Godin. In the book he encourages you to make a difference in what you do, treat your work as an art, connect with people, get things done, and be the best you can be. The world is changing quickly and people who merely show up (cogs), are going to be marginalized. So be indispensable.
I just started reading another book called "Who - The A Method for Hiring" by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. I tripped across this one through the magic of Amazon. The premise of the book is that great companies are driven by hiring great employees; type A employees (not B or C employees). Type A employees matched with the right work get things done, make a difference, and do great things.
Two separate perspectives (individual versus organization), same basic message.
Are you bringing your A game to your work? Are you working to be indispensable?
If not maybe you should be.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Remember to Stop and Smell the Roses STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: remember-to-stop-and-smell-the-roses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/03/remember-to-stop-and-smell-the-roses.html DATE: 03/01/2010 11:33:50 PM ----- BODY:I was just looking out the window. There is a full moon shining on a low lying fog over the hills and prairie; the light reflecting off the tin roof of a barn to the south of us. Absolutely haunting and stunning.
The other day, I saw what initially looked to be a gopher running across the lawn. Upon closer look it was white and not quite a gopher. In fact it was a ferret with its winter coat; and a black tip on its tail. It looked like a white stick standing in the yellow grass. Thanks to our recent warm weather and the melted snow, it was no longer an invisible visitor, but a small surprise for the day.
Take the time in your day to see the things that you take for granted. Take a closer look and reflect on the treasures you have been given. Your family, friends, your dogs and cats... your business partners and teammates, your customers and vendors. It is the people and relationships that are important in life.
Life is busy these days. Work is demanding. Running a business is stressful. But remember it is a journey, not a destination.
So , remember to stop and smell the roses.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: A Gentle Introduction to BDD STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: a-gentle-introduction-to-bdd CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/a-gentle-introduction-to-bdd.html DATE: 02/25/2010 11:11:24 PM ----- BODY:Our team went to the subject Calgary .NET User Group session presented by David Mogantini.
I am not a developer but I was able to follow the general lessons and examples. TDD, BDD and the Cortex testing framework were covered. David plans to open source the generic part of the framework which I think many will find useful.
David did a really good job and there was some really good discussion generated during the Q&A.
Good to see the development community meeting and sharing ideas here in Calgary. Hope we can keep it up even as the developer market becomes hyper-competitive again.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Agile and the Devil's Advocate STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: agile-and-the-devils-advocate CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/agile-and-the-devils-advocate.html DATE: 02/24/2010 02:56:11 PM ----- BODY:Software development has three camps regarding agile:
There is actually a fourth camp; the oblivious (software developers who don't care enough about their craft to investigate options).
Fortunately, most developers (at least the ones I know) fall into the somewhere in the middle.
Humans when faced with change; encounter fear... the resistance.
People with no fear are pretty risky to be around (think about riding in a car with them).
The Devil's Advocate
The devil's advocate is a person who points out all the bad things that could happen. In most cases, this is done with a conscious or subconscious effort to derail the change.
The best example of this is finding examples of where agile doesn't work:
The reality is that software development has always been risky. After all, you are building new and potentially complex things. Agile is an attempt by the development community to introduce an alternative (actually many different alternatives). For every success or failure I can find the opposite (with or without agile).
Why do we focus on the negative more than the success as humans? Fear. We want to be safe and change and the resulting stress does not make us feel safe. As Seth Godin calls it; the lizard brain or the resistance.
What Can We Learn?
Any software development group not learning and moving forward, is moving backwards. This is because the world itself is moving. Status quo is a false safety.
Playing the devi's advocate, if done from a learning perspective, allows you to consider all the pros and cons and then address them so you have a better chance of succeeding. The goal is not to quash forward momentum, but to minimize the false starts.
More importantly though, it allows you to allay the fears that everyone naturally has by having solutions, not just problems.
Whether you chose to embrace agile or not, there is something to learn in observing the success and failures of others.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Your Attitude Changes Your Results STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: your-attitude-changes-your-results CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/your-attitude-changes-your-results.html DATE: 02/23/2010 08:39:00 AM ----- BODY:I am constantly amazed at how the grey matter upstairs works.
It is kind of like when you buy a new car and then you start noticing all of the similar cars out there.
When you make the commitment as an individual and company to:
Essentially being much more optimistic and less fearful of hypothetical problems that may never come to pass.
Then more of those things (opportunities) come your way.
Why? Because you are looking with the right filters.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Effective Business Optimization STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: effective-business-optimization CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/effective-business-optimization.html DATE: 02/22/2010 04:19:01 PM ----- BODY:Business optimization is not a one time thing.
Business optimization is not about looking at the numbers (though that is part of it) and squeezing every last penny out of your business.
It is an ongoing process; a journey with a destination far in the future.
Effective business optimization is a continuous cycle (not a rigid order):
Repeat.
Seth Godin mentioned today that you can be too focused on very small things (saving pennies) instead of the things that really make a difference.
I agree, going for that last few percentage points of improvement can consume an infinite (at least more than you have) amount of time and defocus you from the real goal.
And innovation.
Innovation is what makes you great; indispensable to your customers.
That is how you effectively optimize your business.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Business Strategy: What Do You Really Want to Optimize? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: your-business-strategy-what-do-you-really-want-to-optimize- CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/your-business-strategy-what-do-you-really-want-to-optimize-.html DATE: 02/21/2010 11:39:17 PM ----- BODY:There are two main ways of improving business performance:
It is easy to think there is a magic bullet for optimizing your business's performance. It isn't as easy as that though.
Optimizing it to do what?
The first thing you need to decide is "what is your business strategy?" There are trade-offs between which areas you want to optimize.
Is it to maximize profit? That sounds pretty good. Profit is the difference between what you charge and what it costs you do deliver a service or product. You can charge more or reduce costs.
Reducing costs is attractive if your processes and cost structures are inefficient in some way. However, if you reduce services or quality to achieve "maximum" profits, over the longer-term you may drive away your customers.
Same with raising your prices.
I think a better strategy for most businesses is to figure out what a decent profit level is for your business, considering its strategy, and then optimize pricing and costs to achieve it. You will need to balance profit against a number of other factors to determine what is optimal for you.
Is it to grow your business? Generally growing your business requires investment. If you are not going to outside investors, that means funding growth from profits.
Is it to attract more customers? You will need to invest more in marketing and sales. You may also need to improve your offerings or add more staff to handle the customers. Will you rely on word of mouth from happy customers?
Another option is to lower prices.
Do you want to focus on customer retention?
Is it to maximize the value of the business? Focusing on the saleability of your business may impact other areas. You may need to spend resources ensuring you are not required in the business, etc.
Other Strategies? There are many other strategies and many factors that affect your business.
Ultimately, you need to know what you want to accomplish as the starting point for optimizing it. Then you can begin the optimization process.
By the way, avoiding the subject of optimization (for whatever reason) means you are likely leaving money on the table; maybe a lot.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Are You Working on the Right Things? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: working-on-the-right-things CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/working-on-the-right-things.html DATE: 02/15/2010 10:55:44 PM ----- BODY:Lately I have been struggling with over-commitment and more things to do than time. Between the business, hobbies, personal relationships, and other things that need to get done, sometimes there is just not enough time in the day.
When all else fails, start making lists and prioritize.
I was reviewing Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". In it he has the following diagram:
These are things that are both important and urgent; problems and fires that cannot be ignored. This is reactive work. Operating in this quadrant is stressful and draining.
Quadrant II - TasksThese are the tasks that are important but not in a rush for completion. This includes doing the things that would reduce the number of Quadrant I tasks; proactive work. Unfortunately, because they are not urgent they often get ignored in favour of Quadrant III tasks, which are urgent.
Quadrant III - TasksThese are tasks that are not very important, but urgent by virtue of time. These are the distractions that bring you away from what you need to be doing; the busy work that feels important.
Quadrant IV - TasksThese are neither urgent nor important. They are often used to avoid Quadrant I tasks because those task are stressful and draining.
Most e-mail, text messaging, Twitter and other social media falls into either III or IV. When all else fails, act busy.
More to ItThis categorization method is simple and proven. Unfortunately, it doesn't fully answer the question of "are you working on the right things at the right time?"
To do this you need to consciously divide your time across all of the categories that are important to you. In my recent post (The Three Faces of an Entrepreneur), I talked about three roles for an Entrepreneur:
You can't just work on what is important. You need balance across all the roles. The right mixture is up to you and your situation.
You may also wish to cover all aspects of your life (business, personal, health and fitness, etc.).
Once you have your categories AND your quadrants beside all of your tasks you can then properly prioritize them for action based on the relative time alloted to each category. This way you achieve balance.
If you have many tasks in the same quadrant (I and II) you will need to further prioritize them. However, you do want to continue working on Quadrant II tasks, especially those that prevent things from slipping into Quadrant I. This is the proactive work you do and is extremely important for an entrepreneur.
To do this you need to give up Quadrant III and IV tasks for a while. You can't give up Quadrant I tasks, they are too important; so the only place you can get time is Quadrant III and IV.
ConclusionIf you are spending the day being busy, but not really accomplishing your goals, this is a good starting point for understanding where you are going wrong and getting back on track.
Be brutally honest. Challenge why things are important by asking: "what will happen if I don't do this? today? in the future?"
You may find you have really been procrastinating and you actually have more time than you thought. If not, at least you will know where to spend it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Hiring Developers in 2010 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: hiring-developers-in-2010 CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/hiring-developers-in-2010.html DATE: 02/12/2010 05:51:01 PM ----- BODY:It looks like Sunwapta Solutions will be hiring in 2010 to support our current clients and our growth plans. This likely includes:
The first hire will be a developer. The position has not been fully defined or posted yet, but if you know of a great intermediate to senior developer in Calgary with all or a bunch of the following skills please pass them on:
We'll be updating our website (we've been up to a lot since it was last updated) including more details on the final posting in the coming weeks... by why wait if you have a match today?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: All Talk and No Action? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: all-talk-and-no-action CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/all-talk-and-no-action.html DATE: 02/11/2010 09:22:00 AM ----- BODY:Lately, I've been talking in my blog about what it is to be an entrepreneur. Working on the business versus in the business. Strategy versus busy work. Keeping customer happy, etc.
Is it all talk and no action?
Not at all.
Sure I blog about the things that I find interesting or attract my attention. If I am focused on something, it get's more attention over a period of time in the business.
We have been in business almost 10 years now which is an accomplishment in and of itself. We have had the pleasure of working with and building great software applications for some pretty significant world-class companies.
Lately I have been revisiting our strategy; our vision for the next 5 to 10 years. Both where we want to be and how we will get there. I've been involving our entire team when I can.
The good news is that the vision and strategy is more vibrant and clear than it has ever been. I've determined better ways to document and share it too.
There are no drastic about faces required.
It involves doing more of the same development work; delivering top-notch software products to customers. The big changes are: new offerings in new markets, more focus, increased speed to market and a lot more emphasis on marketing and sales.
Work is also happening on the planning details and the execution.
Sure we get busy "doing". But we are committed to action on our strategy.
Talk and action.
Afterall, action with no talking is just confusion when more than one person is involved.
The proof? Well that is 3-5 years out.
P.S. I'll cover the public facing part of the strategy in future posts.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Three Faces of an Entrepreneur STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-three-faces-of-an-entrepreneur CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/the-three-faces-of-an-entrepreneur.html DATE: 02/10/2010 11:08:13 PM ----- BODY:The Leader (Entrepreneur)
This is the role most frequently associated with being an entrepreneur. A leader has a clear picture of the future and inspires others to share it. Vision and passion drive the creation of a new business.
The Manager
This role is essential to take the dream and make it into a world class business. There are two distinct types: business and people.
A great people manager is a catalyst to get the maximum results from people in alignment with business goals. Great people management is a talent that is not always learnable.
A business manager handles the building of the business (systems, processes, etc.). This is the critical entrepreneurial function.
The Doer or Technician
This is what you are when you are doing the work of the business. The work of the business is the delivery of the product or service that customers pay for and includes all the supporting roles including sales and marketing.
The Three Faces of an Entrepreneur
A great entrepreneur must be all three, or partner with others. The trick is to balance them appropriately at any point in time.
The problem is many people end up closer to the "doer".
The other problem is that they all require vastly different skills. Some would argue that they also require different core talents (which are not easily learn-able).
Whether you have to pull them all off yourself, or you have the luxury of partners or hiring; failing to understand and separate the roles will cause you grief.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Entrepreneurs, Creation and Enlightenment STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: entrepreneurs-creation-and-enlightenment CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/entrepreneurs-creation-and-enlightenment.html DATE: 02/09/2010 03:08:15 PM ----- BODY:A couple of quotes from "E-Myth Mastery" by Michael Gerber that I found interesting:
"Entrepreneurship is, first of all, the power to create.
But creation is not something you do.
Creation is something that is done through you."
and
"Your job is not to become an entrepreneur. It is not to create.
Your job is to commit to the process of becoming an entrepreneur and then to practice what entrepreneurs do so that entrepreneurship can find you when you've practiced enough to be ready.
Commitment and practice."
What is not stated here is how long? That is because the answer is "as long as it takes". What is also not stated is what happens if you don't commit and practice (hint: the word nightmare comes up a lot).
This is no different than the process of spiritual enlightenment. Nor is it much different than achieving your black belt in martial arts and being told "now you are ready to begin learning". Nor is it much different from becoming a master fiddler (musician). The same is true for software development.
Malcolm Gladwell (in "Outliers") stated that 10,000 hours is what it takes to master a skill (assuming you have some talent for it). Not only that, it depends on where you grew up, your genetics and your upbringing.
So the instant prodigy or success story probably has a longer story behind it. Of course there are some who connect with their talent faster, but instant is rare.
Many people give up too soon. Or never start down the path.
Commit and practice the skills required for entrepreneurship; then be open to the possibilities.
Caveat on E-Myth: There are pearls of wisdom in most business books. Sometimes you have to suffer the pain of reading through fluff or much useless information. Gerber's later books have become a lot more spiritual in nature and you either like it or dislike it. If nothing else, understand that underlying the book is a business and there is something to be learned in understanding the model.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Great, Good Enough and Poor STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: great-good-enough-and-poor CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/great-good-enough-and-poor.html DATE: 02/08/2010 04:34:17 PM ----- BODY:It is important to distinguish.
You only have 24 hours in your day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year and who knows how many years.
Your company only has so many people and the same constraints on time.
Great
Great effort or great results? I think the world rewards you mostly for results over the long-term. Sure you can put in a lot of hours on something, but if the results aren't great?
Because being great at something usually requires a lot of effort over a long period of time, you must choose wisely; you can't be great at everything.
Focus on your talents, develop your knowledge and skills. For most people, their greatest contributions and joy will come from this area.
This applies to a business too. The trick is to see the strengths of the business and not the individuals in it; they can change. Very small businesses are often the same as the individuals.
Good Enough
This not where you want to be for your core livelihood. As Seth Godin has pointed out, there is less and less opportunity in the middle as the world moves forward.
However, not everything you do needs to be great. Some things can be good enough.
And you can hire someone to do the things you are not great at.
Poor
If you are doing something poorly it is probably worth looking at whether you should even be doing it in the first place.
Assuming you are not just in the middle of learning something new, maybe you would be better off spending your precious time on the first two with a large focus on great.
Either hire someone to do it right or choose not to do it at all.
Choices
You can show up or you can contribute. Most people enjoy being good or great at something a lot more than spending every day doing a bad job.
You need to have fun or at least enjoy what you do from a macro level; you may not enjoy every moment.
so make your choices a conscious one. You and your business will benefit.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Are You Building an Entrepreneurial Business? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: are-you-building-an-entrepreneurial-business CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/are-you-building-an-entrepreneurial-business.html DATE: 02/05/2010 04:26:58 PM ----- BODY:Are you an entrepreneur or are you a builder of an entrepreneurial business?
An entrepreneur is someone who has an idea for product or service and turns it into a viable business; making money in the process... repeat.
A builder of an entrepreneurial business is someone who builds a business full of people who have ideas and they turn them into viable products and services; making money in the process.
The first depends on one person. The second leverages the potential of many.
Both can work and can generate enough to retire on, plus some.
One has the potential to become much more.
Which one are you? Was it a conscious choice?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Look After The Customer STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: look-after-the-customer CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/02/look-after-the-customer.html DATE: 02/01/2010 10:46:11 PM ----- BODY:I've had it in mind to write on this subject for a while. It is so easy to find examples where companies don't look after their customers as much as they should, but harder to find examples where they do.
Unfortunately, my experiences lately have been more negative than positive; and I find that surprising when everyone is saying they are different and understand their customers; and even more bizarre in a down economy.
The idea is that if you find a great product or service that people want and focus on great customer service, the market will reward you.
If that is true, why do so many companies do the opposite?
In "Built to Last" by Jim Collins (et al) they discovered that visionary companies had a core focus on something more than just making money. It was not always primarily the customer. It was usually about being great at something though.
Some were focused on things like improving the world through creating innovative products. The customers came after the innovation. Of course this doesn't mean that that the customer was not important, it is just which one comes first.
But still, that was 20 years ago. I think the customer is getting more difficult to please today. Competition is more fierce and the Internet makes communication immediate. Even if you have a different primary "vision" for the company, the customer must feel like they are key.
So why do so many get it wrong?
Sometimes it only takes one mistake and your customer is gone... and they are expensive to replace.
Some are getting it right. Are you?
Every company can do a better job of looking after the customer.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Knowing When to Quiet the Lizard Brain STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: knowing-when-to-quiet-the-lizard-brain CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/knowing-when-to-quiet-the-lizard-brain.html DATE: 01/28/2010 09:01:47 AM ----- BODY:Another great post by Seth Godin about how fear sabotages success; often subconsciously. The thing is, without it you would live life recklessly and probably have already doomed yourself.
So the trick is to ignore the irrational part that keeps you from succeeding and pay attention to the part that helps you survive. How do you do this?
Walk through the possible outcomes of things that are causing your fear to their logical conclusion. Usually, the worst outcome is not nearly as bad as you imagined in your subconscious. In that case ignore the fear. And if it is real, then you can take action now to mitigate it.
Sometimes you are a hare and there is a coyote hot on your heels. Then you just might need your lizard brain.
But many times, it is just getting in your way.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Abbey Salvo EMAIL: asalvo1@umbc.edu IP: 130.85.92.39 URL: http://www.whoweam.com DATE: 08/31/2011 01:39:21 PM How right you are, Doug! I am always kicking myself for painting situations out to be worse than they actually are. Why isn't 20/20 hindsight enough to change the way our mind assesses these types of problems? I work with someone who posted an article talking about the same sort of thing at http://whoweam.com/2011/08/talulah-derailed/. Looking at the issue at 20,000 feet - if this is how people are wired, then maybe even larger cultural issues are caused by the aftermath of this "lizard brain" theory? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Who Is Right? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: who-is-right CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/who-is-right.html DATE: 01/27/2010 11:25:56 PM ----- BODY:Read ten different business books and get 10 different stories on the secret to business.
Talk to 10 different entrepreneurs or business owners and you will get another 10 answers.
The reality?
There are many paths to business success.
Most companies will make lots of mistakes along the way. Some will have some luck and some will have some hard luck. Some will ride a trend and some will pick one that doesn't pan out. Some will survive and some will thrive. Some will bloom quickly and fade just as quickly and some will struggle and bloom later.
Just like judging people, it is easy to look at something different and make a judgment.
The thing is, just like people, some will surprise and some will disappoint... and you can't always tell just by looking and even people you know for a long time can surprise.
Have passion. Try to provide something that the world needs or will make it better. Do it well. Make a difference. Keep at it. Keep learning and growing. Pick the ideas that work for you. Enjoy the journey and the people. Do it your way or do it in a way you can live with.
The world is changing quickly yet in many ways it is the same. Respect differences and learn from them. Get advice when necessary but treat is as options.
It is not about who is right. It is about what is right for you. You get to choose (how you want to run your business).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Lessons from the Coyote and Hare STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: lessons-from-the-coyote-and-hare CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/lessons-from-the-coyote-and-hare.html DATE: 01/25/2010 12:44:28 PM ----- BODY:This morning I saw a hare (big rabbit) duck under our fence with a coyote hot on his heels. The hare stopped and went motionless. The coyote could not fit through and stood 20 feet away, staring at the hare, trying to figure out how he could salvage his breakfast.
Who is trying harder?
The predator or the prey? The obvious answer is the prey. However, if the predator doesn't eat on a regular basis they will eventually become too weak to catch food.
If your business is struggling, it may feel like you are the prey and the market is out to get you. In order to survive you have to try harder and do the right things; continuously.
If your business is doing well, you make the mistake of thinking you can coast. Hey, you have it made and are a business genius. But just like the coyote, eventually complacency leads to weakness. At that point you become unwilling or unable to adapt quickly to the market. Even a previously struggling competitor can unseat the current champion if they are not fully engaged.
The prey can only make a major mistake once; and then become dinner.
The same is true for a struggling business. You must always be on your game. But unlike the Hare, you need to take more risks; you are risking the venture not your life. I am talking calculated risks here not gambling risks.
If your business is doing well you have two luxuries: time and money. You can afford to take some risks because you have a cushion. The mistake you can't afford to make is taking your customers for granted or being complacent. Still, sometimes one mistake can do in even the greatest companies; it just takes a bigger mistake.
It depends who you are and your perspective. Some people admire the predator and some cheer on the prey. If you are a gardener or farmer, a large population of herbivores such as the hare can destroy your crops. Coyotes are smart and very adaptable; yet they get more fear and hatred than respect.
I think people admire (and fear) the aggressive predator, yet cheer on the underdog (the prey) in many cases.
The trick in business is to be smart, adaptable and competitive while keeping the respect and empathy of your customers.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: How Software Development Really Works STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: how-software-development-really-works CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/how-software-development-really-works.html DATE: 01/17/2010 11:54:31 PM ----- BODY:This post is based on a presentation we sent to a client when they wanted early screen shots of the working application and said we seemed to be a serious bunch. We are serious about our work (building great software) but do have some fun doing it.
During the budgeting phase the requirements are a little down-played.
The developers scramble to put together the framework and plumbing that will allow the rest of the application to take shape.
The designers attempt to pin down the basic look and feel for consistency.
The developers try to tackle some of the difficult pieces and reduce project risk; like the engine.
Assembling all the pieces into the final application.
What the customer really wanted and great developers will deliver...
Note: Of course in the real world of application development there are many steps and iterations that have been omitted for illustration purposes. If you are going to pick an analogy, make it a cool one!
If you want the actual car and not software go here. Lot's more great pictures.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.144.191.223 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 01/20/2010 07:09:17 AM This is an interesting (and definately creative) way of explaining SDLC. One thing that I suggest to evaluate is creation of framworks in the very begining of project. When it is OK to use established frameworks (or 3rd party components) building new ones before the project shapes up is a bit slippery slope. Many times it lead to locking down solutioning to a particular option, leaving other options "impossible" due to newly established framework. If I were a client, I would be impressed by the analogy. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Development and Business Optimization STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: business-optimization-and-developers-1 CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/business-optimization-and-developers-1.html DATE: 01/12/2010 04:52:25 PM ----- BODY:The other day a developer asked me what we really know about business optimization; after all, developers build software not run businesses.
I would suggest that the right kinds of developers are exactly the right people to help with business optimization. I say help because no one person should be responsible for business optimization; it should be something done by everyone in your business and any external advisers as a team. No one person has all the answers and every business is different.
So if you are great developer what talents and skills can you bring to the table? Great developers:
Here at Sunwapta Solutions we have been focused on building software while doing all of these things.
Do we have all the answers? Again, business optimization is a team effort.
But we can help get the solutions you need as part of your team (and have been doing so for many years).
This is what every great developer should strive to do.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Great Idea Equals a Great Business STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: great-idea-equals-a-great-business CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/great-idea-equals-a-great-business.html DATE: 01/11/2010 05:30:57 PM ----- BODY:Apparently this is a bit of a myth. Sure some companies were founded on great ideas and become very successful.
I think this feeds into our desire to find the quick fix.
Great idea. Build a great strategy. Start a company. Instant wealth.
In 99.99% of the cases "instant" is actually many years in the making; kind of like the odds of winning the lottery.
In "Built to Last" by Jim Collins, they dispel this myth.
"Why? Because the great-idea approach shifts your attention from seeing the company as the ultimate creation."
Essentially, you focus on the product and not the company. Things change and eventually the product is no longer relevant or something happens to the visionary; then there is nothing.
If you are not distracted by the "idea" you will focus on building a company that can generate great ideas and can run without you at the top. Many great companies simply do lots of things and then throw away the things that don't work. When they started they looked completely different and switched strategies a lot.
I suspect that some tough times in the beginning can help with the focus as well. You learn to be resilient and keep costs under control.
Focus on building a great company (even if it is a small giant). Focus on your customers and find things to sell them. Learn how to do this organizationally.
Still the lottery is pretty tempting... I think I have another great idea!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Who You Are - Consistency STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: who-you-are-consistency CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/who-you-are-consistency.html DATE: 01/07/2010 06:02:44 PM ----- BODY:Over the past few months, we've had a few clients approach us that had important work that needed to get done quickly; and they had limited options. You may be thinking...
Ka-Ching!
Wrong.
You may get the business once that way, but people will ultimately remember you hosed them.
That is not how things are done here. Here we value ethics, honesty and long-term relationships.
We believe we are entitled to fair compensation for our work including reasonable profit margins (every business needs this). But we don't believe in "between a rock and a hard place" pricing.
Sure, if costs are higher because of a rush job, it requires overtime or doing a rush job will impact other work, you can charge for the inconvenience and pass on the costs. You may also wish to discourage clients from saying everything is a rush... but you need to be consistent and honest about it.
So we set fair pricing. For us... who we are is consistent.
P.S. If you decide who you are (as a person and company) ahead of time, all future decisions become easier and you are less likely to stray.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Ultimate Secret to Everything Revealed STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-ultimate-secret-to-everything-revealed CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/the-ultimate-secret-to-everything-revealed.html DATE: 01/06/2010 03:02:49 PM ----- BODY:What is the ultimate meaning of life, the universe and everything?
How can I guarantee personal financial success?
What is the magic product or service that will guarantee success?
What is the secret to instant business success?
Where is that magic bullet?
We are all looking for answers in some ways; easy answers preferred. Low risk. There is a book for every subject and they all contradict each other to some degree. Who is right? Many of them are.
42 is an easy answer and the big joke in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But applying it is the trick.
The ultimate secret? There is no ultimate secret.
The answer is different for everyone. There are lots of good ideas out there. Keep learning, self-reflecting and find the answers that work for you. Oh, and enjoy the journey... you only get to do it once and the answer may ultimately remain a secret.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Think Positive, Set and Achieve Your Goals STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: think-positive-set-and-achieve-your-goals CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2010/01/think-positive-set-and-achieve-your-goals.html DATE: 01/04/2010 10:48:43 PM ----- BODY:I find it interesting how when you are in a certain frame of mind, you notice (attract) more of the same things that reinforce that frame of mind.
Beware negative thinking. It begets more negativity.
Sometimes my mood is like a bouncing ball being chased by a border collie, up, down, sideways and everywhere in between. Retrieve and repeat.
Lately, I have been pretty positive. Pumped up positive. Eager to take on new things; make things happen.
My last couple of posts were reflecting on how focusing on your strengths (generally a positive thing) builds success.
Well today, I received newsletter from ProCoach. It included a link to w worksheet that you can use to reflect on your accomplishments and successes in the past year. Have a look at it.
Basically, you are asked to reflect on the past year including:
Now set your goals for the next year in all areas of your life!
He has you focus on your strengths (even though he doesn't call them that) and build positive images of success in your mind. After this exercise will you be able to visualize anything but positive outcomes? Will your goals not push you to personal greatness?
Positive thoughts beget positive energy and the motivation to achieve your goals. Celebrate your successes.
Ever hear someone talk about the good old days? That is living in the past.
Focus on the future and make every day and year you live the best one yet.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Why Not Be Great? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: why-not-be-great CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/why-not-be-great.html DATE: 12/31/2009 01:52:44 PM ----- BODY:It is funny how the closing of a year brings reflection on the past... and a fleeting commitment to fix all the things you weren't happy with.
Sure, getting rid of some destructive bad habits is a good thing. But is spending your time dwelling on your mistakes and trying to fix your non-talents (weaknesses) the way to go?
In "First, Break all the Rules..." by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, their research basically determined that you should focus on your talents and figure out ways to minimize the impact of your non-talents.
This is based on the science of the brain. Basically, your brain is wired a certain way based on genetics and early development. By the time you reach adulthood, it becomes very difficult to change the way your brain is wired and so you are predisposed to certain repeating ways of relating, behaviour or thinking that make you unique.
This differs from skills and knowledge which can be learned (within the boundaries of your talents).
Great managers know this and:
But you can't rely on a great manager to do it for you, they can only help.
So what do you need to do?
You need to spend time in self-reflection on a regular basis and look at the things you do well and not so well. Be real. Is it because of your innate talents or are they just skills or knowledge you have picked up (or failed to pick up) along the way. If you fight this you may end up in roles where you will struggle and do poorly indefinitely and this is very stressful and draining for most people. You need to discover and develop your talents.
Sure, getting some varied experiences will help you discover your talents (most people do not even know what their talents are or at least not all of them). But the key is; once you know, you must keep developing those talents and find roles that do this. Of course passion makes talent truly blossom, but no amount of passion can fix a complete lack of talent (sorry). Michael Buble is not famous because he has a decent voice; he is famous because he has a natural talent for connecting with the audience (specifically the women).
This then becomes your career plan.
If you are an entrepreneur, you will be more successful doing things that build on your talents. Find partners and hire for talent to cover off the other things.
Seth Godin put it out there in his recent post. What are you going to do different to make the next 7 years remarkable (or at least more fun)?
But it is the post from two years ago that inspired this title... "why not be great? We have an obligation to do great things.
Again back to Marcus, any job or role done to excellence should be worthy of respect. We need to stop the insanity of climbing the corporate ladder to progress. The talents required for different rungs (developer, manager, leader, etc.) are vastly different. Success at the one does not guarantee success at another.
I've known this for some time. I firmly believe a great developer (technician, etc.) should be allowed to progress (i.e. make really good money) within the role without having to move into a management track or become an architect, or???
As a business owner, you need to create this path of excellence. After all, if you are a development shop, you want great developers and you want them to stick around as great developers; not become mediocre managers. If you run a call center or help desk, don't think of these jobs as entry level. They are critical to your success.
This applies to any position that impacts your customers or the success of your business.
As an individual you need to build on your talent and strive for greatness.
So that in a nutshell is my business and personal plan for 2010 to 2017.
Why not be great indeed!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Sales - Greatness Versus Failure STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: sales-greatness-versus-failure CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/sales-greatness-versus-failure.html DATE: 12/29/2009 12:28:01 PM ----- BODY:What makes one salesperson great and another fail?
We often think greatness is the opposite of failure. That if we look at why people fail and do the opposite we will succeed. Perhaps this is because it seems logical... the easy solution. Maybe the opposite of greatness (or failure) is merely average. Maybe greatness and failure are merely variations on each other.
This is discussed in "First, Break all the Rules... " by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
"By studying the best salespeople, great managers have learned that the best, just like the worst, suffer call reluctance. Apparently the best salesperson, as with the worst, feels as if he is selling himself. It is this striving talent of feeling personally invested in the sale that causes him to be so persuasive. But it also causes him to take rejection personally - every time he makes a sales call he feels the shiver of fear that someone will say no to him, to him.
The difference between greatness and failure in sales is that the great salesperson is not paralyzed by this fear. He is blessed with another talent, the relating talent of confrontation, that enables him to derive immense satisfaction from sparring with the prospect and overcoming resistance. Every day he feels call reluctance, but this talent for confrontation pulls him through it. His love of sparring outweighs his fear of personal rejection.
Lacking this talent for confrontation, the bad salesperson simply feels the fear.
The average salesperson feels nothing. He woodenly follows the 6 step process he was taught and hopes for the best."
Now obviously the you can argue that people are more complex than this and other talents are involved. You can also argue that some fears can be reduced by practice.
But, I would hope that you no longer assume the opposite of greatness is failure. They are often subtle variations of each other. Study your best.
Makes you think about where else this logic could apply.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Twittering in the Social New Year STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: twittering-in-the-social-new-year CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/twittering-in-the-social-new-year.html DATE: 12/23/2009 12:27:05 PM ----- BODY:I have been blogging for the past 18 months and have posted slightly over 200 articles. I also regularly comment on other people's sites and do trackbacks. Guess that makes me a blogger.
One of my pet peeves is people who accept comments or trackbacks and don't actually publish them (assuming of course that you aren't spamming, slashing or flaming).
I recently posted a link to another article on how smart phones are time wasters. Hard to argue too much when you look at how slow and ineffective a medium texting is for anything other then very quick conversations.
I am already a member of Linked-in to maintain a business network.
In the next while I will probably start using Facebook personally and maybe a little for business networking. I also have couple of Celtic bands I am in and probably need to get a page setup somewhere so people can find us. I've been procrastinating on this because I find I have so little time.
Several dance performances by our step dancing class and a few sessions we went to are on YouTube.
One of my New Years resolutions is to remove time wasters from my life so I can focus on the important things.
Some of my colleagues are telling me to link my blog into Twitter so they can be updated immediately whenever I submit a post. Well now I will be tweeting. Are people who spend a lot of time tweeting on Twitter, twits? What will that make me?
I do know one thing for sure. Our company (Sunwapta Solutions) is focused on helping people and organizations use technology (software) to help their businesses succeed. You can't do that sitting on the Internet sidelines.
So wasting my time on the social web isn't just for fun, it is my job. That is my story and I am sticking to it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Dance in the New Year STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: dance-in-the-new-year CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/dance-in-the-new-year.html DATE: 12/21/2009 07:26:38 PM ----- BODY:Paula Callihoo, the owner of Dance Through Life, is opening up the 2nd half of her studio (i.e. even more classes) in the New Year.
The New Year always brings out the resolve in people to change something and I can't think of a better time to:
Hey, I am partial to the step dancing myself being it relates to the Celtic music I like playing and listening to (I am not so much into (taking) belly dancing (classes) personally)... and I happen to really dig the instructor for the new beginner class.
Music and dance keep the brain active too.
What are you doing next year to keep active and push yourself forward?
I know Paula will be busy instructing, dancing and running her business.
Disclaimer: No belly dancers were insulted, harmed or injured in anyway in the writing of this blog. Nice to watch but I'll leave it to the women.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Trish Zorn EMAIL: trish_zorn1999@yahoo.com IP: 75.159.23.137 URL: DATE: 12/23/2009 08:32:17 PM Hello Doug, Being the new Bellydance/Bellyfit instructor at Dance through life, I must comment - You'd love bellydance (at least watching it!!!!) Just wait till I get Paula and all those other instructors shaking and shimmying! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug Wagner EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com IP: 142.179.147.100 URL: http://dougwagner.typepad.com DATE: 12/23/2009 09:59:38 PM Hi Trish, Just to clarify. I like watching bellydance, I would encourage any women who have an interest (and any guys braver/crazier than me) to take it. I can't wait to see the year-end recital! Doug ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The iPhone is Ruining the Country STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-iphone-is-ruining-the-country CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/the-iphone-is-ruining-the-country.html DATE: 12/16/2009 03:28:36 PM ----- BODY:A great tongue and cheek review (by John Dvorak) on how cell phones and all of the bells and whistles that come with them are really just time wasters.
Let's face it, goofing off is goofing off. Pretending otherwise is... well goofy.
The funniest part, many of the comments are arguing with him about how they use their iPhones to do things like fly over a friend's house as examples of useful productivity (the killer app).
Don't get me wrong, every tool has a purpose. But if you are goofing off, don't confuse it with productivity. Oh, and get back to work, the future of the world depends on it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Blue Oceans, Red Oceans and Small Ponds STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: blue-oceans-red-oceans-and-small-ponds CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/blue-oceans-red-oceans-and-small-ponds.html DATE: 12/14/2009 02:48:32 PM ----- BODY:I just recently finished reading Blue Ocean Strategy. I found the book to be quite informative with a lot of good concepts that can be put into practical application. In the book they talked about the convergence of competition in the bloody red oceans and the need to create blue oceans of value innovation to break out of the red ocean into the uncontested markets of the blue ocean (read bigger profits).
One premise of the book is that there a sort of formula (a process and tools) that can be applied to create blue oceans in a low risk fashion; sort of whenever you need them.
The problem with most business books with a theory to prove, is that they pick examples (companies) that prove their point and ignore all the others. There are so many successful companies out there following vastly different business models that you can prove just about any theory.
For some reason I doubt most of the blue ocean examples in the book were created by strategic planners. They were created by people who:
The business world is littered with the corpses of the businesses that get to the second or third point and then flounder.
In fact, I would argue that the last point is the only part that generates long-term viability. No customers (revenue) equals no viable business.
The real formula for business is pretty simple: find a product or service that people will buy and then do an extraordinary job of consistently delivering that value.
The book also focuses mostly on the larger companies (although some started small before their Eureka moment) so that the examples are recognizable to people.
So this then begs the questions:
If you are operating in a small pond you actually have some advantages. You can take business models that are evolving elsewhere in the larger world and adapt them for your local market. This is actually copying and not creation of blue oceans, but if it works who really cares.
If you read Small Giants, you realize that you can choose the size of company you want to be. Bigger is not always better. If you want to stay smaller and that model works great and conversely, if you want to grow big that is fine too.
If you stay in a small pond with value innovation, there is some risk that another (maybe much larger) company will copy your model and take it to the larger market.
The problem of course is that there is only so much time to do everything. But staying static forever, rarely if ever, works for the long-term. Change is part of the world. So business innovation is just part of it.
Ultimately, the ideas and tools in the book may inspire more Eureka moments for you as an Entrepreneur and as a business... whether you are creating a blue ocean, competing in a red ocean or staying in a small pond.
But don't expect business to be reduced to a simple formula any time soon.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Clear Window, Foggy Mirror... Honest Self-Reflection Is Harder STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: clear-window-foggy-mirror-honest-selfreflection-is-harder CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/clear-window-foggy-mirror-honest-selfreflection-is-harder.html DATE: 12/08/2009 04:00:54 PM ----- BODY:As I mentioned the last post, we are in the middle of some cold weather. I was taking a shower this morning and the sun was shining through the window, warming up the room. The steam from the shower fogged up the mirror (which was in the shade) before it fogged up the window. This got me to thinking...
Have you ever seen someone in a bad relationship or pursuing destructive behaviour and thought to yourself, the answer is obvious on what needs to happen next. Same thing when looking at someone else's business issues, the answers are fairly clear to you. In these situations, the person living through the situation is either: blind to the problem, blind to the answer or is afraid to take the required action.
Believe it or not, sometimes that person is you.
I know I find it much harder to look at myself or business objectively than I do at others'. The window is clear, but the mirror is foggy.
Honest self-reflection is harder. You may know what you want to be, you may know what you should be, but knowing what you currently are is clouded by your reality and the voices you hear. Are the voices of your conscious mind positive or negative?
Sometimes a little dishonesty is ok. If you think you are capable of doing something beyond your current experience, the confidence will help you stretch and achieve.
But if your real skills are totally out of alignment with what is required, and you are oblivious to that; you may be in for some serious failure. Just look at some of the people seeking to get on the singing and dancing talent reality shows; some of them honestly don't know they don't have talent.
The trick isn't to find your weaknesses and fix them. It is to find your strengths and find others to cover off your weaknesses (i.e. stop doing the things you are weak at) for maximum, consistent high performance and success. The same thing applies to your business.
The tricky part comes if you have a lot of strengths personally or as a business. There are just so many things you could do. Of course the trick is to focus and pick something; anything.
Still, it is much easier to help others do this for themselves than to do it for yourself. If honest self-reflection is a weakness you have and it is holding you back, find someone to help you out.
But therein lays the quandary, if your weakness is honest self-reflection, will you admit to yourself that you need help?
For me, I perceive this skill to be essential to my success as an entrepreneur and personally. So honest self-reflection it is, even if the mirror is a little foggy at times. Things get better with practice.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Black, White and Shades of Grey STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: black-white-and-shades-of-grey CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/12/black-white-and-shades-of-grey.html DATE: 12/05/2009 11:10:44 PM ----- BODY:I have two border collies. They are black and white.
Friday it started snowing and really blowing; blizzard conditions. Falling snow is white. Blowing snow causes white-outs, even at night. Ice you don't see on the road is called black ice.
This morning we woke up and our snow was grey, not white. Not a light grey, a fairly dark grey.
The field to the north of us is bare soil. The wind was blowing from the north all night... strong enough to move a substantial portion of the field into our yard along with the drifting snow.
The dogs were outside playing in the grey snow today.
When they came in the house, the snow melted and turned into black mud... on the dogs and all over the entrance. After a bath the dogs again are showing their hidden white.
Sometimes things seem to be either black or white. Sometimes things appear to be a shade of grey.
Sometimes, on closer inspection things really are black and white. Grey minus white is black after all (as proven by the melting snow).
The point is, are you seeing things one way out of habit or industry convention; or are you open to other possibilities?
The greatest opportunities can appear out of the murky grey of our busy worlds and saturated minds. Not all opportunities are black or white. In fact, most are a shade of grey until someone can combine them with vision and leadership to resolve them into something real, opening a new market.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: 200 Posts and a Little Wiser STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: 200-posts-and-slightly-wiser CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/200-posts-and-slightly-wiser.html DATE: 11/30/2009 02:06:29 PM ----- BODY:Over the last 18 months of blogging I have covered a wide variety of topics concerning business, business strategy, HR, demographics, personal development, software development, etc.
In fact, if you look at the pattern of articles you can see the things that are foremost in my mind over a period of time.
Over the last six months, I have moved a lot more focus onto what makes entrepreneurs succeed. Does this mean I don't care about software development?
Nope, in fact it means that the software I am now interested in building is comprised of tools to help entrepreneurs and businesses succeed. I am more interested in building great software than ever... because I see more potential to help others in software than ever.
I am focused much more on the why and what than the how. I have a great team working with me that handles the how (development).
I am one of those people who is consumed by a need to learn and grow. As with most people this starts out with reading for information, knowledge and to be uplifted and motivated.
Over time this has evolved to finding application of the knowledge. Blogging helps with this. As I write about the concepts, it helps clarify how the information can be used.
This is the true value of learning... learning to apply the lessons you believe in to improve your world. If you read a book or take a course and don't make single change in what you do or how you do it; you are just reading for entertainment. It may be fun but has no lasting value.
If I had the level of understanding and ability to apply the knowledge I do now, 9 years ago, Sunwapta would be a lot more successful. I am not knocking our current success. The last 9 years has been a treasure of learning; Sunwapta University.
But the future looks even brighter. When I look at the next 9 years and the next 800 blog posts sharing my journey and lessons learned, I am more inspired than ever.
Thank you for reading my blog and sharing your views with me.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Information Overload - Blink STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: information-overload-blink CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/information-overload-blink.html DATE: 11/27/2009 01:35:54 PM ----- BODY:Your brain processes things at two levels: conscious and subconscious (not unconscious).
Conscious thought demands information, cost and benefit analysis, pros and cons. We demand more information. But more information does not equal understanding. Understanding vast amounts of information is very difficult. You can still draw the wrong conclusion, especially under stress.
Worst of all, decisions take a lot longer to make. What if we make a mistake? If I just had a little more information I could make a risk free decision. Analysis paralysis. You can also make a wrong conclusion and stick to it because that is what all the information points to.
The problem is, things are never black and white when dealing with the real world.
Unconscious thought is very powerful, can process multiple streams of information and give a "gut" decision much quicker. The problem is that this decision making process can also be prejudiced by your past experiences and biases; including fear and survival instincts.
These are the kinds of things discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink - The Power of Thinking Without Thinking". In the book he quotes Sigmund Freud:
"When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or profession, the decision should come from within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature."
In Business
You need to listen to your hunches and intuition, but understand how they are impacted by your past, biases and fears. You can validate your ideas through analysis.
Conversely, when necessary do the analysis, but listen to what your gut is telling you as well.
Remember that knowledge and ability without passion is unlikely to lead to happiness or prolonged success.
Using Information Technology
Use technology to monitor a very limited set of measurements (KPIs) that are the most important to you.
On a periodic basis look at more details and review if these are still the most important measures to you. Do not keep your head buried in the analysis. Use your real world experience.
Don't use technology to saturate yourself with information and data. Use it to derive knowledge that will help you make better and faster decisions; not slow you down.
Conclusion
Ultimately the most successful entrepreneurs and business owners focus on a few things, do them well and with passion. Understanding how decisions are made and using the most appropriate tools for the problem at hand will lead to business agility; something that is essential in today's marketplace.
Remember, not making a decision is often worse than making a wrong decision and adjusting later. Avoid information overload.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Great Leadership and Management STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: great-leadership-and-management CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/great-leadership-and-management.html DATE: 11/20/2009 06:51:42 PM ----- BODY:The age old discussion around what is the difference between great leaders and managers continues.
Marcus Buckingham in "The One Thing You Need to Know" sheds a little light on this.
Great managers are focused on maximizing the performance of the people they manage by developing talent. Great managers are catalysts... speed up the reaction between each employee's talents and the company's goals. They are motivated by helping people grow.
Great leaders rally people to a better future. The focus on the future and the drive to accomplish something new/better is what drives a leader.
Some people have both traits as they are not mutually exclusive, however, one trait normally dominates such that a person is more naturally a manager or a leader.
What is interesting about these definitions is that they fly in the face of conventional wisdom that says anyone can learn to be a great manager or leader.
Some people may have latent talents, but without the right passion I think it would be difficult to be great at either of these. Average or not bad are learn-able, great is not if the talent and passion are missing.
Talent combined with passion creates the potential for greatness.
From personal experience I have seen people who were great technicians promoted to management or leadership positions and either fail or achieve mediocrity... and unhappiness.
I believe an organization needs to create paths that feed the talent and passions of the people working in them. If those combinations an individual possesses are not required to fulfill the company's vision, then help the person find a place where they will fit. This is not just touchy feely HR talk, this is good business as your remaining employees will see how you deal with people and this will impact retention and hiring in a positive way.
A business needs a leader to be great. It also needs great managers. Hire the talent you need to fill out the rest of the roster.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Becoming a Small Giant STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: becoming-a-small-giant CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/becoming-a-small-giant.html DATE: 11/18/2009 02:10:39 PM ----- BODY:I recently finished reading "Small Giants - Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big" by Bo Burlington.
I enjoyed the book, though like most of these books, you need to determine how and what you will apply to yourself.
My basic take-aways include:
Make sure you choose correctly for what you really want and are capable of. Bigger does not guarantee you will be better or happier. In fact, if you seek growth at all costs you could be worse off (lose control or fold). Sustained high growth levels usually demands a price on the owners as well; are you willing to pay it.
Here is a good quote from the book that summarizes these concepts:
It usually happens, however, when a company's leaders being focusing on growth or financial returns, not as by-products of a well-run business, but as goals to pursue for their own sake.
Important note: Small Giant does not mean you give up making money/profit. In fact, most of the sample companies are quite profitable. To me the question is; "are you serving your business or is your business serving you?"
Ultimately, you have a choice; big or small.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Learning from Experience STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: learning-from-experience CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/learning-from-experience.html DATE: 11/17/2009 11:26:39 AM ----- BODY:I have a country neighbour who decided to put up a fence. They acquired those 6 foot high by 8 foot long, pre-assembled solid fence panels and proceeded to put the fence up using 4x4 posts set in dirt every 8 feet.
It gets really windy in this region. Howling windy. And they are located in an unsheltered lot.
They got about 8-10 panels up before the first wind and rainstorm struck from the north. The next day we saw part of the fence leaning at a 45 degree angle, a bobcat (tractor) holding part of the fence up and a bunch of boards holding the rest up.
A week or two later they straightened it up and added a few more panels using the same methodology. Again the wind blew from the north but they had the bobcat, and a bunch of boards bracing the fence. So it leaned a bit but did not blow over.
A few weeks ago they added more panels using the same methodology.
Guess what?
The wind blew from the southwest.
Today we drove by and half the fence was down.
They were treating the symptoms of a north wind and did not plan for a south-west wind.
It is like a one of those comedy shows about a dysfunctional family and the disasters they face. Except is it more sad than funny. I think some of the people living there are in the construction industry!
Lessons
Learn from experience. Plan ahead and deal with the issues. Be open to a change in strategy and tactics.
Set your posts in concrete. Make sure they will support the load (enough posts or more solid posts). Assume the wind will blow from all directions. Maybe you can live with a hedge or a picket fence instead.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: What Does the Other Person Really Want? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: what-does-the-other-person-want CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/what-does-the-other-person-want.html DATE: 11/13/2009 11:27:51 AM ----- BODY:We often go into a situation with preconceived notions about what we want and what the benefits are to the other person or organization.
This applies to partnerships, client relationships, vendor relationships, employee-employer relationships, and personal relationships.
Don't jump to the solution until you really understand the problem.
Otherwise your hammer will make everything a nail.
How do you get this understanding?
You ask and then... listen.
Simple in concept? You bet. Hard for most of us to pull off consistently? Certainly or the world of relationships would be a lot simpler.
Business Owners
What are your personal goals? Does your role in the business align with your passion? How will the business work for you to create the life you want? If you have partners, you need to ask and resolve this.
Clients
Does your client really have the problem your solution fits? Do they care enough about it to want to spend money, time and incur "risk" to solve it? What are their business and personal goals? Etc. Only after you build trust and understand the real problems and needs can you earn the right to present a solution.
Employees
As employers it is easy to assume that employees want certain things. You need to build an environment of trust and open communication. Only then will most employees tell you what they want from the relationship with their employer.
While the onus is perceived to be on the employer by most employees, it is probably wise for employees to share their career goals and passions with their employer. How can you get want you want from your career if you don't ask?
Conclusion
We need to avoid presenting solutions as fixes to every problem. Understand the problem first. Build trust and open communication and ask.
Sometimes, the other person doesn't understand the problem, issues or what they really want. This is where you can shine.... help the other person figure it out. Then once they agree that it is a problem in the first place and they want a solution... well, then it is time to present your solution... but only if it fits.
What does the other person (party) really want?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Mirror Mirror on the Wall (Self Reflection) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-self-reflection CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-self-reflection.html DATE: 11/11/2009 11:12:31 PM ----- BODY:In the last few days I have been looking at myself. Who I am and who I want to be.
You can look in a mirror and see your reflection, but that is just the outside appearance that the rest of the world sees.
If you start looking around at the people in your life and the strength and quality of your relationships you see a different reflection.
You were born into your family. You don't choose those relationships but you choose how you manage them.
You get to choose your spouse and vice versa. Same with friends, business partners, etc.
Then you can look at what you have accomplished. The things you are proud of and the things you regret. What you are proud of can tell you a lot about yourself. Is it focused on you or does at least some of your satisfaction come from what others you care about have accomplished or helping others?
Who you are and the way you interact with others is reflected in those that surround you, the people who are willing to call you friend and who care about you. If your friends are not very nice, well?
I don't like everything I see in my reflection. I have room for improvement and growth in my personal development.
But I have a bunch of really good, decent people around me and I am happy to see them evolving, growing and doing well.
So mirror mirror... I must be doing ok.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: A Mix of Messages STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: a-mix-of-messages CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/a-mix-of-messages.html DATE: 11/10/2009 01:48:55 PM ----- BODY:What is in a Company Name?
I recently saw a truck drive by with the name "Explosive Landscapes". Not sure I would want my landscape to explode or do they blow up old ones or is that how they dig holes? I would probably choose a landscaping company by referral so the name probably doesn't matter.
That begs the question, does a company name really matter as long as it is easy to remember and spell?
How much time does a startup spend agonizing over a company name and logo? Unless you are going to be like McDonald's your logo is probably the most useless thing to spend time on when starting up. Lost in the noise of all the other logos out there. We chose a round logo to indicate the circle of life, etc. ... who cares.
I think the marketing message or story is more important than a cool logo or a clever name. Build a memorable service that people want!
Great Small Business Overview Book
I read a lot about what makes business tick. I recently picked up "How to Succeed as a Small Business Owner (and Still Have a Life)".
If you are tired of reading 500 pages to get 20 pages of useful information or are one of those people who likes things short and to the point, this book covers just about all the key things you need to tackle to run a successful small business. Topics range from why you are in business in the first place to systems and processes.
I even agree with a lot of what he says.
If you don't already know everything about what it takes to run a small business, you can get this book, and start working on your business rather than reading countless books to get the same information.
BTW, none of the books really tell you how to do everything in detail... the detail is up to you to figure out.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Manifesting Your Strategy STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: manifesting-your-strategy CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/manifesting-your-strategy.html DATE: 11/04/2009 06:29:32 PM ----- BODY:As I mentioned earlier this week, I have committed to the future being different than the past and have been focusing as much on long-term strategic work as dealing with day to day issues.
Another milestone was reached today at Sunwapta Solutions.
We've been building (organically) software tools to help small businesses succeed. Well the first thing a business needs to do to succeed is focus on strategic initiatives and get their heads out of the day to day grind.
Today we internally launched release 1.0 Beta of a tool (Silverlight, .NET and SQL Server for the techies) that will be used to help organizations take strategic vision through to action and results.
Now I have a tool to make it happen here. Once I am happy with it, we will be launching it for our favourite customers and getting the word out.
Thanks go to everyone who has helped to make this happen.
Note: Organically here means incrementally using sustainable development practices. (Thank Kim Bechtel for the term).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Lessons From Maslow STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: lessons-from-maslow CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/lessons-from-maslow.html DATE: 11/03/2009 06:26:09 PM ----- BODY:Every once in a while, I find something worth sharing and instead of writing my own post, I merely point my readers to their content.
Dr. Jeff Cornwall covers a variety of topics around being an entrepreneur and the impact of small business on the American economy; a lot of which applies here in Canada too.
I especially liked this quote from Dr. Paul White:
"The issue isn't "what do I want to do" but "what goods or services are needed that people are willing to pay for"? As a culture, we have forgotten that the primary purpose of a career is to provide financially for ourselves and our family. This is accomplished by providing a service (either customers or an employer) that someone needs and is willing to pay for -- and obviously, that we are qualified to provide."
A good reminder on what business is really about. If your dreams match what people want so much the better but your primary objective should not be gratifying yourself and ignoring what the market wants.
Look here for his entire post on Lessons From Maslow.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Plan For Success STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: plan-for-success CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/plan-for-success.html DATE: 11/02/2009 04:49:21 PM ----- BODY:Here in Alberta, Canada the federal and provincial governments have been telling everyone we need to get vaccinated against the H1N1 virus. Yup this is a nasty strain of flu that is killing the young and the healthy.
The media has been playing this up too with stories in almost every edition.
Initially there were long line-ups and a run on the vaccination clinics.
Last week, someone I know was at an adult dance class and the instructor was telling the students they would not be touching hands tonight and that the government had decided to focus on high priority groups and the rest of them would have to take their chances. We may all die, but for now, let's dance.
Now there is a shortage of vaccinations and they will be focusing on the high risk groups (young children, pregnant women, chronically ill, etc.). The rest of us will have to wait until Christmas before everyone is processed.
Of course everyone high up in the government agencies is claiming two things:
This was not a bi-election with low voter turnout.
This was something that played to one of two very important motivators: fear and greed.
After scaring the bejeebers out of everyone for 6 months, they were surprised people actually showed up. Well I am not surprised by the outcome nor the response.
But the purpose of this story is not to bash the government.
It is to make a point about business, something you might be able to impact or change.
If you are going through the trouble of building something great and then marketing it... be prepared; plan for success. Don't make excuses.
You may only get one shot so it's time to dance.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: It's Not You, It's Me. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: its-not-you-its-me CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/11/its-not-you-its-me.html DATE: 11/01/2009 04:53:32 PM ----- BODY:When relationships go through a rough period or break-up there is a tendency to cast blame. That blame is either directed at the other person or yourself depending on your personality and a variety of other factors.
The problem is that both reactions are driven by strong emotions.
In business you can do the same thing. Every time something goes wrong you can look for someone or something to blame.
However, this does not actually do you or the business any long-term good. Your customers really don't care about excuses. They care about results.
You need to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and see the truth. You need to be able to look at your business and see the truth. You need to be able to see the truth in others.
Anything less and things may come back to haunt you.
The first problem is the human mind is a lens shaped by our genetics, environment and past. What you see and what I see are different. The truth or reality is different for each of us.
The trick is to determine what you want to be like and then determine objective measures to see if you are really like that. The same applies to your business.
The second problem is you can't change someone else. Even if it is you, there is nothing I can really do to force you to change. You can only change yourself. So if your outcome is not what you want you have to change yourself in some way or change the way you interact with others.
For your business, you can't change the people either. You can change environment or the process/systems. You can build an environment of learning and a culture of change. But ultimately, it is the people working in your company who will either adapt or not. In reality what changes they make, will be up to them.
If you need to radically change direction, it is likely not realistic to assume everyone else will want to move in that direction and that is fine. You can't force it.
However, you can make it more successful by involving the people in the change and having a culture of trust and openness. People change when they see a reason; something in it for them that is worth the effort and discomfort (pain).
Unless you are perfect, everyone can change for the better. Everyone can improve how they interact with others.
As I lead our business into 2010, I realize that change is required. We will be heading into new products, partnerships and service offerings that will impact everyone at some level. But I will not ask anyone on my team to do what I am not willing to do myself. It's not you; it's me (that needs to change).
See once you realize this, the sky is the limit.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Is Opportunity Knocking? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: is-opportunity-knocking CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/is-opportunity-knocking.html DATE: 10/27/2009 04:23:33 PM ----- BODY:A while back one of our mentors reminded me of something very significant.
"Big opportunities don't come very often so don't let it pass you by."
Today we met with Andrew Barber-Starkey of ProCoach Success System again. My lesson today was to make sure your business passion matches your life purpose or is part of your strategy for achieving your life purpose.
So the question then becomes do you have plan for your life? If not then how would you know if an opportunity is a match for you?
Of course, finding your purpose or meaning in life is not a trivial undertaking... some never succeed.
Think of the possibilities of having opportunity meet passion. Now we are talking.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Ideal Partnership STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-ideal-partnership CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/the-ideal-partnership.html DATE: 10/26/2009 01:47:15 PM ----- BODY:Recently Sunwapta Solutions has been actively partnering with a number of companies to extend our product and service offering in complementary ways.
What would an ideal partnership look like (top ten list)?
Any takers?
The above listing is obviously a spoof. But the funny thing is; many partner programs have some of the above attributes either intentionally or by accident.
If you want your partnerships to fail, be really greedy and don't build trust. Almost everyone I talk to has been burned by bad partnerships or untrustworthy work or personal relationships.
This builds a mentality of not trusting anyone and going at everything alone. Or entering partnerships looking for reasons they should fail instead of succeed (hey, I tried but I got hosed again). Is the risk inherent in partnering really more than hiring employees (stealing your ideas, intellectual property, customers, etc.?). Seth made another good point in Begrudging:
"If you're going to do something, do it. Go all in. Doing it half in makes no sense at all to me."
If you want your partnerships to succeed:
Partnering with another company or individual has a lot of upside potential if both parties are genuine and committed to making it work.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Your Marketing Company STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: your-marketing-company CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/your-marketing-company.html DATE: 10/20/2009 01:44:00 AM ----- BODY:Do you think of marketing as a function within your organization? Is it something to do with communicating your message to your customers to generate leads or awareness? Part of the sales process?
In today's world marketing is everything.
Michael Gerber (E-Myth Manager) hit it on the head when he defined marketing as "the promise you make to your customers and your company's ability to deliver on that promise".
This definition says marketing is the responsibility of your entire company. Not in a superficial manner like "we are all selling our product" or "everyone has an impact on our customers"; but deep in the core of how we think about business.
I think we all need to embrace this.
As Seth Godin has mentioned a great number of times in his blog, gone are the days when marketers could just buy ads and get us to buy their products via interruptions. We are too saturated now to notice. Your product or service needs to be remarkable (worth remarking about or a Purple Cow).
You have a product (or service). How you communicate and create awareness of your product and how you sell is it part of your brand. Your ability to deliver the product while consistently filling your promise is part of it. Your ability to deal with problems that come up along the way is part of it. The way you take payment and deal with suppliers is part of it. Your ability to generate references and word of mouth is part of it.
In essence, everything about your company is part of it.
Now all your customers have the ability to share their opinions about your product not just with their friends, but the entire planet. Your brand is what your customers say it is.
You don't hire a marketing company.
You are a marketing company; your marketing company.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Fear of Buying - Software STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: fear-of-buying-software CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/fear-of-buying-software.html DATE: 10/19/2009 04:47:24 PM ----- BODY:In Seth's recent post (Fear of Apples) he talks about how fear impacts buying. People don't want to do things that scare them and for some the threshold is low (buying the wrong apples).
He says:
"Whatever you sell, there are two big reasons people aren't buying it:
1. They don't know about it.
2. They're afraid of it."
Unfortunately, software development (one of the things we do) fits into this category big time. This is why business people often want to bring their IT people with them to a meeting... what if you say something they don't understand and make them look foolish.
Unfortunately some industries have rightly or wrongly been pigeon-holed into the scary realm.
Getting the right tools and help in front of business owners and managers should not be a scary prospect. If you are selling a high "fear" product or service you will have a longer sales cycle. If the price is high often perceived risk is higher too.
You need to build trust and consider starting with something a little smaller. As the trust goes up you can move to the more complex offerings.
As a (small) business owner you need to address any fears you have about important aspects of your business. Find a trusted partner to help you with things like information technology, human resources and business optimization... focus on what you do best.
In an ideal world, it would be easy to make sure people know about it and you would choose something to sell that no one (in the mainstream) is afraid of.
In reality there may be no such thing. If people are afraid of buying the wrong apples then anything more complex is going to have some perils for someone.
I think the key is to make sure there are "enough" people who are in the no or low fear (innovator/early adopter) category to support your offering while you are Crossing the Chasm (Geoffry Moore) into the mainstream; and whether or not it is even possible to make that jump.
For ourselves, we are constantly striving to make software development easier for our customers. Success breeds word of mouth and more success. But we are also making it easier for customers to try us out by offering more low risk "packaged" software products in the future.
What is your business doing to address the fear of buying?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Honesty in the Real World STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: honesty-in-the-real-world CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/honesty-in-the-real-world.html DATE: 10/15/2009 12:26:54 PM ----- BODY:In the last few days I have personally witnessed 2 companies (other than ourselves) deal with annoyed customers.
Honesty
In the first case (no names, my blog is not about embarrassing others), the owner of the company had to deal with a customer that was upset about a missed deliverable. This occurred while we were meeting with him. What impressed me about it was his attitude. Yes, he was genuinely upset about his company's process failure... but he was not embarrassed about it or trying to cover it up with the client or with us. Honesty goes a long way.
Too Much Success
The second case (again no names), involves a marketing firm that is running a website for a group of credit unions to foster better relationships with small businesses. The website is quite well done... clean and easy to use.
They had Seth Godin lined up to give a presentation on how you can "remove the small from small business". Now they had hosted a number of other live seminars which I assume were successful. But if you know of Seth, you know that he is extremely popular.
My guess is that word started spreading quickly (think Twitter) and the website was overwhelmed by the volume. So much so that the pages could not even load, never mind see the presentation itself.
I sent a note to the seminar host and got a response back within a few minutes. Yup, the seminar was more popular than expected and was going to be posted later in the day for members to view.
Moral of the Story
If you are a business you are going to mess up with your customers at some time... guaranteed. How you deal with it is as important as run your regular business, even more so.
Deal with people honestly and quickly when you mess up. Fix it and do what you can to prevent similar problems from happening while accepting that with the world and especially people, you can never eliminate risk and !#$# happens.
And remember, word of your mess ups can spread faster than you can even imagine. The viral spreading of information on the Internet is a two edged sword wielded by a crowd. You can't control it, but you can influence it through honesty, quick response and building relationships. (Sorry, putting your head in the sand doesn't help, it just means you have no chance to benefit at all.)
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Feeding a Need on Thanksgiving Weekend STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: feeding-a-need-on-thanksgiving-weekend CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/feeding-a-need-on-thanksgiving-weekend.html DATE: 10/13/2009 05:53:58 PM ----- BODY:My business partner Al Dhalla and his friend Al Mohammed started Feed-a-Need a few years ago. Our business has always supported giving back to the community through organizations such as this, the Interfaith Food Bank, Bethany Care Society, The Mustard Seed and the Boys and Girls Club organizations.
We are a web application development company and have recently volunteered company time to help revamp their public website (still not released yet).
Over the weekend they had an opportunity to make another big impact and I thought I would share it with my readers:
Just thought I will share FeedaNeed’s involvement over the thanksgiving weekend with some of our friends and relatives:
We were fortunate to be teamed with Wayne’s Moving Services company to assist Mr O's family, a Sudanese family, whose home was recently engulfed in fire and they were left homeless!
FeedaNeed was able to provide all the furniture for their newer home where the family has just moved in yesterday. Our volunteers worked with Wayne and his moving staff to accomplish this. Our special thanks to Wayne.
Global TV newsmen were at the scene too and it is my understanding there is a news coverage tonight, Tuesday at 6 pm on channel 8.
FeedaNeed is always seeking help from volunteers and sponsors to help fund this noble work. Come forward – donate some of your hours, skills and dollars and be part of us. Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from serving in this capacity.
It is good to periodically reflect on the things you are thankful for... and strive to make the world a better place everyday. Small things matter.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Automating Success (Measurement) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: automating-success-measurement CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/automating-success-measurement.html DATE: 10/12/2009 11:29:57 PM ----- BODY:My last post (Measuring Success) was on measuring key factors before and after a change to determine if the change had the desired effect.
Just as important, if you want to be sure that measurement is easy and will not get put aside when things are busy; you need to automate the process of generating the measurements.
This follows the agile principle of automation for anything that gets done more than once. It is equally effective for businesses.
If you have managers or staff members whose job description includes manually generating part of all of a report or key performance indicator, you have a candidate for automation.
It is costing you more than you think. People are relatively expensive and their value comes not from doing repetitive tasks (that can be automated) but from adding value on the analysis and decision making.
It is insidious. Ten minutes a week adds up to 520 minutes in a year... more than an 8 hour workday gone a year. Add up all the repetitive tasks and the cost is significant. That is if it gets done regularly.
Chances are when things are busy, these things get put aside.
Then perhaps poor decisions get made because the information is not readily available. That can cost a lot more.
Automate reporting. Automate analysis. Automate distribution of the information.
The tools are out there.
Automate success.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Measuring Success STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: measuring-success CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/measuring-success.html DATE: 10/07/2009 08:17:32 PM ----- BODY:To succeed in business, common thinking says you need a vision of where you want to go, then you need a strategy (plan) for getting there, and then you need to take action over the short-term (goals, projects, tactics).
One part missing from this is measurement.
If you make a change to improve on the execution of your strategy, how do you know it has the right impact?
Gut feel or intuition? Anecdotal evidence? Or do you measure the key factors before and after?
For small to mid-size businesses, who often don't have access to a host of expert analysts, this is a difficult subject to master. It is yet another thing to learn and it takes time. You might not be able to even pull the required data together.
However, to succeed consistently you need to master measuring success (and quickly) or hope luck favours you; because that is what you are relying on.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Your Web Presence STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: your-web-presence CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/your-web-presence.html DATE: 10/05/2009 05:35:53 PM ----- BODY:Every business should have a web presence... it is a no brainer right? Maybe.
Actually, the first thing you need to decide is what you want to accomplish on the web. Whether your goal is: marketing, sales, connecting with customers, or something else....
You need to align your web presence with your company vision and strategies if you want to be sure you are not just throwing money out the window (and as a small business owner that is your money).
Don't spend any time or money developing a web site until you know what you want to accomplish.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Knowledge Is Power STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: knowledge-is-power CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/knowledge-is-power.html DATE: 10/03/2009 11:46:31 PM ----- BODY:Knowledge is power if you can use it to make better business decisions. The trick is to get the right knowledge in front of the right people at the right time.
Inside a business there are normally three key sources of knowledge:
Chances are you have a lot invested already in each of these islands of knowledge... but they may not be connected or otherwise delivering the value you want. If the data does not already exist in a usable format, you may need to capture it.
Relying on Bob
Too many small businesses have critical functions that only one person has the knowledge to perform. Unfortunately this creates problems for:
The Solution
Besides doing his day to day job, Bob needs to be working to make sure that he is paving the way to move to the next level and have his replacement able to perform his role.
This means putting tools and processes in place to automate the gathering of data and information into knowledge... and decisions, so that others can do his job as well as he could.
If you do this right, everyone wins.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted in this post are purely fictional and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental. No Bobs or Roberts were injured or killed as part of this production, including Bob from accounting... and BTW, Bob is my uncle.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Future Is Small and Big STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-future-is-small-and-big CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/the-future-is-small-and-big.html DATE: 10/02/2009 03:03:48 PM ----- BODY:Over the next few months we will be launching a number of software products and services aimed specifically at small to mid-size businesses (depends on how you measure size).
In most cases, small businesses (should) behave and operate differently then their much larger counterparts.
We are very good at certain aspects of technology and understand how small business is different. Working with small business owners is potentially very satisfying... you get to see significant results from your work. Our work with larger corporations is interesting too... it is just harder to see the bottom line impacts.
We are also aligning ourselves with several partners that offer complementary services.
Small is the new big after all.
And it starts next week.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Sunwapta Message Update STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: sunwapta-message CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/10/sunwapta-message.html DATE: 10/02/2009 01:59:57 PM ----- BODY: Our latest iteration on messaging for our website.Data. Innovation. Software. People. Vision.
We bring meaning and life to complex data through innovative software solutions. This allows people to collaborate more effectively and make better decisions; faster and with more confidence.
Software, knowledge and people aligned with strategic vision drives competitive advantage.
We adjust our approach based on the situation and the people involved. Large organizations are inherently different than smaller owner operated organizations, we've worked in and with both.
No matter what your challenges are, we believe there is a better way of maximizing the return on your technology investments.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Tide, Things are a Changing STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: tide-things-are-a-changing CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/tide-things-are-a-changing.html DATE: 09/29/2009 09:44:18 AM ----- BODY:I was watching the breakfast show on TV this morning. Tide had a commercial talking about how environmentally friendly their product was. Their detergent is 2x concentrated reducing plastic in the packaging by 47% and allowing them to use less diesel fuel shipping it.
Yup, these are good things right?
The only problem is that every other detergent is exactly the same. In fact I saw one that was 4x concentrated.
Yet they are implying they are different... better even.
I think the days of putting a "spin" on the routine and calling it differentiation are quickly disappearing.
If you are going to claim something, you need to be real with your customers.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Creating Lasting Business Partnerships STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: creating-lasting-business-partnerships CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/creating-lasting-business-partnerships.html DATE: 09/28/2009 11:13:18 PM ----- BODY:Over the past couple of years we decided to start partnering with other companies to broaden our market reach and increase our ability to provide a comprehensive suite of services and products.
There are two keys to forming any lasting relationship; trust and communication. This is especially true in business.
Trust
Trust is built on a foundation of strong ethics. You then have to be genuinely committed to the success of the relationship and for that to happen, both parties need to give. The final component is that you need to be trustworthy... do what you say you will do in a way consistent with what the other party expects.
Communication
What do both parties expect from the partnership? What are you prepared to give to the relationship? What are the boundaries? Who owns the client relationship? How will you resolve disagreements? How will you walk away (dissolve the partnership) if things don't work out or it is no longer required...and still be in good standing with your partner (it is possible)?
Communication starts at the beginning and goes through the entire relationship period. Even competitors can be partners if there is trust and communication.
Strong communication builds trust.
Admitting you messed up, apologizing and fixing the mistake is essential. Given enough relationships and enough time, everyone will mess something up.
Check your ego and pride at the door. These are relationship killers.
But creating lasting business partnerships is worth it... the great masters of business have understood this since the dawn of business.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.144.191.223 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 09/29/2009 06:10:50 AM "Check your ego and pride at the door. These are relationship killers." - very good words. I work with a few younger developers that just don't get it. Success is not only measured in lines of code, but also in relationships you manage to build or destroy. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Web Site Updates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: web-site-updates CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/web-site-updates.html DATE: 09/24/2009 10:29:57 AM ----- BODY:Joomla 1.5
Finding quite a few undocumented "features" embedded in Joomla out of the box. For example, the default WYSIWYG editor does not appear to be generating proper HTML and there are a few 500 series errors generated by the admin site. The search engine optimization feature does not work if you are hosting on IIS instead of Apache, you need to acquire an ISAPI filter.
Don't get me wrong, Joomla has some pretty powerful capabilities and because it is open source, the price is right. But, there is a learning curve and work required to get it right if you are going to host it yourself... and the documentation is sparse.
Our Purpose
I received some good feedback on the message I posted the other day. Essentially, we are not emphasizing our expertise with the back-end and data which is what really differentiates us from the garden variety front-end web developers.
Work in Progress
I have decided to change my approach on this launch. Rather than get all the initial content built, I will be publishing "enough" and then adding to it.
The problem is that in a normal day, client work and other essential business functions like sales and product development eat up a lot of time.
This is sounding a bit like a broken record. For you readers who may never have heard a record, it is sounding like a YouTube video on a painfully slow connection.
Time to get it done and move on.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Our Company Purpose STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: company-purpose CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/company-purpose.html DATE: 09/21/2009 11:57:28 PM ----- BODY:As I have mentioned before, we have been working on our corporate web site. It is always hardest to work on your own stuff for some reason. Client projects, proposals and hundreds of other things get in the way.
We've been looking at what we are good at, our past projects for clients and where we want to be. I also wanted something strong that we can get excited about, fits in with where we are going right now with our products and goes with my strong interest in what makes a business succeed. In the end, we have come up with the following statement for our new home page:
"We help drive your competitive advantage through creative and innovative software solutions.
Many companies believe that implementing the same processes and tools as their competitors will bring them success. Everyone wants to stand out in the marketplace, but in reality they are often pretty much the same; it is just easier to do what everyone else is doing. Yet the most successful companies stand out because they do things different.
We believe that software can effectively bring together the right blend of: people, communication, process and knowledge to bring organizations of any size significant competitive advantage… our clients understand this as well.
We work with our clients as trusted, long-term business partners to:
- Understand your underlying business strategy,
- Envision creative and innovative business solutions that drive out that strategy, and
- Implement and support all of the necessary software and technologies to help drive your business vision forward."
It is still subject to some editing but I really want to get the remaining web pages finalized so we can publish our updated web site.
P.S. I am really excited about our new message and how it ties into our upcoming product launch... plus all of the synergy with our exiting and new business partnerships. But, you'll have to wait for the launch for details (coming soon to a website "virtually" near you).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Employee Share Ownership - Alignment of Goals STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: employee-share-ownership-alignment-of-goals CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/employee-share-ownership-alignment-of-goals.html DATE: 09/18/2009 11:45:52 PM ----- BODY:In my previous post on Strategy and Corporate Governance for Small Business, I talked about aligning Shareholder goals with the running of the company.
When offering employees ownership you are making them shareholders.
Companies sometimes do this in an attempt to retain employees as the primary motive. However, there are issues:
When talking to Perry Phillips of ESOP Builders, is it clear that he believes employees should purchase their shares. I agree. Things that are given are not appreciated as much as something you earn through hard work. In addition, I think that this automatically filters out the employees who really are not fully on board.
Employees do not have to pay cash in advance. They can use bonuses or sweat equity to buy them. They can also pay in installments.
Alignment of Goals
However, the most critical aspect is that the goals of employee shareholders and majority shareholders are in alignment. If the majority shareholders goals are income to support their desired lifestyle then the employees should get profit sharing. If the goal is to sell the company at a large gain in x years, then the employees should share that goal.
Most people don't have much patience these days for the long-term; they want it all now. A small increase in pay today might mean more to them then a large maybe for tomorrow, especially if they really don't believe in or feel a part of that vision. Again, it comes down to alignment of goals.
Are your key employees key because they share the dream AND make valuable contributions? Or are they just doing an important job and you've become dependent on them?
This comes down to figuring out who you really should be hiring; the ones that are most likely to be in alignment with your company's culture and long-term vision AND who have the right skills. An interview won't do it. Kim Bechtel of YourHRco, believes that there are better ways to find good employees and traditional hiring techniques don't work, especially for small businesses that can't afford to make big mistakes.
Ownership Means Ownership
Ultimately, the most important aspect for management/owners to understand is that in order for employees to be engaged in the company and "thinking like owners"... you need to treat them as owners.
This means sharing more information and allowing them to influence decisions as valued contributors... understanding how what they do contributes to the bottom line... their bottom line since they are now co-owners.
This is how you really get employees thinking like owners and sticking it out for the long-haul.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.144.191.223 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 09/19/2009 08:03:08 AM I absolutely agree that traditional hiring techniques don't work well these days. People are also more competitive. To stick around for a long time for someone, means his ideas have to be aligned with company ones, chemistry exist between individual, company to take the right path, and much more. It is not so often you can have all of those (and I listed just a few) locked down in a single workplace/individual. This is why people move more often than they used to do in the past. Plus, to be honest, people that are incompetent, but well capable of playing political games, are faster to jump on opportunities, and they more real fast. Either way, sharing responsibility means sharing ownership and decision making. If you only share paycheck, then you are not emotionally attached and chances employer would loose the individual are high. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Two Robins and Some Lessons STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: two-robins-and-some-lessons CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/two-robins-and-some-lessons.html DATE: 09/18/2009 12:06:46 AM ----- BODY:Earlier today I was watching the birds in our yard. They are starting to gather together in greater numbers as they get ready to start migrating. It was interesting watching them dart through the air and how they interacted.
As I was getting ready for work, I heard a big crash.
I went back to the window to see what was going on and two robins were laying beside the glass on our deck. In their high speed acrobatics, they had missed that fact that it was glass and not a normal opening.
One of the birds eventually got up and was still quite stunned. It walked over near the other robin and stood near it for quite a while like it was waiting for it to get up. I've never seen anything quite like it. Unfortunately, the other bird never did rise. Eventually, I went out and removed the dead bird and the other robin moved off, I am not sure if the other bird is really ok.
A sad way to start the day.
A strong reminder that life is fleeting and death can be sudden. One moment full of life, darting around and having fun. The next moment it is over.
Cherish every moment and as I always say... enjoy the journey. The destination has no guarantee.
As well, there is probably a lesson about getting too excited and focused on the game and the bird ahead of you. The bird ahead of you may appear to be winning so you pour all of your effort into catching up; only to find that neither of you saw the real threat until too late.
Aggressively chasing your competitors or getting too excited about a perceived opportunity can blind you to seeing what is really happening. Intuition is great but not if it is really your fear or greed talking.
And luck plays a role too. Sometimes, things just happen.
I try to take whatever lessons I can from things that happen... always trying to learn and grow.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Strategy and Corporate Governance for Small Business STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: business-strategy-and-corporate-governance-for-small-business CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/business-strategy-and-corporate-governance-for-small-business.html DATE: 09/15/2009 01:42:03 PM ----- BODY:Corporate structure goes something like this:
In large public companies this structure has become dysfunctional for many reasons, for example:
However, small (privately held) businesses are usually much different.
Often the shareholder, board and senior corporate officer is the same person.
Even if there are multiple shareholders and board members, the group is usually smaller and it is much easier to align the goals of the organization, its executive and the shareholders.
Let's look at how the corporate structure can be used to maximize the real value of the business to the small business owner.
Shareholders
Shareholders need to be clear on what value they are wanting to derive from the business. It could be:
This message needs to be clear and all shareholders need to agree to it; this is why they are investing in the company.
Board of Directors
The Board of Directors needs to make sure the goals of the shareholders are receiving the correct attention from the company and its management team. This is the very high level strategy that is ultimately driving the business so it is important that there are no disconnects.
The Board also needs to perform its governance function and ensure that the executive team is fulfilling their obligations to the shareholders, complying with laws of business, and generally upholding the standards they have set for ethics.
Some small businesses bring in Board members who can act as advisors and help make the right connections to help the Executive Team execute the strategy.
Executive Team
The Executive Team's role is to flesh out the details of the corporate strategy, plan and then execute the strategy. This includes accountability to the Board and ensuring accountability of the organization to the Executive Team.
Conclusion
Small businesses can use the corporate governance structure to reinforce the importance of:
This helps avoid the trap of working in the business instead of on it... even if all positions are filled by one person initially.
Intestingly, this covers 4 of the 6 steps in Seth Godin's Hierarchy of Success. The other two (attitude and approach) are who really based on who you are or want to be.
Oh, and don't forget to regularly review this at each level. That is what shareholder's meetings, board meeting and executive meetings should be accomplishing.
Then you can use corporate governance not just to comply with the rules, but to drive your small business strategy forward.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: corporate, governance, business, goals, strategy, planning, execution, doug, wagner, sunwapta, solutions ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Lessons From Amazon STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: lessons-from-amazon CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/lessons-from-amazon.html DATE: 09/09/2009 12:37:59 PM ----- BODY:The lessons in a nutshell:
You can also watch the video directly on YouTube.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Fall - Back to Business STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: fall-back-into-business CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/fall-back-into-business.html DATE: 09/08/2009 01:04:52 PM ----- BODY:We are up on a bit of a hill. Last night we got a surprise frost. So much for the weather forecast.
Yup the nights are getting cooler here in Calgary and that means everyone is getting back to business after a relatively short summer.
There are two main periods of busy business activity here in Calgary: Fall and Winter/Spring. Stampede until Labour Day is a slow period and so is December/January. This year with the doom and gloom economy still lingering, it was especially pronounced.
Federally, the politicians are thumping their chests again. Too bad they consider their job to be mudslinging and discrediting each other to get ready for an election and not running things. "We can do better" was the tentative campaign message for the opposition. Hmm, gotta like the breadth of that vision. We can be average or a bit better.
I think we have to start seeing "we can do great things"; not just a little better.
I know that is how my vision looks for our business.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kim Bechtel EMAIL: kim.bechtel@yourhrco.com IP: 68.146.188.237 URL: DATE: 09/09/2009 12:55:31 PM I had the same reaction to the tag line in the Liberal ads, "We can do better". There's an academic's call to arms if I ever saw one. Thanks for the shout out in your previous blog. Sunwapta Solutions is a Small Giant if I ever saw one. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Outsourcing your HR Needs - Small Business STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: outsourcing-your-hr-needs-small-business CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/outsourcing-your-hr-needs-small-business.html DATE: 09/04/2009 06:40:19 PM ----- BODY:Al and I finally reconnected with Kim Bechtel after losing touch a few years ago. We did a project for him while he was at the City of Calgary. Somehow we lost touch and then when Kim changed jobs, his contact information no longer worked.
Today Kim is the President and Chief Idea Officer at YourHRco (web site under construction).
He has been working in HR for many years but has decided to focus on HR strategy and services related to smaller businesses. Small business is different than the big companies and HR needs to be applied to helping small businesses with those differences in mind.
Pricing is a big one and he has addressed that through having both a subscription and a project based pricing model (hope I got that right).
The other distinguishing factor is service. From what I know of Kim, good service is not just a tag line in his brochure, it is something he firmly believes in and delivers.
If you are interested in connecting with YourHRco, leave me a comment and I will forward on your contact info.
In the meantime, Sunwapta Solutions is looking forward keeping this relationship going now that we've found him again... and using their HR outsourcing services as required.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: IMC Vancouver - Calgary Preview STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: imc-vancouver-calgary-preview CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/imc-vancouver-calgary-preview.html DATE: 09/02/2009 07:33:29 PM ----- BODY:Al Dhalla and I attended a sneak preview of the Vancouver Internet Marketing Conference hosted by Anduro Marketing.
It was kind of like appetizers before the main meal. Tasty but not very filling.
The full conference should be a lot more meaty as it goes for three days rather than just a couple of hours. Looks like there are lots of good presenters too.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: 101 Business Tips STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: 101-business-tips CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/101-business-tips.html DATE: 09/02/2009 07:23:43 PM ----- BODY:Good compilation of business and marketing tips from various authors.
101 Tips from 50 Small Business Bloggers
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Gaining Competitive Advantage STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: gaining-competitive-advantage CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/09/gaining-competitive-advantage.html DATE: 09/01/2009 06:38:26 PM ----- BODY:Today I was thinking of what competitive advantage really means and came up with a few categories or methods of gaining competitive advantage. I think it is well worth looking at how you stack up against each category periodically (anything missing?).
Capability
Essentially you have something or can do something that is significantly better than your competitors. Even better if you are the only one or there is a barrier to entry.
Speed
How quick can you deliver on your promise and how fast can you respond to change.
Knowledge
What do you know that your competition doesn't. Knowing your customer fits here and so does intellectual property.
Location
Location, location, location. These days location means that your customers can find you and reach you when they want to buy whether that is in the real world or virtual world.
People
If you have great people and can prove it, you gain competitive advantage. You then need a way to attract and retain those people.
Cost
Efficiencies and outright cost reductions. Lowest price generally wins for comparable products, but not always... see reputation.
Reputation
People will pay more for the safe brand they know. Build your reputation and guard it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Who Are You (and your Business)? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: who-are-you-and-your-business CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/who-are-you-and-your-business.html DATE: 08/31/2009 04:11:40 PM ----- BODY:Who are you? What matters? What do you stand for? What do you want to become?
At the core, the business and owners must be in synch for long-term success.
Sure you can buy a franchise for a proven business, say a muffler shop, but if you have absolutely no interest fixing cars it is going to be a long painful ride.
I've been running Sunwapta Solutions for over 9 years now and we never clearly defined this for ourselves... until now. Luckily strong ethics and doing good work were part of our core make up without thinking about it regularly.
If you just go with the flow: your customers will define you, your market will define you, and your employees will define you. But you may end up somewhere you really didn't want to be.
Who are you and what will you become?
You need to know who you are today. You need to define who you will be when your business succeeds.
Be real. You can't become something someone else wants or you think they want. It has to be something that works for you.
See, starting a business as an entrepreneur is a journey. Today there may only be you. Tomorrow there may be 100 employees, or 10 million in revenue, or 1000 customers, or whatever.... Who you are tomorrow may need to be different.
So it is not just about the money or the business. In reality it is about you. If you and your business are in alignment great things are possible and you will enjoy it a whole lot more.
Seth Godin's recent post (Who Gets to Decide What You Want? ) addresses this from a product and marketing perspective (i.e. you or the marketers?).
You need to address this for yourself. Who will define your business? You or someone else?
Then you need to make sure your employees are whistling the same tune. This is the only way the market and your customers will get the message consistently and they absolutely need to.
Know who you are and know what your business stands for.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Cloud Computing - Does Anyone Really Care? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: cloud-computing-what-we-really-need CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/cloud-computing-what-we-really-need.html DATE: 08/27/2009 08:34:28 PM ----- BODY:Lately cloud computing has been getting a lot of buzz. It is a giant umbrella for either hosting your applications "out on the Internet" or acquiring software hosted by someone "out on the Internet".
It is actually quite funny in a way. An evolutionary happening is being sold as a revolution.
The cloud has been there for years. The hype is newer.
Reality
A large percentage of people don't really understand computers, hardware, software, networks and the Internet very well at all. They really don't care where something is running or where the data ends up as long as:
It is easy to use,
It works and I can use it whenever I want, and
It doesn't cost a fortune.
This has been true since the dawn of mainstream computing for the masses and is only getting worse as people grow up using computers and devices as black boxes from childhood. Remember, only the IT folks really pay attention to the technology.
The Cloud Means...
To me cloud computing really means that the user should not have to care where there application or data is other than in a generic sense. It could be a PC, it could be a client on the corporate network, it could be browser based and out there on the Internet or it could be running on your smart phone... it could be a combination of all of these and more.
The Death of Desktops
Over the last 20 years I have heard about the death of desktops, the rise of thin clients, centralized, decentralized, and vice versa. Hey none of this is new... and mainframes are still around too.
If I have a portable movie player linked to the Internet via a wireless connection, it doesn't mean I will throw out my big screen TV, surround sound stereo, and Blue Ray player. It more likely means that I will want to also watch Internet content in both places, but expect it to be better on the big system.
A car is not transportation to some. Some are willing to buy better cars and some are minimalistic.
Desktops or their replacements will be around as long as they offer some additional value.
The secret is making the desktop work with the cloud invisibly.
If I buy a subscription to a word processor, do I really care where it is running. Not if the price and functionality are the same. In fact, sell the SaaS and desktop version in the same subscription. When you are on the road you get the essentials, when you are in the office you get the premium. Both have the same storage options (local, corporate or cloud). See! Now I don't care.
What is really changing is pricing models, but that is another topic. Smart companies strong on the desktop have an advantage over pure Internet... they can do both if they want. They just have to change their overall pricing models. It is the pricing model that could kill the desktop if things don't change.
Ubiquitous Computing
(Hey, I just like this word.)
The real meaning, lets get on with making it so people don't need to care how it works or where it works... it just does.
Remember, only us techies really care about how it works... and that increases our value not hinders it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Some Good Business Books STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: some-good-business-books CATEGORY: Books and Courses CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/some-good-business-books.html DATE: 08/24/2009 05:08:27 PM ----- BODY:Sometimes you pick up a business or personal development book and you enjoy reading it, but for some reason, nothing really changes afterward. Some are read it once and never read it again.
Well, recently I was perusing my bookshelf and picked up two I had read quite a while ago for a re-read.
When reading these (or any other books), you are not likely to get magic ideas or formulas to guarantee success in your business. What works for one company will not work for yours straight out of the box.
No the thing to get out of these books are some of the things you need to address if you want to run a successful small business or take your business to the level. There are lots of ways to address them and it is up to you to do so.
The E-Myth Revisited
The E-Myth Revisited; Why most small businesses don't work and what to do about it by Michael Gerber is one of the classics that has spawned a large following.
Essentially the premise is that buying a good franchise almost guarantees business success, yet starting your own small business almost guarantees failure. The reason... most small business owners have an entrepreneurial seizure and think that doing the work in a business is the same as running a business.
Unless you are really just an independent contract employee with a holding company for liability and tax purposes, you need to work on the business as much as in it... and this includes doing the things that franchisers do whether or not you intend on franchising or not; create a system to run your business so that you don't have to be the one doing it... that or risk burning out with little to show for your risk.
Becoming a Category of One
So you have your business up and running and you've created some systems to handle all the business functions. You have reached a plateau and are ready to go to the next level... now what?
Joe Calloway looks at how extraordinary companies transcend commodity and defy comparison in Becoming a Category of One.
He does this by looking at what this means and gives some great examples from a number of companies large and small. In most of the examples it not just talk about how people are your competitive advantage, they actually create competitive advantage through people, processes, systems and corporate culture.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Those Pesky Customers STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: those-pesky-customers CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/those-pesky-customers.html DATE: 08/19/2009 10:34:13 PM ----- BODY:Ever have one of those days where customers (internal or external) keep derailing something you want to get done?
If only they would go away, life would be simpler and you could accomplish all your projects.
Yup, no customers would be perfect.
No customers, no distractions... no revenue... no business.
POP!
The trick is not in making your customers go away. Unless you have no intention of growing you actually want more happy, satisfied customers receiving something they need. Your business depends on it.
So the trick, is setting up your business so you can do both; and I don't mean working 16 hours a day.
You need to work on the business so you can free up time to do the important work... the strategic stuff.
Putting good systems and processes in place should be part of your business strategy. Everything needs to be clear.
That way you can work on the important strategic and customers stuff... safe in the knowledge that the customers is always being taken care of properly... just not always by you.
Have I got this right. Not yet, those pesky customers have been in the way. But I am making time to address it so that the future is brighter.
P.S. Any customers reading this should not feel I find them pesky. I mean not you but the other customers that are pesky. You are a great customer and I cherish your business.
P.P.S. Ok, the point is really that clients are not pesky, avoiding doing the right things to build your business is pesky.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Continuous Improvement STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: random-topics CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/random-topics.html DATE: 08/18/2009 11:42:21 PM ----- BODY:Web Site Update
Thought about it some more... need to just get things done so new Sunwapta Web Site version one will focus on content and not so much on being an unusual tech site. Just not enough time to do everything.
However, we have a product launch scheduled for September and I will be creating a brand new site for that. That is where I will focus my creative energies.
Convention over Configuration
This evening I went to a Calgary .NET User Group meeting and presentation by James Kovacs (MVP) on "Convention over Configuration". Another passionate presentation by a very talented developer covering a lot of pieces of the development puzzle (Fluent nHibernate, nHibernate, mappers, JQuery, IOC containers, etc.)
The underlying theme tied it all together and really made sense to me. With careful design and strong understanding of your tools, you can use convention (rules and tools) to automate a lot of the plumbing in an application; especially during the critical unknown and fast paced early stages where the domain model is rapidly changing.
Client Application Performance Tuning
We've been working on a client application for a while and talking about improving performance. The calculations are very complex, actuarial formulas, and there are a great number of them in the model. Realized it is time to break the problem down, implement tests for each piece and then re-factor the application to improve performance. Having tests (speed and calculation accuracy) will allow us to make changes quickly without worrying about breaking the calculations.
It's nice to be able to apply some of the coding best practices to pieces normally done outside the raw code by a separate team.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Build Versus Buy (Software) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: build-versus-buy CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/build-versus-buy.html DATE: 08/17/2009 02:03:17 PM ----- BODY:There are two main reasons to build your own software versus buy an existing software product:
The impact of competitive advantage through software and automation is underestimated by most small and mid-sized companies (and many large corporations too).
Non-Existent
Despite the vast amount of software out there in the cloud and available to be run in your own enterprise, there are still a number of business problems that cannot be solved by off-the-shelf or preexisting software.
And even if that software exists, it may have been tooled to be too specific to one environment and the cost of customization or workarounds is too high.
Integration of two different software products often requires either configuration and customization or a piece of new code to glue things together.
Still for most run of the mill business problems needing a software solution, something probably exists. The question is: Does using it create a competitive advantage?
Competitive Advantage
Aside from those unique situations where there just are no valid solutions, competitive advantage is the primary reason to use software and more specifically, to build software that gives your company an advantage over the competitor.
Some types of competitive advantage include:
Reduced cost of ownership - There are times when it is cheaper to build software than to buy it both in initial purchase and ongoing cost and in soft costs... the preexisting solution may be overkill for your situation. It is also easy to underestimate the complexity and cost of building software;
Process simplification or speed - Is the preexisting software going to simplify your processes or make them more complex? Will you be more responsive to the market and your customers or less?
A new way of doing something - Chances are your competitors are all using the standard software and process templates that come with them. If you have determined a new and better way of doing something that can't easily be done with preexisting software, then you may gain an advantage over the competition.
Adaptability - Can you change your processes and the software need run them quickly? If you are trying to run a lean or agile business, your success may depend on how quickly you can switch. It doesn't do you much good to quickly devise a change in process or service offering and then have to wait a year for your technology to support it.
Intellectual property - Your competitors can't just buy it, they have to build it. If you get your software off the shelf, then so can your competitors. If you invent a better process or mousetrap, the last thing you want is your competitors to quickly copy you. You can gain significant competitive advantage if you can do something new, something faster or something better than your competitors.
If you are an independent software vendor the last point is what you are all about.
It Is All in the Solution
This is what Sunwapta Solutions does for a living. We work with your team to determine what problem you are trying to solve, look at the best way to solve it and then implement a technical solution that is right for you.
Implementing includes:
We are both a consulting company and a product company so we get it.
After all, competitive advantage has to come at the right price.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Quick Update on Website - 2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: quick-update-on-website-2 CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/quick-update-on-website-2.html DATE: 08/15/2009 02:05:00 PM ----- BODY:In my last post on this subject I mentioned how fun it would be to do a parody of a normal website. Then I said I didn't think I had the courage to be taking that kind of risk.
A few people have challenged me to not put out a standard (serious and boring) tech website.
Of course, they are not the ones that would be taking the risk so it is easy to say "Jump!".
I am thinking that the parody version would not be right for me. Fun, but not really what I am about and certainly not what Sunwapta Solutions is about.
But something that fits better with who we are might be.
If I can figure out an angle to make it a bit different... exciting, fun and quirky... and definitely not boring... then that would be really good.
Some of this might happen in release 2. I don't want to get too off track but yeah... now you got me thinking.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: A Failure to Communicate STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: a-failure-to-communicate CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/a-failure-to-communicate.html DATE: 08/14/2009 04:09:47 PM ----- BODY:Ever play that game where you take a secret statement, pass it on through a subsequent chain of people. The person at the end says the statement out loud and everyone laughs at how it different it is from what it started out as.
Now add in not just memory of what was said, but include an understanding of what was said, especially if the problem is complex.
The meaning and details are both important and if either aspect is lost, good communications have not happened.
This means that in any development project where there is more than one person involved, there is a risk that miscommunication can derail your project.
This is why many agile methodologies insist on a customer being on-site and present in the project; with the entire team in one room.
But the reality this is not usually possible, especially for long running projects.
The issue is NOT one of proximity. The issue is one of communications. Communications can fail with two people sitting right beside each other.
So for any development project, the key is... communications.
What should you do if communications failure is one of the leading causes of overall project failure (probably more so than poor technical skills)?
Well if you need to get in shape you work out more. If you need to get better at programming you study and practice more.
If you need to communicate better, you need to practice it more and become disciplined in its correct usage.
If you are the subject matter expert (i.e. customer or customer representative) or other team member:
Above all, practice good communications skills when meeting. This includes:
Don't let a failure to communicate derail your project. Don't hide behind proximity issues or blame others.
Good communications needs constant work and attention... from the entire team... your success depends on it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Quick Update on Website STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: quick-update-on-website CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/quick-update-on-website.html DATE: 08/11/2009 05:25:29 PM ----- BODY:We have our content management system configured now and our template 90% implemented. I haven't been blogging too much lately mainly because I am busy writing content for our website while simultaneously doing application design for a couple of other web applications.
While writing site content, I was thinking about how much fun it would be to do the entire site as a parody of the normally serious and deathly boring technical corporate website... and oh yeah, throw in some of the standards for differentiation marketing:
"Our developers have been extremely agile for years, long before agile became popular as a methodology. Yes, they had to be to learn to dodge impossible and arbitrary client deadlines, last minute scope changes and irate spouses when they had to work all night to complete the project that someone else messed up."
"We are completely different from our competitors, we code in ones and zeros and they use zeros and ones. Besides today I am wearing a brown shirt and I am pretty sure I saw our competitor wearing a blue one. And did I mention, we have really good people."
And the one that came out in an actual RFP asking team members to have 5 years of experience in a technology that came out 2 years ago (RFP was reissued a year later).
"All our staff currently have over 5 years experience in every technology that is currently out and have already started learning technologies that are just being conceived as you read this."
Reality Check
After all my competitive research, I could not find a single example of a reputable technology company website that was funny... and frankly, I am not brave enough to try something that different.
So back to reality and writing serious content for our website. While we like to have fun, we are serious about building good software.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.144.191.223 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 08/12/2009 12:17:52 AM Being different is not bad. I would go for that. Originally different though. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: michael EMAIL: stihl441@gmail.com IP: 72.228.14.137 URL: DATE: 09/06/2009 07:07:05 PM Wufoo I think as the best website of this type- at least they are funny ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Dance Through Life STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: dance-through-life CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/dance-through-life.html DATE: 08/10/2009 11:10:58 AM ----- BODY:Paula Callihoo's new dance studio website is now live.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Gloves Are Off STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-gloves-are-off CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/08/the-gloves-are-off.html DATE: 08/04/2009 02:16:38 PM ----- BODY:I was off reading some blogs today and came across an interesting exchange in the comments section.
It started off on a technical argument, got nasty and then got personal.
When the insults on personal choices of cell phones started flying, I knew the gloves were off.
Yup, your choice of a cell phone says a lot about you.
The Mac, iMac, iPod and iPhone were all initially about going against the herd. Forget the technical arguments for a minute. People are proud that they are not getting what the majority are getting, it says something about you. And Apple? Brilliant at consumer marketing... they get it.
If everyone (or at least a majority) get an iPhone, what will having an iPhone say about you?
What happens if Apple achieves mainstream?
What if they get to the point Microsoft did with Windows and get declared a monopoly?
For a while the browser wars were seemingly pretty much over and one browser had a clear domination. Then browsers woke up and we have some competition again... and change. Good for consumers, bad for content/site creators.
Not to worry though. I don't see the cell (smart) phone battle as being over.
With the size of the market, the size of the players and the stakes, you can be sure... the gloves are off.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Age and Money - A Matter of Perspective STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: a-matter-of-perspective CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/a-matter-of-perspective.html DATE: 07/31/2009 06:07:50 PM ----- BODY:A business client and friend of mine is turning 50 on Monday.
For humans 50 years is a long time.
But $50 is not much money.
50 years is the same as 18,262.5 days. $18,262.5 is slightly more than what you would make on minimum wage in Alberta in a year of working full-time.
50 years is the same as 438,300 hours. $438,300 is nice.
There are 26,298,000 minutes and 1,577,880,000 seconds in 50 years.
$1.5 billion is a nice big number and few achieve it.
If you earn 1 dollar every second of your life, you can have $1.5 billion in 50 years.
Treat every second of your life as if it is worth something.
Age and money are a matter of perspective.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Getting Marketing Feedback STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: getting-marketing-feedback-on-the-cheap CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/getting-marketing-feedback-on-the-cheap.html DATE: 07/29/2009 06:44:53 PM ----- BODY:If you want unbiased feedback on your marketing material or a new product where do you go? If your answer is:
You should seriously reconsider.
While friends and family may try to give you honest feedback, generally they are naturally biased... they will generally tell you what you want to hear. Why? To show their support. After all, isn't that what family is all about and why you chose your friends?
Employees are influenced by balancing showing support, not making their boss annoyed, and trying to be honest.
Besides, none of these people are likely to be representative of your customers.
So valid options include:
You can attempt these yourself or get outside help.
Today I had a demo of a cool product called Focus Forums that is one online tool that you can use to gather information about your customers' views a little more scientifically.
But if you are on a shoestring budget, you may be able to get some feedback on the cheap, especially if your customer demographic is relatively easy to find.
Find a place where people in your target group have to wait for something. Then approach them with your questions and samples of what you are offering or wanting an opinion on. Ask, listen and make notes. Then give them a small gift (Starbucks coffee card, etc.) if they took it seriously. Hey they might be a future customer and they did something of value for you. Besides, the next person in line will not be likely to say no if they just saw you giving something away. Might cost you $50 for 10 respondents.
This may not work for you, but the point is to be creative within your niche.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.144.191.223 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 07/29/2009 08:53:18 PM "Employees are influenced by balancing showing support, not making their boss annoyed, and trying to be honest." I know employees that would not mind speaking up ;) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug Wagner EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com IP: 142.179.147.100 URL: http://dougwagner.typepad.com DATE: 07/30/2009 02:40:26 PM Sean, So do I with some being more keen than others to share their opinion... But not sure if they can represent your client accurately. Doug ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Choosing a Content Management System STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: choosing-a-content-management-system CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/choosing-a-content-management-system.html DATE: 07/28/2009 04:59:52 PM ----- BODY:Historically we have been a Microsoft .NET shop with some experience in Java. It is not that we are against other technologies, it is just that we don't see a reason to jump all over if the tools you have do the trick.
In the case of choosing a content management system (CMS) for our corporate website, we looked at open source and low cost CMS products on the .NET platform and found them not as mature as we needed.
We have therefore chosen Joomla as our CMS. It is a well supported and widlely used CMS developed on the PHP platform and is open source to boot.
After the first round of kicking the tires, it appears like Joomla will do everything we need it to and more.
Now that this decision is made, we have only two tasks remaining:
Generate the content.
Looks like generating the content will be my next task for the coming few weeks.
No doubt about it, revamping our web site and keeping it up to date will be a major priority for us going forward. The trick with a corporate web site is to build credibility with potential customers and ideally to generate sales.
No more barefoot children for this shoemaker.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 68.147.0.90 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 07/29/2009 12:18:01 PM Typical buy vs. build :) PS: Watch out for customization - this is where it becomes "not so free" and painful (unless you have developement in PHP in place). ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: About The Value of Blogging STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: about-blogging CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/about-blogging.html DATE: 07/27/2009 04:32:18 PM ----- BODY:Seth nails the value of blogging. I do it as much for the clarity as I do for the audience.
I often find that I start out with a blog topic, start writing and by the end, my own understanding has improved. Teaching some things is like that too. It really makes you think about what and how you are doing something; sometimes you even catch mistakes in your current thinking or abilities.
As per the last two posts (The Value of a New Customer and Marketing Budget 101) I talked about one way of determining your marketing/sales budget.
If you want a simpler method, allocate a percentage of total revenue.
Now the question is where to spend your money for maximum effect.
There are basically four sources of future sales:
You will want to allocate funding (or effort) to all areas.
Existing Customers
Everyone talks about existing customers being extremely valuable, yet so many businesses don't allocate much in the way of resources into maintaining the relationships and looking for other ways to service existing clients... until the relationship is in jeopardy. You need to act like any customer is at risk at all times; because quite frankly they are. Things change very rapidly in business and the most solid customer can become an ex-customer very quickly.
Make sure your budget nourishes existing customer relationships; they are very expensive to replace.
Referrals
Your best and most credible referrals come from existing customers. Other sources include your employees, your business and personal network, and other sources of word of mouth such as the Internet.
How do you ask for referrals? Do you allocate resources to acquiring them and just as importantly, do you reward people in some way for referrals?
The simple reality is that almost everyone is focused on themselves in some way, shape or form. What motivates a referral and what will make a person want to give more referrals. Direct compensation for referrals can be tricky but there are many ways to reward without crossing that line. Be creative and get referrals through intentional effort.
Cold Calling and Networking
Cold calling and networking are active methods of sales where you initiate the contact with the potential customer and try to either get a sale or a referral to someone who will buy. This is the hardest and most time consuming method of generating sales but it can be effective when done over a longer period of time and with consistency.
You need to spend a lot of time and resources building relationships but for larger values of work, this is often the only way in.
New Leads from Marketing
Prospects are driven to you through your marketing efforts. By the time you are in communication they have already shown some interest in what you have to sell by virtue of them having contacted you.
The better your marketing engine is at pre-screening clients, the better your closing ratio will be and the less effort you will spend on sales calls. For some business types this is easy, but for others, direct interaction is required to determine fit.
Conclusion
You want to make sure your marketing and sales plans and budget address all four aspects of marketing and sales.
If you only need to spend on the first two items, congratulations, you have a great word of mouth business.
If not, focus on marketing to generate qualified leads or cold calling/networking. If you want to grow quickly or very large, this becomes even more essential as word of mouth takes time to build.
The boundaries are blurring but you need to market by plan, not by accident... the key is wise marketing budget allocation.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Marketing Budget 101 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: marketing-budget-101 CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/marketing-budget-101.html DATE: 07/23/2009 06:28:47 PM ----- BODY:Now that you know how much you are willing to spend on acquiring a new customer the next part is easy... and very hard.
How many new customers do you want?
Infinity is a good long-term goal for the highly competitive but lets bound the question a bit.
How many new customers can you handle over the next year?
Consider your ability to:
Don't forget to include any customers you might lose over time in the equation.
Now multiply desired new customers by how much you are willing to spend to acquire a new customer divided by the average life of a customer relationship in years.
This is your optimum marketing and sales budget for the year.
Marketing is there to generate leads and sales is there to sign up your customers. You need to allocate to both pieces. Sales is leads times conversion rate (0-100%).
Your goal is to generate enough leads at a high enough conversion rate to meet your goals. If you can achieve this within the optimum budget you have... you have a very solid business model.
And infinity (at least within your market segment) may not just be a dream.
If not, you may still have a valid model, but you may need to further refine it and allocate more dollars to marketing and sales. Without sales you don't have a business.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Value of a New Customer STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-value-of-a-customer CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/the-value-of-a-customer.html DATE: 07/22/2009 03:25:37 PM ----- BODY:One of things you need to do for your business is to determine the value of a customer. This is the lifetime income from that customer to your business and should include factors such as:
Now determine the fixed and variable costs in delivery your product or service. Fixed costs are those that you have regardless of how much you sell and variable costs are those that depend on volume. Don't include marketing or sales costs but include any administration or support costs.
Now take the lifetime value of your customer minus the cost of delivering the service (or product) over that period of time.
This is how much money you could make if it didn't cost you anything to sell your product and didn't have to pay corporate taxes.
Hopefully this is a positive number. If it isn't you probably don't have a valid business model.
This is how much a customer is worth to you in raw profit. It isn't really profit yet because it might actually cost you money to acquire customers unless you are very lucky and have totally automated the process at no cost.
Now decide how much desired profit you want from your business as a percentage. 10-30% is pretty typical based on normal risk factors. 100% and you are likely just stealing money from someone.
Take that percentage and multiply by the lifetime value of a customer.
Now take your raw profit number and subtract your desired profit.
If you have a positive number, that is how much you should be willing to pay to acquire each new customer. If you have a negative number (or too small of a positive number), you have to go back to your business model and either expect less profit, increase revenues or reduce costs (or a combination of all three).
The important points of this exercise:
In the next few days I will talk about how to determine your marketing and sales budget from this number and how to engage your entire company and network in your marketing and sales process.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Clean Code (a la Mode) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: clean-code-a-la-mode CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/clean-code-a-la-mode.html DATE: 07/21/2009 01:45:00 AM ----- BODY:Clean Code
Our team recently wrote some code for a client of ours to handle user authentication through Silverlight. It was largely from scratch and implemented a lot of business logic both in Silverlight and on the server.
The nice parts: clean code with lots of unit tests... and a very happy client. Good work team.
Silverlight
Microsoft's Silverlight platform is starting to mature quite well with Version 3.0. Our developers are getting quite good working with it... so much so we are seriously considering switching from an AJAX web browser application to Silverlight part way into a project. If it will speed up future development the price would be worth it.
The Domain Design Breakthrough
Another logic breakthrough on the application we are building for the SMB market. I love it when you can make something both simpler and more powerful and effective at the same time. Multidimensional problems are interesting... you can always slice them in a different way.
Content Management System
The final piece of the puzzle for our updated website will be decided today. Once it is in place we will have everything we need to finish it up from a technical perspective. I'll let you know how it goes and the details later.
For now the rest of the work is mine... finishing the content.
Putting It All Together
The cake, the icing, the ice cream and the invitations... I am already visualizing the party when this happens.
It is going to be a busy, productive and fun summer... and everyone is invited.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Jumping on the "Everyone" Bandwagon STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: jumping-on-the-everyone-bandwagon CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/jumping-on-the-everyone-bandwagon.html DATE: 07/20/2009 02:56:09 PM ----- BODY:We see it all the time.
Real estate is doing well, everyone starts buying up properties and the prices start climbing. The stories of easy money generates momentum. Then the market becomes saturated and the cycle reverses. Many caught at the end are left buying high and selling at a loss or finding tenants to cover part of their payments. There are some markets that defy logic but generally that is the way things go. The problem is, no one knows how long the rise will last.
The real (i.e. lower risk) money was in being there early.
The same happens in technology, the dot com run up and crash was a good example.
These days the latest thing is the iPhone. There are stories out there of companies writing iPhone apps and quickly making lots of money. Now everyone is writing iPhone applications.
The problem is... everyone is writing iPhone applications.
Now the good news is lots of people are still buying and using iPhones, the cycle has traction.
The problem is, how do you make your application stand out against the competition? There is now a lot of it.
I am not saying that the iPhone is dead (far from it). I am not saying there won't be a lot of great apps built or money made. Certainly, the number of apps out there will only help Apple and the iPhone prosper.
But it probably is going to be difficult to make the easy money. The price of admission has gone up.
This happens whenever "everyone" is doing something (following the herd).
The trick is to do something before everyone else. That is where the real money is.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: How Do You Make the Best Business? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: how-do-you-make-the-best-business CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Sales CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/how-do-you-make-the-best-business.html DATE: 07/17/2009 12:41:01 PM ----- BODY:I listened to a live interview of Satyen Raja, leader of WarriorSage by Andrew Barber-Starkey of ProCoach International on Wednesday evening.
Satyen presented an idea for the ideal marketing or business plan. It is not brand new, I've heard variants of it in the past but it is brilliant in its simplicity and a good reminder that things need not be overly complex so I thought I would share it.
You have an idea for a business. Go to 10 of your ideal or best potential customers and present the idea. Ask them to write an extraordinary testimonial for that fictional business. Make sure they cover off all aspects of the service/product, the experience, the relationship, the price, how they feel about dealing with your business, who they would tell, the location, etc.
Take the 10 responses and go build a business that would generate these testimonials or as much of them as feasible.
If you are already in business you can use the information to improve your existing business.
Being the best is not really that hard intellectually, the hard part is the commitment and work required. Average or good enough is easy. Extraordinary is... well, extraordinary.
Now you know how to be great. Are you ready to do it?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Dance Through Life STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: dance-through-life CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/dance-through-life.html DATE: 07/14/2009 05:31:32 PM ----- BODY:Recently a friend of mine (who is also my dance instructor), decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge. She is opening up a dance studio here in Calgary.
It reminds me of the time nine years and a bit ago that we started up Sunwapta Solutions. A dream, a commitment and the excitement and fear in jumping into a new world. So much to learn and do.
Dance Through Life (web site coming) will be focusing on adult dance and fitness classes. Most of the dance studios in town cater to children and teens and while some offer adult classes, there is often not much choice beyond the beginner level. This studio will be focused on getting adults out and dancing and having fun dancing, from young adults all... well... "through life". Your inner child is welcome but other studios will handle your actual kids.
If you used to dance, have always wanted to dance, want to do something for yourself instead of your children, or feel it is just time to do something different, check out her studio.
I would like to congratulate Paula Callihoo, proud new owner of Dance Through Life, on the birth of this venture and wish her success in the future.
Update: The Dance Through Life website is now live.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Does Your Business Work For You? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: does-your-business-work-for-you CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/does-your-business-work-for-you.html DATE: 07/09/2009 05:49:27 PM ----- BODY:Be honest. You don't have to share the answer with anyone but yourself and you are doing yourself a huge disservice if you deceive yourself.
Do you work for your business or does you business work for you?
You can work in your business (employee), you can manage your business (manager) and you can work on your business (entrepreneur).
You can have a business plan, cash flow, working capital, investors, products and services, customers and an exit strategy. You can be providing a critical service to society.
But that does not answer the fundamental question. Why are you in business in the first place?
To answer this you need to know what YOU want. You need to know what your personal dreams, plans and goals are.
Money?
That is a cop out answer... everyone wants money. You can't take your money to the grave so, why do you want it? How much? What will you do with it? There are lots of reasons and infinite paths to earn money so why this?
The only reason to start a business is to have it accomplish something towards your life plan... to have your business work for you.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Exit Planning - Be Prepared STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: exit-planning-be-prepared CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/exit-planning-be-prepared.html DATE: 07/06/2009 11:37:55 PM ----- BODY:When you buy a ticket on a plane you have a destination in mind. When you arrive you get off the plane and it is the end of the flight. You have arrived and there is no ambiguity.
When you are taking off, the flight attendants tell you where all the exits are in the event of an emergency. If you've flown a number of times you have them memorized by now. Hopefully you won't have to use them.
If your plane has to divert to another destination due to bad weather, you will have to make alternative arrangements to continue your trip.
Today, the subject of exit strategy came up in two different meetings.
A business is a bit different from flying.
When you start you have a destination in mind (your business plan). The problem is, once you take off and start flying your business, the destination often gets adjusted on the fly. Customers, the market, technology, competition, distractions, etc. can quickly make you lose sight of the destination or change it entirely.
How do you know when you have arrived?
Ideally you want to maximize the reward for the shareholders (i.e. yourself and others). There is probably an optimum point on the growth curve to sell. The problem is, unless you can see the future, it is very difficult to spot.
For example, when you are taking off, you are climbing rapidly. If someone came along and offered you a decent sum of money, you might be tempted to turn it down. Why? Because you are growing and the growth is accelerating, waiting may bring even more money if you sell it down the road.
Or it maybe not. You may be approaching your maximum cruising altitude.
When I attended a seminar put on by BCMS Corporate, they stressed that using simple multiples (i.e. industry standard valuations) was dangerous to your wallet as owner expectations get set too low. So is going with an unsolicited offer.
The reason is simple, there is no competition and competition drives up the price. So does finding a buyer that is complementary or can generate economies of scale for your offering increases the value of your company to them.
The best bet?
Plan your exit strategy when you start the business and review it regularly as part of your strategic planning process, at least annually. Consider triggers such as:
If any of your triggers occur start working on an orderly sale of your business or change the triggers.
If you get an unsolicited offer, know what price will make you take it seriously. You are always balancing risk and reward. Sometime a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And sometimes you would be giving away the farm.
Know your business, keep your emotions out of it (as much as you can), be prepared and have an exit plan.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Raising a Business STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: raising-a-familybusiness- CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/07/raising-a-familybusiness-.html DATE: 07/02/2009 11:34:00 PM ----- BODY:These days there are a lot of blended families. I recently got to observe one such family closely. Children, parents, step-parents, joint custody, two sets of grandparents, day care workers, teachers, coaches.... It reminds me of that saying, "it takes an entire village to raise a child". Sometimes the village works and sometimes it doesn't; to the detriment of the children.
Starting and running a full-fledged business is a lot easier when there is a village behind it. Sure it helps to have a strong leader too, but succeeding in business is hard enough without having to go it alone. When you have a large group of people wanting it to grow and succeed you have a much better chance.
It is even better if your customers are part of that village (or tribe as some marketers call it).
What you are doing (product or service) can't be a commodity to engage customers in your business success. If they can get it anywhere, they will.
No, to create that grass-roots village or tribe support, you have to have a compelling story that engages the customer to make them feel compelled to stick around.
People still gravitate to belonging to something. It used to be a physical community based on where you lived. Now the world has changed and communities are dispersed, yet they are maintained across common interests... hockey, music, religion, etc.
Technology has created more virtual communities.
The open source development community has been around for a while with its own motives for participation.
The social web is a more recent example; starting with chats and forums and evolving into Facebook, Twitter and the like.
Some businesses are using the social web to interact with customers.
The real trick though is building a business that can attract, engage and retain customers as part of the tribe; customers that have a vested interest in the business succeeding.
Oh yeah, and a real business that actually makes a profit for its shareholders (living off the cash from a big IPO indefinitely doesn't count) while delivering that service and community to its customers.
That is the trick to having a village raise a business.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Sharing Code Between Silverlight and WPF STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: wpf-and-silverlight CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/wpf-and-silverlight.html DATE: 06/29/2009 01:09:51 PM ----- BODY:I recently saw an advertisement for a webinar on the subject of this post in a newsletter. The seminar looks at the feasibility and some of the limitations.
For us this is a been there done that subject. We worked with one of our clients (partners) to develop a framework of tools, etc. for them to quickly build out applications that would work in both WPF desktop and web via Silverlight.
That is not to say there were no limitations or gotchas involved. The XAML is not 100% compatible between the environments and similarly the with the .NET framework... essentially Silverlight is a subset of both with some other limitations.
With Silverlight 3 out, the picture got even better.
If you have a requirement or desire to define you UI once for both the web and desktop, the technology is now there to do it for most situations.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Sunwapta Solutions Turns 9 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: sunwapta-solutions-turns-9 CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Current Events CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/sunwapta-solutions-turns-9.html DATE: 06/25/2009 06:48:12 PM ----- BODY:Our company just turned 9 years old. I spent that day with family and the evening on a plane returning to Calgary after visiting family.
While on the plane I spent a few moments reflecting on where we have been and where we are going as a company.
It has been an incredible personal journey to this point... highs and lows abound in business. We've built some incredible software and technology has changed faster than most would like.
The people have been amazing. My business partners, our staff, our customers and our partners/vendors have all contributed to our success over the years.
Behind the scenes we all have families who have been behind us through the ups and downs and give us motivation for all of this.
Thank you one and all!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean Feldman EMAIL: feldman.sean@gmail.com IP: 79.176.126.114 URL: http://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman DATE: 06/25/2009 11:06:07 PM Happy birthday to Sunwapta! ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Back at Sunwapta STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: back-at-sunwapta CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/back-at-sunwapta.html DATE: 06/25/2009 12:39:46 AM ----- BODY:I was away for a few weeks and out of the blogosphere. It is good to take a break from the constant connectivity once in a while. I actually managed a whole vacation without any contact with the office.
I have a feeling things are going to get busy... and I already have several ideas for some posts.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: An Entrepreneur's Fable - Part 2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: an- CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/an-.html DATE: 06/11/2009 06:06:00 AM ----- BODY:I was reviewing some of my posts over the last year and thought it would be a good idea to add to this story (the original is included below for ease of reference).
The Fable - Part 2
The CEO reflects on the past year....
The journey to master entrepreneur has no fixed destination. It is a quest for personal growth and development and there are many paths and many places you can end up. There is still a lot to learn and as you learn more, you realize there is even more to learn. Only you can decide when you've arrived.
Matters got more complex as the world headed into a recession and governments collectively spent trillions of dollars to buy their way out of the financial mess. But that is out of the control of most CEOs and you can only focus on your part of the world, the part you have any influence over. Survive and then try to thrive in a changing world.
There comes a point in time when you realize you will not be a master of everything needed. You need to find others who can share your journey.
Such was the case recently for this CEO. He promoted some staff members internally and thereby freed up time and energy for focusing "on the business". He took on the role of business development. Not in the sense of a synonym for sales but in the sense of building businesses within the business... products/services, delivery processes, sales and marketing, everything to run the business and the business within the business.
Since that time he also realized that a great business needs to either find or develop great people to lead the business and run its critical functions. Some functions work ok with new hires and minimal experience, but our industry is not quite like that. Since it is getting very hard to find good or exceptional talent, essentially, a business function is needed to develop people in alignment with your long-term strategy.
IT consulting revenue is often cyclical and relies on a constant stream of sales. So the CEO has been working on launching products and related services that are sold on a recurring subscription model. These product and services also will tie into the consulting work and vice versa.
The first of these initiatives is due for release this summer.
There is still much to do and the story continues...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: An Entrepreneur's Fable (Part 1) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: an-entrepreneurs-fable-part-1 CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/an-entrepreneurs-fable-part-1.html DATE: 06/09/2009 09:46:00 AM ----- BODY:Note: This is a repost of previous story. Part 2 is coming out later this week.
Once upon a time three inspired information technology technicians working for a large consulting company decided to start a business. One was an architect, one was a project manager and one was a developer. One became the CEO, one became the salesman and one became the lead technician.
This was a time of plenty. Everyone was starting a technology business and overnight success was coming to companies that had nothing to show… no products, no customers and no revenue… the gold rush of the Internet. Companies were spending money like there was no end of it… other people’s money (OPM (rhymes with opium))… huge burn rates with no plans to turn a profit until some vague point in the future when they dominate the market… or cashing in on an IPO. Speculators were buying stock because a company had Linux in its name and a vague promise of a grand future.
Then the bubble burst. OPM dried up. Companies were closing their doors and shareholders were left with nothing. Then the events of 911 further dampened economic outlook.
The three business owners and their staff survived these downturns. They were not addicted to OPM, were not selling a lie, were good technicians, had strong ethics, had great staff, had low costs… and most importantly had a few good customers that remained loyal and fed them enough work to survive.
The company continued to grow and then hit a bump. Then it grew again and hit a bump. Everyone was working really hard, mastering their craft and taking care of the clients. But something was wrong. They just could not achieve the growth they wanted, the dream was not happening.
Then five years into the business, the CEO had a dream. Fast forward 10 years in the future…
The company had grown a bit over the years. Very hard work and perseverance had allowed them to survive the rough times and when times were good they expanded a bit, but not significantly. Many employees have moved on. Some have been around a long time, a few since near the beginning. The loyal ones had been rewarded with an ownership stake in the company. Several of the owners (original and new) were ready to move on to the next phase of their lives. But, there was no easy way out. The customers were loyal to the people, not the company. There were too few customers. There were key people that could not easily be replaced. People were getting tired of doing the same thing with no change. There was no way to extract the value out of the company… no way to exit gracefully… only failure or a partial success…and too much pride to fail.
The next morning the CEO awoke with the dream still vivid in his mind. He knew what was wrong. They had spent all those years, working very hard, sacrificing… to create jobs for themselves.
After much reading, reflecting and soul searching the answers became clear. To really become an entrepreneur you have to embrace two fundamental truths:
Being a great practitioner of your craft (what you are selling) merely gets you a job. The limiting factor of any business is the owner (leadership).
You must learn to become a master entrepreneur.
That is your real craft… building something great from nothing… passionate… inspiring shareholders, employees and customers… making a difference… a creator... always evolving … a CEO… a master entrepreneur.
The CEO decides to embark on the journey to become a master entrepreneur. Only time will tell what great adventures the CEO and those who journey with him will enjoy. But with this knowledge the future is much brighter.
The End... and the Beginning.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: The Pain in Joint Ventures STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: the-pain-in-joint-ventures CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/the-pain-in-joint-ventures.html DATE: 06/02/2009 05:38:23 PM ----- BODY:As Seth Godin points out in his post today, the success of a joint venture is greatly reduced due to both:
The Venture Part: Is by definition risky.
The Joint Part: The more independant parts in something that can fail, the more likely the overall thing will fail. This applies to just about anything and gets even more challenging to predict when dealing with the complexity of people.
Open Source Software Projects
Open source software projects are often done by a team of dispersed and somewhat independent developers, etc. The common goal keeps everyone aligned.
If someone volunteering their time drops out, someone else in the community must step in and fill their shoes. If the group is large enough, losing one or more people poses little risk. The downside is that these projects can take quite a while and timelines are often variable.
The problem with the comparison is that open source is not for pay, it is volunteer work by definition. This makes sure that only people who are truly motivated for the project to succeed will show up. But I don't think open source can be categorized as a venture in a business sense if there is no compensation in the model.
Goals Alignment and Tracking
The final piece is making sure the goals are aligned and tracked. There is something to learn there in open source projects.
They generally use tracking software, transparency and a lot of peer pressure to deal with underperformers on the team... this is the accountability piece and in the development world it can be powerful.
For your joint venture you need leverage (something that works in your case) on enforcing commitments and a workable plan for dealing with partner breakup while having the venture survive.
Or you can take Seth's advice and keep the venture under one roof.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: People from Jobs Past STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: people-from-jobs-past CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Dream Teams CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/06/people-from-jobs-past.html DATE: 06/02/2009 01:00:00 AM ----- BODY:There are three types of people from the past: the good, the bad and the un-remarkable. You quickly forget the un-remarkable and the bad you want nothing to do with ever again.
Sometimes a particular problem or event causes you to remember some of the good ones.
Even after many years, when the good people cross you path again you feel good. Whether it is the past memory or the knowledge that they are still doing well, it is a nice but fleeting experience to briefly catch-up and then... go down your separate paths again; too busy in your own lives follow through on the "let's stay in touch".
Sometimes, there is an opportunity for more. The potential of working together or helping each other out. Many times this is triggered by a sequence of events and paths cross again (was it meant to happen or luck or something else?).
In the past few weeks several good people from the past have crossed my path... and so have some matching opportunities.
Hopefully our journeys will take us on the same path again.
It is also a good reminder to be one of the good ones for other people as you go through your career... they too may want you around again and present an opportunity to you.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Progression - Growth by Success STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: progression-growth-by-success CATEGORY: Leadership CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/progression-growth-by-success.html DATE: 05/29/2009 12:48:41 AM ----- BODY:The worst thing you can do when developing your staff/team members is to set them up for major failure (the second worst is not bothering to develop them at all).
For instance, you hire a recent business graduate with lots of potential and then put them in a position far beyond their experience level. The person then messes up really bad, maybe loses a key account or mismanages the team such that productivity drops or key employees quit. You will have to "fire" them from their position. This can devastate the individual and quite literally ruin their level of respect in the company. This can set them back years.
Or say you just hired an intermediate programmer. Good solid development skills but no knowledge of your business domain or enterprise level issues. You give them a very important and complex project because you are short on staff and they are smart. The person gets into the project, realizes they are in way over their head, starts to fail and takes a job at another company get away from the failing project.
In both these cases, you have either failed to develop, set back or lost very good talent.
Now suppose you took that up and coming developer or business manager and coached them properly.
You give them progressively more challenging assignments, always being sure that the individual has a good chance of succeeding at the current level. Some failures are ok but they should not be devastating, but rather learning experiences in and of themselves.
Lots of coaching along the way and the person builds skills and confidence as they go. The challenges eventually can get bigger and the person can be pushed further out of their comfort zones as their skills improve... including the ability to deal with failure.
I ran into an expression early in my career, "People are promoted to their highest level of incompetence".
What this means is that they are often promoted based on their performance in their last job and since they are up and coming... too fast and too far. They failed to develop the skills to succeed at that level (they were never really being coached). What happens is the person cannot be demoted to learn the requisite skills to be competent at that level so they languish in incompetence; unable to be promoted and resented by their subordinates.
As a leader/manager you want to promote people to their highest level of competence. When they are better able to stretch, you can make the increments bigger. But remember to keep coaching, it is still in your best interest for your team to succeed. Know their limits and customize the path for each person worth developing.
The same basics apply to your own personal self-development. Keep progressing incrementally so you are growing through success. Success builds momentum.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Development Updates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: sean-visit-results CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/sean-visit-results.html DATE: 05/27/2009 01:49:00 AM ----- BODY:Sean Feldman spent the day at Sunwapta on Monday. The visit was highly appreciated by our team and especially me.
I think what is most important now after all the visits and training is to just do it; take action. We have a perfect (greenfield) project that is starting up from scratch and we will be using all the latest and greatest we can manage:
In this project I am representing the customer but I would not classify myself as the domain expert.
I'm finding I can't use a pure agile process with the team as I need to do more up front design than is normal, mostly because I am figuring out the domain by doing so. But in my mind that is fine. Agile is a tool and like any tool it needs to be used in the right place and right time and flexibility is more important than rigid process.... after all we (development teams) are replacing a rigid process with agile and what is the point if agile is rigid.
On the other hand, I am far from using a waterfall approach and that is excellent.
It is mostly a white-boarding type exercise for me. Lot's of iterations to ensure I understand the domain and can later explain it to the developers. But I have no real attachment to the initial rough design... it is just a starting point and I fully expect it to be iterative and incremental once we get going. Let's face it; even the most patient agile developers would be ready to kill the customer if the basic domain rules changed drastically every few hours for a few weeks, refactoring tools or not.
I fully expect to have version 1 out by the end of June. When we do that and accomplish most of the other stuff I will be very happy we are continuing to move forward... and I think it remains doable.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Moving Forward in Today's Economy STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: moving-forward-in-todays-economy CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/moving-forward-in-todays-economy.html DATE: 05/26/2009 12:44:11 PM ----- BODY:As I mentioned before, I am actively watching ProCoach Success System and Andrew in particular as he grows his company and in doing so, helps entrepreneurs succeed in manifesting their dreams.
He recently posted a video on YouTube that I found had some good advice on how to move forward in today's economy:
Stay Informed (but avoid wasting energy on negative discussions)
Evaluate Your Risks (and adjust as required)
Pursue Opportunities (there are never as many as when the economy is down)
Focus on Things Within Your Control (activities and mental attitude)
It is worth watching.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Agile Business Creation STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: agile-business CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/agile-business.html DATE: 05/25/2009 07:07:16 PM ----- BODY:Here at Sunwapta Solutions we live and breathe software development. Whether it is consulting work for clients or building software products, we need to follow and excel at the latest technologies and trends.
Agile development is a methodology and even more if done right; a state of mind for the development team that can lead to more rapid software development cycles with value for the customer early and often.
Agile business means an existing company being able to set a new direction followed by rapid implementation... the ability to respond quickly to the marketplace. This may mean launching a new product. If it is a software product you may use agile development to build it. But what about the marketing, sales, billing, customer support, etc? The scope for an agile business is quite a bit bigger than development.
Taking this to the next level, agile business creation would be the ability to quickly create whole new business entities (or something that behaves like an independent entity within a large organization).
There are "super" entrepreneurs who have a knack for this. They start up and direct business after business. This includes the business model, putting all the processes in place for all critical business functions, finding a great management team, hiring or contracting out the execution, etc.
With technology improvements this may very well be an upward trend. Rapidly create a new enterprise, grow sales and let the enterprise liquidate when the service or product is no longer profitable... and if you hit it big, well you can retire or repeat the process more often. The startup and operating costs are dropping all the time for the right business models.
Unfortunately for many would be entrepreneurs, there are not a lot of recipes for quickly building businesses, especially if it is something a little different. It is a little like baking, you need some flour, a sweetener, eggs, some oil/butter, a liquid and some other ingredients. But depending on how you put them together you will either get a cake, cookies, a pie or an unpalatable blob of dough. You need to be a master cook or be willing to experiment for a while to get it right if you are doing it from scratch. The best you can do is copy someone else's recipe.
But just as agile development is a bit of a proven process so too are many aspects of agile business. Then by extension it must be possible to have an agile business creation process or formula... something to make things a little easier and faster.
Ultimately, skill and experience still play a big role in all three endeavours... they are as much art as science.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Development Skills Sprint STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: development-skills-sprint CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/development-skills-sprint.html DATE: 05/22/2009 01:45:45 PM ----- BODY:As I mentioned in my previous post, I am now much more focused on business development. For me this means being an agile business (I'll come to this later in a new post). As a piece of this I need a development team that is both agile and leading edge skills-wise.
It is interesting how things sometimes come together. JP moved back to Alberta and ran his Nothing But .NET course again here in Calgary and we sent one of our developers.
Sean Feldman, a Nothing But .NET and Sunwapta Solutions alumni, offered to come back and share with us what he has found in his development journey over the past while. So Monday, he is visiting Sunwapta and spending the day sharing his experiences with the in and outs of agile, object oriented design, domain driven design (DDD), behaviour driven design (BDD), development tools, etc.
This kind of sharing is invaluable. Why? Because having other outside perspectives on development best practices makes you revisit how you do things yourself.
You may have an approach or solution that works for your team. That is great. But maybe, your approach is not as effective or efficient as it could be. Or maybe something is about to change in your world. Knowing other solutions have worked for other teams can save you a lot of pain.
After all, only a fool does not want to learn from others' successes and difficulties.
But all this training, discussion and knowledge means nothing if it is not accompanied by action.
Now I have always believed we have a good, solid development team. Sometimes improvements come incrementally and sometimes it's time to raise the bar significantly higher... push out of the comfort zone.
Yes, it is time for the development team to sprint their skills forward again. The best part, we already have a good foundation, we have a good sense of where we want to go and now have some good projects to test the new skills on.
The journey is exciting yet again.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Developing with Passion @ Sunwapta STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: developing-with-passion-sunwapta CATEGORY: Software Development CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/developing-with-passion-sunwapta.html DATE: 05/20/2009 10:57:26 PM ----- BODY:With my personal focus on business development I am swinging heavily back into a focus on software product development.
I am more the product manager/architect type and leave the developing to the experts, but I have a passion for building great software nevertheless. This includes everything around encouraging our developers to further learn and master the latest agile processes and tools, from the foundation of solid Object Oriented Design to the latest in development tools.
The last week and a bit have been pretty consumed with the JPBoodhoo show. For those of you who don't know Jean-Paul Boodhoo, he is considered to be somewhat of an expert on leading edge development best practices applied to the Microsoft .NET technology stack.
A year and a half ago we sent one of our senior developers on JP's Nothing but .NET course and he came back with dreams about where we could go with software development. He made a very significant contribution to our development best practices including getting the entire team to a layered architecture including the MVP pattern, a home grown object relational mapping tool and eventually an implementation of nHibernate.
Last week we sent another of our senior developers to the Nothing but .NET course. It is a very intensive course going from morning until midnight every day for 5 days straight. I think the biggest thing you gain from the course is suddenly being aware of how much there is to still learn.
Today JP dropped by Sunwapta for a visit and the rest of the development team got to discuss some of the practicalities around moving further down the agile path.
This evening a number of us went to JP's presentation on Domain Driven Design Using Fluent nHibernate hosted by the Calgary .NET User Group. JP did not disappoint and adeptly covered how using tools like Fluent nHibernate can free up the development team to focus on a rich domain model rather than data mapping issues... it is not about the tools, it is about spending proportionately more time on the part of software development that matters.
A lot to digest in a short time but I think we will be making a big surge forward adopting these practices over the next while. So thanks JP and thanks Sunwapta team for being open to moving forward.
Becoming agile and a great developer is a journey not a destination... so I agree, you might as well develop with passion... enjoy the journey folks.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Doug Wagner @ Sunwapta - 1 Year Anniversary STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: doug-wagner-sunwapta-1-year-anniversary CATEGORY: Marketing CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/doug-wagner-sunwapta-1-year-anniversary.html DATE: 05/16/2009 01:18:00 AM ----- BODY:It is surprising how fast a year goes by. My blog has reached its 1 year anniversary today.
Approximately 125 posts in one year is not a bad accomplishment considering writing is not my full-time occupation.
I have found I have a passion for writing in a number of subject areas.
Sometimes it is hard to come up with a new subject and sometimes ideas just flow out. Sometimes an idea sounds good in your head but when you write it down, it is not as brilliant. That is the challenge of taking an idea and communicating it in a limited medium of text and pictures. It is best not to second guess past posts.
But I do know one thing for sure, I find writing helps clarify my thoughts. I can only hope that people have and continue to find some value in reading what I have written.
It is not just about my blog, I also enjoy visiting a number of other blogs regularly and try to include a comment or a trackback when I have enjoyed a post or have something to add. I have even connected with a few people in the real world that I met in this virtual space.
Looking forward to another year of being active in the blogosphere.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Manifesting your Dream - Team Edition STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: manifesting-your-dreams CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/manifesting-your-dreams.html DATE: 05/15/2009 01:29:06 PM ----- BODY:On Wednesday, I talked a little bit about manifesting your vision and yesterday a little about taking action.
Things get a little more interesting when you start trying to manifest your vision and at the same time, align your business team with that vision.
Sure you can just ram your vision down their throats but you have a better chance of success if you can get them behind your vision and an even better chance of success if their career and/or financial objectives align with your vision.
The thing is, strategic goals are easily lost in the day to day work of keeping clients happy. Keeping the strategy in your own mind at all times is a challenge... doing so for the entire team is an even bigger one and the problem often grows exponentially as your organization grows.
Tracking and measuring collective progress on these goals can be time consuming. But just being aware of the vision and goals is not good enough; the team also needs to be taking action.
If you are in the position of needing a team of people, all aligned with your vision and goals, to accomplish your business dream/vision, then this is a problem you will need to solve quickly or it will come back to haunt you.
We've been running into so many people lately that are suffering right now due to not only the economic downturn but from lack of attention to business strategy. When times were good they were so busy working in the business, they ignored working on it (business strategy). That mistake is costing them a lot now and yet, competitors who got it, are doing better.
So what are you doing to ensure you and your team are always working on your long-term strategy... so that you even have a long-term vision?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Actions Speaks Louder Than Words STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: actions-speaks-louder-than-words CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/actions-speaks-louder-than-words.html DATE: 05/14/2009 11:12:57 PM ----- BODY:Vision does not create results.
Goals and planning do not create results.
Only action creates results.
Any action towards your goals and vision is better than all the planning in the world and no action.
How do you know your detailed plan is right? If you are heading down a new path planning out all the details in advance is treacherous. Things change and you spend all your time adapting your plan rather than taking action.
So have a vision, do "enough" planning and start taking action towards your goals. Avoid analysis paralysis. Be open to different paths along the way.
After all, actions speak louder than words.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Doug Wagner AUTHOR EMAIL: dwagner@sunwaptasolutions.com TITLE: Manifesting Your Vision STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: wysiwyg ALLOW PINGS: 1 BASENAME: manifesting-your-vision-101 CATEGORY: Business Strategy CATEGORY: Mindset and Motivation CATEGORY: Doug's Blog UNIQUE URL: http://doug.manifast.com/2009/05/manifesting-your-vision-101.html DATE: 05/13/2009 03:40:24 PM ----- BODY:Whether you have a personal dream or a business vision, unless you do something to manifest that vision in the real world, it will not materialize.
At its core, the process is simple:
The bigger the vision, the more nebulous the path to accomplishing it may be. But no matter what size your dream/vision is, you need to take concrete steps to make it happen.
You need to keep the long range vision in mind, you need to focus on your shorter-term goals, and you need to take action.
Just as importantly, you need to keep yourself open for new opportunities, contacts and information that will help you move forward and clarify the path. You may not actually be attracting them but when they come you don't want to miss them because you are not paying attention.
Then you need the persistence and stamina to stick with it.
As I always say, every dream may not manifest the way you intended (or maybe not at all) but life is not about achieving your dreams, it is about growing as you strive to achieve your dreams.
Enjoy the journey, the view along the way can be better than the vision at the end.
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