Omaha Intrapreneur

What is the iPhone 4S missing? The number "5" for starters...

2011-10-04T14:21:00.001-07:00

With any new phone release, most consumers have come to expect a few basics:

It should run/feel faster....check (see Dual-core A5)
It should have better hardware features (ie - camera, screen resolution)....check
It should look and feel new....oops...missed this one

With that said, Apple met only 2 of 3 basic requirements that most consumers expect. It failed to provide something that looks and feels new...detracting from some of the cache that many customers seek in purchasing Apple products. I'll grade Apple a C+ for meeting basic expectations.

The following expectations are in addition to what most phone-makers are required to do. There are no "gimme's" when you're the undisputed world leader in the market, and arguably the world's most valuable company. Apple is in some ways the victim of its own history of exceeding customer expectations.

Now on to what most customers have come to expect from Apple, with a new phone release:

It should fundamentally change the way I perform a basic task or approach a routine activity....potentially yes (a la Siri)...but NTC technology to enable mobile payments would have been revolutionary

On this front, I think Apple only partially succeeded. As mentioned above, an iWallet feature would have been truly breakthrough. Also, if the new phone is so much faster at processing data, why not allow FaceTime through 3G networks. Currently this is only allowed when on wifi. If you don't think 3G is fast enough for this technology, think again. I did this routinely on my jailbroken iPhone 4 a year ago. This is Apple's olive branch to wireless carriers, whose networks might otherwise be overwhelmed with data usage.

If this were a typical phone manufacturer, this release would meet consumer expectations. But who are we kidding, we are talking about Apple, and we have come to expect more...

Here are just a few more reactions to today's release:

We missed Steve Jobs. Tim Cook did okay, but he's no Jobs.
The World Phone technology is great for those of us that travel internationally.
Welcome to the game Sprint. That's a big $20B bet you made, and hopefully the extra competition helps keep data fees low.
Twitter integration in iOS 5 looks cool...but where's the Facebook integration?
Really wish that some of the renderings floating around for a new design would have been included (wall to wall screen, rounded edges, slimmer profile, etc). Perhaps iPhone 5 is coming sooner than expected... Christmas 2011?

What is Talent?

2011-10-03T07:08:00.001-07:00

If you happened to see the BYU vs. USU football game Friday night, you saw just about everything. An 80-yard score on the first play from the line of scrimmage by Utah State RB Robert Turbin, a couple impressive catches by BYU WR Cody Hoffman, and most of all a critical QB switch by BYU late in the game. Each of these sparked an opportunity for viewers to appreciate natural talent—particularly in the case of Riley Nelson….

Hold the bus…did I just admit that Riley Nelson, the kid with the terrible mullet and the awkward short-arm left-handed throw has talent? How can that be?

Let me put it this way… Talent is defined as an innate, naturally recurring pattern of behavior that most times cannot be taught. Turbin’s strength and agility combined with good vision make up a very unique set of talents. I would argue he is among the top 5 college running backs in the country. Hoffman’s speed, vertical jump and hand-eye coordination that helped him sky over Aggie cornerback Jumanne Robertson, while twisting at the goal line for a BYU touchdown make up another unique set of talents (thankfully we get a few more years to watch that talent blossom in Cougar blue). These are the talents that people usually discuss and praise. However, I would say that the greatest competitors in the world (Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Tiger before his fall, Jimmer Fredette) are more distinguished in their mental talents than in their physical talents. The recurring pattern of outworking, out-practicing, outcompeting the opposition is what makes Jimmer special. Just listen to all of the ESPN pundits telling people why he doesn’t have the physical gifts to succeed at the next level…and yet Jimmer’s heard that all before, at every level leading up to this point.

Mental toughness is a talent…perhaps the scarcest talent in all of sports. It’s why freaks of nature like Ricky Williams, Marcus Dupree, and Vince Young are missing…and the reason that none of them ever lived up to their potential. It explains why Tiger Woods dominated at a young age, and crumbled in recent years. And this…is the edge that Riley Nelson has over Jake Heaps… Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a guy with mental toughness can go out and beat Ricky Williams…you still have to have the physical ability to execute at that level, but that is only table stakes…it’s what you do with those gifts that counts.

This is actually something that I help clients manage on a daily basis. The company I work for has a mathematical model for assessing innate patterns of thought, feeling and behavior that can be productively applied to any role. It’s how we predict top quartile CEO talent, or which sales rep candidates will outperform the others. By the way, we also proved this model in assessing elite hockey talent. There is a certain mental DNA that performers in any category have, which helps them succeed. If you can decode that DNA, then you can replicate it.

BYU Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall and Offensive Coordinator Brandon Doman need to figure out whether Jake Heaps has the mental toughness to compete as an elite Division I college quarterback…but they also need to figure out whether Riley Nelson has the physical tools to support his mental advantage. It will be interesting to see how this plays out… It is an experiment in talent that I will be watching closely as a devout Cougar fan.

Why crowdfunding would have changed my life

2011-09-26T08:36:00.001-07:00

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As I type this, I'm sitting in a cushy corporate office at the top floor of our executive tower overlooking the river and city skyline, remembering what life was like 8 years ago when I started my first real company. A group of guys and I (see www.juntopartners.com) were working out of a building that was in the process of being gutted for renovation. One of my partners happened to be friends with the owner, who allowed us to work there for free until renovation made its way down to the 2nd floor, at which time we would need to find a new home. We paid for internet and phone service. We painted some walls, but never got around to the moldings and other finish work. Often, we'd be hammering away at our work past midnight when someone would suggest a run to Circle K for a Diet Coke or a trip to Beto's for an authentic Mexican breakfast burrito (since we were all Mormon guys, there was no coffee pot to keep us alert). Every desk, chair, printer and white board was acquired for cheap or free…and it showed. We wore designer jeans and sports coats most days, because it was the trendy thing to do and also probably because we couldn’t afford the full suit. I moved into a crummy basement studio which still gives me nightmares to this day.

We had secured a small amount of seed capital totaling $287,500...which felt like a lot to me as a 23 yr old kid still working to finish my undergrad. Soon we started to see how quickly business expenses can escalate and learned to master an important skill: commandeering resources. In less euphemistic language, this meant we learned to beg, borrow or "steal" whatever we possibly could in order to survive as a business. I don't know that any of us actually stole anything of material value, but we certainly overpromised suppliers and business partners in a less than straightforward manner. I had set off as an entrepreneur believing that good ideas and hard work could overcome any challenge ahead. In some ways I proved myself right. Looking back however, I now know how critical it is to be sufficiently capitalized in order to maintain momentum as a small business...especially in the face of life's other challenges. That's why entrepreneurs give so much attention to what is happening in the private equity landscape, and place VC's on such a high pedestal. While most young entrepreneurs know very little about the specifics of that world, they know that when their baby (their start-up) is sick and fledgling, VCs or Angels might be their only lifeline. Why is this the case? I’ll offer up a few reasons…

1. Unlike the Winklevoss twins (if you haven’t heard of them, just read into the founding of Facebook), most entrepreneurs in America do not come from wealthy families. In fact, many are second generation Americans like myself whose inheritance consists solely of being an American. Most entrepreneurs have few friends and family to turn to when they need an influx of capital. Or often they’ve already exhausted those sources.

2. Traditional banks do not like to risk capital on unproven entrepreneurs. They typically require collateral and long (flawless) credit histories in order to lend money to an entrepreneur. After the financial debacle of 2008, this has only gotten stricter. Even if lending laws were relaxed, few bankers would stomach the risk for early stage startups.

3. Because entrepreneurs face a life of uncertain and unpredictable income, they rarely have a large nest egg or significant home equity accumulated. If they had they probably would’ve used that to seed their business, and would still find themselves in a pinch as the business hits difficult times.

4. Lastly, and perhaps one of the main reasons for the scarcity of startup capital, SEC regulations prevent entrepreneurs from actively seeking investments from the general public.

Game Changer

According to the New York Times one aspect of proposed job stimulus packages that has bipartisan support is a proposal to loosen securities regulations for small businesses in raising capital. Specifically, the proposal would allow for crowdfunding, or pooling small investments from many sources in exchange for interest or equity. Currently, this is against the law. Services such as Kickstarter and Kiva provide opportunities for people to donate funds to ideas they believe in. However, as the NYT points out, this is philanthropy. You see, under current laws, only wealthy investors (aka sophisticated investors) may invest in non-registered ventures. This has worked great for VCs and Angels, and one might even argue it has protected less sophisticated investors from being conned by shady entrepreneurs…but it has been severely limited cash infusion for entrepreneurship, and thereby has limited job creation. It’s time that the government allows people to be individually accountable for their investment decisions. This will open the door to great opportunities for wise investors and trustworthy entrepreneurs.

Back to my story…

A few years into my startup, (a garage makeover company called Garage Mahal) my life circumstances changed at the same time that the economy (specifically the residential construction sector) began to cool off. My young wife was pregnant with our second daughter and we were feeling the financial pressure. I had a backlog of work orders, and a sizable sum in accounts receivables, but my revolving line of credit at Wells Fargo was nearly maxed out, I had burned through the seed money above, and I had already tapped my friends and family to the limit. I tried everything I could to collect on the tens of thousands of dollars in accounts receivable, but as they say, “you can’t pump water from a dry well.” Contractors that I sold to were up to their ears in debt and because the market had slowed they were getting killed on the interest they carried from financing their construction projects. Wells Fargo wasn’t ready to extend my credit limit since we were still new as a company. VCs were focused on high-tech sexy startups…not cash strained (albeit profitable) garage makeover companies. I couldn’t exactly go door-to-door and ask for an investment (remember the SEC regulations)… so I was stuck with what I saw as two options. Option 1: my family would starve while we continued to struggle to create organic growth and fight to collect the cash owed to us; or Option 2: we could liquidate the assets, allowing us to break-even on our debts and walk away with a relatively clean slate. I believed I could find a steady job that provided insurance, a critical need for my young family with another baby on the way…so that’s the direction we went. I often wonder, however, what could have happened differently if we had another funding source at that time (E.g. crowdfunding), to help the company through that period of friction. There were signs that Garage Mahal could have been big, or at least successful enough to fund my next venture in what would have been a lifelong commitment to entrepreneurship. Instead, I’ll have to look for another opportunity to pursue that lifelong dream…delaying the jobs that would have been created and the opportunities that would have followed.

I hope our public leaders will take this seriously and empower more entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams.

What is your opinion? Is this effective communication about rate increases for #LifeTime #Fitness?

2010-11-11T07:12:00.001-08:00

From: Travis C. <lifetimefitness@emails.lifetimefitness.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 4:41 PM
Subject: Important information about your Life Time membership

Dear Clint,

Effective January 1, 2011, your monthly membership dues will be adjusted from $99.90 to $104.90 plus Junior membership dues and tax.

With this upcoming change, I also want to emphasize that your new, adjusted dues rate continues to be $5.00 below our current market rate of $109.90 per month at Life Time Fitness Omaha.

Please feel free to contact me or a member of our staff with any questions regarding this change.

As always, I thank you for choosing to be a Life Time Fitness member.

Sincerely,

Travis C..........
General Manager
Life Time Fitness Omaha

More fog

2010-11-11T06:20:00.001-08:00

Fog

2010-11-11T06:19:00.001-08:00

My 10x3 birthday cake

2010-11-11T06:18:00.001-08:00

Typical moment with my girls and the cat

2010-11-04T22:20:00.001-07:00

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail message and all attachments, if any, may contain confidential and privileged material and are intended only for the person or entity to which the message is addressed. If you are not an intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, disclosure, or copying of this information is unauthorized and strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please contact the sender immediately by reply e-mail, and destroy all copies of the original message.

Finally some good Mexican food #Houston

2010-11-04T22:19:00.001-07:00

Photo of the sunrise today from the plane

2010-11-04T22:17:00.001-07:00

My 3 yr old can't get enough of Annie... Check out her video

2010-11-01T08:13:00.001-07:00

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0385.MOV (4916 KB)

Early review of #TwitJump...my newish #Twitter #App and #Toolbox

2010-10-05T09:13:00.001-07:00

Recently, I began using TwitJump to manage my twitter activity.

Download now or preview on posterous

TwitJump.pdf (128 KB)

So far, it has been super helpful for a couple of reasons:

1. I can plan ahead and schedule my tweets in advance. This allows me to not overwhelm my followers at once with my daily tweets, but rather stream them out in a less intrusive fashion.

2. TwitJump has a nifty little URL shrink tool, which helps me condense the links and preserving my precious character count.

3. It provides some analytics on my clicks, retweets, and so on. While Twitter has some of this built-in, the extra detail provided by TwitJump enhances my understanding of who is following me and which topics tend to get the most attention.

4. It allows me to set alerts and gives me recommendations for other channels/people to follow, based on my expressed interests.

5. It merges multiple Twitter accounts, allowing me to pick and choose which account I tweet from. I don't use multiple accounts, but I could see this coming in very handy.

6. It has an easy media upload tool.

Out of full disclosure, I know the people behind TwitJump, which is why I decided to give it a try. However, TwitJump has been receiving some good press on its own. TechChunks ranked it the #6 best free iPhone App, right behind Google Earth, Skype, Pandora (one of my favorites), Facebook, and WordPress. I don't care who you are, that's some good company.

Now, here are some things I would love to see improved on TwitJump 2.0 (@twitjump, @fundinguniverse, @lawalexander, @brockblake).

1. It seems a little buggy. I've noticed if I don't pay close attention when shrinking URL's sometimes the last few digits will drop off. So I find myself spending time double-checking the shortened URLs.

2. The iPhone App seems to function a little better than the web interface, and I think it is better designed. In fact, I love the iPhone App interface and wish the web interface were as easy to use and navigate. Why not align the two more so that the UIs are more congruent and easier for customers to toggle back and forth? I haven't figured out how to modify the schedule of my tweets in queue. I can do it easily on the iPhone App, but not through the web interface.

3. I'd like the ability to create longer posts directly through TwitJump rather than going to my other blog interfaces. If I could create Posterous-esque posts right inside TwitJump, which would post both to my blogs and then automatically get dropped into my Twitter queue via TwitJump (and syndicated to any other linked accounts and social tools), it would save me the effort of using multiple services, and keep my eyeballs inside TwitJump. Here's the killer app...allow users to save drafts of posts, including media content. Always been a pain through Posterous, although other services TypePad, Blogger are better with this.

Good work TwitJump team...stay on the ball and you might carve out a solid niche of followers.

Follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

What did that say? I think this marketer for Barnes & Noble made a Freudian slip...

2010-10-04T13:14:00.001-07:00

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At a quick glance the *pubit!* slogan looks a little too much like *pubic!*...

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Build a sustainable #B2B advantage through relevant impact

2010-10-04T13:01:00.001-07:00

If you work in a competitive B2B environment, chances are that you have very little advantage in terms of technology, price, or any real product differences. That means YOU have to be the differentiator, in order for clients to repeatedly want to do business with you...especially if you are asking them to pay more than they would by going to your competitor.

Millions of interviews with B2B customers has revealed that, as with B2C relationships, the driving force for loyalty is emotion. This tells you that you should throw out everything you know about product features, pricing, and other rational points of differentiation. Why? Because your clients don't care about those things.

Your clients care primarily about how you make them feel. More importantly, how they feel about the impact you are having on their business. You see, clients know they can buy widgets anywhere...but they want the widget seller who adds value.

Here are three questions to help understand whether you are adding *relevant* value for your clients:

1. Do I understand my client's business?

2. Do I bring them new ideas?

3. Do I make those ideas work to improve their business?

If you (or more essentailly your client) cannot easily answer those three questions in the affirmative, then you need to ask yourself how you are adding value for your clients.

A powerful way to look at client impact is to build a dashboard of top accounts, including things like account growth, stakeholder engagement, margin, trailing twelve month revenue. Then by running some driver and threshold analysis you can quickly get an understanding of when accounts are likely to terminate your business or when they are poised for growth. This requires a fair amount of quantitative analysis and management, but can reap huge rewards in the long run.

For more on B2B sales and service, follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

Five reasons your CEO doesn't embrace social media. #fb #twitter #social

2010-10-01T06:03:00.001-07:00

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If you aren't one of the 740,000 (and counting) people that have seen the Social Media Revolution (refresh) video on YouTube yet, then you absolutely need to check it out here. This should give you some context for what I'm about to describe.

Four years ago, I was a practicing entrepreneur. I ran in entrepreneurial circles, subscribed to the thought leaders in that space, worshipped the fabled serial entrepreneurs, and spent my creative time in internet cafes instead of a traditional office. My "colleagues" were other entrepreneurs by default, and my knowledge network was derived from my social network of like-minded individuals. We (for the most part) were a group of early adopters. Some of this comes from the fact that we were all Millenials...but some of it comes from the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit that we were caught up in. I've really enjoyed getting more active in Twitter and other social media activities lately, which has revived my spirit and yearning for innovation. As I've juxtaposed that entrepreneurial experience to my corporate environment, I see some considerable trade-offs. While my corporate colleagues and I benefit from structure, support resources and a worldwide brand... we don't fully capture the spirit of what I became accustomed to as an entrepreneur. Now, this might come across to you as an obvious result of "going corporate"... but I believe the two should not be mutually exclusive. Anyone who blames "corporate bureaucracy" for the failure to adopt innovation is grossly underestimating a few key variables, which I believe play an even bigger role in delaying corporate adoption of social media and other innovative resources.

What are the variables that delay corporate adoption of social media?

1. There is virtually zero generational diversity among senior executives. No explanation of new media can fully do it justice, for people who do not experience it first-hand.

How many Fortune 500 companies do you know that are willing to promote a 20 something star performer to the senior executive team? Regardless of education or performance, no 25 year old is going to be placed on a senior executive team, which means no one with any real level of authority or implementation power will understand new media in this decade. By the time Millenials reach an adequate age to be placed on senior executive teams, their visibility to new media will already be outdated...and the 25 year olds of their day will look to them with the same frustration that they are now looking at senior executives.

General Electric will promote a geeky, innovative Millenial to its senior executive team when pigs fly...and on that same day GE will gain a huge advantage on its competitors.

2. Most executive teams are self-replicating. They value people with mindsets and talents similar to their own.

Some of you might be reading this and saying... "Hey, I'm 40 or 50 or 90 yrs old, but I think I get what you're talking about." If you do, then you are a rarity. By nature of being a rare entity, there is likely to be no one on your senior executive team like you. Because they are not like you, they are not likely to value your ideas which seem different or outlandish, and therefore they will never promote you to a high enough level to make an impact. Okay...now there are $200 million or $500 million companies out there who might, because a founder is still involved who values innovation... but none of the really big players ever will. The bottom line is that the current way of thinking among senior ranks, breeds more of that type of thinking. They hire, promote and empower people who think just like them.

3. The champions of social media have no credibility in the eyes of senior corporate executives.

Going back to my previous point, people don't value the ideas of outcasts. To senior executives, entrepreneurs and innovators are outcasts. Most of the people reading this fall into that category. Because futurists and visionaries are seen as outcasts, their ideas don’t count. These futurists and visionaries live on the fringe, and senior executives have a difficult time connecting the dots to the mainstream. Because futurists and visionaries are independent thinkers, many of them shun top tier universities. Conversely, senior executives almost always promote the person with the better educational pedigree. One of the best futurists I know doesn’t have a college education. Meanwhile, one of the Harvard grads I know is just about the least innovative person in my network. In the eyes of a Fortune 500 CEO, the Harvard grad who thinks like a brick will always be promoted ahead of the rebel innovator.

4. The business case has not been adequately made for new media in a corporate setting.

How much time has Twitter saved you this week? If that seems like an odd question, it is. That is because Twitter and other social media tools were never about saving time or cutting costs. They were about enhancing experiences, expanding influence, increasing collaboration, or just having fun. Having fun, and some of the other reasons for social media are not really in the corporate vernacular. Senior execs don’t see that when you build a platform for learning or information sharing that actually seems fun, then people will invest more in those platforms without getting burned out on “work”. Try quantifying this in a traditional business impact analysis and you’ll run into all sorts of problems trying to define productivity, measure inventiveness, or assign a value to the number of connections a person has. Because social media has not been yoked to key performance indicators that align with big business strategy, social media is always forced to be viewed as something that would be nice to have, but sits outside of corporate budgets and priorities.

5. Social media is considered a taboo and new media is too vague. This leads to conversations focused on platforms and communities instead of methods and behaviors.

Try having a conversation with a senior executive about “social media” and the first thing they will ask is “Are you talking about Facebook?” You see, for people who don’t “get” social media, it is impossible to separate the idea of social media from the platforms their teenage kids use to peep girls at school or chat with friends. This creates a huge barrier, which most executives cannot get past. Tell them you’re not talking about Facebook, and they’ll say “You mean Twitter?” Try going further and breaking social media down to concepts such as: real-time, concise, relevant, push, or viral. None of this makes sense either. The problem is one of connotative association. Because of the heuristics that influence thought and understanding, those who are not fully engaged in social media simply lack the ability to associate adequate connotations to the ideas surrounding social media. Meanwhile, those who understand the power of social media suffer from what Dan and Chip Heath call the “curse of knowledge” in their book Made to Stick. This idea illustrates that once you know something, it is nearly impossible to remember what it was like to not know something. In their book, they use the example of the tapper and the listener. In this activity the tapper has a song in his head (Happy Birthday) and is asked to tap the rhythm of the song on a table. The listener is tasked with guessing the correct song. When asked whether the listener will guess the song correctly, tappers grossly overestimate this likelihood. Actually, a huge proportion of listeners mistook Happy Birthday and the Star Spangled Banner. Now, as the tapper you fail to recognize that the listener cannot hear the music in his head. So your assumptions are based on additional information, which the listener is not privy to. This is exactly how it is with social media. Those of you who read this and, like me, are frustrated that social media is not widely embraced by senior execs suffer from the “curse of knowledge.” We forget what it was like to have inadequate connotative associations related to social media to understand its value. To overcome this challenge, innovators and early adopters have to free ourselves from terminology or vernacular that limit our ability to create the right connotations for senior executives. Find words that work.

For more on social media and business strategy follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

Okay sports fans, here's my explanation of Behavioral Economics...RE: @mikeandmike

2010-09-28T05:49:00.001-07:00

Okay sports fans, I was listening to Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio. Last night the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had a chance to clinch a playoff berth. Now, they didn't win, but that's another story. For these purposes, it's important to know that a couple of millionaire athletes (David Price and Evan Longoria...not to be confused with actress Eva) were "embarrassed" because even for such a crucial game, they couldn't get more than 10-15 thousand fans out. To quote Longoria, "For us to play 155 games and go a full season of playing really good baseball, it's kind of like, what else do we have to do to draw fans into this place? It's actually embarrassing for us."

As I listened to Mike (Golic) and Mike (Greenberg) in a heated debate about whether the athletes were justified in their rants, it was clear to me that this debate can only be solved with behavioral economics. You see, Golic's debate was purely logical. His feeling was that no fans who would not otherwise purchase tickets would change their minds and purchase tickets, as a result of the players calling them out. Therefore, it was nonsensical for them to expend the effort in criticizing those fans. He repeatedly said, those millionaires have no right telling those fans how to spend their money. We can all relate to those sentiments (even though millionaire marketing execs spend their whole lives convincing middle-class citizens how to spend their money). Meanwhile, Greenberg felt the athletes had every right to voice their opinions. To Greenie, those fans should be a part of the culture. They play a role in the success of their team and should step up and do their part by attending. Greenberg's argument was playing to the emotional attachment of those fans. In that sense, Greenberg wins the debate.

You see, current research shows that of all the decisions consumers make, 70% are based on EMOTIONAL factors, while only 30% are based on RATIONAL elements. While Greenie wins the debate for his premise that players need to play more to their fans' emotional attachment, he fails in recognizing that the players' statements also carry the potential to have an adverse impact on emotional attachment. In fact, it is easier to erode the emotional attachment of your customers than it is to create it.

So I'll let you be the judge... what impact would the players' statements have had on you as a fan? Would you be more or less likely to attend the next home game? If your answer is MORE likely, then Greenie wins the debate. If your answer is LESS likely, then the award goes to Golic (even though he based his argument on the wrong premise).

Behavioral economics can best be defined as the role human nature plays in just about everything. Are your models for understanding customer and employee behavior rooted in behavioral economics? Or are they still limited to the old rational, neoclassical economics?

For more on behavioral economics, follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

Getting to work before dawn = productive day

2010-09-28T04:45:00.001-07:00

How did America find $10 trillion? Who invented the internet?...and the recipe for innovation.

2010-09-27T13:22:00.001-07:00

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Did you hear that joke about how Al Gore invented the interne? Or, perhaps you revere Vint Cerf for his role in designing TCP/IP? For a moment, try to forget everything you know about how the internet was invented and follow this thought...

25 years ago, if you tuned into nearly any news source you would have observed a bi-partisan panel of economists unanimously predicting that the U.S. economy would fall to 3rd in the world. Japan would be the largest economy at about $5 trillion, followed by Germany at $4 trillion. The U.S. was predicted to be somewhere in the range of $3.5 trillion in GDP. Economists were dead on with Japan ($4.5 trillion) and Germany ($4 trillion), but miscalculated U.S. GDP by a whopping $10 trillion. Never before in history, and not since then, have economists as a whole been so colossally wrong.

For modern societies, economy is everything. Economic expansion gave the U.S. its moral authority around the world. This engine afforded America the ability to maintain an edge in national defense, infrastructure, and other luxuries of prosperity. Democracy borrows its credibility from the fact that democracy (as an idea) actually worked in building the world's largest economic engine.

So why were economists wrong? They were wrong because they were using economic models that accounted for everything except talent.

Now back to the internet for a moment...

The internet was a major contributor to the $10 trillion worth of windfall GDP growth in American history...and while there were other contributors, this serves as a model for understanding the link between innovation and economic growth.

A review of the history of the internet is a story about people.

1) It required multiple geniuses. Beginning with Vannevar Bush in 1945 and Norbert Wiener soon after, the concept of the internet was conceived. J.C.R. Licklider and Lawrence Roberts paved a way for a national communications network. The use of packet switching came later thanks to Paul Baran and Donald Davies, and then the first communications were passed between UCLA and Stanford (led by Kleinrock and Engelbart). Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn later developed what would be the most widely used protocol (TCP/IP) around the world.

2) None of these brilliant inventors could have done it alone, but it didn’t take that many. In fact, if you look at the other contributors to economic expansion (Microsoft, Wal-Mart, etc), the total number of people to credit is quite small. Some 100,000 people can be credited with each contributing $100 million of GDP growth. Only 100,000 people or 0.03% of a society with 300,000,000 citizens. This number is staggeringly small.

3) Why were those 100,000 people living in the U.S.? Of all the places in the world, we were lucky enough to have them here. Is this the result of “American” genetics? No. In fact, of the 100,000 people who deserve credit for America’s expansion, more than half migrated from some other country.

This brings us to the most important insight on innovation. Innovation is not genetic, and it has very little to do with a person’s country of origin (including all of those societal factors; especially education).

Innovation occurs when you bring the right talent into the right environment.

For America, this happened when more than 50,000 individuals migrated here in search of a place to express their talent. The right environment was created by protecting the rights, liberties and freedoms of those people. I hope we don’t lose sight of that.

For your organization, this can occur when you focus on the right types of talent and bring them into a work environment that breeds innovation by incenting people to express their creativity and by protecting their rights and aligning with their ambitions.

In closing, let me offer 4 distinct types of talent that led to America’s affluence and I think could be helpful in your company.

1. Innovators. They get the ideas that create new products, markets and stock value.

2. Entrepreneurs. They are typically super-sales-people or rainmakers. They see an idea, recognize its potential, and figure out the necessary steps to make the idea a reality.

3. Superstars. These people are extremely creative achievers. Unusually gifted in niche disciplines. Technologists, designers, product architects or philosophers.

4. Super Mentors. Innovators, entrepreneurs and superstars rely on genius developers. Those developers are people who say, “Your idea can work. I’ll help.” Super Mentors may be inside or outside of your company, and add value because of their experience and network.

Do you have the right talent to innovate? What about the right environment?

Follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

Ava blowing sprite bubbles at Thai Pepper

2010-09-24T16:56:00.001-07:00

What's all the fuss about Knowledge Management? 3 things you need to know before it's too late.

2010-09-21T18:00:00.001-07:00

Knowledge Management is a top priority among companies looking to sustain an edge on competition. At face value KM is an important field that very few organizations have actually mastered, which makes it a keen target for consultants. However, as I've attempted to help some of my clients sort through the clutter, I've found very few best practices to draw from. First, as mentioned very few organizations get this right to begin with. Second, the needs and dynamics within organizations are so diverse in terms of KM that it would be nearly impossible to model one Knowledge Management System (KMS) on another. Exacerbating this problem, a huge population of knowledge-holders are retiring within the coming years. The threat to organizations is that as those baby boomers leave the company, so will the valuable insights, industry secrets, and best practices that have allowed them to succeed over past decades. Another trend has been that knowledge migration simply has not kept up with technology. Demographics and digitization, while opening the door for tremendous opportunity have crippled countless organizations. As I've been doing my homework, I've landed on three keys to overcoming these challenges that I hope are universal enough for all to apply.

1. The why matters as much as the how

Across the focus groups and stakeholder interviews I've conducted, baby boomers are continually worried that they are seen as expendable resources. Perhaps this is a new phenomena as a result of the countless layoffs we have seen throughout the current recession. Be that as it may, tenured employees don't feel the same sense of loyalty as they once did. Incentives appear to be misaligned to encourage the discretionary effort needed to pass on expertise to the next generation. Furthermore, because organizations have opted for lean over ample priority is given to the current projects underway, with little room for documentation, record keeping, or mentoring. Companies have repealed employee stock ownership programs (ESOPs), or purchased back treasury stock in a way to counter the decline of corporate valuations for their shareholders. Other companies have been purchased or restructured, leaving employee ownership ambiguous and convoluted. Even in situations where stock ownership is not the driving force for loyalty beyond retirement, a general distate exists between long-time employees and the companies they once loved. Great, world-class organizations find a way to reverse these trends. They know that senior workers can add value long after they retire and find ways to align their incentives with the future of the company. Think about why your workers will want to save and share knowledge with tomorrow's leaders. If you don't know why, then I can assure you this: neither do they.

2. No one will go looking for knowledge if it doesn't come to them

Some of you might be thinking right now, "It's okay, as long as we capture knowledge somewhere our people will be able to find it when we need it." Let me expel that myth right now with three simple words. NO THEY WON'T. Even if they wanted to, most would give up after only a few attempts for several reasons. Either they will encounter too many barriers to finding the right information, or by the time they are close to succeeding it will no longer be timely or relevant. The third reason is that the world today (and presumably tomorrow) doesn't know how to go find information. This is the result of a world that pushes any relevant information to the consumer when they most need it. We've grown lazy as a society of learners. Even when we really want to learn about something specific, we are overwhelmed with conflicting messages that take precedence because they are pushed at us. KM systems that work have migrated from old filing cabinets and online depositories to streams of relevant information, targeted by subject to select audiences, based on current projects and team orientations. Mentoring is no longer done with junior associates sitting next to senior employees "learning the ropes". It is an iterative experience, with a little here, a little there, and only succeeds when both parties are proactive and work to bridge the demographic gaps. This is anything but universal...sadly it's the exception. Technology is important, but it isn't everything. There are other methods for sharing information that can follow these principles, even when technology infrastructures are behind the times.

3. Curation is more important than creation

I recently sat in on a company's strategic planning that talked ab out the need to create a formal documentation process, whereby project teams would follow a template to detail the goals and outcomes of each project. The idea was rooted in a belief that this organization was not creating enough content to be shared with future generations of employees. This was a false premise. Information is everywhere inside this company. The problem for this company and many others is there is no way to sort through the mass of information to find the most relevant bits and pieces when needed. In fact, creating more documentation would only weaken the company's ability to apply relevant information. What this company and many others need is better curation practices. Curation is why the world's most renowned art museums never lose their lustre. This is why some restaurants always seem to have the perfect wine to accompany a meal, or why certain bloggers seem to get all the best ideas first. Curation is a method or process by which companies can obtain a competitive differentiation in the way it identifies the most important ideas and puts them in front of the right eyeballs. Employees are your audience for Knowledge Management, and the information your company holds are your artwork. Think carefully before you save, document, file, or share anything. The best way for you to manage knowledge is to decide what not to share with your employees. Curation can be performed by people, systems, or be captured in traditions...but the important thing is that without proper curation, all the brightest ideas in the world will be lost in the sea of mediocre or terrible ideas that plague your company.

Follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

Feedback...

2010-09-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

I'm hoping to make my social media experience more interactive. It's therapeutic to listen to myself ramble, but I'd rather engage in some discussion... What do you think?

If you agree with what I say, I'd love to hear it.

If you disagree with what I say, I'd love to hear it.

If you have more questions for discussion, please post them here.

The Problem With Groupon...3 Reasons Not to Buy

2010-09-20T08:41:00.001-07:00

The other night I decided to finally use our Groupon at a local Sushi joint with my family. My 9 yr old actually loves sushi, but my 3 yr old needed some persuasion.

It's important to know that I am anything but a coupon freak... I tend to avoid any coupon or discount club like the plague. I never carry cards around for a free tenth meal and I never sell my personal info to the grocery store in exchange for saving a nickel here or there on milk. I absolutely never pay to play in these schemes...you know the old "$20 now to save $100 later" trick that never seems to add up. Sure, I might pay more than other people on occasion, but I rarely have regrets. In all it is a sum zero game and I don't have to worry about where to put all those membership and discount cards, and I never have to spend time clipping coupons.

Recently everyone I know (including my wife) has been on a Groupon craze. I get emails daily from people saying, "Did you see this deal?" of "Did you buy today's Groupon?". I've read the nightmares of business owners dealing with Groupon, which was discouraging but in some way I figured if they were losing then the Groupon buyer must be the winner. Because of my intrigue with this phenomena, I've been interviewing friends about their experiences with Groupon and I've discovered 3 consistent problems:

1. Overwhelming demand precipitates a backlog of terrible service.

Most companies offering Groupons, do so because they are desperate to increase traffic/demand for their product or service. This means, they are not currently running at full or over capacity. They are comfortable delivering for the slow trickle of customers, and wholly unaware of the flood that will crash down on them as soon as Groupon goes live.

Recently a friend of mine purchased a massage on Groupon from a local masseuse. He spent $35 for what was typically an $80 1-hr massage. Sounded like a great deal, since he had an upcoming triathlon and would surely use it to recover the following day. He bought the Groupon, waited the standard 1-day period before booking his massage, only to find out the masseuse had been so overwhelmed by Groupon that he could not book an appointment for 5 months!

Another friend purchased the Groupon for www.mywinesdirect.com, which offered a $95 case of 6 bottles of wine for $44. She went to the website to redeem her Groupon, only to find that Mywinesdirect.com was also overwhelmed to the point that they had put the offer on hold for 2 days while they sorted out a new landing page on the website to handle Groupon. Moreover, once she finally placed the order several days later she found that her case of wine would not arrive for several months. She's still waiting. If Mywinesdirect.com is trying to be the Zappos of the wine industry, they just blew their chances with a huge volume of potential customers, a la Groupon.

I could continue, but I think you get the point. Any value saved by purchasing a Groupon here, was completely diluted by the unbelievable deterioration of service and timeliness.

2. Groupon users have a stigma.

I've never been in a position where I had to use food stamps at the grocery store, but after using a few Groupons I can surmise exactly how that feels. Wow, I never figured it would be quite such an embarrassing situation. I've used gift cards a number of times and that is nothing like using a Groupon. Let me just spare you the suspense. Business owners have been burned so badly by Groupon that they hate to see you come to their business and use them. Employees know that Groupon users don't tip well and are often overly demanding... and even if that isn't your modus operandi, they will think you are just like all the others.

This brings me back to my sushi story. As my family entered the restaurant, I politely let the waiter know that we had a Groupon. Keep in mind our typical Sushi bill is around $100 and my Groupon was for $30, so I came prepared to cover the distance. I was raised right by my parents and had also prepared mentally to tip on the full amount of the bill, rather than excluding the Groupon portion from my tip calculation. Apparently, most Groupon users are not as well schooled in this area. It was obvious from the first time the waiter came to our table that he was extra precautious and less than excited to serve us as a result of the Groupon. I thought I saw him whispering with the restaurant owner in the corner and point at us a few times. I felt like I needed to keep the Groupon hidden in my pocket until just the last moment when I would sneakily put it in the black folio along with my cash. If you think I'm exaggerating, the restaurant went out of its way to print up a special note along with the bill for Groupon users...spelling out Groupon etiquette. Here is a picture of that notice from my iPhone: 3. Groupon exaggerates the value of its products and services, ignoring other competitive offers.

How many times in the last decade have you paid full-price for an oil change? If you're like me, the answer is never. Every day I get offers in the mail for $10 off, or a Signature service for $19.95... these offers are a dime a dozen. In fact, I rarely pay full price for anything ever. It's too easy to find some form of discount... especially for the types of services or products that Groupon typically promotes. So why are we okay with comparing Groupon rates to the "standard retail" prices? It would make more sense to compare Groupon rates to the average price paid for those goods or services. If you look at it this way, it's easy to see that Groupon is not as remarkable as it seems, and sometimes people actually pay less through other offers.

All things considered, I'm scratching my head as to why people would continue to buy Groupons. I've bought 4 and never quite been satisfied with my experience. Lesson learned.

Video of Joe Ricketts (Founder of TD Ameritrade) Speaking on Entrepreneurship

2010-09-17T07:53:00.001-07:00

I never tire of hearing great entrepreneurs talk. Even the ones with less than impressive oratory skills are so intriguing to me, because of the action behind their words. It's so different than hearing Academicians talk of business or entrepreneurship, because I've found that those self-declared experts rarely have first hand experience. An entrepreneur, on the other hand, carries a level of authenticity that makes his message relevant.

J. Joe Ricketts of Omaha, is not just any entrepreneur. He's the Founder and Former CEO of TD Ameritrade, one of the world's elite online brokerages, which has been on a growth tear since its inception only 30 years go. Again, he's no Obama when it comes to polished presenting skills, but here's a video of him sharing some insight to entrepreneurship: http://spne.ws/8jy

Enjoy!

Follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos

Performance Management for Customer Service Roles

2010-09-16T18:28:00.001-07:00

Over the course of 15 million employee interviews, research has proven that perhaps THE best driver of high performance is when employees have clear expectations. However, performane mangement can get convoluted in a hurry. With good intentions, too many companies make their performance management systems overly complicated, diluting any positive benefit they might have gained.

For this post, I'm going to focus specifically on customer service roles. Here is what I've seen to be the world-class standard:

An employee is paid a significant amount (enough to influence behavior), based on simple metrics that they psychologically own, and have been statistically proven to link to business outcomes; and as that employee models those behaviors repeatedly creating positive customer interactions, real increases in customer loyalty can be measured, and as loyalty increases, customers spend more, stay longer and encourage their friends to do the same.

That sounds complicated, but if you break it down into pieces it becomes easier to execute.

Step 1: ensure that at least 40% of employee's pay is performance based

Step 2: show employees evidence that the metrics they are judged on have a clear link to the performance of the company

Step 3: ensure that employees can in fact influence those metrics through certain behaviors, and provide tools, training and coaching to embed those behaviors

Step 4: validate by measuring loyalty trends and linking loyalty back to the performance of the company

Step 5: remove organizational barriers that prevent employees from executing this strategy, and correct any systemic business model conflicts that lead to dissatisfied customers

There... wasn't that easy?

Work-life Balance is a Myth. Work-life Integration is Essential.

2010-09-16T17:59:00.001-07:00

Normal 0 0 1 828 4725 39 9 5802 11.1287 0 0 0

Work-life balance simply does not exist. The search for work-life balance is equivalent to the snipe hunt (anyone who was in scouts or has seen the movie UP knows what I'm talking about). The snipe is an elusive, imaginary bird that is rumored to hang around campsites. An exact description is impossible to find, because the specific description is modified time after time to continue to confuse snipe-hunters. In one moment they are black, then they're white. First they're tiny, then they're oversized.

This is about how it feels to seek work-life balance. If one is constantly forced to seek one only at the detriment of the other, then work and life can never be in balance. Simply by calling these mutually exclusive, one removes the feasibility of balance. Balance, too often is defined as the "give and take" between work and life. Instead of hunting for balance between work and life, the goal should be to seek for ways to integrate the two.

No, I don't mean everyone should become bloggers in order to derive an income by talking about their lives. In fact, most people who try to "do what they love" and then monetize it somehow, often end up broke and hating what they originally loved.

To understand work-life integration, we have to first define what work and life are.

Life = things that on a regular basis, you DO, HAVE, or DESIRE (E.g. DO: work, exercise, spend time with kids, etc; HAVE: house, wife, obligations; DESIRE: your values, life plan, compass)

Work = how you get paid (this one is simple: any activity performed that directly leads to income)

Following these definitions, it is easy to see why balance (continually trading one for the other) can only lead to failure in both. Neglecting the activities that lead to income does not lead to an increase in the things you can DO, HAVE or DESIRE. Instead, neglecting activities that lead to income precludes one from the things they wish to DO, HAVE or DESIRE. Conversely, neglecting the things you DO, HAVE or DESIRE does not in and of itself enhance activities that lead to income.

So how does INTEGRATION work?

Integration happens when work and life are woven together in a seamless interdependence. Integration is when your best friends also happen to be your closest colleagues. See the synergy? Integration is when your leisure reading provides insight to work. Integration is when your late night talks with your spouse gives clarity to a client's emotional needs. Integration is when your employees can workout at the office instead of taking extended lunch breaks. Integration is childcare at the office or across the street. Integration is when my trip to the grocery store includes interviewing the person stocking shelves so that I can provide some qualitative insight to my client who happens to be the brand manager for a multi-national food producer. Getting the picture?

Here's a concrete example of where work-life integration has served me well. I've been working with a large financial institution on several projects. This particular client has hit an inflexion point on its growth curve. Over recent years, the company has more than doubled in revenues...the product of both acquisition and organic growth. With this growth, the client has seen tremendous growing pains. The systems that worked for a $500 million company could be patched and repurposed to work in a $1 billion company. However, as they approach $2 billion that strategy can't continue to be effective. Most recently, this client has decided to revamp its associate development programs including a complete overhaul of its Learning Management System (LMS). Looking around at peers and other benchmark organizations, it's obvious that very few people have succeeded in making an LMS take flight within an organization to the point of driving real, sustained change. Sure there are myriad platforms offering all the bells and whistles of eLearning and content management...but nothing that actually changes behavior. If I were focused on work-life balance, this thought would go out the window as soon as I leave the office each day. Instead, I'm thinking of this as I experience my world. I'm thinking about my own behaviors that have changed and the reasons for that change. What do I see all around me that tells me how to make learning "stick" in an organization? What do I see about how people communicate in this world? Do I know anyone who actually likes getting messages longer than 140 characters anymore? This is the world I live in. It's a world of instant information that is pushed to me in a timely fashion. I NEVER go to news websites anymore, let alone read a newspaper. I NEVER read an email if it has more than one paragraph unless it is nicely bulleted with plenty of white space. I NEVER watch commercials or infomercials now that I have such wide programming preferences and a DVR. Why then, would I recommend to my client that their LMS be filled with instructional videos, white papers, and an internal sharepoint where people can go to look for resources? The truth is none of that works anymore. Not with how people and behaviors have changed. Instead, learning needs to be pushed to people. Anything that isn't essential has to be cut out. There has to be a social element to it so that I can easily share, discuss or debate. It has to be timely and relevant. Wow. I just learned a hell of a lot about "sticky" learning that even the most cutting edge instructional designers don't "get". That's because they still think in silos. What they despise and avoid outside of work, they actually champion at work. That's work-life balance if you can call it that... I don't want that. I want work-life INTEGRATION. I hope you do as well.

Measure your Wellbeing. Which of the 5 areas do you need to improve most?

2010-09-16T12:10:00.001-07:00

Last week my wife and I participated in the annual health screening offered by my company's wellness partner. These are a good annual gauge on whether I'm gaining/losing weight, how my blood pressure and cholesterol are doing, and what my risk is for common health threats. I try to do an annual physical with my physician as well, and occasionally I find myself stepping on the scale at LifeTime Fitness where I workout. These positive activities are commonplace.

Similarly, I find myself pulling up my Mint app on my iPhone to get a daily read on my net worth, keep an eye on credit/checking transactions, and making sure no fradulent charges were made on any of my accounts. It's a good way to keep myself grounded.

Following these steps on a regular basis keeps my physical and financial health in check and afford me the opportunity to refocus on the big picture of where I'm heading in life. However, these do not make up the entirety of my life. There are other factors that go into my overall quality of life...or as some label this: Wellbeing.

In fact, there are five areas of wellbeing that deserve equal attention. While it would be difficult to focus on all five, all the time, the occasional checkup is needed in these areas. For years I would sWellet annual career goals, or look for ways to be more active in the community, but I never had a gauge to track my success on an ongoing basis.

This summer, Gallup released a revolutionary tool that has really changed the way I evaluate my life on an ongoing basis. It's called the Wellbeing Finder (http://www.wbfinder.com/home.aspx). By answering a set of questions about my life on a recurring basis, I'm given a gauge on the five key areas of wellbeing. Those areas are Social, Physical, Financial, Community and Career. I like to think that my spiritual wellbeing is present in all 5 areas and that is a topic for another day. However, these five areas give me a great holistic view of my life and where I'm heading. Pick up the Wellbeing book and use the code for the online assessment. It let's you repeat the assessment as often as you'd like and set action plans and reminders in each area.

One key finding for me is the huge impact that my social netwok plays on my Wellbeing. The more friends I have that use this tool, the more insight I can gain about the impact of social networks on my overall Wellbeing. Right now I have a small handful who have used this assessment and it has opened up great dialogue about how we can enhance the quality of each other's lives. I hope you'll join the dialogue.

New home for the College World Series

2010-09-14T10:43:00.001-07:00

TD Ameritrade Ballpark in Omaha is almost finished with construction.

My office view

2010-09-14T07:00:00.003-07:00

For any Omaha haters, I thought I'd share my view of the Missouri river from my desk.

fun day at work

2010-09-14T07:00:00.001-07:00

A group of 75 execs from a certain well-known motorcycle company are here for some training. It should make this an interesting day. Check out the pics!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Ava Collette

2007-06-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

June 20th was a day to remember! Ava Collette Carlos was born at 2:00pm weighing in at 7 lb 4 oz and measuring 20" long. I've never had such an instant connection and love for someone. She already has me wrapped around her little finger = )

She will definitely add to my motivation in my career. It's times like this when everything comes into perspective and you remember what is truly important. I'll let you know how this worklife balance thing goes as I try to magnify both my career and my role as a father. I'm more than open to advice.

College World Series

2007-06-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

After my previous post, I had a good opportunity to talk outsourcing with one of our IT managers. We had a great discussion about some different aspects of outsourcing, and he actually seemed pretty open to exploring options.

We had a quick breakfast meeting and then I headed over to Rosenblatt Stadium in time for the opening game of the College World Series. In case you didn't already know, I grew up playing baseball in Keizer, Oregon...about 20 minutes from Corvallis. I wore my Beaver Baseball hat with pride before they had won a single game in the series. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to be in Omaha as Oregon State went 5-0 to win their second National Championship in a row. Go Beavs!

Is the World Flat?

2007-06-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

For most people in my generation, I believe Friedman's book was basically old news. By the time I read The World is Flat, I had already hired, sourced or partnered with foreign Software Developers, Mechanical Engineers, Transcriptionists, Operators, Customer Service Agents, and IT Support professionals and had accepted it as a normal way of life. I've lived in or toured foreign countries on nearly every continent; I speak a foreign language and fumble around with 2 others. I come from a multi-ethnic family, and I concur for the most part with Jared Diamond's philosophies about the global distribution of true intelligence. I'm also grateful for the brilliant minds that came to America to foster innovation and invention for the cause of Democracy. So is the World Flat? In my mind, there is no doubt. However, the millions of senior professionals ahead of me by a generation or so may not feel the same. To them, the world is only as flat as we allow it to become. As an intrapreneur who understands this, you may well confront that situation as you push forward in your company.

My first realization of this came on around my 40th day at Gallup. I was in a large auditorium where the IT managers were presenting FAQs on their accomplishments over the past year. Impressively, they had achieved a little over 400 software releases, with an internal staff of roughly 150 developers. One of the "myths" they openly dispelled was that we might move toward using Outsourced Developers in the future. Their experience was that they could not find equal quality or sufficient price savings to supplant what we were currently doing.

Two weeks later, I participated in a small planning committee where we decided that a major focus for our marketing efforts would be to improve our website as a prelude to more intense online marketing efforts.

Subsequently, I engaged in discussions with our IT department to get the ball rolling on our new website. The first red flag for me was that our internal costs were astronomical. Easily 10X what I would expect to pay an outside U.S. based contractor for the same work--let alone a developer in India. True, these costs weren't real to the company, rather a synthesized figure used to distribute overhead and support costs across workgroups...however, it still impacted my team's bottom-line. The second challenge was that we were bounced around between 4 or 5 decision-makers for several weeks just trying to figure out the process for getting a project into our IT department and prioritizing that project. The third and most telling obstacle was when we were told that even if our project was priority #1 for all IT development within the company, it would still take about 6 months to reach completion!

It took me less than 60 days to go from concept to revenue in my startup Garage Mahal, so as you can tell, 6 months seemed like forever.

As an intrapreneur, one is given two options at a time like this. Option 1) Get upset and throw the IT department under the bus, or option 2) try to work around the situation. A few years ago, and I might have opted for number 1, but we decided to take the other route. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Now, back to the real issue--optimizing corporate processes to keep up with globalization. As intrapreneurs, I think it is our duty to push against tradition as stiffly as possible if it will help expose and fix a weakness. The contract I signed with Gallup was to provide more value to the company than I get paid. We have all signed that contract as Tim Sanders points out in his Love is the Killer App. Anything less than continual pushing for improvement would be a breach of that contract. My objective at this point was to dispell the protectionist mindset and introduce the possibility that outsourcing could increase productivity and imrpove the engagement of our current full-time developers at the same time. My agenda wasn't to "win" the debate, but to bring value to my employer.

Maybe you have a great opportunity at your company to talk about globalization or outsourcing. Maybe it's helping align compensation packages with performance accountability. Perhaps it is looking to find a better paper vender when you find out your packaging costs are inflated because your procurement officer gets a Christmas "gift" each year from the current vendor. Whatever the opportunity looks like, don't shirk your responsibility by simply chalking it up to "that's the way it has always been done." Look for, seize, and execute on opportunities to make your voice heard. Veterans at your company may not have had the same benefits of growing up in the world we now live in. You can add significant value to their decision-making.

How I got here?

2007-06-08T13:46:00.001-07:00

Fed up with the quagmire that is Monster.com and other internet job boards cluttered with spam and sketchy at best "career opportunities", I did a quick search on the BYU Alumni Career Board and saw an interesting post by Gallup. To be honest, I don't remember what position was advertised but I knew it was something in Consulting at Gallup. Both had a good brand association for me, but I didn't even know that the two were related. I always thought of Gallup in terms of the Gallup Poll and their prediction that Truman would win over Dewey. Delving into the various online resources such as Vault.com, I found great reviews about work-life at Gallup. I knew the Gallup brand was highly credible and naturally leaned away from the larger consulting firms--thanks to my brother's experience at KPMG. What did I have to lose? I shot the recruiter my resume via email, followed by a voicemail and then waited. It took a few days before I was invited to take an online selection test. It seemed like it went on forever--as extenuated by the redundancy of some of the questions.

I assumed the online Gallup test had gone poorly, since I had heard nothing for weeks. Then, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a Gallup recruiter. She said they would like to do an in-depth telephone interview and that one of their interviewers would be contacting me shortly. When she called, she was very friendly and accommodating...at least until the interview began. She went cold on me and my jokes seemed to echo in the silence. I wasn't sure if my answers were concise or complete enough. At the end, she simply said, "Thank you, we'll be in touch."

Several weeks passed as I received job offers in Telecom, Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals, and one in brand management at a consumer products conglomerate. I was ready to make my decision when Gallup's recruiter called back saying that a manager is interested and would like to do another phone interview. I told her no problem, as long as if things went well, they could "job offer" me by Monday. It was Wednesday. She was leaving for vacation, but said she would see what they could do. 2 phone interviews and a weekend trip to Omaha later, and I had my offer. The Omaha campus was incredible. Everyone from the receptionist to the lunch lady seemed to love working there and knew everyone else by name.

The position I was offered was a Partner Apprentice. It's an accelerated track to Partner that consists of several 6 month rotations working in the various business practices. The upward mobility sounded attractive and as a 26 yr old, I felt important interviewing directly with a member of the Executive Committee. After some negotiations, I was on my way to Omaha.

After 10 weeks here, I feel at home. It seems like I made the right decision and so far at least, Gallup has lived up to its reputation. My advice to others out there in a similar situation is to open a lot of doors so you have plenty of options when making the decision. It has lasting effects. Make sure you like your potential manager and their manager. Read the online reviews and don't sacrifice your personal life to work at a "big name" company. In regards to Gallup specifically, I'd be happy to answer any questions about the application process. While it seemed a bit unique at the time, I have learned that this same process helps a lot of Fortune 1000 companies hire and retain the best talent. Companies pay a lot for Gallup to go in and use the same tools and methodology to find and develop rising stars. The processes that may have seemed tedious for me in the beginning, pay huge dividends to clients who believe in the science behind our selection tools.

Welcome

2007-06-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. I joined Gallup Consulting a few months ago after being an entrepreneur for most of my life. The transition has been eye-opening and positive, while some challenges for this type of relationship are inevitable. I had some hesitance in going to work at a larger firm after so much independence, but felt the overall opportunity for growth outweighed the cons.

Many entrepreneurs fear working at larger companies for a variety of reasons. First, we are inherently independent and relish the effects that career independence has on our egos. We also tend to be Activators and dread the potential bureaucracy within larger companies that may hold us back in our race to results. Entrepreneurs enjoy feeling like big fish. Companies with thousands of employees can make individuals feel more like insignificant drops in the pond. At some point, entrepreneurs reach the inevitable decision of whether to give it another go alone, or to join a larger firm. This may come after a company goes bust, or after a successful exit...but at some point the question is asked.

My intention in writing this blog is to validate or dispel some of those fears. My transition to Gallup was a culmination of many factors. Only time will tell whether or not I am fit for this setting. Hopefully I can help some others in similar situations make that decision better informed. A secondary goal for this blog is to help executives understand entrepreneurs and harness that powerful constituency in their organization to help them drive true organic growth.

You can expect very open and candid anecdotes about life at Gallup, the consulting industry, intrapreneurship, and my transition to corporate life. Whatever I write in this blog is done independently of Gallup and may not represent the official views of Gallup.