How to Stifle Teamwork – Part 3

The news reports that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled had an opportunity to inspire, motivate the US troops during a recent question and answer session in Kuwait.

Based on this exchange, I can’t say he succeeded in addressing the troops concerns let alone inspire them to go back into battle. That is unfortunate.

“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?” – Army Spc. Thomas Wilson

Rumsfeld replies, “You go to war with the Army you have.”

More at: [MSN] Troops put tough questions to Rumsfeld

The White Collar Revolt, Part 1

Related to my earlier post about saying ‘No’ (Some of the Passengers, Some of the Time) fed up computer programmers at Electronic Arts are suing their employer over “extreme job stress and health problems”.

NPR had the story this past weekend on Weekend Edition.

Employees are gaining more control over their work conditions with each passing day. And if a specific employer doesn’t allow employees to have control over their schedule, environment, and work – they should prepare to see a similar suit against themselves shortly.

Ricardo Semler outlines how to structure a supportive and profitable organization in, Maverick. I can’t say enough good things about his book.

Get more details at the Social Customer Manifesto.

Some of the Passengers, Some of the Time

“Go back in history. One of the first decisions an airline had to make was, Should we carry passengers or cargo? Whenever an airline came to that fork in the sky, they took both forks…” – Doc Searles

Doc makes an excellent point. Very few companies can successfully be all things to all customers. The big airlines are proving right now that this strategy is road paved with good intentions.

Contrast the airlines’ “both forks” strategy with this recent Business Week interview with Steve Jobs:

“…it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”

Tomorrow, say ‘No’ to keep focus on an ever expanding project, say ‘No’ to keep your company’s niche, and most importantly – say ‘No’ so you can spend dinner with your family this holiday.

First Crack 12. The Winter Blanket at Marysburg Books

Special Guest: The Winter Blanket. We talk about the last 4 miles of the Hiawatha LRT opening today – from downtown to the airport to the Mall of America, winter striking Minnesota this week, and the band’s upcoming Polar Bear tour. We close with a live premiere of their new song – Neil Young Blues.

Links mentioned:

Intro: PodCat from Daily Best of Podcasting

Listen to Winter Blanket at Marysburg Books [34 min]

Clicks vs Impressions

Eminent writer Bob Bly dissects the difference between direct marketers and non-direct marketers.

In my experience, his analysis is spot-on.

I had a client where both mentalities struggled for dominance. The incumbent mentality (non-DM) was all about branding, impression, design, and well known for it. A team of direct marketers was brought in to handle the website. They brought measured click-throughs, ROI, incremental A/B test, all that.

These new tools brought success – but at the price of completely disenfranchising the non-DMers. Not good, at all. In fact, it’s a huge lost opportunity considering the internet gives non-DMers these DM tools out of the box. This means, the brand managers and advertising buyers can know – exactly which 50% of their ad dollars are wasted. About time.

Care and Feeding of Your Harshest Critics

Marqui is paying people to test drive and blog about their content management system.

From Marc Canter on the origins of the idea:

When I first came up with the idea – the question was poised “what if they blog something negative?”

My answer was “that’s a good thing! Can you imagine how powerful it will be for us to listen to and react to that criticism and show that we responded in a timely manner by actually fixing the problems?”

That’ll be worth its weight on gold.

Exactly. People are going to criticize your company’s offerings whether you allows them to or not. By listening to your harshest critics – i.e. most passionate customers – you’ll learn more about what the world expects from you.

I’ll be tracking the Marqui program.

On a related note, we launched the MNteractive Directory earlier this week. The MNteractive Directory is a wiki containing the Minnesota’s interactive design talent.

Wikis, by their very nature, are editable by anyone. Like Cantor, one of the first questions poised was, “What if someone changes something of mine?”

My response is two-fold:

  1. Everything is backed up, so an unnecessary change can be easily reverted.
  2. It’s your responsibility to not put up information that needs to be changed and not change things unnecessarily.

The world is becoming more and more transparent. Therefore we are need to be more responsible and open to criticism and praise. For that is the order – 1. criticism 2. praise.

How to Stifle Teamwork – Part 2

“Rating and ranking engender competition, not collaboration” – Esther Derby, An Alternative to the Yearly Performance Review

I always felt annual performance reviews existed for disconnected management to reinforce hierarchy. To know that their prime purpose (in employees’ minds) of securing an individual salary increase actually incents people to not collaborate is doubly disheartening.

Compare this individual-focused structure against a work environment where: everyday at 10am the entire team, manager and all, meets for 15 minutes to review the previous day and prepare for the current day.

That simple, regular, act promotes collaboration among the team members and an engaged, connected manager.

In this new world, how do you determine an individual’s salary? The same way you did originally, compare what they’re doing against the market.

Job Security is the Ability to Get a Job


My sister and I recently shared a phone conversation on the state of work. While she finishes her undergrad, she’s working for a temp agency. She’s continually negotiating with the agency on work; she calls the temp agency with her schedule, they call her with jobs. When there’s a match, there’s a match. If not, no harm, no foul.

She was forecasting life after school and lamenting the schedule flexibility with a full-time job. I offered that my near-decade “real world” work experience proved to be extremely similar to her relationship with the temp agency.

My mom has worked for the same organization for more than a quarter century. 25 years in the same building. Not something possible today. Today, employer-employee relationships is more akin to the Dread Pirate Roberts and Westley in the Princess Bride:

“Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” – Dread Pirate Roberts

What is job security in this new world?
Having an active network of people to help you get the next project.

With that, all the benefits of traditional fulltime employment take care of themselves.

I want to thank Evelyn Rodriguez at Crossroads Dispatches for her recent Accidental Entrepreneurs post which inspired this post.

First Crack 11. Folk Music & Copyright Issues

Jeremy Piller and I discuss the Intellectual Property Protection Act and some other copyright issues. He shares the history of folk music and how it wouldn’t exist with copyright protection.

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