Posts filed under 'Doing business'
Jason Womack
(GTD Coach, triathlete and all round good guy) joined Donna and me for dinner last night and we had a great time. Among other things, we talked about an
improv principle that Johnnie Moore uses
a lot: “make the other person look good.” Jason liked the idea, but suggested that it need not be limited to improv.
In fact, Jason has
prepared
a thirty second “elevator pitch” for each of his loved ones and colleagues. So now, when Jason talks about or introduces his wife, for example, he does so with a succint, positive “pitch.” A brilliant, and very generous idea.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept, Collegegrad.com provides a
simple explanation of elevator pitching
and a nice
sample script
, and there is a frighteningly thorough
guide to personal elevator pitching
at wikiHow (via
Recruiting.com
). Those suggestions might seem a bit impersonal, especially for introducing a loved one, so be sure to play round with your pitch.
In
How to distinguish yourself in a crowded marketplace
, Michael Lovas advocates making elevator pitches relevant to the listener and introducing some kind of visual metaphor.
Probably best not to get too hung up on how - just prepare some good things to say about your nearest and dearest, then go out and make them look good.
Thanks, Jason. Have a good flight home.
January 28th, 2006
This is great news for Outlook users:
NEO (short for Nelson Email Organizer) is now available for free
.
NEO works with Outlook to index your e-mail and gives you several new ways to categorise and work with your contacts and messages. Your mail is still sent and received by Outlook, but you handle it in NEO. On installation, NEO syncs with Outlook to categorise your existing messages, then automatically stays in sync as you send and receive. Any plug-ins that you use in Outlook still work - I use
SpamBayes
, for example, to filter spam.
NEO works with Outlook’s folder system, so I have now set up a folder for each of my projects. This means that I can have mails from person X stored in more than one folder (because X is working with me on more than one project) and I can have mails from several different people stored in folder Y because all those people are working on that one project. If mail is not specific to a project, I file it in a single Reference folder, which I have nominated in NEO as my “Quick File” - I simply press ctrl-i and the message is filed.
Of course all that sounds like a recipe for disaster when it comes to finding mail again later, and it would be if I was relying on Outlook alone. But NEO provides not just a folder view, but a Correspondent view as well. Using Outlook Folders, I can view all messages related to a given project, regardless of who sent them. Using Correspondent view, I can view all messages to and from a given person, regardless of project.
If NEO doesn’t recognise an incoming or outgoing email address, it automatically creates a new Correspondent “file,” which it keeps in the New section of the Correspondent view. Periodically, you can check and amend the properties of New Correspondents before making them Current. Correspondent “files” can handle multiple email addresses too - it’s a simple drag and drop to set that up.
If you don’t send or receive mail from someone for a while, the Correspondent is moved into the Dormant part of the view. You can specify how long any Correspondent should be held in New or Current, before being moved. Bulk mail - newsletters and such - are similarly dealt with. It’s a real time saver to be able to “Quick File” all my newsletters into Reference, but still see each newsletter individually in the Bulk Mail view.
If that’s not enough, NEO’s search, unlike Outlook’s, is lightning fast.
If you are used to Outlook, this is a slightly different way of thinking about email, but the learning curve is not steep and
NEO provides truly excellent demos and tutorials
.
, take note: I now feel much more confident about filing e-mail and I find myself far less resistant to processing my inbox. The other surprise benefit is, now I no longer use Outlook for email handling, I have been able to make it a far more productive space for managing projects and tasks (hint: close Outlook’s distracting folder explorer and remove all e-mail-related icons from the Outlook Bar).
How good is NEO? Since I downloaded NEO Free at the weekend, it has become indispensable. The only thing I miss about the Outlook email interface is the ability to
tickle email
. In every other respect, NEO is superior. I have joined the referral programme, so I make a few dollars if you click a link here and buy the souped up PRO version, but to be honest I can’t see myself making a great deal of money when the Free version is so good. Seriously, if you are an Outlook user,
download NEO Free now
.
October 6th, 2005
I know at least one of the regular readers here is planning a white paper, so this
research data on white paper title effectiveness
from Marketing Sherpa is timely. Follow the link now, because the article will be subscription only after 16 October. The research looks at some of the 3.5 million white papers downloaded from CNET Networks B2B sites over the past 24 months, in a bid to find which titles were the most popular, in particular with highly qualified prospects, as opposed to those who are just window shopping.
Key research findings - your white paper will be downloaded by more interested prospects if you:
-
Keep your white paper title short and simple:
Long titles, puns, jargon and brand names turn prospects off, whereas a scannable, relevant title will generate a lot of downloads from interested prospects. “Hook, Line and Sinker: Phishing attacks going professional” is a no no. “Phishing and the Threat to Corporate Networks” works well.
-
Break long titles up:
If you must use a long title then use a colon to break it up, like this: “Hosted CRM vs. In-House: Which Direction Should Your Company Take?”
-
Use the present participle:
Which means offer
ing
action steps eg “Eliminat
ing
,” “Identify
ing
,” “Prevent
ing
,” and so on
-
Check your search keyword statistics:
Once you have identified what your prospects are searching for, include those keywords in your white paper title. The difference might seem subtle, but the impact could be big. For example, white papers with “spyware” in the title were 77% more likely to be downloaded than white papers titled “anti-spyware,” because prospects typically search using the name of the problem they hope to solve, rather than name of the solution.
Lots of common sense here, but worth a read nonetheless.
October 6th, 2005
Last week I met up with
Dwayne Melancon
and Chris Morgan from IT firm
Tripwire
and
James Governor
from analyst firm
RedMonk
. I am afraid that the more technical parts of the discussion went over my head, but I was delighted that my hunch to put James together with the Tripwire guys was a good one. We talked about
IBM
,
VMware
,
the theory of constraints
and
the name RedMonk
, among other things. Chris gave James a good natured grilling about
analyst ethics and marketing
. And there was some
drinking
.
To my mind, the story behind the meeting is nearly as interesting as the conversation we shared. Dwayne told Hawaiian business coach
that he would be travelling to London. Rosa replied to Dwayne and emailed me to say “why don’t you two meet up?” Dwayne and I duly emailed one another and started to work out a date. Dwayne also invited me to join him on
. When I saw all the enterprise IT guys in Dwayne’s network, I realised that it would be good to introduce James, so we set that up. Dwayne brought Chris along and that was the final team sheet.
Rosa, Dwayne and I had never met face to face. We communicate by a mixture of email, blogs, LinkedIn and telephone - no one element would have been enough to fix this up. A few days later when I read this quote from
Adrian McEwen
, reporting on
Ben Hammersley
at
Our Social World
, I had to smile:
We have new concepts of friendship, of how to work together, of relationships…
This is how we can get people all over the world to connect to each other, and although it seems ridiculously far-fetched at the minute, it will change the world in huge ways.
September 9th, 2005
Kathy Sierra at
Creating Passionate Users
posted
Build something cool in 24 hours
yesterday, based on an idea for total immersion / ultra-rapid game development from the wonderfully named game developer, Squirrel Eiserloh:
The notion is this: stick people in a house for 48 hours, with a goal to have something created at the end… participants may be collaborating (like building a game together) or working alone (musicians composing, writers writing, etc.). The key is the process - a process that forces you to supress the “inner judges” that stifle creativity, and gives you not just permission but an order to create as much as possible, as fast as possible… even if what you end up with is 97% crap.
The point is to learn something valuable from the experience… by working under the ad-hoc/jam constraints, you’re able to “improve your craft” and discover things about yourself and the work that you might never find in your traditional work environment… What could take weeks, months, or years to evolve suddenly happens in hours.
Great stuff - and just the kick in the pants I need to get one or two of my projects really moving again. It’s like a
vertical day
on steroids.
The thing is the team-working part of this reminded me of an incident that took place when I was a conference producer. I had put together a conference on manufacturing and, then as now, teams were a hot topic. The speaker I invited to talk about teams promised to be provocative and - bless him - he was (Note to all conference speakers: provocative is good).
Half way through his presentation he stops dead and says:
Let’s take a break. Together with the people at your table, design me a dog walking machine. You have five minutes from now. Go!
There were half a dozen people at each table, so we all turned to face one another and got to work. Or at least we thought we got to work. Afterwards, the speaker sketched the various machines on a board and made jokes about how
the consultants who were sponsoring the conference
had come up with an effective, but
very expensive
solution
, and we all had a laugh at the speaker’s suggested machine which included a roller skate and a large spike (sorry dog lovers).
Eventually someone asked the speaker: “Why the dog walking machines?” His reply was illuminating:
A bit of fun. And to prove a point. When I started the clock on your five minutes, how many of you got straight to work? And how many of you took a few seconds to overcome embarrassment? Then you had a round of introductions, which you should have done this morning when you first arrived, but you were too nervous, or because you had introduced yourselves this morning, but you’ve forgotten each others’ names. Then you passed round business cards. Then you didn’t say or contribute anything because you didn’t want the others to know that you
didn’t have the right answer
. Then, with probably thirty seconds to go,
one of you
sketched the first thing he could think of and showed it to the rest of you. You all thought “I could do better than that” but you all approved his design, because - uh oh - time’s up.
So please understand - working in teams is tough. You cannot just come to the door of your executive suite and pronounce to your people “I want you all to work in teams.”
We
are supposed to be at the top of our field, the best of the best. And if
we
can’t work together in a team on a simple, fun task, then how will
your people
take to being stuffed into a new way of working, for eight or more hours a day, with their livelihoods at stake?
I love the simplicity, the purity of Kathy’s idea - in fact I am inspired to jam solo on a web project this weekend - but when teams are involved, especially in a work context, things can get tricky. Some participants may be less committed to team working; some may be concerned that the boss will get credit and their good ideas will be glossed over. Some may have forceful personalities; others may have great ideas, but speak too softly to be heard. Some may even be determined to sabotage the process.
None of these things are insurmountable problems, especially not if there is good management and facilitation before, during and after the jam (think
Rosa Say
,
Lisa Haneberg
and
Johnnie Moore
for starters). But whatever you do, don’t just go to the door of your executive suite and pronounce to your people: “I want you all to build something cool in 24 hours.”
Jam sessions, then, may well be another one of those areas where
simplicity is hard work
.
August 25th, 2005
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