urban-fox

Talented people aren’t in it for the money, or the glory, or an easy life – they are about INTEREST. Are they interested in you and your business? If they aren’t they will leave.

It is about ZERO INTEREST.

• Yes, employees need to be managed well.
• Yes, employees need paying well.
• Yes, employees need respect.
• Yes, employees like to be listened too.

That’s the easy bit – but what isn’t easy is creating an interest – and passion for the business.

The things that really excites people is not doing a good job, but doing a new job. Getting on with the latest “stuff” – whatever that “stuff” is – new technology, new customers, new partners, new offices, new tools, new anything!

People will work in all sorts of conditions if they are excited about what they are doing – take away that excitement all they have is pay and conditions and colleagues.

If you’re interested in something – then you engage with the something.

So when the management, the pay, the respect, the location, the product, and value you add to the business you work for is low – and there is nothing NEW – you get to the point of no return. The point of ZERO INTEREST!

Some people can do a job with ZERO INTEREST – but the Top Talent can’t – and they are the people that will drive your business to the next level.

We all have the day to day to live with – but regardless of if you run a business, a department, one employee or a home – only you can turn that zero interest into HERO INTEREST!

• Create a vision and develop a roadmap
• Tell people how they going to be part of that journey
• Be aspirational and inspirational

I often wonder is cloud computing is just the response to stupid IT leaders who have the inability to say “no” to the business as they have built solutions that they can’t support anymore. Sadly, I’m not sure cloud is the answer – as more often than not things are in such a ‘buggers muddle’ that there is zero escape to the cloud for them – and that the belief the building a way out is the only solution.

I’m a great believer that you need to think long-term – sometimes this has the effect that you don’t move forward quickly – but when you do – it’s the right thing and you can keep moving and scaling. IT is an investment, not a weekly grocery shop.

So, a few weeks ago I was in a meeting talking about a new application – it didn’t look anything special – but  I could see the advantages to the business.  Great. Progress. The time-scales were good, the business could benefit quickly with a few tweaks here and there from the core.

The next bit shocked me – I’m not sure if it was visible on my face – I said nothing. The existing solution was to be acquired as a fully owned licence and then developed in-house away from the core for the tweaks and additional internal development. Leaving the likelihood of not being able to upgrade or take advantages of the core application and features in the years to come, and the only upgrade path was to be internal development.

Technology is moving at such a pace that anyone who does not have a core feature set to build-on is being left behind.

Just take Social Media – the amount of ‘botched’ bolt-ons I’ve seen stuck on to legacy eCommerce platforms to even try and keep up is. Why waste time developing these core features that should be a ‘given’ – when the real ‘value add’ is about the leveraging the internal business processes and streamlining this.

Am I missing something? Beam me up!

Social Media has broken down a number of barriers that were previously in place. From queuing and waiting your turn. to appreciating your own space and respecting other peoples, and simple politeness.

The lazy language of texting and instant messaging is one thing, it’s not rude – but what I fear is that virtual life is impacting how we interact in real-life – the ability to hide behind social media makes it seems we are always just interacting with a computer and not another human being.

On the way to Stockholm I experienced two things – the first was very polite and witty conversation with a couple of guys on the T5 pods from the car parking. Respecting the loose queuing arrangements and holding a conversation about the world on our short journey.

The second started during boarding when this young man arrived next to be, with little regard for my space and the social etiquette of a stray dog. Bang, crash, and then proceeded to take up as much space as he could without any regards for those around him. Prompting me to tweet about his rudeness. Did I tell him I thought he was a #twat, no, but did I ask for him to share the arm rest, of course (which he did).

Keep Your Distance

With social media also comes virtual space – places that are yours – places where you can do and say what you like when you like. Equally, in there social spaces you can bump into people, tread on their toes – nobody cares as you don’t get cuts and bruises, or coffee spilt down  your shirt – and you can’t do it to others either. So, why would anyone want to act differently in real-life?

Getting Home – Zero Commute

Good mornings and hellos are hard to find these days – just sitting at your desk interacting in a virtual space – connected – just not with those around you. If you working in the digital work from home, when it’s home time, you can just press shut down, flip the lid – and your home safely. No need for goodbyes or farewells.

We have so much information going on – it’s simple just not to engage – and it seems that nobody minds this erosion and isolation.

 Wait Your Turn

You may have seen a few recent tweets of mine – kicking off about Sky being a shower of sh*t. I thought it was 18 months heading up sales that introduced me to the ‘kick of first, apologise later (if you have too), but I now realise social media allows you to do that in relative safety. Of course there are the few cases when you get turned away from airports or arrested for threatening national security, but on the whole – it either helps you get what you want without a lawyer, let’s you express and share your deepest misfortunes you wish upon someone or something – with no real consequence.

 So unlike real-life when if you go up to someone and tell them you think they’re a #twat there might be a physical consequence – and I got pretty close on that flight believe me!

I’m looking at web solutions for business – and it’s really interesting how my attitude has changes to open source platforms. I’ve used open source for a number of years for personal projects, but not with any seriousness for commercial applications – but the landscape has changed significantly with real business models being made available and ones that work.

Open Source and the Internet have always gone “hand in hand” – the early and better developed open source platforms and tools enabled the web to build better communities outside the corporate space, enabling them to grow and develop and mature themselves – often in themselves. And now the web is an integral part of corporate life, and with the transition from the home and into the office the final part is near completion with social media.

This leads to a number of challenges to the corporate IT people – do you let them in to do your business critical work. Of course there have always been the techies who have embraced technologies with little or no organisation pedigree – because it’s ‘free’ – because it’s “not Microsoft” etc.

Now open source platforms and tools do have organisations behind them – people you can poke and kick (when you pay for and need support) – open source becomes an altogether different proposition for running a business on. But are they any different from the ‘legacy’ software companies who have made their money on closed code?

Well yes, with the old closed code model – the relationship was built on commercial trust – I pay you, you give me a product. With open source you get more in the same transaction – you get the design – and the ability to question and review (should you wish). And with this you get a whole new level of trust.

People have to make money – we should never stop people making money – without we wouldn’t have any ourselves. Now open source tools and platforms have reached the maturity to have sound and secure business models there is no reason why business can’t embrace just as much, if not more than closed source solutions.

I’m now two weeks into my new job – and right now it seems like a fantastic place to be. Gem seems like a great place to work, nice people, a good business – yes, I’ve got a few challenges ahead with my role but it’s all do-able with hard-work and the right attitude.

I knew that leaving my old company would be the best thing I could do – I feel I’ve got a lot more energy – I worked very hard there – and wasn’t emotionally rewarded for it. My bucket was empty.

I’m a great believer in “choosing your mood” no matter how bad you feel – the expression you wear on your face makes a massive difference. When you force yourself to smile it lifts you somehow – and it also lifts the people around you. Some things we have to do just chip away at us – digs us into that rut. But, as I always say people vote with their feet. Vote now.

Experience matters a lot – if you always win, you never know what it is like to lose. If you always get it right, you can never learn from your mistakes – if you don’t work in different organisations you can never tell what is a good one, from a bad one – you can’t get that feeling of when something feels right or wrong.

However, wherever you are, you do have to work hard to do your best – try your hardest – work to the best of your abilities. Sometimes you don’t need to ‘choose your mood’ as you’re already in the best mood to work and focus and do a great job – but if you’re not then make sure you set yourself up to win and learn – because if you don’t you just dig yourself deeper and deeper and deeper – and you’re worth more than that!

1. Choose your mood – everyday – don’t let someone else choose it for you.
2. Work hard – always try you best – work hard.
3. Have a game plan – where do you want to be in one year – in five years?

I’ve got a fantastic challenge ahead of me taking responsibility for IT in a new company to me – nothing that is making me nervous but a lot of ground that needs to be covered quickly. I’ve had similar challenges, and I’ll have some again in the future – but it got me thinking what are the high-level steps I should be taking, I’ll have a million and one things to do, and how to get to the point where I can say to my “boss” we need to be doing X, Y and Z with confidence and by applying my experience and talents – and knowing it is the right thing to be doing.

Well, I pulled together frame-work to ensure I don’t miss anything – in those first few weeks and months, and to prioritise my time and effort.

The one thing IT does well (not the only think I hope) is that crosses all areas of the business. I have broken it into three key areas:

• Business
• Technology
• People

Business is about what and how the organisation generates revenue and what is required to support that generation. This is what IT exists for.

Technology looks into the infrastructure, systems and support mechanisms to enable the business to function. This is how IT supports the business.

People cover the human capital and how they interact with each other and the organisation. These are the people that deliver the business process, apply the technology, and provide the leadership.

Of course there is more detail beyond these headlines – and crucially you can’t do everything in one day – it will takes several days, weeks and months to get your head around things.

Business

So looking at the Business, I’ve broken this is seven sections –

1. Your Products & Services – what do you do, why do you do it, who are your customers?
2. How Does The Business Make Money – where do the revenue and profits come from? Who are the key customers?
3. Company Vision – where is the company going, what is the future, who is driving it to those objectives?
4. Company Finances – what shape is the company in – does it manage debtors and creditors? How is the P&L and Balance Sheet?
5. Supply Chain & Suppliers – how are suppliers managed and treated – is stock an issue? Who are the key suppliers?
6. Your Functions Finances – what shape are you departments Finances – cost centre, over budget, key projects? Where is IT money being spent?
7. Key Business Projects – following on the from vision, what are the key business projects?

Technology

The Technology area is next – and another seven sections to review.

1. Key IT Projects (and Business Alignment) – what are the major things going on that are getting the board attention and the resources of IT?
2. Core Systems  - what systems does the business rely on, how do they link internally, what are the DR options, who looks after them etc.
3. Core Infrastructure – how does the infrastructure hang together, WAN, LAN, different sites and who looks after them?
4. Direct/In Direct Areas – the scope of IT is wide what does it include/exclude – what things might bite you (security, mobiles etc.)
5. Service & Support Structure – how is IT engaged for issues and requests, what are the SLA, escalation points?
6. External Suppliers & Relationships – who are the important suppliers, who owns the relationships and are they in good shape?
7. “Burning Fires” – what do you need to do right now (this can also extend to People!)?

People

Finally, People, and of course the final seven.

1. Company Values & Culture – what are the core values (are the written ones the same as the actual ones?), who is important, do all sites share the same values and culture, who drives the culture?
2. Your Peers and Senior Team – who are you peers, what do they do, who do they influence, when will you interact with your boss, and your bosses boss? What do other group companies do and who’s in then?
3. Your People – who are the key players, what are their skill sets, are they happy? Are they looking forward to change?
4. Other People – who do you need support from? Does everyone know who you are?
5. IT Perception In The Business – what do people think of IT? Peers, ground-level and senior staff
6. Suppliers and Business Partners – who are they, what do they support, what are the dangers and costs and what is the relationship and service like?
7. Politics – “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” (enough said there I feel).

So THREE key areas, TWENTY ONE sections – I guess I’d better get cracking – at least I know where I’m going to start.

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology – but I just hope we get a grip soon – as we seem to be sleepwalking into convergence. I’m pleased
with my Andriod phone, and I quite looking forward to using my new contactless Barclaycard too – and can’t wait for them to hook together in one device (I know Nokia are leading the way there).

I’m a big LinkedIn advocate, and I use Facebook for my private life – and there is some overlap – but not a great deal and I like to keep it that way. However, it seems that it’s getting harder and harder to keep the two separately privately.

I deliberately don’t use the Facebook app on my phone anymore as it synced up all my contacts with Facebook – automatically. Then LinkedIn is the same. WhatApps too – all these apps mostly don’t even ask if I wanted to share this data – and then offer recommendation for who I should connect too – and this data then goes where? Into the “Social Borg”. Another chunk of my privacy gone! Brilliant

And this thing about “checking-in” – are these people crazy? Where you go, when you go – how you go? Really how useful is that to you – it’s not. But it is to people that want to profile you – to sell things – to monitor you it’s great. Something else to track you with.

So what’s it’s all about – it’s all about money – making money – it’s not adding value to us in anyway – it’s just keeping us occupied, busy
on our mobiles and iPads. Ask yourself this question – of all the time you spend on your mobile – how much is actually useful?  Very little!

The Social Borg is just a mass of “big data” but it is being assimilated and being used to great effect – but by just a few organisations. It’s not adding value to your life – but we are getting to a point where we are living, breathing and earning from this information – our jobs and livelihoods in these organisations – they feed from and they feed us from this information we are pumping into the Social Borg.

Nobody with an internet or network connection has a private life – someone somewhere knows everything about you within a few meters – and it’s just going to get more detailed, more accurate and more intrusive.

So what are we going to do about it? Nothing – it keeps us entertained – but it is going to fragment society from those that want and need privacy, from those that don’t – but at some point we all need to be left alone.

In the first part of this post I discussed how doing a few little things, multiplies into bigger things – the sum of the parts are greater
than the individual items. There is always a challenge that if you take your eye off one ball, but you to have focus on all of them. The three parts of the Numbers Game formulae are:

1)     Opportunities – do you have any deals

2)     Profitability – are you making money on each deal?

3)     Close Ratio – how many are you closing?

As I said, the challenge is to keep your eye on the balls! Great, so you may know what opportunities there are – but are you closing them? Are you making money from them? Or maybe you’re great at closing deals, but aren’t very good at getting deals.

The bigger challenge is really how do you focus on the important stuff – the stuff that you probably not so good at – but don’t lose sight of the other things – and what new things could you be doing?

Think – What Could You Do

So where do you start? There are loads of tools to get creative – but simple spider diagrams and mind mapping is a great way (of
course if you wanted to do this as a group, simple brain-storming might be a better way).

Make you diagram as extensive and detailed as you can – there is going to be some very business specific items on yours I’m sure. Don’t
be afraid of the detail – get right in there. If you don’t know the detail of your business then is it really YOUR business?

Prioritise – What Should You Do

So what are you going to do next? What is important to get things moving? Take your spider diagram and make a list of what is important and what isn’t – what is achievable and what isn’t – who should do it and when?

So what is important? Well focus on the short-term and simple – immediate impact on your revenue and profit – HOWEVER – not at the expense of the medium and long-term revenue and profit. For example, you could use much cheaper stock to increase your profits this month, but I’m not sure your customers will come back next month!

Another great little tool to help you sort things out in your head is the Important vs Urgent quadrant.

The aim of this quadrant is to work out what is Important and what is Urgent. Important things need to be done more than Urgent things – the theory is the Important things will become Urgent or impact you significantly unless you do them. Try it.

Act – Do It

Now this is the hard one – the commitment – actions speak louder than words (or priority lists).

Are you serious about this or not?

Get on and do it – remember from part one, just the little things make a difference – get out of those lazy ways. Focus on the important
stuff – the stuff you just listed.

If you have a diary then put 30 minutes in your diary to do something on this list EVERYDAY!

Review – Are You Making A Difference

So when do you get to the end? Sadly, never. This is a never ending task of improvement – doing this better. Evolving, but also making a
step change at times.

You’re started the process, and you need to start it again, and again over the coming weeks and months. But remember to focus on those
three things –

1)     Opportunities – do you have any deals

2)     Profitability – are you making money on each deal?

3)     Close Ratio – how many are you closing?

And if you keep your focus on those – and you work hard – then I promise you will achieve your goals for revenue and profit.

Information Is Key – Track It

Finally, have you ever being playing a sport and you forget the score? Maybe a game of football, squash, tennis – whatever. Isn’t it
frustrating – you can’t agree with the other side on the score. If you’re not tracking things – the number of goals you score and they score – then how are you going to know the score?

If you have customers then make sure you keep their details – if you quote them then make sure you keep track of the quotes and chase them down. Understand why you have won? Understand why you have lost – so you can win them next time!

Link to Part 1 – http://www.urban-fox.net/wp/?p=306

I had the privilege of seeing Lord Digby speak earlier this
year – he’s one of those people who put things into ‘my bucket’ a bit of ‘feel-good’
during these tough-times. I always enjoy two things he has the skill and ability
to do, the first is to tell it like it is and cut through the political
correctness and politics. The second is to make you smile with his sense of
humour and the ability to see the positive is things. He also has one more
quality that I really admire – the pro-Britishness – this nation is great!

During the talk, well more like an economic and business
comedy show to be honest – he spoke about 3 things people need to say, and one
thing people need to do to get more out of business and life. It’s not rocket
science, but something I’d just not heard out into words together before.

Sorry – mean it. And it means a lot if you mean it. Apologising
for your mistake, your company’s mistake does makes a difference, and back that
up with a real fix (if that is required) and you will have an advocate for
life. Often the best customers and employee comes from the worst mistakes if
they are handled correctly – but fixing those mistakes all start with a sorry.

Thank-you –say it. It costs nothing, it’s free – honest. Try
it. People needs to be loved – can remember the last time someone said “thank-you”
to you? How did it make you feel? “You did a great job yesterday, thank-you!”.
It has power, it means something, and it costs nothing. But not saying “thank-you”
can costs you something, in recruitment fees, and loss of customers to name a
few.

Please – feel it. So it’s someone job and they are being
paid to do it – but saying “please” makes a big difference. “Please can you get
the report done before you go home.” – or – “Please can you send me the PO”.
Saying please is not about begging, it’s about being polite.

Finally, my favourite (I like them all by the way)…

Be Cheerful – have you ever tried to “bollock” someone who
is cheerful? Being positive is a great tonic – those positive energy waves gets
things done with less effort – and make people want to work harder and do more.
Yes, we all have our off-days – but it’s fact optimistic people earn more and are
happier. So choose your mood.

So, it’s halfway through November and my ‘tash’ is appalling. I hate it, I really hate it – however – I do know that I’d hate to have Prostate or Testicular Cancer even more. I’m not saying that growing my ‘tash’ I won’t get either, but if I can make even a small dent to either prevent it, help cure those with it, or even help people have some more dignity then it has to be a good thing.

Donate to the Urban-Tash – http://mobro.co/urbanfox (you can see the latest progress there too)

The Facts and Figures

• 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime – you will know someone!
• 40,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed each year, and over 10,000 die.
• Testicular cancer in the UK affects younger men between the ages of 20 and 50, and about 2,000 men are diagnosed with the disease each year.
• The most common cancer in the UK for men is prostate cancer and for women breast cancer.
• Only a quarter of men go to their GPs for regular check ups.

Want some more information… http://uk.movember.com/mens-health/

Why Is It Important To Me?

Well my own father survived prostate cancer ten years ago – he still has test every year – he’s still takes drugs daily to keep everything in check. If growing a tash can help someone else hang onto their Father then it has to be a good thing.

However, sadly my wife’s father wasn’t so lucky. Two years after my own father was in remission he died after a very late diagnosis for the same disease.

Make no mistake these are killers – so check yourself out!

So, that’s why it’s important to me – it could be your father, it could be your uncle, your brother, your son! Help do something about it!

Donate to the Urban-Tash – http://mobro.co/urbanfox