What time is it?

In business today, it’s about meetings, working with people you have to and not always who you chose to, time poor projects and accomplishing long work lists while cramming everything into longer and longer days.

So did you spend the last 10 minutes or the last hour, or the last day with the right people, working on what makes you happy? Were you productive in the sense that you got a feeling of satisfaction working with people of integrity and credibility? Did you deliver in the last week, to the people that matter the most?

Time was, and didn’t it go slowly at first, you had plenty to spare and the future offered only opportunities. It soon became apparent distractions, people who didn’t believe in you, money to be earnt, relationships squandered and parties got in the way of that future. So the time you spent at work, and it’s been significant, went by in a blur and you wonder if anyone noticed?

With hindsight we look back and see not much has changed. There are still distractions but they seem larger in the form of mortgages, car payments and gas bills. People in general still don’t care or believe in you but unlike in your youth, it’s more difficult to walk away as they likely sit next to you at work. You still work hard on increasing the dollars while parties have long since morphed into work BBQs and long dinners with colleagues.

Yet aren’t you in control of your life? Don’t you make decisions to suit yourself? Isn’t time more important now?

There will always be work parameters that constrict your imagination and complicate plans you have for the future. There will always be incidents and accidents that distract you from your goals. In fact a multitude of happenings can distract and take your focus from things that matter.

So before the hours turn into days, turn into weeks and time slips by, consider the importance of working with only the right people, using time wisely to spend with them and delivering what you are passionate about. You can always earn another dollar but you can’t get back your last 10 minutes especially if they weren’t spent well. Just like you can fire a negative and high maintenance client, think about doing the same to the people who block you at every turn.

Spend your time delivering on promises to yourself and most importantly to the people that matter. You know who they are in your office, the ones ready to support your ideas and do the favours without agendas. The people outside of your work circle, who matter most, are just as important for you to deliver without distraction of politics and negativity. The days of putting up with scathing negativity, scorn and aggression towards your thinking have to be behind you.

Find your supporters, it may be a small group to begin with but they have the capacity to motivate, energise and push you higher than you think possible. Spend those valuable 10 minutes with people who get you, who want to work with you and who believe in you.

Take a minute, take 10, to think about the last hour, the last day and ask yourself was it worth it and did I spend it with the right people. Don’t compromise your time, it can’t be replaced.

What time is it?

What about?

We all have a relationship with iTunes, Amazon or any of a multitude of online shopping aggregators and have no doubt looked at recommendations and gaped at the ability to read our thoughts. Early on I marvelled at the books the Amazon engine threw up at me, which contained elements of everything I was reading and everything I wanted to read and at the time seemed to be reading my mind. As my searches grew wider, so did the recommendations. I no longer marvel but I certainly glance through the latest list, of what Amazon think will pique my interest because there is a comfort in not searching endlessly for the next best read.

Forester Research states a good recommendation engine is worth a lot of money as one third of all customers who view recommendations end up buying from that list. Like most I vaguely understand the machinations behind such engines driven by enormous amounts of data collected from years of browsing and buying, crowd sourcing, opinions and future trending.

A technique often used by music sites called collaborative filtering works on yours and the crowd’s behavior when buying and browsing on the net. The systems may not know anything about music or books but they work their algorithms on behavious and reactions of crowds and high rating individuals. I often give the Amazon machine a twist as I search for needlecraft and assembling antique dolls, neither of which I am interested in, but I love to see what the engine throws back at me and keeps for future reference. Who’s in charge here?

The engines came along because we were drowning in choices and needed someone or something to help us swim to safety. In 1994 there were 500 thousand different consumer goods for sale in the USA. Amazon now sells 24 million alone. So to ease our anxiety with this surplus we retreat to systems that make the choices for us based on past decisions and algorithmic crowd sourcing mathematics.

There are issues that arise out of this technology and building a Blockbuster mentality where only the top sellers survive and keeping the consumer in comfort zones from which they never stray are the biggest. I now don’t marvel at the refined choices given to me but I’m also not amazed very often by finding something new. Are we in a technology rut?

So without so much as a thought for my own safety I have dived back into the pool of choice but I have a novel idea for a lifesaver to show me a new way to the shore. Why not talk to people and use their experiences and ideas as your recommendation engine? A technology recommendation engine will never drag you to a new opening of an exhibition or a new movie to discover and delight in something new. Go talk to a travel agent with an open mind and ask them where to go you might be surprised and amazed.

Before we outsource all our thinking and opinions to technology it might be worth another go round to see what your best friend or your partner has to say.

When was the last time you were amazed?

R.O.I. - S.M.

People are having discussions and arguments around social media and social commerce and its ability to bring real cash to the table. Twitter and the rest of the social media platforms have as many detractors as they do fans but the future and the sustainability of the new media will rely on the ability to measure results and then use that to profit from the new channels.

The hype, the wave of excitement, the phenomena of the local and international connections, and the panacea for all marketing ills along with anecdotal evidence of miraculous results are all hooks used to describe social media nirvana. So why the push back? Are expectations being raised too high, amongst the business community, that social media really can bring you new customers, loyal follows and zealots pushing your brand? That’s been the message but the hype is dying down and it’s now time to get past the anecdotal and come up with true results.

A 2009 study by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education reported that 84% of professionals didn’t measure social media results, even though they whole heartily participated and believed in the marketing. Is that because it is such a young media and there was not enough past evidence of success to benchmark against or was it just bloody hard to figure out how to measure success?

With the average consumer seeing 1 million marketing messages a year (3000 per day) and statistics stating that only 14% of the public trusted those traditional advertising channels social media would seem to be the champion of sales and marketing for the future. With 78% of consumers stating they trust peer recommendation over the old advertising platforms some pundits pointed to social commerce having the ability to move a brand or idea from something you love to something you participate in and buy. With the barriers to participate in social media mostly free, everyone jumped on a band wagon and we learnt some quick truths about the tribal life online. We are what we join, we are what we read and we are what we are interested in.

So are we being too hard, after all it’s not like traditional advertising always came up with believable numbers when measuring results. Where an ad in the paper seemed to bring results, we could never be certain it wasn’t something else that generated extra sales.

So do we look at obvious clues such as increased numbers, more engagement and conversions along with awareness to justify our involvement with social media? Or is our inability to measure worthwhile data just another indication that we don’t have control over this tidal wave of social media?

Either way, we have a long way to go before the arguments stop and there is agreement on Return On Investment of Social Media to bring consistent profit results.

Recruitment TV.

The new financial year always brings the next migration, not of Wildebeests, but job hunters looking for greener pastures, a sea change or a pot of gold. Most people do it quietly and seruptisciously, so as to avoid the boss finding out. Some are prepared to do it via head hunters and recruiters, willing to pay someone else to find their dream job. Others do it in the open glare of the TV lights looking for reality fame to provide them escape from their humdrum lives.

With the economy heading to so called zero unemployment, people have the confidence of a future with different directions and the attraction of becoming the next Jamie Oliver holds sway.

Watching shows like Masterchef, I wonder if anyone is happy with their job. Seems the lawyers, bankers, IT specialists and others on this show can’t wait to leave their 60 hour work week on 6 figures to work in stressfully hot kitchens for 70 hours and half the pay. Replacing glamour with grease the kitchen hopefuls cook for their lives and future. I wonder how many of their employers were aware of their dissatisfaction with their working life or did they find out the first time they saw them on TV? Employers are always looking for the star performer but how do the employers manage their staff after they have been eliminated early on in the series, knowing they really don’t want to be at work anymore?

Traffic and real estate used to be the water cooler or Xerox machine conversations we all had to have, to fit in, but culinary expertise and the obsession with food and owning our own piece of culinary paradise have made inroads on our small talk psyche. The next generations aren’t looking for the quarter acre lot anymore, they are looking to cook in a suitably trendy and taste appreciative suburb near you.

The recruitment companies are saying it is a backlash to a life of processing in an office where people are pidgeon holed without a future. I would love to ask one of the Masterchef hopefuls, after spending a couple of years chopping, dicing and scouring if they haven’t just substituted one process for another?

Be careful what you wish for.

Certainly the mantra of creativity can be heard whenever someone talks about opening their own café or restaurant but that can be quickly pushed aside as they prepare their ten thousandth chicken schnitzel meal because their signature dish didn’t quite make it. As much as the public talk about food experimentation and gourmet experiences, the majority of eateries find a menu that pays the bills and proceed to replicate that forever. Not sure but that sounds a lot like a mind numbing process?

So what to make of the TV hopefuls carrying their speciality dish as the one and only line on their CV. Is this the new employment media? Will we see a SEEK channel along with before and after episodes of successful job applicants. Or a Recruitment Survivor channel where employers get to put prospects through torture before hiring the winner?

Or is this just one new recruitment channel to go with the rest of the social media channels making it easier for the next migration to take place?

Is service dead?

Or are our expectations so low after dealing with some providers, that we paint everyone else with the “you must have the same crappy service as the last guy” brush?

Technology company RightNow, has found that 28% of consumers admitted they would stick with a company even if they were dissatisfied because they believed that competitors were likely to be just as unsatisfactory. That’s a telling statistic for what we deal with on a daily basis and the latest American Express survey has Australia ranked equal last with Britain on measures of service satisfaction behind such countries as the US, France and India. Add to that, 81% of Australians thinking companies are taking their business for granted.

Some of our service level expectations can be unrealistic as we get caught in a cycle of service delivery that has no opportunity to shine because of our need for speed. We want everything now and we want everything to work all the time. Are we setting ourselves up for disappointment because of the need for instant gratification?

It’s easy to see that commoditised products have a tough patch to work in, with regards to service delivery, when everyone around them offers up the same thing. In Australia the telecommunications companies are the worst with a record 51% of consumers reporting a poor customer experience and 63% changing phone companies because of that bad service. We see it in travel constantly, as new products or airlines come online to great reviews but then fall into the mire of mediocrity. JetBlue in the US was excellent for a while and an industry leader in onboard innovation and service but others started to catch up and management didn’t react to the moment and now it’s too easy to switch to another airline as the JetBlue product becomes just another commodity and not an experience.

Sure you can love your customer to death if you are the funky, groovy, itty bitty niche provider of herbal soaps and candles at the local market but most of us need to deal with the giants daily and it’s getting to be a chore. If companies are serious about their service levels they could do worse than listen to Tom Peters the doyen of excellence for the past 25 years.

Excellence in service is all about people and the more companies allow their people to be creative and artistic in their responses to consumers, the more likely those consumers will encounter service excellence. One of Tom Peters favourite department stores, Nordstrom’s in the US, have an unwavering attitude to customer service. Their staff are empowered to do almost anything to satisfy the customer, from wrapping gifts bought at Macys to refunding snow chain purchases which Nordys don’t sell. They have set the benchmark for department store service because they allow their staff to create.

Seth Godin in his book Linchpin talks about being in the moment with your customer and that excellent service is a moving target. It defines what the consumer sees as quality right this minute and tomorrow if the company is great they’ll reset that expectation again. Seth hits the target when he says, service isn’t dead, what’s dead is our appreciation of service and a willingness to pay for it. The act of appreciating the extraordinary belongs to us the customers and the more we do it, the more we’ll get.

To create and connect with people who appreciate it, is the true art customer service. Are you an artist?

How smart are you?

I know I’m not as smart as I used to be; in fact I used to think I was smarter than I probably am. It’s all because people have stopped asking me questions, questions like the capital of Texas or how many zeros in a google. Because people have stopped asking, I don’t have to think as much anymore, so I’m probably getting dumber. Pictures of Jim Carrey start dancing around in my head when I read that.

Smart used to mean lots of things in the past but most of them had to do with knowledge and information. From remembering phone numbers, knowing the capital cities of all 196 countries to working out equations in your head, smart people were looked up to. All of this information and knowledge led to the perception of intelligence and power in people.

So why did they stop asking?

The net has made us all look smarter and by association with the worldwide web we have become smart, even if we weren’t. I no longer have to remember my 6 most important phone numbers. In fact I don’t have to remember any numbers as my phone will keep all 500 of them safe and readily accessible. Information in all its glory is no longer the prime advantage of smart people and has been showered upon all. The capital cities and anything you can think of can be found in a matter of seconds which will morph into nanoseconds in the future.

This information tidal wave is all consuming and it is thought that by next year the amount of information content on the net will surpass a zettabyte. That’s a billion trillion bytes, a figure I can’t imagine as I’ve lost the ability to do equations in my head. It is so large that all the words ever spoken by humans in the history of the world is estimated to be just 5 exabytes (huh?) or 1/200th of a zettabyte. Well that cleared it up for me or am I just being a smartarse? Maybe that’s all that is left for me to be?

Is information accessibility making us dumb?

The upside is I never have to think about or remember another thing for the rest of my life (imagine the exabytes of brain power I’m saving). Everything I think I know and should know, I can carry around in my phone computer and whip out at a moment’s notice to dazzle my audience with information brilliance. I may not even have to carry the phone around too much longer as futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts phones will be the size of blood cells within 25 years. How do I press the buttons?

So now I’m getting a little anxious about my relevance because no one has asked me a question in the last couple of weeks and I think I may become obsolete. I feel like I’m in a bad science fiction movie where my brain ends up in a glass jar. So what’s left for us to know if everyone knows the same things as you with a quick type into Google?

Take heart and don’t be fooled by the information generation who think all you need in life is Google and Facebook, as all this information needs to be analysed, comprehended, communicated and rationalised and that can only be done by, you guessed it, smart people. Tim O’Reilly once said the future belongs to data but the future belongs to the creative thinkers, analysts, artists and communicators.

Which are you and how smart are you?

The biscuits are back.

Is there a turnaround in business confidence? Are we seeing more employee movement as people finally explore new job opportunities? Are people going to work with a little more spring in their step?

Yes, because the biscuits are back.

Surely the pool and ping pong table, along with the massages and Friday drinks can’t be too far behind. It’s a cautious movement but I see the rice crackers changing into shortbread creams all the way to my favourite mint slices.

From a company viewpoint it is always a hard decision, when a crunch comes along, to decide what to cut out, especially when taking into account people’s feelings and expectations about their work environment. Too often items, management thinks are taken for granted are the first to go. Unfortunately people think it’s their inalienable right that staff perks include only the best of everything, after all, they’re worth it. It’s a thin line to navigate and understanding is required from both sides.

So what to make of the great biscuit resurgence and did everyone cut out the soft stuff?

Not if you look at the latest BRW list of top companies to work for in Australia. A list heavily weighted to service and technology companies like NetApp, Google and Diageo. The absence of travel companies this year may suggest that we are still waiting for the biscuits to return.

The top companies are in that position because the biscuits never disappeared and in fact the trend for these companies show an 11% increase in unique benefits along with a 7% increase in employees saying theirs is a fun place to work. The top companies were prepared to take the risk in keeping benefits and understood the importance of staff morale in relation to company profits and employees retention. Perks are what people discuss when they talk about great work environments and management gains trust and great relationships because of them.

Along with health benefits like gym memberships, free flu inoculations, flexible work practices and philanthropic activities to make staff proud it may all seem a bit expensive, but the alternative of a bad place to work are worse.

So are your biscuits back or is time to consider a move to Arnotts.

Fluffy slippers and trust.

A Robert Walters survey has found that 47.5% of respondents find working from home or on the move to be their best strategy and were not looking to come back to the office anytime soon.

In travel the home consultant has been around for a long time and with groups like MTA, Travel Managers and Travel Counsellors expanding daily, it comes as no surprise that other industries want to get on the band wagon.

Technology certainly allows the freedom to move about and with office rent escalating there should be an emphasis from many companies to send people home. There are of course issues, ranging from managing absentee staff to fragmenting teams and giving up control from an office environment.

With all of that to consider, there is only one question management needs to ask itself regarding staff working from home and it relates to trust from both sides. Do they trust the staff to achieve the results that seem to be so much easier to measure in the office? Do the staff trust management to keep them informed and connected? A company’s intimate working environment and team mentality depends to some extent on the relationship that CEOs and their executives have with the employees and this generally works better in an office set up.

So is this the new challenge, as we all head for the morning coffee in our pyjamas and fluffy slippers to do the emails at the breakfast table and then not get on the train and go to work at all?

Let me digress a moment and mention the people we all trust but who have no capacity to work from home.

For the 16th year in a row, nurses have retained their place at the top of the most trusted list, according to the Roy Morgan Image of Professionals survey. Along with pharmacists, doctors and dentists the top of the list is heavy with people you need to trust, sometimes with your life, sometimes with your teeth.

They all require office facilities and unless you are happy to have your teeth fixed on the lounge of the dentist in your street, they won’t have an opportunity others have to escape the normal office environment.

So those of you with the flexible work conditions should consider the trust management has put in you and maybe get dressed and work in the home office you have set up but never ventured into.

As an aside, it’s not a stretch to guess the bottom of the trust list and it includes TV reporters, newspaper journalists and opinion pollsters. Still further down, way below the sludge line, we have a couple of old favourites in the car salesman and the advertising executive who round out the bottom of the list and no doubt can never be trusted.

None of these people should be let out of the boss’ sight but you have the opportunity to show how the future will look when trust is given.

Soft, the new hard.

Business is often accused of being in love with hard numbers, the bottom line and avoiding tax, often to the detriment of people.. It’s obvious without a decent bottom line you won’t continue in business but the parameters of working in business are changing. Changes due to more available and open communication channels, more calls for transparency and a greater need to keep staff and intellectual property are changing the way companies view their most important asset.

According to the US Department of Labour, the number 1 reason people quit their jobs, is they don’t feel appreciated. So considering the average cost to a company of a manager or professional who leaves is 18 months salary, companies are taking note of what really matters.

So what is the new soft and why does it matter?

The new soft is decency, thoughtfulness, kindness, integrity, respect, appreciation, courtesy and listening. They all pay off in the long run for businesses willing to look inward at their people. They may be things your mother taught you but not necessarily to get you ready for the world of business.

It used to be the fluffy stuff that HR consultants talked about to keep people happy in their jobs but they never got past management who were caught in a Victorian mindset of clocking on and off and processing, processing and processing. Why should you be happy at work? Is the company responsible for giving you a great work environment encapsulating all the above soft bits, only if they want to keep you and your skills?

A current survey by the Hay Group and Drake International indicates that 50% of Australian employees are thinking about changing their jobs, with 25% planning to do it this year. They aren’t all leaving for a better pay packet.

Daniel Goleman in his book Primal Leadership says feeling good lubricates mental efficiency, making people better at understanding information and using decision rules in complex judgments. Positive feelings in the workplace also make employees behave more ethically and function more cooperatively in teams and because they are happier, they are less likely to take a job at another company.

All sounds easy enough, in fact too easy, so why don’t more businesses take notice? Perhaps we forgot those lessons learnt at home and didn’t really think they applied in the outside world. Maybe it’s time to bring your Mum to work and let her work out the people problems. I’d like to see her send the CEO to his room for not sharing and while she’s at it what about a good talking to the CFO about the extra pocket money, wage rise, he promised. I know it won’t happen but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring those values back. You may be surprised at how much your people will want to come to work each day.

So as 60 becomes the new 50 and brown the new black, so soft has become the new hard.

The curse of knowledge.

Can you forget acquired knowledge and why is that a problem?

In business can you ever forget something you already know, so as to explain away gaps in comprehension to someone who doesn’t understand what you are trying to get across? That sounds more complicated than it is.

I often see presenters and speakers make the same mistakes in thinking their audience knows the background knowledge to their presentation and then think they fully comprehend the objectives they are aiming to achieve. If they already know what you are talking about, why are they there? You can’t unlearn what you have learnt and this can sometimes cause a huge comprehension gap in your audience or business dealings when you incorrectly assume knowledge on their behalf.

A well known study at Stanford tested this theory out in an experiment with students called Tappers and Listeners. The experiment split a group of students into two groups, Tappers and Listeners, to try and analyse how the curse of knowledge could lead to assumptions and conclusions not expected. The Tappers were given 120 very well known tunes, such as Happy Birthday and then asked to tap them out for the Listeners to identify. Sounds easy enough. Tap, tap, tap.

The Tappers were then asked how many songs they thought the Listeners would identify and were confident it would be at least 50%. Once again it sounds easy enough. Tap, tap, tap.

The Listeners guessed 2.5% of the 120 songs tapped out by the Tappers.

Seems the Tappers knew the songs by heart and assumed they were easily identifiable by the Listeners as they merrily tapped away. Without that knowledge the Listeners were never going to identify the songs and the curse of knowledge became the comprehension hurdle they could not jump.

A difficult problem to avoid.

So the next time you stand in front of a crowd or discuss things in a business meeting, consider your audience and quickly work out if the curse of knowledge will be your downfall. A quick explanation of the background and objectives could save you a lot of stress and disappointment and get your message heard and understood.

Tap, tap, tap.

No that’s not Happy Birthday, It’s Stairway to Heaven. How could you, not know that?