Deal or no deal.

Who doesn’t like a discount or want a better deal? The days of driving around or scanning the print media for coupons and specials are long gone. Along with most things on the web, deals, specials, discounts and general cheapies are now being aggregated into an online bargain market that is growing faster than we can keep up with it. In the US this market has gone from zero to a billion dollar industry in the last couple of years. The savings made on sites such as Yipit, Dealmap and Groupon range from 50% to 90%, all the time.

The change to our shopping behavior when it comes to sale time is that we no longer have to wait for the season ending specials or the end of line discounts to make significant savings. With everything from restaurants, retail shopping and businesses aimed at your city involved, you wonder how some bricks and mortar business continue to trade. Especially with the size of the discounts offered.

The biggest catch of course is that there is no catch. With business drawing on a web population unimaginable a few years ago, they become willing partners in discounting their products and sacrificing yield for volume. A bit like the way businesses salivate over China, hoping to just snare a small fraction of that immense population to make a profit. With the unlimited shelf space provided by the web, businesses no longer need to stock items hoping someone will come into their store to buy a product, instead relying on the mass market to find them via the deal aggregators and then sending products out on order.

The local sites making inroads on the Australian spending behavior include such bargain basements as ourdeal.com.au, jumponit.comau and spreets.com.au. All of them push the daily special along with bargains to be had 24/7.

So getting more bang for your buck now consists of signing up for the various sites offering daily deals and discounts on what appeals to you most. There are so many sites that if you sign up for them all, you may want to consider a separate email account to stop your mailbox clogging up with specials and discounts. With all these sites vying for your wallet and attention, confusion can paralyse your decision making process and you can become overwhelmed and not buy anything. Looks like a job for a super aggregation site for all your deal sites. What s Google waiting for?

Even the big social media sites like Facebook are joining in with search tools to find your favourite company and what their deals might be. Twitter followers already know that @earlybird, @cheaptweet and @coupontweet provide a range of discounts to keep you answering that phone, no matter how important the meeting you are in.

Not that we don’t have enough interruptions from the web and technology in general but this is different, there are discounts to be had and we all love a bargain.

Exit stage left.

Statistics show that 1 million small business owners will be exiting in the next decade and the majority of them are relying on this exit to fund their retirement. Yet statistics also show that 55% of all business exits do not provide this safety net and are due to ill health, liquidation, bankruptcy, owners simply walking away and the ultimate exit, death. So your exit strategy or succession plan had better be well thought out if you want to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Owners usually go into business for many reasons but freedom (own boss), flexibility (work hours), income improvement (sometimes lifestyle makes way for the dollar) and equity build are the big ones, with the last being the most difficult.

For many business owners the discussion on exit strategies, rates up there, with what their first partner got in the divorce and the regular prostrate check up. It’s that, way in the future, why worry now, I’m sure business will pick, it’ll never happen to me mentality that gets so many people into trouble but before they know it, the time has arrived and they are not ready to go. Not ready because there isn’t enough money in the bank, no one is interested in buying and they have nothing to sell.

So that 55% statistic is telling and daunting at the same time. A good exit strategy is difficult to expedite and you certainly don’t want to rely on the ultimate exit as the solution. Keep working till you drop doesn’t really have the same ring as retiring to an island. I often joke with business people that dying is not an exit strategy but a recent University College of London study in the Journal of Epidemiology stated that bureaucrats who admitted being bored at work were 2.5 times as likely to be dead of cardiovascular disease within two decades. Younger workers who are bored were also more likely to die younger than those not bored. Hmmm, so your employees could end up with the same ultimate exit strategy as you unless they step outside that boring comfort zone, for their own good.

Okay let’s decide not to die before our time from boredom or overwork and outlive work to choose some better exit options. In travel especially, small business owners are often the rainmaker in their business and it is difficult for them to picture their exit as a lot of business would walk out the door the minute they did. Look at passing on (not that way) the business to employees and maybe earning a continuous income stream as that part time mentor consultant. Look at bringing in a younger partner with the objective of selling it all to them at a later date. Look at family options as another way to escape and still have some influence. Look at selling to your competitors as they have probably been jealous of your success for a long time. Look to advertise the business for sale and have a “this business is really really good and I’ll stay on for a while” clause to engender trust in the sale. Look to sell the assets and physically close the business. Look to grow quickly in the last years via acquisition and float the business and take the share money.

Look to as many options as possible, get rid of the boredom, stay healthy, and keep in touch with the family because the alternatives in the 55% statistic do not provide the answer, least of all the ultimate one.

How Rude.

In the old days BWWW and BMP (before worldwide web and before mobile phones), you used to hang up on people and then refuse to take their calls. A rude but effective way to avoid people, giving them no other option but to track you down, stalk you and eventually have a face to face meeting. Ahhh, the good old days where everything took longer than you wanted it to and the only thing that was instant was the coffee. Yet there were defined mores and parameters of action when concerning communication and relationships built through those communications.

Today we live in the science fiction future they made movies about BWWW. When was Star Trek? Not so long ago that we should throw out communication considerations and etiquette just because the world has become Star Trek. For most people, the thinking they may be annoying, constantly answering the phone or emails is overridden by the desire to stay connected and updated. Noted blogger Peggy Nelson states we have moved from the etiquette of the individual to the etiquette of the flow and individuals choose to be in constant contact striving for better connections. So it seems we are always to be connected to our tribe in a constant spiral of technology applications that make smoke signals positively archaic.

Peggy says to stop worrying and love the flow; information after all is the lifeblood of good communication. Gossip on the other hand is the cholesterol clogging up the arteries of communication and should not be considered part of the flow.

Yet staying in touch does need a rethink of the old etiquettes and boundaries surrounding civility and privacy. How do we become the considerate friend or colleague mindful of the person at the other end of that endless stream of communication?

Certainly a starting point would be to gift back the weekends. (how did weekends turn into workends?) Short of emergencies what could be so important that it couldn’t wait till Monday? When you send messages consider where that person may be when they receive it. Don’t expect people coming back from 3 weeks holiday to be organised by 3pm on their return day and it goes without saying that you have no expectations of communications from abroad other than an E Postcard saying how they wish you were there. Think about where you work and if all communications require rapid fire responses. Not many of us are saving lives and no doubt that business response could wait till you wolf down your sandwich, while you brush crumbs from your keyboard. Don’t even get me started on the lunch at your desk scenario!

My favourite is the undivided attention you could give to a presentation, a discussion or a face to face meeting if your technology was turned off for just the tiniest of time. After all, answering your technology in those instances is tantamount to the party you went to on the weekend, where you finally caught up with that interesting person and they were constantly looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting than you.

The new etiquette will evolve and you have the opportunity to change with it but don’t give in to rudeness unless you really are saving a life.

Turn it off.

The getting of wisdom.

Do we feel wiser and able to dispense pearls of wisdom, gleaned from many years of experience because we have reached a certain age? Do we still look to the sage on the mountain top or the village elder for wisdom? Is Yoda still the wisest in that galaxy far far away?

Wisdom can be funny concept, not funny ha ha but funny peculiar in perception and how we treat the so called wise.

Nowadays you can’t say people are wise just because they have accumulated knowledge or have access to information because if that were true, then Google would be the wisest of them all. It’s what you do with all that knowledge and experience and how you use it to navigate your way through life that may give you the moniker of the wise.

Certainly specific skills and knowledge associated with success for someone like Warren Buffett gives him the aura of wisdom when it comes to stocks and trading. Yet that wouldn’t presuppose you ask advice from Warren on other subjects because the feeling is his wisdom is specific in one field. No doubt you have a 12 year old nephew, who some would describe as wise beyond his years, when talking about his skill in the multi layered, multi media social engagement platforms but once again you wouldn’t go to him for advice on family matters or business scenarios causing you concern.

So wisdom in specific areas is highly sought after but not as rounded as the perception we have of the wisdom of years. How many years is difficult to measure but 50 years seems a good starting point and you would think you’d have accumulated enough experiences and knowledge over that time to be considered wise. Yet for many that’s still not enough time, so do we go for higher numbers or is the search for wisdom related to more intangible assets.

It’s not just age, knowledge or experience, that make the wise, it’s the ability to use all of these and to see the world in different ways, answer intuitively and have acceptance of your answers, making you the keeper of wisdom. The more we look at the conundrum of wisdom the more obvious it becomes that not everyone gains enough wisdom to be perceived as wise. Meaning different things to different people and difficult to measure in today’s world of accountability, wisdom is bestowed on only a few, giving credence to the honour due to its scarcity.

Today wisdom is often disguised as net savvy information technology and having a fast connection with an opinion attached. I cringe, waiting to read the first article claiming Google dispenses wisdom.

Don’t be fooled and when you find the wise among your circle ( you’ll know it intuitively ) use them as mentors and sage council because no one knows how long they’ll be around before the tidal wave of technology makes us forget who they are and what they mean to the getting of wisdom.

May the force be with you.

The office.

With deference to Ricky Gervais, how many of you have a corner office? I still see an alarming number of hands up. How many of you go to work, to the office or to the city to sit at a desk, cubicle or office and process? Most people for now but what about the future? How many of you make stuff?

All questions that hark back to the industrial revolution which finished a long time ago but we still find ourselves with a hangover from that time and in a frame of mind where we go to a certain place every day and work. The majority of people no longer make widgets or work on a production line. The majority of people, don’t don overalls and get their hands dirty producing a product. We have machines making most of our everyday requirements so why are we still so fixated on going to work at the office?

I have a desk I frequent when I need space in the city for appointments and there are company related meetings to be had but I don’t consider that my office. My office is in my mind, yes it’s still cluttered but it’s a lot easier to carry around with me, like my laptop. I don’t make anything on a production line, I negotiate, I persuade, I strategise, I discuss, I meet, I build relationships, I tell stories, I connect people and I do that on the move. My office is the ferry, the train, the coffee shop, the restaurant, the walk to work and even the lounge in front of the evening news.

Of course technology has allowed us the mobility to embrace this openness but there is still a vast chasm between the majority of workers (another industrial revolution hangover) and those who embrace the wide open spaces of their mind (no jokes here). Not being in an office or work environment does not mean you are not productive nowadays. With most companies pared down to a slim workforce you can’t hide, just because you aren’t in the office. So why are people still fixated on that 9-5, clock on clock off, regiment? Why do people stay at their desks till the boss leaves, even though they finished their project, assignment, process an hour earlier? Even our education system pumps out the masses for an industrial thinking work force, looking to go somewhere for a job, so the change will still take some time.

So clear that clutter from your desk and start your new mobile revolution with a clear mind and take your office with you. You may be surprised at the view and what you can accomplish when you take your office on the road. Your mind will thank you every day you are not sitting at that desk.

How does my bum look?

Images online have always been an area of creativity, especially when it came to the romance sites and pictures of people 20 years ago, after strenuous gym workouts and days at the beach were prevalent. The problem with sites like RSVP and others was the chance you might actually meet your date and disappointment in the looks department was the first indication that love would not blossom. That eventual meeting to find the truth about the looks is not something as prevalent in other parts of the online community and social channels like Facebook give greater meaning to the image conscious as they strive for the Vogue look.

Seems Gen Y men especially are prone to more preening and grooming online than women. A study conducted in July surveyed adults between 22 and 40 and tried to work out if social media affected people’s superficiality. The study conducted by Carlton United Breweries (Huh?) found that nearly 25% of Gen Y males actively finesse their online profiles compared with only 14% of women in the same age bracket. The men were more likely to have photo enhanced pictures and to un-tag themselves from unflattering photos on other sites, all the while contending it made for better self image and brought out the best in them.

Okay, so if I enhanced my photos on Facebook to look more like George Clooney, the only people who would know are my friends (who would have a chuckle) but the other hundreds of Facebookers, who I never meet with, think I’m handsome and debonair. That only works in a parallel universe where everyone has an avatar but in the real world there is no credibility to be gained by airbrushing.

Social media is the buzz heard round the world at the moment and it’s only going to get noisier as more people join in. The only way to keep your credibility is to show your true self and if you can’t do that, then you need to explore other options (gym, plastic surgery, a new haircut, a stylist, a stand in double) because you will be found out soon enough and laughter and derision is multiplied as it circles the social media globe. Maybe that’s why there are so many dogs, cats and cartoons instead of photos. We haven’t quite got up the nerve to show ourselves.

Now where did I put that jar of theatrical make up?

Please sit down 27B.

The recent meltdown by a JetBlue flight attendant who profaned a passenger for getting his overhead luggage before the plane had stopped gave me a quiet chuckle. The attendant then let himself off the aircraft via the emergency shute, had a quick beer and rode off into the sunset. Via social media outlets he has become a folk hero and a felon all at the same time. Think about the times you’ve wanted to do similar to clients who have pushed you past your limits. This episode was a two way street, with the passenger telling the flight attendant to perform a sexual act upon himself but the fact the flight attendant was later arrested by New Jersey police for second degree criminal mischief (sounds naughty rather than dangerous) is probably one reason most of us play within the lines.

It’s interesting how the social norms have changed for travel and for airline passengers, who often have no right to criticise or speak up under threat of arrest for disturbance or worse terrorism. It used to be, passengers paid a lot of money for tickets and with that came high expectations, of service delivery, on time performance and a free drink. With prices today still hovering around the 1990s our expectations have become less about delivery and more about what we will put up with for the lowest possible price.

That also means passengers are at the mercy of the airlines and their staff. What recourse for opinions, do you have nowadays, if you are assigned that ubiquitous middle seat, are worried about a close connection at the other end or even just wanting a smile from the attendant? As soon as an attendant mentions the words security, terrorism or any other airline policy designed to keep you quiet and in your seat, your world shrinks to about 30cm by 30cm.

Not every airline is like this but the combination of GFC, volcanoes and terror threats keep their staff suitably bolshie. You do have alternatives and it is not out of the norm to ask for a customer feedback form, which you can hand to the Customer Service Manager on your way out as a quiet response to your concerns. Sometimes just the merest mention of the feedback form will transform a surly employees into what they were trained to be. Why not consider using the new social channels to voice your opinion. The majority of airlines now have online forums which they need to monitor and manage.

So when did the flight attendants become the air police? When did they start going to self defense courses? It happened quietly while we were moaning about airfare prices, the lack of customer service, tighter and tighter schedules and turnaround times and the ever present need to be somewhere quick. It was all about the process and nothing about the people that expedite the process.

Consider trying to control a couple of hundred strangers squeezed into an aluminium canister with food presented in cardboard boxes, seats that have been shaved to within an inch of falling apart, technology so complicated that when it breaks down 30 minutes into a 15 hour flight beads of sweat start appearing on a flight attendants. The glamour disappeared long ago and it is now as much of a struggle for the airline employees as the passengers, so we may as well make a pact and get on with it and try and enjoy as much of it as we can.

You might be surprised the next time you get on a plane, if you make the effort and smile and greet the staff, how much quicker and easier that flight turns out to be.

Aimlessly succeeding.

When was the last time you asked, what do I want to be? Surely you’ve asked since the days of firemen, cowboys and test pilots. What about what you stand for or if your work matters and makes a difference? If you haven’t asked recently and you haven’t accomplished or delivered anything, how come you’re still succeeding? Seems life has been easier at work than you think but times are a changing.

In the past it was easier to be obscure but that is getting harder nowadays with more accountability and 24/7 access to you and your work. So are the questions too daunting or is it easier for someone else to make them for you? Is it easier to follow? Do you sometimes wonder how you got to today, without really trying? A bit like wondering if you drove through a red light over the last 10 kilometres, you don’t remember.

Daily distractions get in the way of those self examining questions and days often turn into months, turn into years and before you know it, you are aimlessly succeeding in spite of the skills you have to offer but never use.

You know there are better ways to do things at work, better processes and best practice techniques you could implement. There are better ways for you to deliver and accomplish but you come up against the “we’ve always done it this way” bunch and the air goes out of your balloon. Choice and change are up to you and maybe it’s time to start hanging around with the “this is the right thing to do” bunch and shake it up.

Stop aimlessly succeeding and look to your strengths and passions to find the areas of greatest success for you. Chose the things that work for you and concentrate on them. Chose the best parts of your job and concentrate on them. Chose the relationships that work best in your business day and make them even more profound. If you create work that matters, then the question of will they care if you left or went out of business tomorrow becomes moot.

On the other hand, if you are happy in your business rut then by all means continue. If you don’t want to make a difference, by all means continue. If you don’t want to change, then by all means continue.

If you are ready to change and for people to notice you and your work, is there an optimum time to start?

A year from now you may have wished you started today.

Hand gestures.

I’m sure you’ve used the occasional hand gestures in your business dealings. Sometimes to express elation at a done deal, sometime to express dissatisfaction with results and expectations gone south and sometimes, when just to vent your frustrations at working with people who don’t share your vision, a middle finger may be involved.

So it comes as no surprise that gesture sensing technology by companies like Primesense, are looking to find avenues and opportunities in business enterprise to bring the computer closer to total engagement with the human form.

The cutting edge car technology that recognises you as you approach your vehicle to unlock the car, adjust the seat and seatbelt to any weight change you may have encouraged over that long lunch, maybe not even starting if you are inebriated to playing the appropriate song if you nod off on the way home. Yes ACDC will be standard for such systems as no one can sleep through Highway to Hell at top volume.

The entertainment industry has already picked up on the technology and WII along with others like Xbox are continually improving the recognition factor. I look forward to the day I come home from work and nod at my TV and it turns on ESPN, then flicks to the news as I work on dinner and then look for a good movie as I soon as it sees me making a coffee. I know, I know, you think the wife should do all that but I’m too aware of my own safety to push that button.

All that said, we want to see applications in everyday business that can make our processes and interactions with our clients more engaging. Tom Cruise in Minority Report comes to mind as he grabs images and reports out of the air to place them on a holographic screen. That technology is further advanced that we think and we need only look at someone like Sabre Pacific with their interactive desktop, looking like a giant iphone where you drag and tap items while your client looks on.

For gesture technology, the computer has to perceive and recognise your movements and know what you want to achieve with them. So for travel, we see you with a client sitting in front of you, looking at a screen, and a simple hand gesture may open a destination page, with a nod of your head a particular resort video plays showing the suite with pool. Three fingers may be required for the system to know you want to compare another two similar properties and then a thumbs up, to agree on the client’s final choice. All the while you are having a coffee and conversing freely with the client without keyboarding or flicking through information and interrupting the sale.

So the final gesture of a handshake lets the computer know to swipe the clients credit card for the deposit on their dream holiday and then to send the details to their home PC to have on file.

All this would be brilliant technology but things would have to change in regards to some gestures. Certainly frowns would have to disappear from your office to be replaced by permanent smiles as the frown would tell the computer that you no longer want the sale. Of course the middle finger would be banned totally as this would be recognised as dissatisfaction and we all know that never happens with your clients.

Maybe the middle finger could be used to reboot the system, after all, you only do that when all other avenues have been tried, right?

oDesk.

There are many things I don’t like doing in a general work week and they normally entail processing of some kind, whether that be emails, reports or papers generated by meetings. Then there are the things that I’m not as good at (hard to believe huh?) which sometimes slide off the radar or are not done as regularly as they should be. Not having done any of the above, it hopefully gives me maximum time to concentrate on the important tasks, which are, you get the gist.

The long lost typing pool along with secretaries and Girl Fridays have long since gone to that great wood paneled office in the sky. Today’s executives answer their own mail, email, put together presentations and reports and spend time processing their life away. Instead of thinking, innovating and running companies, management executives spend inordinate amounts online processing documents, answering everyone’s emails and generally being distracted.

So do we bring back the typing pool? As tantalising as that may sound, it would be easier to start outsourcing some processing and services to get us back to concentrating on the big picture.

Micro outsourcing or liquid labour exchanges allow users to tender online for services from software engineering to plumbing. From the smallest job at the local business level to large corporations, outsourcing is seeing a new revival. Far from the jeered at call centres of India we are now able to source services and innovations from a global village where the local blacksmith has been replaced by the IT technologist from Uzbekistan.

oDesk (should I be asking for money?) which was founded by Odysseus Tsatalos in 2006 links more than 600 service providers in an online marketplace aimed at software and technology. They ask the simple questions of how to get more done with less, how to find talent and how to pay a remote team, while aiming their site at technology people looking for help with their work and also looking for technology people who want work. Other sites such as Freelancer.com.au which is the world’s largest outsourcing marketplace for small business has the facility to help you with technology, software, writing, computing, design, business, HR and many other services that could make your day a breeze.

Providing work for the most rapidly expanding technology countries keeps costs to a minimum and if you have access to the internet, then you have access to an unlimited workforce globally.

So I’m waiting on the first travel company to outsource its non revenue processes. How long did it take to put together that 20 stop round the world itinerary with cruise and coach for Mr. Smith? You have to ask yourself the question, when am I selling and when am I processing, because you only make money when selling. What about a travel auction site where customers can put together their trip ideas and then send it out to be serviced by the best price or most innovative response?

The sourcing of services and people is nothing new but the internet opens up the world for you to work with. With only one third of the world’s population online, think of the demand to come as billions more look for services provided or provide them. Think about it, maybe you already have a service to offer but need a larger market to make it viable. Think about joining sites like Servicedesk.com or Freelancer.com.au to find a whole new world of clients or better still, get that report written and tabulated for $12.50 and go for a surf.