Archive | September, 2005

Save That Enthusiasm For Gameday

by on September 8, 2005 in Creative, Life, Work

Ah, football season approaches so you’ll likely see a lot of metaphors popping up on this blog and her sister blogs. By the way…Go Steelers. Okay, now I’m better.

It’s not untypical for players to get all enthusiastic during practice and keep the aggression of the play going after the whistle blows. There may be pushing and even some punches exchanged. Hey, football is an aggressive sport. Shortly, the coach will intervene and tell the players to “save it for gameday.”

Let’s be honest, business can be an aggressive sport, too. Particularly when you have two heavyweights going at it like Microsoft and Google. The problem is that they don’t have a coach who tells them to save their fight for game day.

Okay, my metaphor breaks down since they clearly don’t play for the same team. Yet, they should share a singular goal: to provide the best product and service for their customer. That’s why all of this posturing and legalistic BS makes such little sense. I’d like for Microsoft to take just a little of the money they are going to spend to sue Google and put it into some OS software that is reliable and not prone to constant virus attacks.

Why is there such fear of the competition? The best players don’t hope that the other team is full of injured guys playing at levels less than their best. The best players pray that the other team is going to test them by giving them their absolute best effort. It’s how you grow. It’s the only way you know how good you really are.

Unfortunately for us customers, if our companies continue to try to weaken the opponent off the playing field, we’ll never know who is the best and who is just a pretender.

A Good Idea Gone South?

by on September 7, 2005 in Business, Work

Joy Des Jardins at The Joy of Six blog and I have noticed something similar…there are no new movies available at Blockbuster anymore. Ever since they freed us from horrors of late fees, it seems that no one is returning their rentals on time. When I was there last weekend, the guys behind the counter were giving away more rainchecks for movies than they were actually renting them.

So it all begs a question: in order to compete with such things as video-on-demand and Netflix, did the folks at Blockbuster make a critical error in judgment? I mean who wants to make the trip to the video store only to find it depleted of decent movies yet still full of the latest Rob Schneider escapades?

What’s really interesting is how there seems to have been a lack of anticipation to this issue. A quick google produced this quote from the Motley Fool dated December 14, 2004, half a month before the policy went into effect:

Inventory control is another concern. If rentals are allowed to collect
dust on the coffee table for an extra week before they need to be
returned, then out-of-stock titles are bound to become more frequent.
Furthermore, if the company occasionally encountered problems
collecting delinquent late fees of a few bucks, will it be any easier
to track down $20 for a new release?

Okay, sometimes we don’t anticipate the outcomes of our decisions very well. Still time to learn from them. Except there doesn’t seem to be any changes in the works after nine months. I’ll admit that I’m not very current or informed on this, but I approach it from a casual customer’s perspective. If I can’t find the movie I want (particularly when it comes to quality kids movies), am I going to roll the dice and walk away disappointed or just sign up for Netflix?

It would seem that this is one business decision that might actually be backfiring and creating an opposite outcome from the one which was intended.

Reflection On A Year’s Worth Of Blogging

by on September 7, 2005 in Media

A year ago this month, I started this blog with a couple of objectives in mind: to drive traffic to my startup coaching practice and to offer a platform for my ideas. Little did I know it would be the answer to a much greater need in my life: to increase my sense of community. I’ve met some incredible people just because I put myself out here through Alchemy and have been blessed by their presence in my life. And the best part is that I continue to meet fantastic folks with new ideas and perspectives on our world.

There have been hard parts about the blogging experience. Most of these have been the ‘shoulds’ of doing this that seem to plague us bloggers at times. Jennifer Rice most recently wrote about blog depression, that unfortunate state where everything is viewed through the limited lens of whether it is blog-worthy. She’s now come to some very soulful and healthy attitudes about her blogging that resonate with me.

Why do I continue to blog after nearly a year? Well, it has a lot to do with that whole community thing I mentioned earlier. And there’s more…I truly enjoy writing and sharing ideas. I really like the feedback and debate from readers (and do find that I get depressed when I don’t get any comments so for goodness sake stop worrying whether what you want to say is ‘good enough’ and just put something out there, okay :) It does mean a lot to me). It’s deeply meaningful to know that my words and thoughts have an impact on the lives of others. I get a giddy feeling when I tell people that I’m a blogger. The bottom line is that I do this for me, but that "selfishness" is all about fulfilling a desire to be an activist in helping others see their work, leadership, and rest of their lives in a different way.

Thanks for being here in the journey with me. There’s still much to see and do.

How Far Will A Snappy Catchphrase Take You?

by on September 6, 2005 in Business

How dead-on is this? Steve Yastrow at the Tom Peters blog and I hold a similar opinion of Sprint and its feeble attempts to make an custo/member feel like a human being. Guess Sprint finally figured out it needs some help with its service (if you want to call it that). But why bother fixing something when a snappy catchphrase is all you need? Here’s Steve’s take:

The Sprint stores (the places I could never get good service or a “Yes, you can” answer) are being “rebranded,” which probably means a superficial facelift and no change to the customer experience. My prediction: Sprint will still suck. You can’t buy great marketing, no matter how big you are. You have to do great marketing. You can’t say “Yes, you can” if your employees and customers think “No, we can’t.” Marketing can’t be a big game of fakeout, no matter how big your checkbook is.

Kinda harks back to the fact that creating a passionate experience must be an inside job.

Labor Day: Consider The Gifts We Have To Give

by on September 5, 2005 in Career, Creative

As my CEO often proudly tells me, "Our work is a gift we give to others." It’s in that spirit that I wish each of you a Happy Labor Day.

What happens when we consider our own work as an act of giving? For those of us employed within an organization, how does our attitude change when we view our work as an offering to others? Because, in many ways it is. There is hardly any job that doesn’t have the potential for positive impact on someone else.

If you are a manager, consider your employees. Your leadership is a gift to them. Your caring and respect and mentoring are gifts. When you help an individual grow in their skills and capabilities, you offer gifts that last much longer than their tenure at your organization.

The act of giving has a unique power to it. Openly giving in the form of a gift takes away much of the helplessness we might experience in our work. Ultimately, it offers a choice: to whom do I want to give my work today? Hopefully, the answer involves your present employer or staff. If not, that’s okay…it’s your gift, your decision, your life. Give with your heart.