Archive for March, 2007

Think challenges, not problems. It’s only symantics, however, the slight difference creates opportunites and eliminates road blocks.

While I sat in the Broadway play Spring Awakening, I could not but wonder how well the writer had captured some of the challenges children face throughout their younger lives and how adults influence so many of the outcomes.

Here are a few:

One child wanted to learn how babies are made. She begged her mom to tell her the truth and yet in the end, the mom told her that babies came from love. During the story the character, going through puberty, becomes sexually active and eventually becomes pregnant. When the physican told her mom she was pregnant the mother reacted as if the entire pregnancy would change her own life disregard for the child’s feeling. The young girl could not believe she was pregnant, because she was not in love. When the realization happened, she yelled at her mother– why didn’t she tell her the truth. In the end the mother took her to a back room abortionist and the end result was the daughter died.

One young child is having trouble in school, because all he can think about is girls. The thoughts overwhelmed him to the point of exhaustion. He couldn’t sleep well and his tiredness negatively impacted his performance in school. The teachers reacted by continually pushing him. When the teachers had to decide which children should pass to the next grade to fill the 60 slots available, they intentionally failed this boy Given no choice, the kid went home to his father and “proposed the questions” what would happen if he failed out of school. The response indicated that his mom could not show herself. That they could not go to church and everone would talk about them. The child eventually committed suicide.

Pretty sad stories, however, they may be stories that are happening down the street in your own neighborhood. And that’s not all. There were stories about sexual abuse of girls by their fathers who tuck the girls in and then tell them they are beautiful. Stories about young boys checking out gay sexuality and when children say the truth about it, punishments are doled out.

If this were the whole message I probably not be writing the blog entry. However, I was greatly surprised when I returned back to my hotel and starting talking with the hotel staff at the front counter. A woman there mentioned that this play was written in 1890. Yes, 1890. The same story could have been written today.

The new information completely transformed my perspective as I asked her did she ever consider that in India, China, and throughout the world, people also face the same situations.

In business these same things hold true. Leaders and managers face challenges relating to motivation, strategy, new product development, alliances, competitive intelligence, technology, sales and marketing, and global competition. In decades, a lot of the basics haven’t changed. These are still universal principles just as Enterprise Thinking supplies a roadmap for dealing with these challenges. The future will continue to crave the same needs.

Always remember when you’re given an opportunity to experience life in a new and exciting way that you may never have the chance again. You may becomes sick, you may fall on hard times, you may have a friend or family member who will need care, you may not physically be able to do what you want do in future years, or what you wish to do may not be available in the future or that in the future you may not wish to do it when the opportunity arrises. Think about it this way. If your family had to go on a trip again would you head to the same place again to do the things you missed. For this reason I always try to do something interesting when I travel with the belief that I may never have the opportuinity again.

While working with Wipro Technologies of India I wandered into the war room where administrative work was being done in the hotel. I started talking to an employee who appeared to be about 27 when he commented that he’d been in the hotel all week and he’s never been outside of the hotel. Truthfully, he could have been back in India and it would not have made a difference, because he wasn’t experiencing any of the unique opportunities that his new venue held for him.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Percentages are tricky in that they can prove a point just as easily as they can counter an argument. Yet when all is said and done, the best way to understand a percentage is to put the number into a concrete form that everyone can understand.

While in a discussion about IT success rates, an employee of Reuters said that they would be happy if 25% of their projects came in on time and on budget. His argument is that the industry is at about 10%, so an additional 15% would be a phenomenal success.

To me this is horrific! No wonder some organizations have great challenges with developing new IT initiatives, especially if this is a success gauge. Besides, his numbers were inaccurate. They were taken from hearsay and not facts.

Nothing I could say could make him sway from believing he’d have reached Nirvana if his IT department could achieve this lofty 25% goal. So I used an analogy to bring it home.

“How would you feel if you had four children and 25% of them came out OK?” (There could have been other references that I could have used, however, this is the one that came to mind.)

He stopped, turned red, smiled, and said, “I get your point.”

While doing my Spanish “homework,” I heard in the distance the bar tender comment to the front desk manager, “I don’t think she’ll understand me. She only speaks Spanish.” I figured maybe I could help.

I pushed myself out of the soft leather lounge chair and made my way to the front desk where the two ladies were discussing what to do. The challenge was they needed to give the new employee instructions on what to clean before the airways club closed.

Seemed simple enough.

The two pretzels and coffee areas needed to be cleaned and when done her keys were to be given to he front desk manager. In Spanish, I communicated the task to this woman who understood almost no English,

“At 8:30 you need to clean the counters and then at 8:45 give the keys to the lady in the front.”

I mustered up the word and then found the employee. “A las ocho y media, necesita limpiar los mostradares entonces a las nueve menos quince da las llaves a la mujer en ell fronte del officina” Not perfect as she had to help me with limpiar and mastradares, but it worked.

The two ladies who were to be finishing up their shift were elated.

Another person listening into the conversation made a comment that that this woman should be speaking English to live in this country and that there needs to be one language.

I responded with the following.

“Do you think that she wishes to not be understood nor be able to understand what others are saying?”

“No” she commented.

“Then think about it. Do you think the employer wished to place an individual in an environment where it would be more challenging and more difficult for the employee to do her job?”

“I guess not.”

“Then why do you think she’s working here?”

“Because no one wants the job?” with some hesitation. “Well she should still learn English.”

“I agree she should learn English, however, we need her just as she needs us. She’s here to make a living and I bet you if she had the chance to learn English, she’d take it. I’d also guess that there were no English-speaking candidates or qualified candidates that were willing to clean the bathrooms and facility and stay out until 10:00 on a Sunday night. If I asked, she might even tell me she has two jobs to make ends meet, given the pay. And if she’s working all these hours, when is she to fit in this, learning English thing? Besides, when she goes home, she probably speaks in Spanish to her friends and to her family.”

I continued, “It’s not that it wouldn’t be convenient for everyone if we all spoke one language, but in countries like India, where so many Indian dialects exist that everyone is forced to speak one specific dialect, they chose English as the uniform language. In Europe you’ll find people speaking five languages and if someone can’t speak their own language, if they can, they will try to accommodate. Americans, don’t see it this way, probably due to the lack of language diversity.”

It’s like the rant by Jack Nicholson in the movie with Tom Cruise, “A Few Good Men, ” You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.” Americans don’t want to work on the rooftops in sweltering heat, clean others’ toilets, or pick vegetables in the fields.

Americans have to make a choice; do we need the help? If not, do we have people willing to do the work? Yes, I realize the converse could turn ugly as I can hear someone say, “Pay everyone more and they would.” It sounds great in theory, yet the point missing is janitorial services are not a US$55,000 a year job or for that matter $35.00/hour jobs.

I love my country, but let’s face it, Americans can be selfish. While wanting the best jobs where pay is high, Americans shop at Wal-Mart, Target, DSW, Costco, BJ’s, Sams Club, Best Buy and others that focus on price as a major influencer in the value proposition. We complain, but no one wants to pay twice the going rate for the same product they know can be purchased for half the price by using a global-supply chain. Furniture, electronics, auto parts or cosmetics, it makes no difference.

Realizing that “Language knows no borders,” it’s unrealistic to think we can stop someone at a boarder and tell them this country only allows one language. What are we to do? My Spanish teacher/friend – Coco says, “America is more like a salad than a mosaic, where cultures tend to stick to gather and the only thing that wraps us together is the dressing,” To me this means that we might want to start being more global in our thinking. Americans need to get out more so they are less sensitive to someone, “only speaking Spanish.”

While many people are ahead of the curve, there are still those in management and leadership who, hopefully, one day will respect diversity (as many of the multinational companies already do) so that our country can continue to thrive versus being isolationist.

We must evolve.

Just last week I was reminded of a story that had me laughing so hard, I thought I would repeat it on my blog.

The year was 1986. My partner at the time and I had started a college storage business, while in college, where at the end of a school year the students at Syracuse University would pack up all their belongings and hand over the inventory for us to store for the summer. The following fall when they returned, we’d bring the goods back to their new place of residence.

Upon completion of our first year in business, we had done fairly well.

We stared the business with no money at all and started collecting cash from the students as it was required that they pre-pay for the service. As we generated money, we purchased boxes to hand over the students to pack the goods, ordered trucks, and then based on inventory expectations, we secured warehousing.

Having only handed out flyers, we ended up generating around $30,000 the first season. Mind you this was only about 3 weeks of work.

The second year, we were even more ambitious, expanding to seven campuses in New York State and three in California. (Why California you may ask? My partner had some friends there.)

Having been successful the year before, we anticipated our needs and began to book storage space much earlier. We picked up insurance, ordered walkie talkie head sets to communicate with one another on the job, secured warehousing, and hired a crew of about 15.

Sales were phenomenal. We did so well that our number one competitor, Syracuse University itself, told us they had to scale back. Our estimates calculated that over 600,000 lbs of goods were to be picked up in just a few days.

Once we had a feeling for our storage-box needs, we solicited quotes from storage-box suppliers. Some of the quotes we received in return were for new boxes and others for misprinted boxes. Our guess was we’d need about 2000-3000 pieces.

Some of the new quotes came in at US$0.52 and higher while our misprint boxes came in all over the place. If you’ve ever ordered in this fashion, you’ll quickly find out that you can’t choose your size; you have to pick what the reseller can pick up. Given that our quantity was a full truckload, we had less to choose from.

After about a week of searching our contact found a box that fit perfectly. The size was large enough for students to feel that they’ve gotten their money’s worth and small enough for us to carry. (Students paid per box, per couch, per refrigerator, etc.) We placed the order for around US$0.14 per box.

The following day our tractor trailer arrived. We all ran out to help move the boxes into the office. We waited as all young entrepreneurs do. As the first boxes left the truck, we immediately knew we were in trouble. Not that the boxes were the wrong size, color or shape. It was that on all four sides of the boxes was the Stayfree Maxi pad logo. Large as can be.

Stayfree had obviously made a misprinted run.

Never in our wildest dreams did we ever anticipate such a disaster. And there were no refunds!

What it meant to our staff was we’d have the embarrassment of delivering to our college-age customers Stayfree boxes. Some students had paid for the storage of 9 to 10 boxes. Now picture what this would feel like as the student. You’re a female sophomore in college and you’re going to have to fill 6 logo boxes and then place them on the curb for us to pick up. All the while you’re going to have to stay with the boxes!

The guys had the same situation. Can you picture having to carry 4 Stayfree boxes out of your room to be picked up by your local storage business?

Our setup was there were four people to a truck except for my truck where I ended up with one marine as a partner. We were stupid enough to think we could do it alone. There were also people set up to meet us at location and take care of the paperwork. Lorrie, who years later became my wife, was one of them.

As a team, we pulled our trucks down the street heading to campus and everywhere we looked there were hundreds of Stayfree boxes all over the place. While it was extremely embarrassing, it was also quite a statement.

Gold Summer Storage, even with its embarrassing boxes, was the proud vendor of choice.

Today, I can chalk this up to a funny experience to look back, but during the whole ordeal, we were dying.

One of the most challenging obstacles in innovation is to see solutions that are right in front of you every day. BioStream has created one alternative solution to long-term energy needs by capturing the energy generated within the oceans as a tool to create sustainable power.

Their device is a large fin in the shape of a shark’s fin—nature’s shark’s fin has been perfected for millions of years. This device would be placed at the bottom of the ocean floor, and as currents pass by the device, the fin would swing back and forth generating energy.

This one solution would have limited impact on marine life while generating two megawatts of energy: the equivalent of enough energy to power 1,620 homes at 8-15 cents per kilowatt-hour. Additionally, the fin would generate no pollution.

BioStream’s other innovation is the mechanical seaweed that works, like natural seaweed. In waters 45-150 feet deep and waves of 2-15 feet, the steel and fiberglass device would capture the energy as each wave passes. If the waves become to severe, there’s a safety mechanism that lays the entire seaweed on the ocean floor until the waters become stable once again.

Check out BioPower Systems Pty. Ltd. website and Popular Sciences April 2007 Edition

You know that feeling, down deep? The one that stops you in your tracks with the feeling that something does not sound right or for that matter feel right?

I bet you’ve gotten that feeling when someone has tried to sell you something, and they offer a value proposition that seems to good to be true.

I bet you’ve gotten that feeling when you’ve heard a statistic or a truth that makes no sense.

I bet you’ve gotten that feeling while doing your daily job.

That little sound in your head is one you must nurture, as it’s an important skill to develop only because this little gut feeling will help guide decision making if honed properly.

Case in point. I just heard that Haier, a Chinese conglomerate with revenues of RMB $103 Billion (RMB= Chinese Ren Min Bi 1 Chinese yuan = 0.129217331 US Dollars), had entered the college market refrigeration’s industry, and in doing so, came to dominate the market due to a table top innovation they developed.

From what I was told, this product would enable students to use the refrigerator as a table in their dorm rooms: a neat invention. Yet from the moment I heard it, I questioned it. Not because the Haier, a company with 50,000 employees, may not have created such an innovation. I questioned how a single innovation such as a table top could have such an impact on their sales.

Here’s why. While I was a student, I had two refrigerators and on both, I placed simple kitchen supplies, and I needed no tabletop. I can’t see this one feature is so powerful of a pull in the market.

I decided to talk a few minutes to look into the matter for my own innovation curiosity.

I found that Target and Circuit City both are resellers of the product and from my experience, these companies only work with firms that can deliver a large volume on time, every time. I also found that the company’s prices appeared to be very competitive and often slightly lower than its competitors’, ranging from US$99-$240. Meaning that they had the ability, being in China, to create a price-sensitive product at a low enough cost to meet American market needs.

From their website

Haier web site

Additionally I found that the company also has gone out on a limb and produced a Sea Green and Ruby Red configuration, the only “quick desktop research” refrigerators on the market that had any color besides white and brown/woodgrain.

My research quickly confirmed my suspicions that this firm has more than a table top model to dominate a market segment. (I’ve yet to see evidence of this.)

What I did find was a company that wins in all different components of the sales delivery model that would enable Haier to take on a market and quickly become a leading supplier.

When you’re faced with generality and sweeping statements and concepts that in your gut make no sense, you have options. One is to accept what others say. Another is to reject what’s said. The last is to question what’s said and then if important enough, gather some data.

There are times for all reactions. In the case of the table-top model, given that I could not find one picture on the web in my 10 minutes of research makes me question the validity of the statement and be able to give credence to the “top in the industry” claim. I may have been able to believe it better had I found more significant factors that contributed to a partial truth.

Think before you leap.

Read more about the company….

Coldwell Banker® was really on the ball when they launched this interactive tool for home buyers.

The new tool allows one to see who’s been purchasing homes in specific locales in recent months and for how much. People are now able to scope out the surrounding area without ever stepping foot in a car.

Want to see how close the school is or how close the homes are to one another? It’s there using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth (Not Google Earth.) Say you’re interested in parks and shopping centers; all could be found with a little work.

The tool shifts control in that the new model places more information in the hands of the buyer, and yes the seller. As real estate brokers tend to represent the seller over the buyer, this approach appears to create a more balanced playing field.

The next transition is 3D imagery on the web and then virtual tours not unlike the holographs of science fiction movies and television shows.

Check out their website at http://www.coldwellbanker.com

A few weeks ago I sent an email to the owner a national company. A few seconds later, an email autoresponder reply was sent to my mail box telling me that this individual would be out of the office and will have limited access to email for the next week. I was shocked.

To me it appeared that this individual was telling me she was closed for business until she returned. In truth, she was. It’s not that she’s out of touch with email; it’s that her technology and mentality both did not match today’s buyers’ reactions.

Technologically the CEO needed to open her eyes. It’s not 1998.

Today’s buyers are different in that they have Blackberrys and Treos to check their mail the minute they land in a plane or while they are at dinner. They have wireless cards or programs such as PDAnet (makes a Treo a wireless card) to enable constant contact with their firms. People in business have the ability to check their emails the minute they get to their hotel room. In this age of instant gratification, unless you are THE SUPER COMPANY, potential buyers don’t want and don’t need to wait for you.

My reply to the usiness owner’s autoresponder was….are you closed for business?

She told me the other day it was a shock to get my response. Feeling that I’m in tune with technology, the response was a wake up call. Now she and her staff are making strides to upgrade their systems and to take another approach to send the message that they are OPEN for business, even when she’s away for a week.

If you really want to make doing business with you easier, also make sure to have a full signature file on the bottom of all your emails. I’m surprised how many people don’t post a phone number or address on their emails. You can set this up as a configuration so that when ever you create an email it appears. This way, if someone wants or needs to call you, mail an order to you, or send a check, they can.

Here’s mine.

MetaMatrix Consulting Group, LLC.
David Goldsmith
8248 Barksdale Lane
Manlius, NY 13104
P: (315) 682-3157
F: (315) 682-0509
E: david@davidgoldsmith.com

http://www.davidgoldsmith.com

Call me. We are open for business!