Accept every offer!

A while back Garr Reynolds posted an article about the “Tips for creative success from Pixar“.

An interesting quote from this article is the following statement :

Accept every offer. Don’t judge it, you’ll stop it. It becomes a dead end if you judge it, but unlimited possibilities if you go with it.

To be honest, when being a junior engineer, you accept a lot more tasks without judging it. It’s a zen saying that one must approach things with the child’s mind. So approach it without judgement. Creativity & openness is something we have to maintain, as it’s something we loss over the year due to our prejudices & the context we’re accustomed too.

Startup Lessons from Hubspot

Source : Startup Culture Lessons From Mad Men

Interesting post, yet some things don’t work out in environments which require attendance (conform low attendance helpdesk) :

Vacation Policy = No Policy : Nice one, where I would only add one exception “until minimum attendance is reached.

“We don’t care which 80 hours you work” : Agree completely! An happy employee will work more. A time registration system will only do the opposite of which should be the objective of the system.

Extreme Transparency : This gets rid of all the rumour flows and so on which paralyse the performance of any organization.

Seat rotation : Sounds like a cool concept. In (even not so) big coorporations, one may find that (s)he only knows their “cubicle”.

HubSpot Fellows : A coaching concept which is needed in ALL companies. Don’t hire people, push them in the pool and say it’s a good guy/girl if (s)he doesn’t drown.

All other points : … focus on the social side of the human being. Where creativity is needed (and trust me, you need it to let your company grow!), you need a social environment where people feel comfortable, appreciated/respected & nourished.

The teachings of Budo in Business

Source of inspiration : Wisdom from the principles of Budō: Lessons for work & life

The article from Garr states that the teachings of Budo are based upon the following pillars :

• The Three Prohibitions
  • (1) To give up
  • (2) To misbehave
  • (3) To be clumsy
• The Three Joys
  • (1) Vicissitude (change)
  • (2) Honesty
  • (3) Skillfulness
• The Three Evils
  • (1) Fear
  • (2) Doubt
  • (3) Confusion

When going through this list, one can see that these points are also valuable for any business.

Sushi Etiquette

Where I do love sushi and sashimi, I was unaware that there was a certain etiquette involved…

Outsourcing IT? Some wisdoms to preserve the long term.

Listening to the sales talk
Sales persons in regards to IT software always say it’s easy to install & use. Yet from experience we know that this is correct if it’s done without straying from the path they had in mind. This being a “default default default” installlation without attempting to do anything “custom”. I use the term “custom” here very lightly, as mostly deviating from using a superuser will turn the application useless. Yet sadly enough, such a default installation is something that never occurs, unless you want to accept the given application as an “island” within your IT environment.

Integration & Maintenance are key!
The biggest downfalls of software is situated within Integration and on maintenance. If the integration part isn’t advertised during the sales round, then you can probably forget about that. To be clear; integration meaning when you want to use the data from a given application into another.

Good maintenance is a bulletproof installation which will last for ages! To be honest, I have yet to see an external party who thinks about the long term and therefor set up a system that’s rock solid and won’t budge even if an earthquake occurred. Most vendors think merely in regards to sales, where an unstable application provides them with billable hours (“consultancy” or support services).

Simply Put
As every management book tells you, think about our TCO. What’s that first character stand for? TOTAL… being the costs you’ll accumulate over the years. Looking short term will give your a big increase on maintenance which should not be treaded lightly. F*cked up installations are dreadfull to manage and will (Note: WILL, not might) give you disruptions in your availability. How much is such a downtime worth to you?

Business modelling in lesser times…

A lot of business models are known:

• Brokerage
• Advertising
• Infomediary
• Merchant
• Manufacturer (Direct)
• Affiliate
• Community
• Subscription
• Utility

Yet you still have to get to the point where you can say… this is it! That’s where Alexander Osterwalder has created a good method to define your business model.

Slideshare Slideset

http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=business-model-template-5677&stripped_title=business-model-template

The truth about “To”, “CC” & “BCC”

The Origins
Carbon copying is the technique of using carbon paper to produce one or more copies simultaneously during the creation of paper documents. A sheet of carbon paper is sandwiched between two sheets of paper and the pressure applied by the writing implement to the top sheet causes pigment from the carbon paper to make a similar mark on the copy. More than one copy can be made by stacking several sheets with carbon paper between each pair. Four or five copies is a practical limit. The top sheet is the original and each of the additional sheets is called a carbon copy. The use of carbon copies declined with the advent of photocopying and electronic document creation and distribution (word processing).
(source “Wikipedia”)

The Rules
It is still common for a business letter to include, at the end, a list of names preceded by the abbreviation “cc:”, indicating that the named persons are to receive a copy of the letter, even though carbon paper is no longer used to make the copies. The contacts that are listed as adressed “to” are required to read the mail and take further actions (if needed), where those listed in “cc” are only assumed to read the mail (when the time allows it). The aspect of the “blind carbon copy” (bcc) adds an extra perspective where one could be informed without any of the other contacts to even know!

Practically Spoken : Privacy
Need to mail a bunch of people? Add yourself in the “to” list and -all- the other contacts as “bcc”. This way you avoid to violate other people’s privacy by exposing their private email accounts!

Softskills obtained by gaming

Games are not good. Or at least that’s what many people would have you believe. In English idiom, the exhortation to “stop playing games” implies manipulation, prevarication, even procrastination.

Yet many games teach us very good softskills. Some form of conversation is always necessary for a game to progress. Many games take social interaction to new heights by placing a premium on negotiation. In Monopoly, deals to waive interest, exchange property and form strategic alliances are common in multiplayer games.

For example : No player can win – or even hope to survive – without engaging with others and learning to smell false promises in military games. Its central attraction lies in the negotiations, alliances, betrayals, poker faces and backstabbing that follow.

Read more? Collect life lessons as you pass go!

Freelancing during the lesser times

Freelancefolder.com features “8 Ways Freelancers Can Survive In A Troubled Economy” ;

• Be a Bargain Hunter. Whether you’re buying routine office supplies or making a capital purchase, make sure that you get the most value for your dollar. Check sales flyers and compare costs to maximize your purchasing power. You can also look into barter arrangements to reduce your costs.
• Don’t Spend Everything That You Make. I give this advice during good economic times as well. The advice to save some of your earnings is doubly important in an uncertain economy. Whenever you are paid make sure that you set some income aside for times when your business is slow.
• Moonlight on Your Freelancing. You may have started your freelancing business by working a corporate job and moonlighting as a freelancer. There’s no reason why you can’t turn the tables and moonlight on your freelance business now. Consider taking a part-time job to bolster your monthly income.
• Ask Past Corporate Employers for Gigs. Many employers have hiring freezes, but their workload remains the same. While they may not be able to hire a new employee, often they are allowed to hire temporary help to meet a deadline. (I’m told that the money for contractors comes out of a different “bucket.”)
• Consider the Do-It-Yourself Question. Are you paying others to do tasks for you that you could actually do yourself? If your cash flow is slow, then you may want to consider whether it’s more cost efficient to continue outsourcing as you have been doing, or to start doing the tasks yourself.
• Make Sure To Consider Your Tax Liability. Even if the economy is slow, it is likely that you will still owe taxes at the end of your tax year. To avoid being saddled with a tax burden that you can’t pay, start setting money aside for taxes now. If you paid estimated taxes during the course of the year, then ask yourself if you paid enough.
• Broaden the Scope of Your Business. If your workload has slowed, then ask yourself if there are other products or services that you could add to your current offerings. Do you have a skill that you are not using? Broadening your scope could bring additional business from current customers as well as attract new ones.
• Be Patient. Difficult economic times come and they go. It may be a matter of weeks, months, or even years, but this tough economic period will also pass.

Storytelling 101

http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=storytelling-101-1216161371844255-8&stripped_title=storytelling-101