The new Chief Marketing Officer was the one who announced to her 5500 employees that remote wasn't going to work for her. Michelle "Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained [to employees] the "only one recipe I know for success." Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: "really creative and inspiring locations,"" according to QZ.
IBM's CIO had made it his mission to make the company agile with a small team mindset. "A feature of Smith's particular "agile playbook" for IBM was that "the leaders have to be with the squads [his word for small teams] and the squads have to be in a location." [QZ]
IBM has had "19 consecutive quarters of declining sales!" IBM is facing tough competition. In cloud computing, Lotus/Notes, storage and product lines, they aren't in the top 3. They need to do something different to regain momentum and compete against the likes of Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
Here are a few of the reasons that this mandate might have been made.
Culture. You can't build (or re-build) culture remotely. Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum or on a virtual platform.
I understand the marketing teams need to be together since it is very hard to do creative work and brainstorming virtually, despite the cool new tools. It isn't people huddled in a room mashing it out. Remember that most communications are non visual.
"IBM's leadership believes that people working together stokes innovation." [WaPo] "IBM has research on their side. Studies have reinforced the so-called "water cooler effect," which indicates that employees who work in the same location communicate, collaborate, innovate better and perform better than if they were all working from their homes."
"Research suggests remote workers are more productive and log more hours than employees who work in the office, and for many companies, offering an option to work remotely helps recruit employees who are seeking better work-life balance or who want to live in a location where the company has no office." And IBM saved $100M annually in rent payments. However, they need more than productivity. They need a mind melt; dabble labs; skunk works; new blood with new ideas; and agility to fight off cloud providers and the big 5 GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft). GAFA makes "around $2 million per employee (IBM makes about $200,000 for each employee)". Cost savings and productivity won't replace agility and innovation.
Yahoo famously did this. Other companies as well. QZ notes, "Famous tech office perks at Silicon Valley companies, like free food and laundry service, are at least partly designed to keep workers in the office, and the office designs themselves are sometimes created to optimize interaction." So this isn't unusual. It just goes against the trend. The trend toward remote workers is a cost savings one.
There is a reason that S&P 500 heavyweights used to spend 33 years on the list - and now less than 15 years!
]]>Gallup also did a poll that showed that 32.9% of U.S. employees are "engaged" in the workplace in February. The good news is that this is the highest monthly average recorded in three years. The bad news: The majority of U.S. workers are still "not engaged" at work.
One reason is the cog mentality that Seth writes about here in his preface to Brainwashed (a short thesis on 7 levers to do work that matters).
Managers have two purposes: remove obstacles for employees to do their best work and motivate employees. That second one is tough, but there is plenty of material on it. (Like HERE). Yet, I'm not suggesting that managers become Tony Robbins. I am suggesting that managers set the tone and re-assert the culture*. Seth Godin's blog today was about Attitude. Reading it had me thinking about his book, Linchpin, which is excellent.
If you don't want to read the whole book, Seth wrote a shorter version called Icarus Deception. And an even shorter version of that - just 25 pages - is available on ChangeThis.
As we jump back into a short week after a long weekend, many employees are going to be disengaged (says the data). One path to engagement is if the employee can feel like they are having an impact at work or doing work that matters.
As a company executive, do you buy in on the vision or mission of the company? If not, then employees won't either. The purpose of the vision is to give the company and its employees a focus, a goal, a mission to work for, beyond the grind of the paycheck.
We live in a different world than even 5 years ago. We talk about the Connection Economy, but how are we allowing that to impact our work (for the better)? Many companies try to use social media for PR or customer service but give up way too early. Really they stuck their toe in the water and didn't like the result. It was too much real time feedback.
Well, social media is just one lever. Ignoring the feedback doesn't make it go away. In fact, that feedback could be used in your favor. The guy that started Comcast Cares on twitter, Frank Eliason, says that empathy trumps technology. Yet companies hide behind technology and policies. There are ways to engage your employees with the work and the customers to everyone's satisfaction.
Comcast takes a beating on its customer service. Comcast Senior VP Charlie Herrin, writes that "we need to show [customers] respect, patience, and enthusiasm to provide them with an excellent experience." ... "But Eliason questions what it is about the employee culture at Comcast that is still allowing for these sorts of gaffes to occur." It does come down to Culture.
How do employees even learn Culture? Through stories, rituals, symbols and language. Managers have this responsibility. On the other hand, Netflix points out: "The actual company values, as opposed to the nice-sounding values, are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go."
Culture, Managers, Vision, Empathy, Connection, Engagement, Service - all components to a profitable and desirable workplace.
SIDE NOTE:
7 Ways You Can Impact Company Culture
How to Make a Difference at Work
Brainwashed by Seth Godin
Icarus Deception [aka We Are All Artists Now] by Seth Godin
What does HR stand for by GapingVoid
]]>The certifications not only created a lucrative industry but launched Brand Ambassadors into every business around the globe. Those Brand Ambassadors with their certifications were going to be buying Cisco or Microsoft.
An additional point about the certification, it was a buy-in from the partner. No fogging a mirror to be a partner, you had to take a test. You had to have skin in the game. I'm certain that won't be a telecom channel component any time soon, even though we are at a time when well trained and knowledgeable partners are desperately needed.
Finally, these companies build demand. They market to the channel, but they also market to the buyers, prospects and customers. Demand is a big piece of the puzzle.
One final factor was grass roots building with user groups. Microsoft did this better than Cisco. These user groups provided training, access, networking and more. VMWare has a large user group in Greater Tampa Bay. This helps the certified techie as well as the company. (You want well trained and engaged Brand Ambassadors.)
]]>What happens with Broadview Networks under Windstream? Windstream is only midway through its integration of EarthLink. It will now have 8 UC platforms.
That isn't too confusing to all of the sales channels. Eight to choose from! WIND should be a one stop shop for everything UC and SIP at this point. [Similar to VARs hitting up a VAD like SYNNEX for many of these same vendors.] To do that, WIND would have to hire in some name brand SIP Experts to start beating that drum - loud, clearly and often. Currently, the message is a new flavor of UC every webinar. No over-arching
The noise about T-Mobile and Sprint merging is getting louder. Here's the problem: Recall the mess that the Nextel-Sprint integration was. This will be worse. Why? T-Mobile didn't even really integrate MetroPCS. What synergies are there really? It would simply be to get bigger, not to be a better competitor. For at least 24 months, VZW and AT&T would simply kick its ass - and they wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
That sums up the Level3-CenturyLink merger as well. That is scheduled to start in September if California and a couple other states don't derail it. This will be a mess for customers and partners alike. The product set is so different. Level3 is wholesale VoIP, international, transit and transport. CenturyLink is consumer, small business, mid-market, broadband, voice and some cloud. Very different sales skills.
Both exited data center, but CenturyLink has acquired many cloud and security companies in the last few years. They haven't done much with it because they don't really sell to Enterprise like they would need to. Plus Branding. Plus confusion over at Savvis after that acquisition.
None of that factors change post merger. None. One problem with many of these telcos is that they don't bring in fresh blood. Frontier just hired from Verizon for VP of sales and retention. Pull in someone from outside telco. The biggest hurdle: Culture. Culture eats Strategy for lunch.
Most of the major CLECs are gone: XO, EarthLink, Level3. Others are transitioning: TPX, AireSpring, Birch, Mettel to try to figure out what business looks like with network resale and managed services. It is a different world.
Everyone was betting on UC, but most couldn't get over the deployment headaches. Then when the price war started, they not only weren't prepared for the war, but couldn't or didn't get into it. The latest top 10 leader board for UC doesn't look too much different than 2015 or 2016. Next year it will for certain.
Windstream and Charter should look different in 2018.
Cisco's Spark revamp at EC17 coupled with its latest acquisitions and lay offs might have an effect on Cisco UC seats later this year. Or the acquisition of West Corp by Apollo Management for $5B and change might stall sales. Some of Cisco's other partners - like FLTG in NY - also got acquired. Integration after acquisition always affects sales (and retention).
AT&T and VZ look to be big winners while the CLECs shift and transition. Some of the other players in the space - like Zayo and GTT - also made acquisitions. But are they really replacements for Ma and Pa Bell or even WIndsream, Level3 and C-Link? They have a window of opportunity that is for sure.
Zayo grabbed ELI and Integra. All of the press is about fiber to the tower, so I am thinking that will not be a C-Link or WIND alternative.
Comcast will pick up some business. At $6B in CLEC business revenue now, it almost surpasses most of the CLECs in revenue. They need to take some friction out of the quoting and ordering process. (Charter too! Unbelievable that at its size, it is so arduous to process quotes and orders.)
Until the next merger is announced this is what it will look like. The channel often went to CLECs because of channel friendly attitude as well as suitable product set. This time round the channel will be looking at companies NOT in the midst of turmoil. Ease of doing business will be relative. Just another reason businesses like using channel partners: so they don't have to deal with it!
]]>This year's Data Center Industry Survey from Uptime Institute seems to indicate that "It is moving slower than I'd have thought." That persuasion isn't enough to make the transition happen faster.
The legacy premise PBX sales have slowed down but have not been surpassed by cloud PBX yet [source and HERE].
No one is crushing it despite more vendors entering the cloud space every day. Well, actually, Amazon is crushing it with S3 and AWS.
"Many people don't seem to be willing to throw out their legacy systems but are still investing in diesel generators and backup power," says Matt Stansberry, Uptime Institute's Senior Director. Or they just can't. I have seen way too many businesses - especially telcos and cablecos - relying on spreadsheets and faxes!!!
"One statistic thrown up by the 2017 survey has changed very little over the last four years:
"It is probably because it's not easy to re-architect their legacy applications for a cloud environment." That is true. And not all software can port off AS400s and other legacy server boxes. In fact, COBOL Programmers are STILL in demand!
The providers only hear about clients that want to migrate or are thinking about cloud. Partners see businesses every day that will not be changing anything.
It appears we will be dragging businesses to the cloud kicking and screaming, but slowly.
Heck look how many businesses are still on TDM (POTS) and use faxes.
]]>"AWS is the biggest area Amazon is scaling up with more than 5600 jobs, which translates to about 33% of all the open listings." Hey, kids, here's where future jobs lie!
Retail isn't the future for Amazon growth I guess, despite Prime's customer stickiness; it's building of warehouses; and its foray into brick-and-mortar stores.
For us, "The company is also making more diversified investments into logistics, cloud apps, and media: Amazon's recent forays into logistics and media foreshadow areas of new business interest. Amazon tends to invest mainly where it can make strategic partnerships. India-based Housejoy will help expand its reach in the region, and Twilio has partnerships with AWS." [source]
Amazon has a secretive R&D skunk work called Lab126, which is behind hardware hits like the Echo and Kindle (and Fire smartphone). Dabble Lab and Occam are independent skunk works that companies can hire. This type of innovative and creative thinking is needed especially in telecom.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote a letter to shareholders that talks about Day 2 like it was death. Yet the letter gives a small insight into Bezos' decision making. Focus on results and don't let the process (or policy) become the thing to focus on. Make decisions quickly. Even if you disagree with a decision, commit to the project. Every day is Day 1. Think fresh. Look outside the company for ideas, concepts, practices and trends. Embrace them.
You can read the letter on Recode. And you should.
NYU Professor Scott Galloway breaks down how Amazon is dismantling retail. Although he notes it isn't just Amazon. We have too many malls. There is a trend in consumer spending on restaurants and experiences rather than things.
Why should telecom care about retail or even Amazon?
Amazon is going to be a big player in telecom outside of AWS and S3, with Chime and Connect and tools and whatever it cooks up with twilio.
The other reason to examine retail: see the demise so that it doesn't happen to your business.
Bezos and Elon Musk - in my book - are the two best CEOs in America right now. Learning more about how they make decisions can be helpful.
]]>Level3 CEO and President Jeff Storey is poised to get a huge prize for selling the company off. Isn't that great? For him, yes. He gets a "$1.2 million bonus after the Broomfield-based telecom's $24 billion acquisition by CenturyLink Inc. closes. In addition to the $1.2 million bonus payout, Storey is slated to receive an accelerated stock grant worth $3 million after the transaction with Monroe, Louisiana-based CenturyLink." Agents, meanwhile, get to wonder what happens post merger. How messed up will the networks be? How convoluted will ordering and quoting be?
After both Transbeam and NITEL announced that they are adding SD-WAN, MegaPath launches SD-WAN aimed at the SMB. That is the same place that SimpleWAN plays. SimpleWAN is up for the 2017 Venture Madness business competition in Arizona.
Velocloud raised a series D round for $35M. Many startups will look at this (and the SNAP IPO yesterday at $26B) and think that doing a startup is like buying a lottery ticket. In a sense it is, but building a business -- even to sell it quick -- still requires hard work, execution of an idea AND a plan, and sales. Velocloud is signing up partner providers faster than a PR firm can add them, but that doesn't result in meaningful sales for a long while!
You can learn from failure. #startup stories.
In the heat of SD-WAN, I wonder if people realize how shaky Cisco (and other router manufacturers like Juniper and ADTRAN) are? The SD-WAN white box is not a Cisco. It is an OEM that can be a router, a firewall, an access point, a Cradlepoint, darn near anything because we just push the software update to the box and either install the card/WIC or activate the card/WIC. The white box is replacing the traditional gear. Cisco and ADTRAN are in the box business. So are VARs. What happens next? Pay close attention - it will be a lot like the PBX Business, but decline a little faster.
Satellite ISPs OneWeb and Intelsat are merging. Consolidation in every sector of the ISP market - MSO, ILEC and now sateliite.
Verizon wins top honors from Frost & Sullivan for capturing more than a quarter of the North American VoIP and SIP Trunking Services Market.
CenturyLink makes changes to its Alliances and Strategic Partnerships programs.
In the EarthLink-Windstream merger, the ELNK channel chief, Olen Scott. emerges as the new channel head. "Jason Dishon, Windstream's former channel chief, has left the company to pursue other opportunities." It is a constant state of musical chairs in telecom.
]]>
I spoke with a few VoIP executives including CoreDial at ITEXPO. There are two separate layers: cheap voice or POTS replacement and people who want a comms platform.
Most aren't using the full suite since they have Slack, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. They have Office365 or Google for Work. It is a siloed approach to a comms suite.
Price points are decreasing. But then they had to since UCaaS is costing more than a SIP trunk and a small business PBX (think 3CX, FreePBX, Asterisk).
There aren't that many multi-location businesses. (And everyone is chasing them!)
There are more businesses with remote workers. There are also more workers with consultants, contractors and freelancers who are outside the federation of the enterprise system. How do they fit into the organizations' communications?
Coredial turns all features on when they sell off the Broadsoft platform. This way users know about features that they may not have been aware of, like voicemail to email or text to email.
There is training for users - and later due to employee turnover, more training for users. This is but one way to ensure that the customer's organization is getting the full benefit of UCaaS. Otherwise they could have bought the cheaper version!
Everyone is talking about softphones (especially Broadsoft and Counterpath!) Yet there were many new phone/handset vendors at the show. [There also were a couple of VoIP endpoint vendors who had devices very similar to Doorbot! ]
Are you using a softphone on your laptop/desktop/tablet? I'd be curious who is - other than folks who actually work at the VoIP provider!
8x8 is pivoting to Global! I guess they think they have taken all the share they can in the US. Or it is getting too expensive to acquire a customer in the US!
Maybe I am jaded because I have been staring at the VoIP World since 2002.I have waiting for the tidal wave of adoption but small business after small business are pretty happy with a key system, which despite the argument to the contrary is not the value of a Hosted VoIP solution (to see Key System Emulation is UGH!!!!)
I saw quite a few new logos that offer VoIP/UC. Consolidation news has quieted down. Current UC providers have to get - not only better at selling seats - but more efficient at selling them. Velocity has to happen. Yet to have that happen, the provider has to take more friction out of the sales process. The provider has to narrow its focus on who it can best serve and why - and target better for faster conversion.
During my discussion with Coredial. we talked about the market - actually we talked about the fact that the market of 1-500 employees is more like 7 markets with 7 different buying personas. UC is still triggered by an event more often than not, says Coredial. Moving, expanding, shrinking, acquiring -- these business events for the organization warrant a look at shifting from premise to Cloud Comm.
The market segments need to be addressed. The messaging, the targeting, etc. Considering many service providers barely have marketing in place for one persona, how will they market to 5 or 7 segments while addressing even half that many buyer personas?
I often talk verticals, but I also know that channel partners HAVE segmented the providers. "We use this one for 1-5 seats and this one for up to 20, etc."
It is unlikely that a partner will use the same provider for 10 seats as for 150 seats. It would be a white whale.
Just some food for thought.
One more thought: with Net Neutrality going away fast, what do OTT VoIP players do?
]]>On Wed., 2/8th at ITEXPO, there will be a panel discussion titled Women in Tech. One of the panelists is Karin Fields, CEO & COO of master agency, Microcorp. Here is a brief interview we did together.
ME: What is the significance of this panel for you?
KF: Being a woman in technology has afforded me the life I wanted. I have been able to have a great career but more importantly be the mom I wanted to be. It's important for me to evangelize that this can be a good career for woman and to help encourage more woman to get into our industry.
ME: What one takeaway do you hope the audience will get?
KF: Diversity is essential for sustainable growth. For the men in the audience, it's important they step up to ensure women get the support they need to grow within our industry. For the woman in the audience, this is a good industry to be in and have they life they want.
ME: Why is it important to have more women in STEM and/or Tech?
KF: Women bring a different perspective to the table. We often look more at the human element not just the facts. Woman tend to be better listeners and hear what is being said and what is not being said. All diversity is important especially in a global economy.
To her point, Harvard Business Review wrote about a study that has shown Firms with More Women in the C-Suite Are More Profitable. "When we examined the profitable firms in our sample (average net margin of 6.4%), we found that going from having no women in corporate leadership (the CEO, the board, and other C-suite positions) to a 30% female share is associated with a one-percentage-point increase in net margin -- which translates to a 15% increase in profitability for a typical firm."
Join us for the session.
]]>"Management consulting's fundamental business model has not changed in more than 100 years. At traditional strategy-consulting firms, the share of work that is classic strategy is now about 20%--down from 60% to 70% some 30 years ago."
Former Big Three employees now work for companies like general counsel. They reduce professional services costs. They reduce scope of work and thus the price tag. Just another example of a high-profit business being annihilated, only Amazon didn't do it this time.
"Clients rely on brand, reputation, and "social proof"--that is, the professionals' educational pedigrees, eloquence, and demeanor--as substitutes for measurable results." That is a problem in consulting. The measurable part. I think that some companies hire ideas/strategy but forget that it is all about execution. I don't know if you can disrupt execution yet. Knowledge certainly. And I think we have spent a good amount of time just copying strategy from competitors. That isn't working out well either. Like in law and medicine, the general practice firm is giving way to specialists.
The second article is about voice first technology disrupting the search ad revenue model.
""...one thing that we are all clear about is the days of three top text ads followed by ten organic results is a thing of the past in the voice first world"-- Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP of advertising and commerce @ Google, November 29, 2016."
"Just like this generation now no longer has CDs, DVDs, tapes or records, the next generation will expect voice interaction, not with pages of search results but AI assisted, ontology, and taxonomy perfect answers, most particularly one answer."
"The writing is on the wall."
Medium.com just laid off one-third their staff as the traditional ad based business model was NOT working for them.
Retail isn't working for Sears/KMart, Kohls, Macys, Sports Authority and so much more. Have you been to a mall lately? Anyone holding a shopping bag from a store in that mall?
New drug will regenerate teeth, so where does that leave dentists?
A large hedge fund will replace managers with artificial intelligence!
What does this have to do with YOU? Well, anyone can be displaced or replaced. The number of displaced workers is growing. Either you are growing or you are dying. Either you are learning new skills or someone/something will leapfrog you.
Hugh MacLeod writes, "To innovate, you don't have to reinvent the whole thing. Innovation is taking what exists and making it better. It's grown-up copying."
]]>I have run into quite a few companies that have never hired a consultant before. I figure that they are used to hiring bodies and managing bodies. They manage the hours you work; not the outcome of the work.
They do hire vendors, for example, a PR firm or a softswitch. On the one hand, with the softswitch they know exactly what they are buying. With the PR firm, it is more intangible. Both are managed differently.
Salespeople ideally are managed by outcome, but not really. Many salespeople do not hit quota nor do the perform the necessary daily activities. So no, they are not managed by results. The managers are managing bodies and hours.
If you rent a car, you don't want to own it or maintain it. You want it to get you around safely, while you have it. If you want, you can rent a better, faster, more luxurious car, but all you are doing is contracting for transportation during the prescribed hours.
That is how some consulting works. The consultant comes in for a set number of days or hours, bangs out the presentation, does some Q&A, sets a strategy, crafts a killer message, plans a product launch, then the company takes over from there. They hired for a specific function, a bunch of knowledge or guidance. This is not unlike hiring a lawyer or going to the doctor.
Consultants bill by the project or by the hour. Billing by the project is fine if there aren't any snags. In web design, there is usually scope creep and changes, which sink many a web design project - both for the designer and the customer.
When hourly billing, buyers may look for the cheapest supplier. That is when you know that they are buying hours, not outcomes. It might also be that they don't know what to look for when hiring that talent or skill.
We are moving to a freelancer economy - 40% of the population is now part of the connection economy. Managers are going to have to adjust to hiring tasks, projects, output, activity - as opposed to hiring bodies.
In a management webinar I am presenting, I am working towards re-adjusting managers' thinking towards salespeople. CRM was supposed to make sales activities more transparent - or at least trackable. It has been 16 years since Salesforce took off - and sales departments are still fighting CRM! And managers are not using the functionality to manage the funnel and the team.
Jim Rohn, a business philosopher, said, "You don't get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour." True, but you get managed by the hour, not the output. In a world of big data and analytics, we still manage like there is still a wall phone.
]]>I know we have blurred the lines between work and life, but come on. I often wonder if that isn't a symptom of why we are so unproductive. We are always connected, constant thoughts of work results in no rest, no real down time and for a few burn out. For most, periods of unproductivity.
When you have a structured work day of 8 hours, does it make work easier to accomplish? Knowing you have to get stuff done in allotted time? Yet when you factor in the doing more with less and more and more to do (especially for sales and marketing people), that is stress that adds to unproductive.
I look at LinkedIN and wonder if people have forgotten what work is. Correlate that to sales, especially relationship building types of sales, and we wonder why sales are off. We wonder why it is hard to hit sales numbers. No one knows when to work -- or what work looks like - or what business relationships look like.
According to a survey by Microsoft, 46 percent of workers say their productivity has improved thanks to social media and social media tools.
"Research from the University of California, Irvine, shows productivity rises in the late morning around 11 a.m. and peaks between 2 and 3 p.m." [fortune]
A study by Cornerstone found that work overload was cited as a factor that decreased productivity by 68 percent of employees surveyed, who felt that the hours required to complete their work on a daily basis outnumbered the hours in their workday. [source]
A study by Cornerstone OnDemand found that 43 percent of employees surveyed feel that unscheduled interruptions by coworkers are the biggest obstacle when it comes to productivity.
Research conducted by Stanford University cites that multitasking may ultimately be decreasing our general intelligence. Multitasking gives the illusion of higher productivity, but it is hard to cut down 6 trees by swinging the axe at each only once per hour.
"A survey from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that most Americans actually work normal hours and get regular sleep, despite their reputation for being overtired and overworked. [QZ]
So we want to look busy and be busy, complain about being busy, but we aren't actually productive. Some of it is distractions. Some of it is Fear.
"A study lead by the University of California, Irvine, and presented at the South by Southwest panel on workplace distraction, found employees were actually happiest when performing these rote tasks. Why is busywork secretly so enjoyable? It's because completing busywork gives you a feeling of accomplishment without the corresponding stress which comes along with more challenging tasks." [fortune]
We admire busy because we confuse it with being accomplished. We don't grasp the difference between Urgent and Important.
In some cases, we know what we have to, what we should do, but we don't do it. We don't want to work that hard for success. We don't want to break our comfort zone. We don't want to risk it.
These are just observations, but I think we confuse being happy with a social media infused FOMO view of success. We dream about being a multi-millionaire - through lottery or a unicorn start-up idea - with all the toys and imagine there is no down-side and that with money all our problems go away and we are magically happy. (Does Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton look happy?) That is a dream, but that isn't our goal, which is closer to paying the bills, going on vacation, spending time with family & friends, enjoying the journey of life. That is the opposite of the millionaire dream life. Happy requires purpose and meaningful work. The problem there is meaningfulwork, Creative work, takes up time, effort and risk. OOPS!
Hugh writes, "The thing that turns a job into passion, that turns work into play, is a sense of mission."
It's like the current push to be an entrepreneur. It is everywhere, but most people do not have the skills or drive to do it. Startups fail for a variety of reasons. We have glamorized the failures - Pets.com, Friendster, Boo.com, Webvan and more. But all anyone talks about is raising money, not building a viable business - or building a company to last.
We have forgotten to focus on the goals. And to enjoy the journey as well.
Managing more sales is part time management and part reflection.
]]>Are you stepping closer to your goals? Or just running in place like on a treadmill?
Are you working TOWARDS your goals? (Do you even have goals to work towards? Too many replace Quota with Goal.)
Are the activities you are spending your time on Revenue Generating? Or Strategic?
Is it Urgent or Important?
Can it be delegated? (For Freelancers and Agents, Virtual Assistants are fantastic!)
Start thinking about what you are trading that time for? Was it worth it? If we charged ourselves our hourly rate for the way we spend time, we would change our habits.
From my favorite blogger: "No one complains of having spent an entire day doing 'productive work'. Busywork, on the other hand, is mind-numbing. Business means producing things of actual value. There are 2 kinds of busy: see here.
Pareto's Principle goes further than we thought.
Want more time management hacks and tips? Join the webinar.
]]>Intermedia was the first. They ended up selling to MCI due to the amount of short term debt that was due. (Reminder: don't acquire companies using an AMEX card!)
PAETEC hit a billion and sold to Windstream.
Cbeyond only made it half way there before looking for a buyer. Eventually Birch bought them.
EarthLink hit a billion. That is all. Tried a lot of stuff, not a lot worked. Today they are making a niche play in retail, while trying to figure out what to do with the fiber network.
XO hit a billion and became totally irrelevant for a long while until Verizon decided to buy them. That seemed to ignite a fire in the belly of XO.
Covad and other DLECs tanked quickly after Big IPO's, because it was just too difficult to navigate the waters of telecom (especially without a C-Suite with that kind of domain knowledge. Next time hire a former SVP or EVP from a LEC!) Google Fiber is seeing those same problems, stumbling its way to less than 250K subscribers in 5 years of labor and marketing hype.
In Jim Collins Built to Last, some of the elements to lasting success are Culture, BHAGs (vision and goals) and home-grown management (talent development). It has to be about more than the race to a billion.
I see this with UC and Cloud companies. Many of them on a race to a Billion. It should only be a race to get 25,000 profitable customers. Then 35K, then 40K, then 50K. And that will be a big business right there.
But NO!!! It has to be a Unicorn! What a stupid attitude. I see it over and over. I want thousands of partners. I want to sell from 1-1000 employees. But the clock is broken. The systems and procedures suck. There isn't a culture of excellence.
Heck, even college athletics departments know about building a culture of excellence.
I can see a couple of the big UC companies struggling and eventually failing. It isn't about what can you sell. It IS about what can you Deploy and Support!
The process to deploy 20 seats is NOT the same as the process to deploy 500 seats.
BE A CLOCK BUILDER, NOT A TIME TELLER - Jim Collins
]]>This is where Big Data is going: watching your every move and analyzing it. Dave and I don't see eye to eye on whether this will be used like a carrot or a stick. People don't quit companies or jobs; they quit their bosses. Listen in as we talk about his new startup and the implications.
If you can't see the podcast player, you can download the mp3 here.
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