Zane Safrit

"A hierarchy of failure worth following"

Not all failures are the same. Here are five kinds, from frequency = good all the way to please-don't!via sethgodin.typepad.com

Seth's at it again. Talking about failure and its role in our success. Who knew there were 5 different kinds of failure? Seth did.

Honestly, we all do. But few of us, even fewer corporations, admit it we know and if we're smart...we'll embrace this kinda hierarchy.

Thanks again Seth!

Upcoming Guests On Our Radio Show

Here are the upcoming guests for our radio show. I'm trying to contain my enthusiasm for each guest, their work and the chance to talk with them one-on-one during the show. To save your time, I'll share a description of each, a link to their show and a link to their site. Your enthusiasm will happen naturally, I think.

Molly Anderson, Co-author of The Corporate Lattice - August 11, at 9:30 AM, Central,

Molly Anderson is director of talent for Deloitte Services LP, specializing in innovative strategies to engage today's workforce. She designed and led the implementation of mass career customization within Deloitte and served as operations director for its highly acclaimed Women's Initiative. Molly is an expert on organizational effectiveness, large-scale change, human resources strategy and learning and development. Now, In The Corporate Lattice, Chief Talent Officer Cathleen Benko and Director of Talent Molly Anderson take the next step by addressing the broader corporate landscape. Link for the Molly Anderson Show

Yvonne DiVita, co-founder of BlogPaws - The Gathering Place for Pets and professional blogger and [outstanding] consultant - August 12, 9:30 AM, Central

Yvonne DiVita and her partners in BlogPaws, Caroline Golon of Romeo The Cat and Tom Collins, her partner with Scratchings and Sniffings and Windsor Media realized their common passions of pets, and their rescue and care, and social media and its power to connect were passions commonly shared by, well a huge community of people around the world. Being the leaders they are, they led. They created the BlogPaws community and it quickly grew into a vibrant online community of social media experts and resources who shared their social media talents along with passions for pet rescue and care. They created the first BlogPaws event held last year. It was a huge success. And now they're looking at their 2nd event held in 2010. Link for the Yvonne DiVita Show

You have the same two listening options with each show:

1. Call-in live during the show. 646-915-9212 Each show starts at 9:30 AM, Central and lasts an hour. Or longer.

2. Listen in streaming on demand at the link provided with each show’s description here.

Don’t worry about forgetting. I’ll remind you with Tweets, Facebook posts, blog posts before and after each show.

Here I am on Twitter and Facebook Fan Page.

If a laundromat can use social media....

Blog: I would build the business website using a blogging platform for my content and membership management. Most of the social/emerging media play will be video and possibly location-based services such as Foursquare, but with blogging helping build page depth in a central location - the blog becomes an agent for success in goal #1 above.via www.converstations.com

This is a great vision of possibilities for social media use with 'even' a laundromat.

Now. If a laundromat could benefit from social media....couldn't your company benefit from it, too?

Olivier Blanchard's Basics Of Social Media ROI Prez

via www.slideshare.net

Excellent!

It's as much a presentation on the basics of ROI. Note Slide 17: ROI is 100% media agnostic.

Where does a business generate ROI from any investment?

• More revenues

• Lower costs

An investment in social media is no different. Clicks and conversations are nice...But,

• More revenues

• Lower costs

sustain the conversations and the business and the community behind them.

Be wary of any advisor who refuses to explain how you will generate an ROI with better revenues, lower costs, from an investment in their expertise. 

Who needs a social media policy? Adult politicians, it seems.

The governing center-right UMP party and the opposition Socialists both said they had agreed not to use text messages or Twitter to leak the proceedings in real time, as happened twice this year during closed-door appearances by Prime Minister Francois Fillon and French soccer coach Raymond Domenech. via www.reuters.com

Ok. So, wouldn't you know it? Adult politicians need a social media policy...

Word-of-Mouth: Where do you invest in it?

Far more creativity, today, goes into the marketing of products than into the products themselves, athletic shoes or feature films....In that regard alone, the footage is a work of proven genius. *

With whom, how and where do you invest your creativity?

Do invest it in your marketing department or the outside agency in order t conjure up a message that compensates for what you did not invest in: your product, service?

What would happen if you invested your creativity in making sure your product or service proved your genius?

Would you need an outside agency?

What would people then say about your product which they cannot say, with integrity, now?

Would that matter to your revenues or cash-flows?

* Hubertus Bigend, founder of Blue Ant agency. He’s a key character in Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.

What are you reading, Sam Harrison?

Sam Harrison is the author of a fabulous book titled: IdeaSelling: Successfully pitch your creative ideas to bosses, clients and other decision makers. He joined the show recently. You can listen here.

Sam’s a veteran of pitching ideas: He’s has been on all sides of creative communications, marketing and branding – the agency and freelance side, the client and corporate side and, most recently, the academic and consulting side.

He is an in-demand professional speaker and member of the National Speakers Association, presenting highly rated seminars and keynote talks to agencies, firms and associations throughout North America and beyond.

He also teaches creativity, writing and presentation-skills classes at Portfolio Center and he’s worked with a bunch of Fortune 500 clients.

All of that and more makes him a leader.

I asked him:

Leaders are readers. Jim Rohn said that. You’re a leader. What books have you read this year that just wowed you?

And he answered with the best list of books of any guest so  far on this show:

The Last Child in The Woods. It's almost required reading for our community. And the kids can go out on their own, and build forts and create games and help build creative skills and interpersonal skills. Now, pretty much, they're taken from one organized activity to another, to another and they're losing the ability to invent.

Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, by Sally Hogshead.

The Genius in All of Us. There's still a lot of good information in it...we're not prisoners of our DNA as people once thought.

Love is the Killer Ap, by Tim Sanders

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A corporate fool's guide to surviving with grace by Gordon Mackenzie

A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

City of Thieves by David Benioff

******************

I include this question in my interviews now with all the guests on my radio show. Leaders are readers. The guests on my show are leaders. They are leaders because they lead. And their vision and skills as leaders come from what they read. If you want to be a leader, follow in the footsteps of leaders. Read what leaders read.

Give Them a Fedex Day - Week 11 of the 52 Week Employee Recognition Plan

I announced in May, 2010, the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan . This is the 11th week of that plan. The lesson this week is:

Give them a FedEx Day where they can brainstorm and ‘deliver’ something new overnight. Tip of the hat to Robert Brand for his column Google's Magic Motivation Juice

Google allows their folks to spend up to 20% of their time on a personal project. That’s one-day per week assuming those at Google devote 40 hours per week.

Where’s the ROI for that benevolence? Here's a few sources:

• Google’s stock price
• Their hiring costs
• Their  low employee turnover
• Their minimal losses from employee sick days.
• And a few good ideas that drive their revenue and their stock price.

Ok, you say and rightly you say, Google’s culture is unique. And they have engineers and super-smart people working there.

Right again. And you know what? A day like this is a key reason that Google’s culture stays unique. And that their super-smart people are allowed to perform as super-smart people.

What’s different about your culture? Three things come to mind.

• Your culture is different than Google’s.

• You don’t allow your employees to pursue their ideas, even for a moment.

• You may or may not have super-smart people. You don’t know do you?

The results of that are:

• Your stock price is a bit lower than Google's

• Your hiring costs are higher

• Your employee turnover is higher

• You have more losses from employee sick days, particularly on Fridays and Mondays.

• You haven't had any good ideas that helped drive revenues and stock prices in...a long time.

Why not find out? Give everyone a FedEx day. Let them work on a project, work-related or not, and deliver their ‘package’ absolutely, positively overnight. Give them the chance to tell the story of their package and how they made it and why it’s important. For them.

There are so many elements of recognition in this simple step. There are so many sources of delight and fun, engagement and creativity, innovation and serendipitous discovery in this step.

At the very least, you’ll soon discover (recognize) you do have super-smart people around you. And you’ll see why they’re super-smart. And they’ll know you recognize them now as super-smart. And so will their peers. And their managers.

Think that will translate into a stock price equal to Google's? No. Not today, tomorrow or even next year.

Now you’re on your way, together, to create an engaged culture, a culture of learning, a culture of fun.

Think that will translate into customers who want to share their experience of your culture? Yes.

Think that will translate into more super-smart people wanting to join your organization of other super-smart people? Yes.

Think that will translate into more ideas for more products in more markets to drive more revenue? ...Yes.

There's the ROI for this simple step of recognizing your employees as the super-smart people they can be...if you let them.

**************

You can start with any week of the 52-Week Employee Recognition Plan and make that your first week.

You can take one of those weeks and turn it into a month or commit to an accelerated pace and complete 6 of the weeks in one month.

You can create your own week of employee recognition. Share that journey here. Share it in your blog or Twitter or Facebook.

But do something to recognize your employees! They set your brand apart as your ultimate competitive edge. And the more you recognize their achievements, the more achievements you'll see and they'll enjoy, along with your customers and and shareholders, partners and vendors.

3 Most Important Characteristics of a Leader

Patti Blackstaffe, founder of Strategic Sense, was a guest on my radio show recently. You can listen here. She shared her thoughts and tips and resources for building better leaders, crafting stronger strategies and executing them with greater efficiency and engagement with your associates.

I asked her about the qualities of a great leader (My questions in bold; her answers in italics) :

Me:

Walking the talk now, what are the 3 most important characteristics of a leader? These are the ones that if missing this person cannot be a leader? 

Patti:

• Empathy

• Listening

• Communicating Expectation

Me: Which is most important?

Patti:

• Empathy

Me: Why?

Patti:

For the employees, for the families of the employees, for the customer, for the suppliers.

Without the ability to put one’s self into the shoes of another person, we cannot even begin to know how to lead. We lead in all aspects of our lives, but leadership cannot be dictatorship, leadership is about serving, making a difference in the lives of your customers and all stakeholders.

Great insights. And they point us all in the right direction to be stronger leaders, even if our followers include only ourselves.

Highlights from My Conversation with Joan Koerber-Walker, founder of Core Purpose

Joan-Koerber Walker is the founder and President of Core Purpose. She joined the show for a 2nd time recently. You can listen to our conversation here.

Core Purpose specializes in building solutions that enable clients to focus more of their resources and energy on what they are passionate about and best at in a way that makes financial sense.

See? Joan and her organization help their clients find their core purpose, connect that with their clients’ employees and execute in a sustainable fashion.

Joan was the CEO of Arizona Small Business Association where she worked with the talented team of staff and volunteers tackling challenges like health-care, workforce development, and growing local businesses as an economic development strategy. And before that she was successful in the Big Corporate World.

Joan, how are you? Thank you for being on our show. How are you? What are you working on?

When we spoke last summer we talked about we were in a recession, a depression and how were we going to tackle all the challenges that impact business at every level.

We’re still bumping along the bottom. Companies, start-ups or big global companies are still struggling with the question of why are in business...what are we trying to accomplish and who will we get to the yes that gets every team member to sparkle.

And when you get to the yes that’s when you’re following your core purpose.

You live in Arizona. How is Arizona's economy now?

Arizona was hit hardest by this economy. We’ll take them as a leading indicator for the rest of the country for receiving from this economy.

Arizona’s economy was based on two areas hit hardest by this recession. We had two primary streams of income:

• Income stream #1: real estate.

• Income stream 2 was retail, consumer, spending.

When we had banks collapsing, real estate construction coming to a halt and foreclosures rising then retail spending came to a halt.

Budget cuts but not enough to balance it. Tax increases were approved to keep key ares of the infrastructure then

When government can’t solve the problems their self then citizens come up with creative ideas to solve these problems.

There’s been pretty high profile legislation in the recent 12 months. We’ve seen everyone coming together on a critical issue to find a way to come work out what’s come to be a national issue.

That’s the Arizona Immigration Law, SB-1070. It pertains to jobs, business growth, what’s your thoughts?

It’s been very momentous piece of legislation. From a small business perspective, it’s the first time a state is boycotting another state on this issue. That’s how divisive it is.

The important thing about SB-1070 is that it’s not an immigration bill. It’s an illegal immigration. It’s focused on people breaking the law.

The challenge is that it’s based on federal law. And not all federal laws are that great. And it’s like a patchworked quilt where not everything lines up right.

It has ramifications for law enforcement, business, current residents.

Hundreds of small business people gathered and shaped themselves in a big SOS asking the Washington to please help. Otherwise, we’ll continue to have these patchwork solutions in each state.

Arizona is a gateway where these problems come through and they don’t stay here. And they show up in places like...Iowa.

We have to remember that there are different issues that have to be addressed. Issue one is we have to secure the border. Equally important is the crime statistic you hear about. They are not the guy coming across the border to find a job. It’s the people in the business of bringing people and drugs over the border. Very often instead of taking cash back across the border they take guns. That creates problems for our partner south of the border.

The reason you see laws like this...holding employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers, penalties for aiding and abetting bringing people over the border and checking people for citizenship when they break the law.

The reason they go after employers is that if there’s not that opportunity for a job then less will come over.

Now, dealing with SB-1070 is like closing the barn door. You still have the situation of all those people here now. Some of it is generational. And it gets difficult when both sides start screaming at each other.

It goes back to a post I wrote, Answer or Hypothesis, where you need a place to test a solution. Thinking about your own career, our roles as leaders, it’s really important we remember we rarely have a perfect solution. We have a hypothesis and we test it. We take a step forward.

The reality is that when you have a complex answer you have to start with a hypothesis and test it, take a step forward, test the parameters.

Compare this conversation about the SB-1070 bill to that of a company needing a solution to a complex problem. Every department has their stand, their perspective. It seems like there was no real clear purpose leading that discussion.

No, no. Their purpose was clear. They were going to act because the federal government had not. They had specific things they needed to stop. And they had only a few things they could do.

The reality is that the states do not enforce federal law. So, they created a state law that mirrored the federal law.

They had to do something and that’s the best they could do.

Let’s say we talk a year from now. And Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, has made you Immigration Czar. What are the three things you’ve implemented that move this conversation forward.

That’s tricky. It’s tricky because the reason we’re talking here is that the conversation is very diverse. We’re a nation of laws. The reality is that we can’t restructure a state or federal law and implement it in a year.

Whomever is given the job will fail, if they are measured on a 12-month forecast.

Let’s bring that back to having a core purpose, understanding why you are doing, what you are going to do and how you are going to do it and getting a consensus on yes among all the members.

Everyone’s going in their own direction instead of one unifying goal.

SB-1070 is addressing a challenge we hope can be solved in our lifetime.

The first thing is everyone on board has to agree why you’re doing what you’re doing. If you cannot as a leader clearly explain why we’re doing what we’re doing...it’s highly unlikely a consensus will follow.

If you have the wrong core purpose you get the wrong results.

We saw that in the banking community, the Wall Street debacle. If the reason you’re in business is to make more money and that’s it....you’re going to make a bad decision.

Those things we talk about are the results of making good decisions. If you’re in the business to make life better for your customers or make a better widget...to prevent pain and suffering...those are reasons to be in business. You can find people who truly believe in your purpose and you can hire those people and you’re not going to have to motivate them because they come to you motivated. You just need to give them direction.

The first question that I ask is why are you in business. Why are we having this meeting? What do you want to accomplish by following the path you’re following.

If they can’t answer those questions then they’re not going to get the results they want.

Let’s talk about what you do with Core Purpose. What are the catalysts that bring a client to you? What are the events that let them know we’re not on track on moving towards their common goal.

The time that people normally come knocking at my door, the people I spend my time with are Boards of Directors, Executive leaders, General Managers, people who are leaders. Leaders need help. They don’t have people they can turn to for help.

Normally when there is a challenge, it’s marketing is changing, it’s customer base is changing, there’s a problem the leadership has looked around the room and said we don’t have a solution.

Then someone in their organization will say “Someone needs to call that girl. And approaching 50 I like being called a girl.”

Most of the time when they say ‘we have this problem we need to solve.’ normally that’s not the problem. That’s the symptom of the problem. We keep going and asking why this is happening. And we’ll follow the why’s all the way back to the root causes.

When we go in and start asking those questions and that root cause can be anything...

The main thing is that being in business for over 30 years Core Purpose has a network of over 200 experts we can bring in to address those root causes. We can do triage but we can also bring in the best experts from around the country who can not only stop the bleeding and start getting the organization healthy again.

Our goal at core purpose is to help companies make the most of who they are...for the people who matter: their shareholders, their employees, their customers and partners.

Just imagine if every company focused on doing what’s right then we wouldn’t have an economic downturn.

That’s a great economic recovery program. It sounds so simple. How do companies get off-track?

We have to separate it into public and private companies. When you look at public companies you are only as good as your last quarter. And the markets adjust. That drives us to short-term decision making so that our stock price doesn’t tank and we have a ll sorts of problems from that.

We drive public companies to short-term, opportunistic, decision-making. That’s what effected our economy.

John Talton wrote an incredible piece talking about Apple, specifically about the iPad.

• 25,000 employees working at Apple here in the US.
  

• 250,000 working for Apple overseas.

Is there any question why we have a competitive challenge here at home.

On the other side, let’s look at small business. Small business is very much in survival mode. It’s only as good as its last bank statement. If that business starts runs out of money it’s going to come out of the small business owner’s pocket.

Where is the capital coming for small business in his downturn? It’s coming from the small business owner. Banks, angels, VCs are all on the sidelines. It’s coming out of the personal life saving of the small business owner. They invested their entire life savings in this company.

The challenge that faces big and small companies goes back to short-term decision-making rather than going back and looking at the root causes with a team that shares a common goal.

My friend Erika Andersen coined a favorite phrase of mine. That’s reasonable aspiration or hoped-for future. She used it in her book Being Strategic. What was your reasonable aspiration or hoped-for future when you created Core Purpose? Has it changed in this past year?

That’s a tricky question!

Core Purpose is one of the things I’m involved in. In the case of Core Purpose, we started in a downturn. Core Purpose started in times like these...It does best in times like these because people see they need help. Our purpose in starting Core Purpose was in helping people grow.

We’ve continued with that focus. That’s served us well.

I love being involved in multiple projects. I serve on the Board of Directors of a bio-tech firm in San Diego. That’s personally when I look at my RA it’s that not only my core purpose as an individual but find organizations whose core purpose I can believe in and help them get there.

I hope that I can do that for awhile.

What are some of the metrics, other than longevity, that show your progress towards hoped-for future?

Our customer base has expanded and we’ve learned over time who our customers are.

The small businesses in the community, we’ll work with in a seminar format and through our blogs and giving back to the community. Many of the problems we work on are too expensive for small businesses to pay for.

I personally find it very rewarding to work with small businesses. That’s why I work with organizations that help small business in disadvantaged communities. That’s why I write the Core Purpose blog which doesn’t sell anything. That’s why I’ll talk with any small business for an hour for free. And then I’ll point them to the resources they need.

That’s how we move forward.

I was going to Tweet about this but then I thought maybe you don’t want a lot of quirky people talking with you for an hour.

I have 5 public Twitter profiles:

• JoanKW
  

• JKWLeadership

• JKWGrowth

• JKWinnovation

• CorePurpose

Each of them is focused on  those subject areas.

Tweet me a question and I’ll see if I can find a solution or articulate a hypothesis.

All entrepreneurs face and overcome challenges along their journey. What have been the 3 biggest challenges you’ve faced and overcome since starting this journey.

The biggest challenge I faced when I started was being alone. All of a sudden when I left corporate American was how do I survive on my own. That’s rebuilding an infrastructure that’s cost effective. Understanding what was the right working structure.

Marty Zwilling wrote a post about Corp executives who leave. If you’re over 40 don’t, because you’re too set in your ways. That’s a real challenge from being part of an eco-system to being on your own.

#2 is understanding capital budgets. When you get into start-up mode, if you think you're going to be cash-flow positive in a year, you need the money to run it for a year. You get paid last. You have to have enough personal capital to pay your own bills during this time, while you’re building that business.

If you can’t finance your business and your home life then you are dangerously under-capitalized.

Make sure you understand what you need to live and support your business. You have to enough for both.

#3. It’s going right back to where we started this conversation. Know why you are in business. You may change the how. You may change the what. But stay true to why you started your business.

Jim Rohn said Leaders are readers. You’re a leader. What are you reading? What’s been your favorite books this year, fiction or not, business or not?

Actually this Fourth of July I read two trash novels with no redeeming values. Leaders, sometimes, need to regroup.

I also was re-reading The Recipe: a recipe for leaders that Core Purpose recently published.[can't find the link. sorry.]

I just got a preview copy of Bob Sutton’s new book Good Boss, Bad Boss.

Where can we find you on the web?

The easiest ways is to go to JoanKW on Twitter. If you’re looking for my blog it’s JKW.typepad.com. The company site is Core Purpose dot com.

Thanks, Joan, for another great conversation with insights, tips and solutions not only on business challenges but on the tougher challenges facing us.

Social Media: It's pretty simple, really.

via www.flickr.com

Interesting. Pretty, even.

But, no.

Here's the deal with social media:

• I...can talk with you.

• You...can talk with me.

• And we...can talk with each other.

• And we...listen.

• Because we speak our language.

I, you, we, and our language are ...ours, of our making.

There's no b2b or b2c.

There's you, me, us and our language creating our conversation. Today and every day.

It's very simple. That's what makes sense of social media.

Photo link from Brian Solis' post: Once More with Feeling: Making Sense of Social Media.

"Recovering from failure is such a great opportunity"

This is one reason why recovering from failure is such a great opportunity. If you or your organization fail and then you pull out all the stops to recover or make good, the expectation/delivery gap is huge. You don't win because you did a good job, you win because you so dramatically exceeded expectations. via Seth Godin in The Paradox of Promises in the Age of Word of Mouth

So...try not to be afraid of failure. We all are to some extent. And that's normal. Who wants to be a failure...?

But when it happens, failure, and it will...use it as a springboard to leap through failure's looking glass and:

A. win back the customer.

B. learn, learn, learn.

C. generate a little or a lotta word-of-mouth in the process.

See? There's no need to be afraid. Through the looking-glass of failure is a wonderland of opportunity to succeed, learn and grow.

See? There's no need to over-react on your associates when it happens, failure, and it will....Help them use it as their springboard...through their own looking glass to their wonderland of...success, learning and growth.

Thanks, Seth. You always deliver. Happy Birthday.

Our Three Stages of Love-Hate with Innovation

Doug Adams shared these three stages as they manifest in our personal life:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really. via movingsense.posterous.com

They seemed to mirror those in our work life.

We join a company; we start a company. 

Everything that’s already there when we join is just normal;

We get excited about our possibilities. We leap tall problems in a single bound.

Anything that's accomplished between then and before the company buys its own building, paves its own parking lot, or brings massages inhouse...is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck we managed 4-5 good years out of it;

Then....something happens. Fatigue. Disconnect. Taking things and people for granted. The visionary is replaced with....the money guy. And the big question becomes how does our department keep our employee numbers and budget at the same or higher levels?

Anything that gets invented now is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of this civilisation as we know it and until we get feedback from every department and test prototypes and run market segment studies for at least 10 years to prove concept viability...when it gradually turns out the first idea, 10 years ago, was alright. Really.

We see these same three stages manifest in the same order on the national scale.

Our country was started and everything that’s already in the New World when we arrive is just normal.

Then for the next 200 years ...anything that gets invented is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck we made a country out of it.

Now....Anything that gets is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of our civilisation as we know it... until it’s been invented by someone in some other country who is incredibly excited about their ability to create and with any luck they can make a career out of it and own this market and sell their products to the US...

Let's skip the global, national, discussions as it touches on some of the seamier sides of our nation's history, then, and our fear of all things and people...different from us, now.

Back to you, back to us. How do we help each other? If we could turn back time as Cher sang (Just to be clear, I'm not a fan.), if we could return to that time when  Anything that's accomplished...is incredibly exciting and creative...what would we need to do?

What's the first step?

How to create a culture of innovation | Teach our children

via edu.prinews.net

Worth-a-watch 2 minute video from Lynn McDonald, Innovation Accelerator at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

ABC News Ap, IPad, Business Model Innovation

The content featured within the app is pulled from ABC News properties, like "Good Morning America," "World News with Diane Sawyer," "20/20," "This Week," "Nightline" and others. Users can also tap a "browse" button to filter content by top stories, most popular, video only, U.S., International, and several other categories. An "archives" section includes articles, photos and videos from "this day in history" (although it actually goes back a couple of days) and there, iPad visitors have access to exclusive content not found on the ABC News website itself. via www.readwriteweb.com

This is cool. This is a cool ap from a company you normally don't, I don't, think of as cool, innovative, fun. (I thought ABC News was so yesterday. Sorry for that Mr. Gibson.

It would be even cooler if I had an IPad. (Donations are welcome.) Then I could experience how cool both, the ABC News Ipad ap and the IPad, separately and used together.

Oh wait. You can't use this ABC News ap without the Ipad.

There's the business model innovation. You have to buy the Ipad in order to use the free ap from ABC News that carries its content.

Actually, this is not a business model innovation. It's the same business model with iPods and iTunes. ABC News depends on Apple's products to reach, be introduced to, the early adoptors.

Only Apple makes makes money on this business model...directly and immediately. Maybe ABC News has a trickle-down revenue model with advertising revenues generated from some of the content shared using its ap and the kindness of former strangers, now its bff...Apple.

The question for you is....how do you do the same? How do you create a business model innovation where your product (and its revenues for you) create a gateway for others (non-competing) to reach your customers? And those others pay you for the right. And those others promote you to their audience.

I think the first step is to build a fanatical following of customers. That starts with your culture.

• Do you have a fanatical core of employees, evangelists for their work and its steps towards their purpose?
  

The next step takes you to your customers.

• Do they create customer evangelists? (Tip of the hat to Rev's Ben and Jackie at Church of the Customer.)

• Do you listen to their experiences to help them further in their journey with your purpose?

• Do you inspire your customer evangelists to worship and share their evangelism openly with their friends and family?
  

The third step is change.

• How well do you handle change?
  

• Can you lead change? Can you allow others to lead it?
  

• Can you allow those around you to grow?
  

• Can you create a culture of learning which creates a culture of leaders which creates a culture of new solutions for new challenges?
  

There are thousands of books, millions of blog posts, on these topics. You can and should spend a lot of time learning from them.

But, it all comes back to you, your associates and your customers and whether you inspire any of them to be fanatical about you, each other, your common purpose, the meaning you create with and for each other.

If not, then just wait patiently for your afternoon newspaper and listen to your 8-track in the meantime.

Social Media and the Workplace

Forbes.com reports that a new global study by Trend Micro shows that an increasing number of workers are using social media while at the workplace. via www.examiner.com

OMG!

Do u know what else?

Some companies* like Dell, Zappos, GM, Comcast, BestBuy are using social media while at the workplace to serve their customers and even train their employees at the same time...They're encouraged to use social media at the workplace!

OMG!

But seriously folks, social media's use as part of the efforts of organizations to reach out where and when, how and why, their community members want to connect with them is growing more commonplace. The issue is the organization's leadership and its ability to create a culture of trust, engagement and where tools and resources are aligned with the needs of their audience.

* Search Twitter with these brand names. They all have multiple accounts serving multiple communities of fans.

Face it. We're addicted to love...and social media

Might as well face it...you’re addicted to love. - Robert Palmer, Addicted to Love.

Let’s face it. We’re addicted to love. We’re addicted to the meaning it brings our lives, the only-here-in-this-way connection it allows us, its experience, its pleasure and its pain, sometimes.

And, it seems, we’re addicted to social media...the meaning it brings our lives, the only-here-in-this-way connection it allows us, its experience, its pleasure and its pain, sometimes.

And addiction to these two...both personally and professionally could be a good thing for us.

Two articles caught my attention on this topic recently. The first one came from Steve Rubel: Study: 43% of Online Americans Addicted to Social Networking.

Experian Simmons is out with a new package of stats that document the incredible growth of social networking in the US. (Experian is an Edelman client.) Here are some of the notable highlights...

66% of online Americans use social networking sites today, up from just 20% in 2007.

43% visit multiple times each day

Multiple times a day... Oooo. Sounds very addictive.

And why do we use social networking sites?

The graph indicates we connect with others multiple times a day to maintain and strengthen personal ties.

With whom do we connect with using social media?

We’re connecting with families and friends. Not so much with co-workers.

Then on the same day I read Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling In Love....

And I thought:

What if we could change that ratio of connections with friends and family to colleagues? Keep connecting with Aunt Pat, your grandkids and yes parents, they with you...but start connecting multiple times a day with...colleagues? Or customers, prospects, partners and vendors?

Already, I hear the folks in HR and Legal scrambling to review their corporate policy manuals for rules regulating displays of affection, interpersonal relationships....and connecting multiple times a day without prior written permission from a supervisor.

But that reality aside, what if social networking and social media use with a company would be allowed, encouraged and we could maybe not love that person in that department...but at least grew in appreciation for...our colleagues. Or customers, prospects, partners and vendors?

Tim Sanders wrote Love is the Killer AP: How to Win Business and Influence Friends. And social networking may be the ultimate resource to develop that ultimate ap.

Squishy? You're right. This is squishy. Ok.

According to the article Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling In Love...

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has discovered, for the first time, that social networking triggers the release of the generosity-trust chemical in our brains. And that should be a wake-up call for every company.

Still feeling squishy? Ok.

The article goes on to share the results of simple experiment with the article’s author. What happens to the brain chemistry of someone who’s tweeting and retweeting even for a short period, say, 10 minutes? The author shared his results:

In those 10 minutes between blood batches one and two, my oxytocin levels spiked 13.2%. That's equivalent to the hormonal spike experienced by the groom at the wedding Zak attended. Meanwhile, stress hormones cortisol and ACTH went down 10.8% and 14.9%, respectively. Zak explains that the results are linked, that the release of oxytocin I experienced while tweeting reduced my stress hormones. If that's the case, says Zak, social networking might reduce cardiovascular risks, like heart attack and stroke, associated with lack of social support. But there's even more to our findings. "Your brain interpreted tweeting as if you were directly interacting with people you cared about or had empathy for," Zak says. "E-connection is processed in the brain like an in-person connection."

Now, let's go back and ask:

What would happen if more of your colleagues connected with each other multiple times throughout the day and raised their levels of oxytocin, the generosity-trust chemical in their brains?

What would happen if their levels of cortisol and ACTH dropped?

• Would a 10% drop in the levels of stress among your colleagues have an impact on their day, their productivity, their numbers of sick days, your healthcare costs..."

• 
What effect would that have on hiring and training costs?

• Would you share ideas knowing your colleagues could be...trusted?

• Would more ideas be shared multiple times a day by more colleagues? Would more solutions be found or more markets discovered for more products and services?

• And if you could raise the level of generosity-trust chemicals in the brains of your colleagues wouldn’t they in turn naturally do the same with say...customers and prospects?

What if... your colleagues whose high-levels of oxytocin coursing through their blood and who now trust each other connected with say...customers or prospects multiple times a day?

• Would that raise the level of generosity-trust chemicals in their brains also?

• Would they trust your message, your product, your promise, your service....?

• Would they trust their reputation with more of their colleagues, as well as family and friends,and recommend your organization?

• What would happen to your sales if more prospects immediately trusted you?

• Would you have to advertise as much or as often?

• Would your sales force be happier?

• Would customer service be happier?

• Would your customers be happier?

• And would your revenues grow faster?

• Would your cash-flows grow stronger and more positive?

• Would more than 11% of your colleagues be true believers in your purpose or could you now trust one another to create a common purpose?

Well...?

The article ends with this:

In a world of social networks, then, this much seems clear: Companies that can connect with us and raise our oxytocin levels should prosper. Those that can't, won't.

Or those that won’t, can’t. Those that won’t allow connections to be made, oxytocin to flow, trust to grow, meaning to be built, relationships and ideas to come forth....can’t survive.

We're addicted to love, to connections, and we're addicted to social networking and social media because that allows us to feed that addiction to love.

And that's a good thing for us, personally and professionally.

And it will be a good thing when more than 43% of us, online or not, come forward and admit we're addicted to love and to the tools that allow us to feed it.

Here's the reward for reading this far: Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love video:

Install a Dual-Monitor: Week 10 of the 52-Week Employee Recognition Plan

I announced the 52-Week Employee Recognition Plan this May. This is the 10th week of that plan.

Install a Dual-Monitor

Why?

You recognize their effort at managing all the applications and data that are needed now to participate in all the conversations with all the important stakeholders.

Back in the day...the only applications that were open on a desktop were....maybe email and a CRM application and maybe if you really trusted your customer service associates an accounts receivable/payable application. Sales and IT, finance and executives had their comparable number of applications open.

Now...the number of applications we all use to stay up with our audience, internal and external, families and friends and all the stakeholders of our organization has grown in lock-step with the growth in processing power and bandwidth.

A 2nd monitor, a dual-monitor, provides more screen landscape to move quickly between these applications that your associates, employees*, must use to deliver their brand to all the stakeholders in it.

12 key statements that help describe an engaged employee were first articulated in First, Break All the Rules. Three of them apply here:

• I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right

• At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day

• My supervisor, or someone at work, cares about me as a person

A dual-monitor can be a key step that helps your associates, your employees, claim these statements as their own.

20 years ago I worked in frontline customer service with a startup. We used, I kid you not, half-monitors. It was a headache. Minor errors quickly became compounded in number and impact as we grew and as multiple applications became necessary.

Then we were given full monitors. It was such a simple step. Yet, we felt our efforts were...recognized. We were given the necessary materials and equipment we needed to do our work right. That necessary equipment gave us the opportunity to do what we did best every day. And it showed our management cared about us as persons.

Bring the conversation to 2005 or 2006. John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing shared this idea as one of the best personal productivity tools. I tried it first in the company where I was CEO. It worked.

I wanted to push it on to everyone else. But, instead I chose to let them see it in operation while we met in our office. Over time people recognized how their life could be made simpler and more productive. And without forcing this change on them, they embraced it and we installed them.

My wife has a dual-monitor where she works. Her day is made easier, more productive. And that makes her happy, her clients happy, her associates happy. Me happy.

And dual monitors are relatively easy to install, navigate and these days inexpensive.

Do it. Your associates will recognize that you have recognized them. They’ll appreciate that.

**********

I announced the 52-Week Employee Recognition Plan in May, 2010. This is the 10th week of that plan.

You can start with any week and make that your first week.

You can take one of those weeks and turn it into a month or commit to an accelerated pace and complete 6 of the weeks in one month.

You can create your own week of employee recognition. Share that journey here. Share it in your blog or Twitter or Facebook.

But do something to recognize your employees! They set your brand apart as your ultimate competitive edge. And the more you recognize their achievements, the more achievements you'll see and they'll enjoy, along with your customers and and shareholders, partners and vendors.

* Employees. As I use this term each week in this 52-week series of posts, I like it less and less. It rings with a demeaning tone, doesn't it?

I may end up changing this whole series of posts to be title Associate Recognition....That's a headache. But it's one I think more and more is deserved. Maybe the whole employee engagement conversation will change its alliterative title to Associate Assurance. Ok. I'll work on that.

Five Reasons Why Your Company Doesn’t Need a Social Media Policy

Do you have a “phone policy”? an “email policy”? a “fax policy”? Technology is neither good nor bad. It’s what people do with it that is the issue. And honestly, I don’t care if people are updating their Facebook status “on company time.” (Is there really such a thing any more?) Instead, I prefer to focus on the results the employee delivers and let them manage their time. via michaelhyatt.com

I love this post. I love the sentiment, the logic, the maturity this leader presumes their members possess.

More please. More posts like this. More businesses like this. More leaders like Mr. Hyatt, please.

Looking for a Return on Assets?

Are you looking for a return on your assets? You’re not alone. It seems most companies are looking for one, too.

Of the 25 metrics in the Shift Index, one metric in particular stands out: return on assets for all public companies in the US.  Since 1965, return on assets has collapsed by 75% - it has been a sustained and substantial erosion in performance. There is no evidence of any flattening of this trend, much less turning it around. John Hagel, III co-author of The Power of Pull, in his post, Looking for an Economic Recovery? Don't Count On It.

75% collapse on return on assets among all public companies...since 1965. You should have a lot of company looking for a return on assets.

What is the most important asset a company claims? No, it’s not IP. Intellectual property remains in a library or on a disc until...someone, an employee, a member, a colleague...brings it to market.

That someone, that employee,...that’s your number one asset. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? As we compete increasingly in commoditized markets on a global scale, the people driving that brand are its most important asset. And that starts with the employee*.

But right now employee engagement with their company's purpose, strategy and its execution seems to be a non-sequitur with most companies. Consider:

... according to a recent study for Institute for Corporate Productivity 84% of organizations queried have a mission statement in place, 62% of those companies said that just half of their employees could repeat the company mission statement if asked. Pop Quiz: What's Your Mission Statement?

Or consider this:

A recent study of the Corporate Executive Board showed that only 10% of employees are engaged emotionally and intellectually with their work. - Michael Lee Stallard, author of Fired Up or Burned Out, during his interview. Listen here.

Or ponder this question:

Why it is acceptable to only 11-24% of their employees proactively helping the organization toward that goal?” Last I would ask them “What do they think the impact is?” Seriously, we would not settle for a manufacturing plant at 70% capacity, so why would we settle with our people.We shouldn’t. We should invest in them. - Brad Federman, author of Employee Engagement in his interview with Success Factors.

The non-sequitur here, the conversational and literary device often used for comedic purposes, of employee engagement and corporate strategy continues into current corporate valuations.

In 1982, 62 percent of an organization’s market value came from tangible assets and 38 percent from intangible assets. Tangible assets include things like machinery,products,facilities,etc. Intangible assets,on the other hand,include factors such as brand,intellectual property,and,most important, the quality of the workforce. By 2002, 20 years later,the source of value had almost totally flipped. Almost 80 percent of market value today comes from the intangible with a scant 20 percent coming from tangible assets. - DDI World Employee Engagement (pdf)

How much does this cost?

• Create a workforce where 90% of the members are emotionally and intellectually engaged with their work.

Ok. That goal may be too high. We start that journey with 90% being disengaged.

What about this goal?

• 22 - 48% of an organization's members proactively working towards their shared goal.

We're half-way there, right now....(dark humor)

Surprisingly (maybe) the incentives to create an engaged, empower, impassioned, inspired member remain relatively inexpensive. Money is near the bottom of these incentives.

The incentives center around creating a culture of trust, a culture of recognition, one where an employee is recognized by their peers and leaders, a culture where they can learn and grow and one where their strengths are on display regularly.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman studied thousands of managers, globally, as part of their research into the world's greatest managers. They published it in their book First, Break All the Rules.

They too point out that the basis of corporate valuations remain...engaged employees drive customer loyalty who drive sustainable growth which drives real growth in profits.

Gary Harpst, founder of Six Disciplines Coaching pointed out that of the 4 criteria investors user to value a company the most important criteria, the criteria that outweighs the other 3 combined,  remains: dependable performance. Companies with dependable performance are rewarded with a 35% boost in their equity valuations as compared to their peers with inconsistent performance.

Engaged employees are your key to boosting your company's valuation. It's also the key to generating a positive Return on Assets.

I am not going to leave you without at least one way to define and recognize an engaged employee.

In their book,  First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman wrote: 

A ‘fully engaged employee’, by our definition, is one who can answer with a strong affirmative to all twelve [of these statements].

Those statements are:

• I know what is expected of me at work.

• I  have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right.

• At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

• In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

• My supervisor or someone at work seems to care about you as a person.

• There is someone at work who encourages my development.

• My opinions seem to count.

• The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel me job is important.

• My associates (fellow employees) are committed to doing quality work.

• I have a best friend at work.

• In the last six months, has someone has talked to my about my progress.

• In the last year, I have had opportunities at  to learn and grow.

I see only one that may require an initial investment of cash.

The others require an investment of something even more precious and expensive it seems. Caring.

Are you looking for a return on asset? Look at yourself and see if you care about those in your organization. Once you find that you do, then share it, invest it in those members of your organization.

There,...and then, is where you'll find your Return on Asset.