Residents of Toronto: Sean McKenna (my good friend, roommate from 1st year University, dad and citizen of the world) has suggested that a bunch of us go the Bloor Cinema this Wednesday May 3rd at 11:45 pm for a free screening of OilCrash. Here’s the synopsis from the Hotdocs website:

That sucking sound you hear is the last significant oil reserves being drawn from the earth. The very oil that makes our bloated, consumptive Western lifestyles possible is directly forcing our economic, industrial and environmental demise. In this well-constructed barrage of terrifying information and images, filmmakers Basil Gelpke, Ray McCormackand Reto Caduff chisel away at our denial of imminent global oil collapse. Energy experts and oil industry authorities, including George W. Bush’s advisor, detail just how close to the bottom of the barrel we are. The world’s supply has peaked, and the age of cheap and plentiful oil is over.

…this highly energetic exposé vividly illustrates our fossil fuel addiction and perhaps even more harrowingly, reveals how little we seem to care. Myrocia Watamaniuk

See you there.

Technorati Tags: oil, oilcrisis, humanbiodeath, hotdocs, environment

The good folks at Hyperion are giving out a free article from the Harvard Business Review concerning evidence-based management. Evidence-based management is creating a culture of decision making that is data-driven rather than gut or instinct driven. I think this movement is going to be big for the next few years. Then I think that people are going to take it too far and then I think that instinct-based management will come back… but I digress…

One of the most interesting concepts the authors talk about is the psychology behind the resistance to using data in decision making. They contend that people resist evidence-based decision making because:

1. Anecdotal evidence feels richer than do numbers on a report or print out.
2. People pass on old habits without examining whether new best practices have emerged.
3. People want to use their expertise — they want to feel important.
4. Marketing/advertising create a fog around what is, in fact, best practice.
5. Ideology/dogma exist in companies and are powerful agents resisting change.
6. Facts and evidence are great levellers of hierarchy.

Fascinating stuff.

My favourite feature of evidence-based management is that, if used properly, it can be tightly integrated with goal-setting and goal-achievement. A company can decide what metrics define its progress. Initiatives can be judged based on their impact on these metrics. In an ideal implementation, management can always have a sense of how they’re performing by looking at the metrics.

That said, those reasons why people are likely to be resistant to this movement shouldn’t be discounted. I don’t have much interest in building a big, cold business on data autopilot. I want people to feel that their expertise and past experience count — for the simple reason that they’ll likely be happier if they know that their feelings, not just their data, are valued.

Technorati Tags: data, evidence, management, hardfacts

I attended my first barcamp/democamp last night — and it was really interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. For those of you who don’t know what it is that I’m talking about — you can learn all about barcamp here and democamp here. (It’s basically a place where people can informally show off their cool applications and there’s no Powerpoint allowed.)

The best part

Before I go on to describe the night’s demos, I wanted to mention that the best part was going to the bar afterwards and hanging out with everybody. I found everyone to be really warm and friendly and hey it’s a chance to talk geek. I got to talk to David for a bit and had long chats with Eric and Sunir too.

The demos

First off there was a team from the University of Toronto who built a forum for Kids Help Phone based on JForum. The team did extensive customizations of the product to suit their client’s needs. The whole thing performed really well and, although the technology was perhaps not as novel as other presenters, it was very professional and I could see that the application was going to work.

Chris Nolan then presented his framework for working with Javascript in Ruby. I haven’t played around enough with Ruby to really understand the scope of the problem he was solving, but if you want to see an application check this out.

BlogMatrix was next. It’s a really impressive blogging engine that incorporates maps and calendar data into a blog post. The calendar’s scheduling features are really powerful and allow you to add all sorts of different events to your personal time management software. BlogMatrix uses Microformats extensively which is very geeky and very cool.

The creators of Releaseme.ca stepped up and showed us an amazing search implementation using Ruby and AJAX. They also described their commitment to the “Back” button and how they work around problems when AJAX breaks it.

Then it was Dabble’s turn. It’s an online spreadsheet application which has more power to transform, manipulate and organize your data than Excel itself. Click on that Dabble link and play around with it when you can. My words cannot do it justice.

Finally, a brave man from HP (it was already 8pm and people were restless to get to the bar) displayed HP Open View an Enterprise level user management system that works with multiple, different web servers. If you’ve got 300,000 users and run different web servers and need to manage permissions, check it out.

Miscellaneous Geek Stuff

RE: Java vs. Ruby

If you think you’ve done your job by picking your side and arming yourself with the relevant data, you’re wrong. You still have to consider Smalltalk and Squeak. (And yes, there’s a web application framework too.) The language wars include Smalltalk people!

Quote of the night

(paraphrasing) “I just felt like this application was asking to be written in Ruby.” - Pete from Unspace.ca

***

Thanks to the organizers and I’m really looking forward to the next one.

Technorati Tags: democamp, democamptdot, barcamp, tdot, geeks, smalltalk

I am in the middle of a bunch of books right now: three on sales and selling, one on marketing, two on leadership, one on startups, and a couple on the business of consulting.

One book I’m not in the middle of — but hope to be soon — is The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. An ex-prof of mine shifted our perspective using the concept of the pale blue dot. None of your personal turmoil can be seen from the edges of the solar system. Everything that’s got you so worked up right now is invisible when viewed from way out there. From Pluto, our planet is just a pale blue dot. The concept of the Pale Blue Dot gives me perspective when I get a little too worked up over the daily grind.

If you want some more food for thought, please check out my friend Floyd’s essay on Ocean Mind.

“Ocean Mind” is being receptive, appreciative and embracing of all of the differences that exist in human beings. These differences can include: race, language, culture, beliefs, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical condition, physical appearance, education, politics, socio-economic position and even personality.

Floyd’s a great guy who’s starting an organization to help spread the idea of Ocean Mind in the hope of bringing diverse groups of people together. I’ll post his website here as soon as it’s up and running.

Technorati Tags: Sagan, unity, problems

• What comes first in business: employees or customers? This post at Joel on Software gives an answer (and the comments are worth reading too).
• Put the f word on your business card and use a coffin for your desk — these and other tips in How to differentiate your company.
• 12 books that changed the world.
• And finally, David Foster Wallace’s essay on the usage wars in the English language.

“In ways that certain of us are uncomfortable about, SNOOTs’ attitudes about contemporary usage resemble religious/political conservatives’ attitudes about contemporary culture:[4] We combine a missionary zeal and a near-neural faith in our beliefs’ importance with a curmudgeonly hell-in-a-handbasket despair at the way English is routinely manhandled and corrupted by supposedly educated people. The Evil is all around us: boners and clunkers and solecistic howlers and bursts of voguish linguistic methane that make any SNOOT’s cheek twitch and forehead darken. A fellow SNOOT I know likes to say that listening to most people’s English feels like watching somebody use a Stradivarius to pound nails. We[5] are the Few, the Proud, the Appalled at Everyone Else.”

Technorati Tags: differentiate, employee, customer, english, language

One of my favourite quotes:

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self
To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd
is to risk loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To try at all is to risk failure
But to risk we must,
Because the greatest hazard in life
Is to risk nothing
The man, the woman, who risks nothing,
Does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Technorati Tags: risk, emerson, entrepreneur

Metrics — in the application of statistics and mathematical analysis to a specified field of study, sense of the word — are crucial to success. I don’t think you can get very far unless you’re measuring your progress.

Take this example: I’ve tried to get in shape for years. Running and biking didn’t seem to work because I never had any sense of what was coming from all that effort. That all changed when I: (1) established a goal that I was committed to and (2) started measuring my progress. Things have been going well ever since.

But metrics provide something more. I think this quote from this article on Barry Bonds sums it up nicely:

“The reason we keep statistics — and the reason we care about statistical milestones — is that we assume some sort of emotional experience will accompany their creation and obliteration.”

Not only do metrics give you a goal to shoot for — they give you something to celebrate when you achieve and force you to step back when you don’t. When you’re running your own business it often feels like you’re in a bubble, separated from society. Metrics provide some context for your efforts. If you’re running a business right now without a clear idea of the measurable goals you’re committed to — stop and take this morning to create some.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, metrics, stats, emotion

My business partner and I were looking for a hosting company for our new website. We looked around and settled for some seemingly good folks here in Toronto. After a confusing sign-up process, we realized that we had failed to input the new domain name. No biggie.

So we emailed them the next day and informed them of our little problem. They told us, that it would be a six dollar charge to change it because they had already created an account for us at http://ourcompany.webblahblah.blah. We protested:

Us: But we didn’t tell you to put it there!

Them: Well we can’t guess your domain name!

Us: Either set it up for free or refund our money.

They promptly refunded our money.

This just doesn’t make any sense to me. We were trying to establish a working relationship with a new company and they were having none of it. It was their process that was confusing and besides what’s a measly six dollar customer acquisition fee! For us the six dollars was significant because it was an indication of how we would be treated. It wasn’t the money — it was what the fee indicated about these businesspeople.

You can run your business as if each customer has her own Income Statement. Sometimes you’ve got to lose a bit of cash to keep a customer happy — but I think it’s worth it. When customers are happy they tell other customers about their experience and your business grows. This isn’t rocket science. What the heck is wrong with these people?

PS — Psst. Host guys if you’re out there please read this.

Technorati Tags: hosting, customerservice

Josh Kaufman has started a community project uh… thing that he’s calling the Personal MBA:

“The Personal MBA (PMBA) is an experiment in educational entrepreneurism. This manifesto will show you how to substantially increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost, all without setting foot inside a classroom.”

Educational entrepreneurism — what a great idea! This is just another example of how online collaboration can challenge the gatekeepers of information. If you’re interested, join the community (I’m user bivanovick) and participate.

Technorati Tags: education, entrepreneur, MBA, personalMBA, business, ideas

The Wall Street Journal has a brief but informative article on some simple techniques for increasing sales. It’s seems like Seth Godin is right — you’ve got to create a pitch that’s different, quirky and worth remarking on.

Here are a couple tactics that may accomplish just that:

1. In store parties and breath mints — “Does the high cost of ink leave a bad taste in your mouth?” (see article.)
2. Tissues (Kleenex) — apparently in Japan, restaurants hand out little samples of tissues with their logo attached. I think this tactic would work wonderfully here in Toronto. The fall brings allergies and the winter brings runny noses. Why not help people out and market at the same time?
3. Chili – on the second disc of the Glengarry Glen Ross DVD, there’s a short, somewhat interesting documentary about salespeople. One gentleman talks about how he uses chili to sell houses. He puts up ads that say “Do you like chili?” and invites people to open houses. It gets people in the door and gives them something to talk about.

So why do most businesses rely on old techniques like matchbooks and pens? Perhaps they work — I’m not pretending to be an authority on the matter — but if you take the time to be creative, I can’t help but believe that you will dramatically increase your visibility.

Technorati Tags: sales, marketing, tactics, WSJ, GlengarryGlenRoss