We are not an island

The other day my optical mouse decided to pack up. As you can probably appreciate it is pretty hard to work a PC these days without a mouse. Of course I didn’t have a spare so I took a walk down to the local PC shop. Now I had passed the store many times but never actually gone inside so I was intrigued to see what it was like.

The staff were friend enough and pointed me towards a suitable replacement mouse. As I was paying for it I started to ask about their business, how it was going. I told them that I was in IT and so on and so on. The reaction I received was basically, here’s you receipt, have a nice day, goodbye.

Now, sure I didn’t buy the most expensive item in the shop but is that much trouble to engage with someone who maybe an opportunity for your business? I’d shown some interest in who and what they were and basically I got totally shut down. Thank you, have a nice day.

I started to think about the wider circle of IT people that I know, who typically run their own business and most are quite the opposite. However, that is probably because of a relationship that has been built up over a number of years. When I think about some IT businesses that are acquaintances it made me realize that many of them are like my local PC shop, all they seem to be apparently interested in is their own business.

Maybe they have seen too many tire kickers to be bothered any more but most smaller businesses would tell you that receive most of their business through referrals. Typically these referrals are not a direct connection they are a friend of a friend. It would seem to me that the more contacts you can foster the better your chances of picking up business.

I myself have been guilty of believing that customers choose you because they admire your knowledge or what you are technically capable of. The reality is that customers give you the business because they ‘like’ you more the next business. They get some sort emotional gut reaction which tells them that this person is worth doing businesses with.

Irrational and illogical it maybe but if you stop and think about your interactions with businesses you deal with (provided you have a choice) they you tend to go with the one you ‘like’. In many cases you can’t definitively say what you ‘like’ but you have a ‘gut’ feeling and that has a surprising amount of sway when it comes to making a decision.

Perhaps the point that I’m finally coming to realize after all these years is that business is more about person relationships, gut feelings and perceptions than anything rational. I think the road to success is at least partially paved with firstly understanding this and secondly utilizing it. Maybe a good investment in your business is to get to know your peers better or perhaps getting to know people who aren’t your peers and exploring outside your normal boundaries.

How will you treat the next unknown that ‘walks into your shop’? After this experience of mine I’m certainly going to try and be more engaging and attempt to build some sort of relationship. Even if they simply end up a Facebook friend you just never know do you?

Can I ask?

If you read this blog regularly can I ask you to complete a quick 6 question survey for me? You’ll find it here:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/229186/blog-feedback

I want to get a better idea of what the people who actually read this blog think is good and think is bad. You can of course always send me feedback directly via director@ciaops.com, however at the very least I’d ask you to complete the anonymous survey to give a better idea of you’re after.

As always I appreciate you taking the time to read this blog and I thank in advance for completing the anonymous survey.

The results are in

Today I received the feedback from my presentation at SMB Nation in October 2009 so I thought I’d share it here.

Some other select comments:

– Best presentation I’ve seen so far

– This one presentation was most valuable to this point

– Go Longer- Great Content!

– Best class so far at SMB Nation – Informative

– Robert is a very effective speaker and he has a great command of SharePoint. Even though I sat in on his presentation last year, I still learned a lot more about SharePoint this year.

– Best speaker and best content so far! Fantastic

I gotta say that I’m stoked with the positive feedback. Thanks to everyone who attended and took the time to comment. Feedback really helps me ensure that my presentations are hitting the mark and providing value for those that attend. You are never sure when you are preparing your presentation just how it will be received so it is nice to hear.

There were plenty of suggestions about running some form of workshop on SharePoint next year and I’ll try and propose that when submissions roll around again this year. I’ll have a think about what else I could offer SMB Nation attendees (provided I get the gig of course).

Again, to all those who attended my presentation, took time to provide feedback and to SMB Nation for providing me the opportunity to present many thanks. I hopefully look forward to providing something even better this year.

Computers as well?

Here’s a report that details how watching too much television can severely affect your health. The article “TV’s deadly effects: study proves box link to early grave” details:

”People who watch four or more hours of television a day have a 46 per cent higher risk of death from all causes and an 80 per cent increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease.”

My question is, doesn’t that perhaps also apply to computer usage? How many of us spend more than four hours behind a screen, sitting in the same chair everyday? Now imagine if you went from your chair in front of a computer to a chair in front of TV. You would certainly seem to significantly shorten your life span doing just that wouldn’t you?

The most logical thing you would think you could do to counter such effects would be to exercise more. But:

”The risks associated with prolonged sitting are also not necessarily offset by doing more exercise, because in this study, even people who were exercising, if they also watched high amounts of television, they also had an increased risk of premature death.”

This means that you need to make sure you move around a bit at the office and in front of the TV. The article recommends that you get up and move around every 20 minutes or so.

I’m off to do just that now.

Newsletter 1 released

Well I’ve just sent of my first email newsletter using MailChimp. If you are not a subscriber you can view the newsletter at:

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=e641b9327b1cf4c45ad4e593f&id=5af3f65e40

I must say that I am very impressed with what Mailchimp has to offer. So far I have only taken advantage of their free services (which are extensive), but I can potentially see me taking up their paid options. In the past I have used Constant Contact for this sort of thing but Mailchimp seems to offer a whole lot more for less.

Obviously, this is my first attempt at an email newsletter using Mailchimp so there are going to be some rough edges while I work out the full functionality and get the content right. I’m relying on readers to tell me what works and what doesn’t and I’ll adjust from there. I’m really interested to see what people say as I receive a whole swag of email newsletters everyday and most I have to say I delete without even looking at.

I hope to be able to release a newsletter at least once every month and to ensure that it includes plenty of value for readers (as I would like people to read it). So much so that I also hope they’ll pass it onto others who will in turn subscribe. All in all I’m very interested to see how this progresses as a marketing exercise given the number of email newsletters people already receive. However, from what I’ve found Mailchimp seems to give me the best tools to achieve what I’m after.

Wondering how to become a subscriber? To receive the newsletter via email you can subscribe at the bottom of the home page of www.ciaops.com. Alternatively, I will post the links to each newsletter here as I release them. Finally you can also view the archive at:

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=e641b9327b1cf4c45ad4e593f&id=c851ddf6cf

So please subscribe, have a look and give me your feedback (director@ciaops.com) as I really want to understand how to create something people actually read!

More change

If you haven’t heard, Google has now launched it own phone called the Nexus One. You can read more about it at “Google launches Nexus One ‘superphone’” and read an online review from Endgadget. Interestingly, Google is offering this phone directly to customers via its web site, which means you can just buy the handset and insert just about any carrier’s SIM. This is certainly a big change from the way things have been traditionally, yet it is not the only change that this Google phone is likely to create.

The article “Google shows how to trash a business model or three” demonstrates how the Google phone could dramatically affect not only the handset, phone provider and GPS markets but how the operating system that runs on the Nexus One (Android) could end up running in many common household devices. If this is not bad enough for the competition I can think of another major reason why the competition should be running scared.

What would happen if Google offered the phone for free say, in exchange for pushing you advertising? Would you take it? Such a business model really only makes sense for someone like Google and it could potentially blow competitors our of the water. How can they compete with a $0 phone? The phone business is not what’s important to Google, it’s about getting more people connected to the Internet so they view Google Ads, and in that respect it makes sense to subsidize handsets for consumers.

You’d therefore think that it’s also logical for Google to offer free Internet WiFi access to people wouldn’t you? Guess what? They’re already doing that, see “Free WiFi for the holidays”. Do you begin to see how Google is shaking up the market? I certainly do and can only see it only getting rougher for anyone who doesn’t appreciate that (barring an anti-competition suit from the U.S. Department of Justice or the European Union, which is becoming more likely every day now).

If you want to start understanding the mind of Google I’d recommend you read “What Would Google Do” by Jeff Jarvis. You can even read in on the Amazon Kindle but maybe soon the Google e-book device.

Given that this year the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet (i.e. mobile phones) will exceed the number of desktop devices (i.e. PC’s), so I’ve heard at least, who stands to benefit the most from this? Perhaps Google and Apple? Who stands to loss the most from this? Perhaps Microsoft? What is Microsoft’s response so far to the threat? Good question. Not having used either alternative to Microsoft’s offering I can only speculate, but having read “What Would Google Do” and know who I’d put money on at this stage.

Another nail

One the major selling points of something like Microsoft Exchange Server is that it not only allows you to send and receive emails, but it also has a calendar that in a network environment you can share with others. This allows people to see when others are busy, schedule meetings and so on. Very handy. The problem now is that this type of functionality is locked inside a business’s network and also it typically doesn’t work with people using other calendaring platforms like Google Calendar.

A potential solution to this issue that I have discovered is Tungle. In summary here’s what it offers:

Schedule – Send invitations proposing multiple times and let Tungle find the time that works for everyone. Tungle handles everything from time zones, to double booking, to updating your calendar.

Publish – Customize your personal scheduling page. Show only the times you want to be available. Invite others to schedule meetings with you. Meetings get booked on your terms and others don’t have to sign up.

Share – Share calendars across companies, systems and time zones. You control who you share with and what you share – free/busy or full details

Tungle works from Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal/Entourage and Lotus Notes. I have created an account and published my calendar at http://tungle.me/ciaops. If you visit the you’ll see all the available times I have. If you wanted to have a meeting with me then you could simply select a time and make a request via the web page. All the details, once approved, get sync’ed to everyone’s calendar.

I’ve already used Tungle to schedule couple of meetings and I have to say that so far it was worked really well as most requests I get are ‘I’d like to meet when are you free’. So rather than bouncing requests back and forth via email email I can simply get the person to select a time in Tungle and it’ll end up in my calendar. All very nice and easy.

Once you have something like Tungle, then why would you need Exchange calendaring? I could simply use Outlook and sync my calendar with other members of my team no matter what calendar they use. I can let external parties view my availability directly from the web or their iPhone. I don’t you can do that as easily from Exchange.

Now I must admit I can’t see how these guys are going to make money (hello premium services I’ll bet) but this ‘proof of concept’ is certainly a great step. Of course there will always be concerns over privacy but these can be worked around (like only publishing a ‘business calendar’), however if the business value grossly outweighs this then it is less of a concern.

If you need a tool to allow people to schedule appointments with you and reduce the amount of time wasted finding a convenient free slot for everyone concerned then I’d suggest you take a look at Tungle. If you are interested to see how Tungle could be another nail in the coffin of the traditional Microsoft Exchange calendaring, I’d also recommend you take a look.

Regression to the mean

So it’s 2010 and plenty of people out there are making New Year’s resolutions. Personally I’m not one for picking a specific date to commence a goal, once I’ve set it I’d rather get going immediately. I do however appreciate that everyone is different and that the important thing is finding something that works for you. I will however point out why I believe New Year’s and most other resolutions fail miserably.

We are all typically the average (or mean) of our environment. If you want to reduce your golf handicap, you don’t play with people who you constantly beat, you play with people who are better than you. Even though you may lose, your game will improve because it is moving towards a higher average. The same theory applies in many other walks of life if you stop and think about it. Maybe the reason you aren’t a billionaire is that you don’t hang out with billionaires, instead you typically hang out with people in your own socio-economic demographic (i.e. those who make a similar amount if money as your do).

Now let’s say that you’ve made a resolution to change. Typically this change is quite different from your current situation (or mean/average position). One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight. People who probably do very little exercise suddenly decide to do 10 times the exercise they would normally do. If they could maintain that 10 times regime then everything would be great however I’ll content that the chances of being able to maintain any deviation from the mean actually decrease the further the deviation is from the mean. In this case I would say that the chances of maintaining the 10 times resolution are no better than one in 10 i.e. 10%.

Instead, if they made a resolution to do just a little bit more exercise (at least initially), to twice their current average or mean say, I’d bet their chances of succeeding are now one in two i.e. 50%. The issue is that people fail to appreciate the inertia that the mean or average effect brings. In short, it is very difficult to change overnight, because what you are ultimately looking to achieve is an improvement of your mean performance, whatever that is and one sudden massive change doesn’t stand much chance.

If you plan to make a life changing resolution then to be successful you need to look at it like walking down a road as well. In such a situation you either walk down the left or the right hand sides. Walking down the centre is simply madness because sooner or later you will lose an argument with a vehicle. So before you start out you need to come to a decision of either walking on the left hand side (no I won’t do this) or the right hand side (yes, I will do this) but never down the middle of the road (maybe I’ll do this).

As simple and obvious as all this sounds most people typically over look these things when making their resolutions. They figure the more radical the change the better without understanding that the chances of success decrease with the distance from the current mean or average. True success lies in improving the mean value of your resolution and the easiest method achieving this is via small but regular increments. This regularity requires a discipline to make the desired change – that is, walking down the right hand side of the road rather than the middle.

How many road kills are we likely to see in the next few days as people walk down the centre of the road vacillating with all the best intentions of making a change but dooming themselves to failure because they failed to understand the overriding trend of the regression to the mean? It’s all simple math really.