Why Digital Talent Doesn’t Want To Work At Your Company | Fast Company

I like this blog post so much that I am re-posting it in it's entirety.


Why Digital Talent Doesn’t Want To Work At Your Company | Fast Company:

Why doesn't digital talent want to work at your company? It’s not because you’re a consumer packaged goods company, rather than Google. It’s not because you’re in Ohio instead of Silicon Valley. It’s not because your salaries are too low, or because you don’t offer free food and laundry services.

It’s because you’re not providing them the right opportunity. The talent you want would be happy to work in an un-air-conditioned garage in New Mexico if it meant the chance to change the world.

This, the opportunity to do great things, to make a real difference, is what drives most digital talent--whether they’re developers, designers, producers, marketers or business folks. 

Most companies don’t offer this, so they skip your company and work somewhere that’s more innovative and exciting. End of story. But the good news is that you can offer them something exciting and great. The promise of changing a giant, behind-the-times organization into an Internet-savvy business is an incredibly exciting challenge and a big way for ambitious people to make an impact.  

But it takes more than lip service to make the sale. Job candidates and new hires with digital chops must truly believe in the company’s dedication to digital transformation and they must see that they are empowered to make this change. Trouble is, many big businesses aren’t structured to deliver on this type of opportunity. The attributes of a soul-crushing, Sisyphean, anti-digital workplace run deep.  

Digital talent won’t want to work at your company if:  

• Every element of their work will be pored over by multiple layers of bureaucracy. Even if that’s how the rest of the company operates, it can’t spill into the digital department. In a technology environment, new products and businesses spring up daily and a new endeavor can go from conception to launch in a matter of months. Reining in the momentum will be read as inaction and a clear signal the company isn’t willing to grasp the new way of the world.  
• Mediocre is good enough. While clocking out at 5 p.m. is attractive to some, it will discourage digital talent. They want to be expected to do something great. They want to be pushed. They care about their work. Their leadership, and those they rely on to get things done, must match their appetite for success.   
• Trial and error is condemned. The freedom to try out new ideas allows employees to take initiative, make decisions, and learn from their mistakes. It also demonstrates an attractive and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit.
• Your company is structured so it takes a lifetime to get to the top, and as such there are no digital experts in company-wide leadership positions.Digital talent--often in their 20s and 30s--need to see a clear path for uninhibited career development that’s based on merit, not years spent, and that’s beyond the confines of the digital department. If they don’t, they won’t see a reason to stay with the company in the long term.  
• Your offices are cold, impersonal and downright stodgy. It may sound like it conflicts with the “you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley point,” but appreciate the nuance. A traditional office layout is designed to communicate power among certain individuals and barriers between departments. This does not support the collaborative ethos which is intrinsic to the web. Companies should do everything possible to provide the digital team friendlier, open office space. A location in a hip, young neighborhood (which surely exists in every mid- to large-sized city) is also a big plus.  

When all of these digital-talent deterring points are addressed, company leadership has effectively and proactively demonstrated the company’s dedication to a digital transformation. It is at this time that their words, a broadly communicated firm stance on the significance of the company’s digital goals, will make the most impact. Without this conspicuous top-down support, politics in the organization or simply one influential disbeliever can hinder the effort, limit the extent of digital integration possible, and discourage valuable employees.  

You need them more than they need you. Demand for their services is so high, they can afford to be finicky. If they don’t like where they’re working, another firm with a more attractive culture and more grand opportunity will quickly swipe them up. That could be your company. But it could just as easily be someone else.

Adapted from Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business(Portfolio), by Aaron Shapiro, CEO of HUGE, a digital agency that helps companies including PespiCo, Comcast, Target, HBO, and Unilever reimagine how they interact with their customers and manage their business in the online economy. Visit aaronshapiro.com.

'via Blog this'

Thoughts on Safari (browser)

I just downloaded and installed the Safari 4 browser from Apple and it is, well, ugly! The ugliness is particularly bad on the rendering of its' tabs. The tabs are integrated into the window title bar with clumsy 3-D affects. It also eschews the former brushed aluminum theme for drab beige. I find this particularly disturbing since the software comes from one of the few technology companies that actually pays attention to design.

I was able to mitigate the ugliness a little by hiding the menu, bookmarks, and status bars. However, there's no changing the tabs. At first I rationalized the look in two ways. One, the software is beta so the appearance of the UI may change And two, Apple may be taking digs at Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. On further thought, neither makes sense as Apple should never risk its' reputation for design by releasing ugly software, especially on the most common desktop OS in the world.

That's not to say that Safari isn't a great web browser, it is innovative on a few fronts. First among these is speed, but does the average web surfer notice the speed of their browser? Maybe not, but the speed of Safari allows its' top page and history features to display and scroll pages. This works much like the CoolIris add-in (for IE and Firefox). I've only had Safari for a couple of hours, and I've already found the history search very useful.

The browser wars are heating up again and it's getting interesting. Internet Explorer 8, Chrome, FireFox, and Safari are all great software each with a compelling story. As for me, I use Explorer for all our intranet applications and Chrome as my default browser.

Don’t think of BI as an all-in-one solution

I recently had a short conversation on Business Intelligence with one of my peers. I tried to explain the premise that a Business Intelligence application in our industry (Health Care) should not be a one-size-fits all solution. Instead the technology should be tailored to the types of questions that it will need to answer most frequently.

When he claimed "of course it has to be able to answer any question, otherwise we could just write queries," I realized I failed to make my point. He is not the first person I've met to have this opinion. In fact, the opinion is pretty pervasive among my peers; and it is wrong.

Our Business Intelligence solution is a textbook case highlighting this point. Its' saga is a story for another day, but in our attempt to make it very flexible we failed to make it strong. That is, there's no limit to the reports you can create, but it's not great at answering any particular question.

I liken this to the difference between a hammer and a Swiss Army Knife. A hammer is great at driving nails, better than any other tool for this task. It also happens to be pretty good at removing nails too. A Swiss Army knife can do a lot of things from clipping nails to opening cans. But it's not particularly good at any of them.

The real beauty of a hammer, though, is the other things that it can do pretty well. In fact, if put to the test, it isn't hard to come up with at least as many tasks as can be done with a hammer as with the Swiss Army Knife. It can be a door-stop, a paper-weight, a meat tenderizer, a garden shovel, and more. Sure, it's lousy at tightening screws, but it can really drive nails.

Don't get me wrong. There's a place for firms that build all-in-one software. In fact, my former employer Information Builders is one such firm. My current BI solution is built on a MicroStrategy platform, another Swiss Army Knife vendor. Vertical solutions, like our health care application, need to be targeted; they need to be really good at particular questions.

Unfortunately, many designers of Business Intelligence solutions try to make Swiss Army Knives when they really need hammers. And given a good hammer and an innovative user, there will soon be many other tasks suitable for the tool.

More web nonsense I don't need but will probably sign-up for anyway

Google has recently announced Latitude. This service allows you to track your friend's location using Google Maps. At first blush, I would categorize this service much like Twitter, as one of the dumbest services on the Web.

I'm a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to Twitter. I use it to update my Facebook status from my cell phone. As yet, though, I don't see how Latitude will provide a similar benefit and I don't think my friends will care about my exact location. Maybe my boss can use it to see how freely I come and go.

Latitude smacks a little like Big Brother. Google is famous for its' don't be evil mantra, but it this type of information will provide a lot of temptation for misuse. Privacy advocates will hate the service. In the end, joining and sharing the information will be voluntary, so I guess users will make their own trouble.

As for me, I'll kick the tires a bit, but you can bet that the service will be turned on my kids phones.

Engaging the entrepreneurial power of employees with a venture capital model

The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities - Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur

This year I participated, in an innovative project as we prepared for review by an internal leadership team. As of this writing, the project is not approved, but the financials are very strong and the technology is very low risk. By the time the project is reviewed by the board later this year, my firm will have spent nearly 18 months, hundreds of man-hours, and tens of thousands of dollars. Yet the work product produced is merely a document and an idea. There is no code and no proof of concept.

The procedure is at best a difficult process; at its’ worst an impossible process. There should be little doubt that the net effect of the process is to inhibit growth through innovation. It is, in fact, a barrier to entry for teams with go-to-market ideas.

Industry is full of companies with high profile examples of innovation. Firms like Google, Pixar, GE, and Apple show that a culture of innovation can bring success. This paper describes how any firm can evolve into a venture driven company that empowers employees with an entrepreneurial spirit.

The goal is plain and simple: achieve explosive growth through a culture of innovation.

To foster this culture, I suggest a model based on capital markets for startup companies. There are three aspects to this proposal:

• The corporation acts as a Hedge Fund by allocating funds for investment and measuring  aggregate results;
• Senior executives function as Venture Capitalists by soliciting ideas and managing a portfolio of investments; and
• Employees become the Entrepreneurs championing their ideas and finding resources to execute a project.

 

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer - Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's

The Hedge Fund

A hedge fund is a private investment fund whose managers can make speculative investment and participate in profits from money invested. The company can function much like a hedge fund by structuring projects as a portfolio of investments. The managers of the “hedge fund” are the executives who normally vet within for the company.

The corporation, then, decides how much to invest in the fund. Each year these funds are set aside for innovation and it becomes the responsibility of the hedge fund managers to assure the funds are invested, and that the portfolio achieves an appropriate return.

As the Hedge Fund, the company would:

• Invest in the fund by allocating monies for innovation. An investment to the innovation fund each year;
• Appoint  executives to function as the Venture Capitalists;
• Set an ROI threshold for the fund

Taking Risk

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist

A great percentage of start-ups fail. Hedge funds that specialize in innovation spread their investments over a wide range of projects with the understanding that a small number of winners will earn a return for the entire portfolio. Risky projects will be an integral part of the firm’s portfolio.

Like true VC hedge funds, the firm can mitigate risk by funding projects that already have some track record of success. This track record could be a successful competitor, a custom built technology, or a joint venture with a client.

Exit Strategies

Unlike the holdings in venture capital hedge funds, the company’s investments generally do not end with a liquidity event (sale of the company or IPO).Instead successful investments will result in product lines or business that generate revenue and profit. Less successful projects are absorbed into existing businesses or closed outright.

It should be noted that there is the possibility of a liquidity event. Although these may be rare, some projects could be spun off as independent companies. In such cases the firm would act as a private equity fund, holding a stake in the company until an appropriate liquidity event occurs.

Venture Capitalists

Since one fails often, address markets that make it worthwhile when one does succeed. Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems

Executives that normally vet for capital investment will serve as the venture capitalists in this model. As VC, each executive is expected to oversee a portfolio of projects and to assure that their funds are invested. Each VC would have a specialty where they would focus their investments. It would be expected, though, that they would invest outside their area on occasion.

The VC has four primary roles:

• Invest a share of the fund in projects of their choosing;
• Provide oversight of the projects in their portfolio;
• Mentor the entrepreneurs assigned to the projects in their portfolio; and
• Arrange exit strategies for their projects.

Key to the success of the hedge fund is the oversight and mentoring role of the VC. Unlike an “approve-and-forget” capital investment model, VCs of the hedge fund share responsibility for the success of their portfolio. This oversight keeps entrepreneurs accountable to accomplish milestones and meet their financial goals.

VCs solicit, review, and select projects based on the business plan from the entrepreneur. The VCs is empowered and required to invest his share of the fund.  VCs will be expected to accomplish the appropriate due diligence, but being empowered will make the decision process move quickly. With empowerment comes accountability, and the VC will be expected to make rational decisions based on standard venture criteria such as, experience of management, amount of existing business, size of the market, first-in status, and the competitive landscape.

Like true VCs, the managers in the firm’s hedge fund will collaborate on some projects. Some of the VCs will assume an “angle investor” role by making small investments in a large set of projects in their early stages. As angle projects progress, the VC may decide to invest additional rounds of financing. Also, several VCs may invest together in a project, thereby sharing the risk, or implementing a large scale innovation.

VCs shall participate is the financial success of their portfolio. A bonus would be paid based on the success of the projects in the portfolio.

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent -Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist

Intrapreneurs

Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them – Anonymous

Entrepreneur : one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

Intrapreneur : one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of an idea within a business or enterprise.

The entrepreneurs are the employees that champion an idea (intrapreneur is a term made up for this white paper). Entrepreneurs are passionate about an idea, and work to see it through to its completion. This includes building prototypes, writing business plans, seeking funding from VCs, and managing the project day-to-day.

Much of the motivation and reward of these employees is intrinsic and non-financial. This includes the excitement of working on a new and innovative idea. In addition, once funding is approved, the employee will have effectively transferred into a new position with the company. Like the VC, however, the entrepreneur will be rewarded based on the financial success of the project or its exit strategy.

The entrepreneur has the following roles:

• Develop a business plan;
• Seek and obtain funding from the company VCs;
• Build prototypes and proof-of-concepts for the project;
• Obtain resources needed to complete the project;
• Manage the project, day-to-day; and
• Report progress and financial results to the VC

 

It should be expected that projects are present by a team of employees. In these cases, one member of the team shall be designated as the entrepreneur. It is likely that the entrepreneurs are employees that already hold management or leadership positions (but that are not a requirement).

Mitigating Personal Risk

Entrepreneurs assume a great deal of personal risk with regard to the security of their career. Although positions cannot be held open for the entrepreneur pending completion of their project, the corporation should guarantee that a position will be made available regardless of the success or failure of the project. Truly motivated entrepreneurs, however, do not consider failure, and will pursue the idea under the assumption of success.

The Business Plan

Entrepreneurs must submit a business plan to obtain funding for their projects. Business plans should follow common standards for start-up plans. At a minimum, a business plan shall include:

• Description of the Idea;
• Marketing Plan;
• List of existing customers
• List of target customers
• Size of the market
• Pricing
• Competitive Analysis
• List of competitors
• Advantages and Disadvantages
• Operational Plan
• Management Team
• Personnel
• Technology
• Financial Plan
• Start-up Expenses
• 3 Year Pro-Forma

 

Advantages of the Hedge Fund Model

This approach to funding invention, and building a culture of innovation has distinct advantages over my company’s current model.

• The current procedure in of itself is an expensive and labor intense process. It requires multiple stages of presentation and approval. The current process is self-regulating, scaring away employees that are intimidated by the process regardless of the quality of their idea.
• An innovation provides a method of easily submitting an idea, but except for quick rejections, it routes ideas through the same burdensome approval process.
• The hedge fund model is simple; write a business plan and present it to a VC.
• Our current procedure is slow.  It will be very difficult to have first-in status if seeking funding through the current process. Real-time Fraud and Abuse, for example, has been in-process for months.
• The hedge fund model is fast.
• Where our current procedure is focused on preparation and planning during the approval process, hedge fund is focused on execution of the idea.
• Hedge fund rewards entrepreneurs and VCs for taking risk and accomplishing goals.
• Hedge fund provides a tangible portfolio of innovation and R&D.
• Hedge fund is based on tried and true practices of bring an idea to market.

 

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover -Mark Twain, author

Thoughts on Google Chrome

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine said "everything Google does is excellent". He was showing me Google Maps, which at that time, was revolutionary. Until then, I considered Google another search vendor of Yahoo and Alta Vista ilk. Shortly thereafter I signed up for Google Mail (remember when it was by invitation only), then Google Talk, and later Google Docs.

Although I like Google Docs a lot, using it made me realize that not everything from Google is excellent. And that sums up my opinion about Google's new browser, Chrome. While I like it, and am using it a lot, it's not excellent…yet.

I downloaded and installed Chrome shortly after it was made publicly available this week. Like everything that Google does, the download and installation was fast and automatic. Getting started is easy. Regardless of their claims, Chrome is really just another browser. But true to the Google brand, the browser excels at search. Sure the integrated address and search bar is nice, but IE and firefox let you search from the address bar too. The search feature I really like is the within a page; I like the way Chrome highlights hits on the scrollbar.

Two days is not a lot of time to work with a program, and being a new application in a mature market, Chrome is expected to have flaws. Here some of the issues that I found:

• Sites that perform browser sniffing don't render properly. Hotmail, for instance, only supports its' classic html mode. And our FogBugz issue tracking software refuses to run its' Wiki in Chrome.
  
• Facebook applications behave oddly, in particular I found that links and buttons, such as "Allow" or "Ignore" fail.
  
• Our web applications developed by my teams do not render well, but then they don't render well in FireFox either. We remain a Microsoft shop.
  
• Silverlight applications do not run in Chrome, so Google surfers can't see pictures of my family.
  
• There's no history list, at least not without typing the first few characters of a web site.
  
• There's no button to display a home page; well Ok, there's a setting but it's off by default.
  
• I can't (and maybe it's just me) get back to the frequent-page thumbnails without opening a new tab. I want to make this my home page.
  

I find it interesting that Google chose to enter the browser market. Do we need another browser? It's only been a couple of years since Internet Explorer was the only real player. If Chrome catches on there will be four; IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome (nah, I don't count Opera). Personally, I find myself gravitating to Chrome despite its' flaws and am considering making it my default browser. Although I use Internet Explorer a bit less I find that I never open Firefox anymore (I have Safari for Windows, but really, who uses that?); this after only two days with Chrome.

The competitive target of Chrome is Internet Explorer, and certainly the Chrome comic book takes shots at IE weaknesses. If my browsing patterns are common, though, then Firefox will suffer more. In the end, Firefox and Chrome may just duke it out for the (tiny but vocal) anti-Microsoft crowd. I heard a rumor that Google's entry into the browser space is a precursor to their entry into PDA's with Android. In much the same way that Apple leveraged Safari on the iPhone, Google will leverage Chrome. And on a tiny cell phone screen Chrome's quirkiness will be unimportant. The cell phone angle is intriguing, but Google's open platform approach will produce odd devices and applications that will seem crude when compared to Apple's cohesive offering. If nothing else, Google is making the software industry fun again.

eWeek looks at Computing on the Cloud

My paper copy of eWeek is generally fodder for the circular file. In fact, the magazine rarely makes it as far as my office. Instead it stays in our reception area on a coffee table along with other unread magazines. This week, though, I picked up a couple of editions to browse while taking lunch. In the process I discovered some interesting cloud computing technologies.

The first is old news for leading edge developers, but new to me. The June 30 edition ran an analysis on the Google App Engine. The Google App Engine competes with Amazon Web Services in scope and intent. Although Google currently only supports the Python language, betting an application on Google infrastructure seems pretty safe.

In a similar vein, GigaSpaces offers an application server that sits on Amazon's EC2 cloud computing solution. The GigaSpaces application server provides a middleware layer between Java or .Net applications and the Amazon Web Services backend.

A third product, Jungle Disk, has a different goal, but uses computing on the cloud none-the-less. Jungle Disk is a backup and storage solution that works with Amazon's S3 Web Service. I have not tried Jungle Disk, but eWeek offers a fairly thorough analysis that puts the product on my to-do list.

Of course the interesting common thread with all these applications is computing on the cloud. GigaSpaces and Jungle Disk take advantage of Amazon's early entry into the utility computing space. Google, however, does everything well, and should have little trouble catching up. Old timers like myself remember the days of time-sharing on mainframes. Cloud computing proves what's old is new again with one important difference; now utility computing is affordable.

Once You’re Lucky

I often pick books based on reviews from Wired Magazine. This was true when I picked up Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good. In Mark Horowitz's review, he claimed that "Sarah Lacy…hangs with [entrepreneurs] them, gains their trust, and gets the goods. No other recent chronicle delivers such intimate, behind-the-scene glimpses into Silicon Valley startup life." It's an entertaining read reminiscent of Accidental Empires.

My issue with the current crop of valley startups has little to do with Sarah Lacy's book, although her tales reinforce my opinion. The problem is very few of the companies actually provide a site that is useful. Even Facebook, the current reigning king of Web 2.0, doesn't help its members solve problems or get things done. Of course my days of finding a good off-campus kegger with lots of girls are long past. As Twitter, Slide, or Ning they seem even less useful.

What's interesting about these sites, though, and the stories Sarah wraps around them, is the underlying technology. Maybe an old-timer like myself doesn't see the benefit of social networking. I do see where collaboration and go anywhere sites can be very useful. I'm expecting a new wave of web startups that take Web 2.0 into truly commercially viable areas.

Thoughts on Innovation

It is not easy to foster a culture of innovation in a corporation. Ironically, I have not always felt this way. I have spent the great majority of my career at start-ups, entrepreneurial charged companies, and software makers. Each of these environments relied on the creativity of their people to remain competitive.

When I joined my current firm, we were a small and hungry software supplier in the HealthCare industry. We served a particular niche market and our growth was dependent upon finding new and inventive ways to sell more products into this niche. In my first year with the firm we doubled our number of offerings.

Something happened to that culture of invention when we were swallowed by a bigger fish. It's hard to put a finger on it, but maybe it's our build vs. buy strategy that favors buy over build. Maybe it's our market dominance and entrenched legacy customer base. Maybe it's a culture that meticulously tracks where each hour of engineering time is spent.

You can start with the existing method of starting a project around a new idea. A rigid and exhaustive procedure was established to analyze projects for funding. The firm sets aside money especially for these projects. But the process is long, bureaucratic, and daunting. Only those employees with the greatest perseverance can weather the multiple stages, detailed requirements, and long delays of this process. The process itself, then, serves to prevent innovation.

It's not that the company is not interested in innovation. This year the firm initiated a council of thinkers who are charged with encouraging the submission of creative ideas. On the surface you might think the initiative could be very successful, but I see some fundamental flaws that could stall our efforts.

First and foremost of the flaws is the establishment of yet another process. And what happens when an idea passes through the process established by the idea team? The idea is handed off to the same process as before, but possibly skipping the first stage. In affect we have put a new process in front of the old process. If the old process was a deterrent to innovation, then the new one is doubly so.

Add to the mess of procedures, a subtle lack of focus. This lack of focus was exposed by our firm's COO who made it apparent her goal is innovation in operations. The Japanese auto industry of the 1980s was cited as an example. This is fine enough, except the council had established criteria around the analysis of new product ideas. In other words, we were looking externally for innovation, when the COO expected us to look internally. The criteria to judge projects of these two types are dramatically different.

So far, the results of our council are disappointing. No idea has successfully come to fruition. And the promotion of an innovative culture is stalled.

Of course everyone holds up Google as the standard. Even among my staff, I've tried to encourage the idea of spending 20% of our time on new ideas. The key to the Google concept, though, isn't necessarily the allocation of time. Instead it's the thinking that with a new idea, many people "won't get it", at least not at first. The idea has to go through some element of trial and error before it can be tabled or killed. This is in direct contrast to our approach, which puts rigorous paperwork between the idea and a prototype.

If we really want innovation to take hold at our company, we'll need to change the model. We'll need to empower people to spend time building working versions of their idea, instead of filing a form. We'll need a little of the "just do it" attitude, instead of waiting for approvals. I guess we'll need to regain a some of our entrepreneurial mojo.