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Know Your IoT

March 18, 2015 //
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By all accounts, and if all the hype is true, the most encompassing TLA we’ve ever known will be the IoT, also known as The Internet of Things.

This concept of almost everything you can imagine being part of a connected world to the extent that it essentially becomes the world is a pretty hard one to get your head around, even if you’re surrounded by technology and pretty comfortable with it.

The thing – not one of the Things in the Internet of Things thank goodness – that I struggle with, however, is the thing that we struggle with right now, namely how on earth do we make sense of all this flipping data? It’s a constant battle to see through the fog and benefit from a constantly expanding body of information about everything.

The key thing for us both as individual people and in our organisations is this: there might well be 30 billion devices connected in 5 years from now, but how will this make our lives easier or enable us to make money from it? Maybe the money will come from the manufacture and sale of the devices themselves. I don’t know about you, however, but I still have 2 remotes for one television and these devices don’t talk to each other. With the millions of different standards in all our different global walks of life, getting the things that make up the Internet of Things to talk to each other and make the sum of the parts greater than the whole is not something I think I’ll be solving by this time next week…

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Categories General

Lifelog This

March 16, 2015 //
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As we move towards a world that is, literally, the Internet of things, it’s interesting to see how this lifelogging thing is going to develop. For a good introduction to this phenomenon of using wearable devices to track your entire life for some kind of perverse posterity, see here.

The weblog quickly graduated – and shortened – to the blog, where people could write about what they see going on in the world, much like this blog you’re reading, and build up a following and a web 2.0/2-way interaction with people. It’s now become an important part of an organisation’s or individual’s social media strategy.

At the moment, it’s hard to see how lifelogging will develop into something more commercially relevant – and into a more concise and marketable word. Apart from flogging I suppose, but that’s a couple of bridges too far in the wrong direction methinks.

Perhaps it’s destined to go the way of other wearable tech that runs into privacy issue because of the collateral recording of other people without their permission. On the other hand it could presage some hideous dystopian world 50 years from now where we’re all tracked 24/7. Could go a number of ways :-).

 

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Categories General

In Praise of Mums Returning to Work

March 11, 2015 //
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Whenever I’ve gone back into the world of the employee after a lengthy period consulting, there’s always a small amount of apprehension, naturally. Will I settle back into the new routine, how will I get on with the new people, will the culture suit me, that kind of thing.

The one comfy chair I can always fall back on, however, is that I have never had more than a month or two off from working. I’ve been able to keep my eye in all the while and stay up to speed with the world of business at a macro level.

I have nothing but admiration, therefore, for women who take a sustained period of time off – by which I mean more than two years straight – to raise their children and then return to the world of work.

The world changes awfully fast, and your knowledge and confidence can take a huge knock. It takes real guts to jump onto a moving vehicle that is going faster than it was when you jumped off, and has completely changed its whole build, shape and appearance since you were last on board. It might not even be the same vehicle; it might be a totally different one in a different industry. You have little or no point of reference. Your skills, shortcuts, and muscle memory from when you last worked don’t cut it any more.

I know someone who took a dozen years out to bring up her kids. She was working in a traditional area of IT that you never hear of these days. Yes, they were called mainframes back then. She went back to college for a year, updated her skills, got her qualification, did an internship, interviewed with some companies and started a brand new career, all within 14 months. Daunting, eh?

So hats off to you returning-to-work mothers. And, as the Irish would say, in probably the understatement of the year, fair play to ye!

 

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Categories General

Volume or Deal Size

February 9, 2015 //
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What’s your business model? Is it a high volume, small deal size business? Or is it a low volume, large deal size business? It really has to be one or the other. It’s really hard to fall in the middle or do a bit of both. How many medium volume, medium deal size businesses do you know? How many that have a bit of both?

High volume businesses rely on great metrics, reliable conversion rates, and a constantly full pipeline so that the army of small deals makes a big total. Low volume businesses face a lumpy, more unpredictable sales chart but when the deals come in life is good, until the next big deal.

You could argue that the best business model is a blend of all three, so that you’ve got a pipeline of big deals, middle deals and small deals. Getting the blend right, however, is a tall order, especially when you bear in mind that different deal sizes are usually subject to different groupings of buyers, different sales processes and different sales cycle lengths. Hmmm, you need to be a pretty sophisticated and well practised sales organisation to make that work.

I’ve seen a number of organisations with a volume business model who haven’t done the maths to figure out how much sales and marketing they need to do to create enough leads, to create enough pipeline and so on. When they do, it makes for a pretty sobering meeting. Then there are the companies with a large deal business model who don’t know their sales cycle length and so don’t know how long they need to go between deals.

Whatever your business model, if people don’t have a genuine need for your product, or if you have to evangelise and educate in order to create the need, you have an uphill struggle.

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Categories General, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

The Take Charge Imperative

January 30, 2015 //
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Most languages are blessed with a number of moods, and the more linguistically inclined of you will either recognise or know more than me about things like subjunctive and optative moods.

Fortunately, there exists a mood which is ideal for business writing. It’s the imperative and it has the advantage of being active, as well as inviting your audience to do something. It’s a great ‘take charge’ way of writing persuasively.

For example, instead of saying ‘our software improves your productivity’, make it stronger by reordering it like this: ‘improve your productivity with our software’.

This kind of approach works really well when you’re extolling the virtues of your product or service with a bulleted list. They stand out better and are easier to digest than a paragraph of narrative. It also invites your reader to take charge.

Doing it this way will help you make sure your bullet points are benefit focused rather than a trawl of features.

For example:

– flexible price options

– range of models

– offer ends this week

work much better as:

– pick your pricing option

– choose your perfect model

– buy now to lock in this price

Try it in your writing next time. (geddit? 🙂 )

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Categories Communication, Customers, General, Marketing

200 Not Out

December 10, 2014 //
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Two hundred is a good number. In cricket, a century is considered a very good score by a batsman. A double century is a lot rarer, a lot more prized. ‘Not out’ means the batsman is still ‘at the crease’ and has the potential to score more ‘runs’.

Two hundred of anything is impressive I think. 200 fans or followers is more than the sacred 150, thought of as the maximum size for a ‘tribe’.  200 customers means you’re a serious player. 200 wins, well, you get the picture.

This, dear reader, is my 200th post. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I’ve certainly enjoyed writing them.

Here’s to 200 more – as long as they’re useful!

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

The Internet and Inferiority

December 1, 2014 //
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Years ago, we used to read about the people whose exploits in a certain field brought them fame and fortune. They inspired us and encouraged us to get to their heady heights.

If we were lucky, we got to see them do what they were the best at, and if we were really lucky, maybe we got to actually meet them once.

Then we got to listen to them or watch them on electronic devices as they made the ridiculously difficult look easy. We were more regularly exposed to the greatness of modern day gladiators, the greatness that we admired but didn’t yet have.

Nowadays, the Internet assails us with a 24/7 bombardment of greatness, or people claiming greatness. It’s especially true in business, where you hear success stories in sales, marketing, technology and social media – and they’re simply the ones I tend to see – on a more or less constant basis. Of course, the people getting all the lion’s share of the attention are the leaders in their field, or they’re doing a very good job of moving in that direction. They are today’s business heroes.

It’s easy to get an inferiority complex when you’re swamped by information from people who seem to be better than you at what you do. They must be better, right, because it’s here for all to see?

I try to stay focused on what I’m doing, learning from the great ideas out there, and trying things that are proven to have worked, but mostly staying true to my own instinct and my own path.

The Internet is an amazing, inspiring mechanism, but it can also be a hugely distracting and detracting one.

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Categories Communication, General, Marketing, Sales

Still Looking, Still Striving

November 28, 2014 //
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There is a terribly famous song by U2 called ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’ Those of you – and I count myself among you – who don’t live to work, as opposed to work to live, may well identify with the lyric in the song.

I know people who go through an entire life without finding what they’re looking for career-wise.  Are their lives the lesser for it, do they feel unfulfilled as a result? No and no, at least they shouldn’t.

Searching for perfection in life, in work, in every single project or activity you turn your hand to, is an important means in itself, not a means to an end.

It’s unlikely we can achieve true perfection in anything, nor is it healthy or productive to try beyond a certain point, but it’s the looking for perfection, the striving for what we think the end goal is, that keeps us improving, keeps us working, keeps us alive even. Hunger for the new, the next big thing, stops us standing still and sustains the quality in the work we do.

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Categories Communication, General, Marketing, Sales

Friday 5pm

November 21, 2014 //
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What do you use Fridays at 5pm for? As long as the day hasn’t blown up, or they don’t work with others who are a few hours behind their time zone, it can often be a great time to communicate with people since they’re generally putting the working week to bed and looking forward to the weekend.

Consider the following:

– they’re more inclined to read your email as it comes in and follow your call to action

– they will respond better to a call from you that doesn’t require them to do much (for example, commit to a meeting, or agree to do something in the future)

– they will remember a ‘thank you for your business’ or a ‘have a great weekend’ note

– they’ll appreciate a summary of what one of their more organised direct reports has got done this week

– they’re a sucker for good news, especially news that helps them redress the work-life balance at the weekend

– they’ll be happier to acquiesce to your small favour because they’re too shattered or time-constrained to start the next big thing on their list

Last thing on a Friday, contrary to what you might think, is often a good opportunity to reach out to someone important to you. Use the slot wisely.

 

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Categories Customers, General, Sales

Avoiding Complexity

November 17, 2014 //
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Avoiding complexity is good. No matter how complex your business is, or your life, it pays to strive to avoid complexity. We humans don’t deal well with complexity, which is why a winning approach is to simplify, to reduce, to unify, to distil.

I was reminded of this the other day when travelling. Ireland is a small country, with a few million people. Its infrastructure is correspondingly small, and it’s pretty simple.

I took the train from one side of the country to the other every week for five years. I think it was more than 10 minutes late once or twice in all that time. The coach service is the same. The small number of airports too. The Dublin-based bus service is less reliable, but there are hundreds of buses and tens of services. The complexity thing again.

Then there’s the UK, much bigger, much more populated, and with its hugely complicated rail service and airports. Unreliability is somehow innate. I was flying into Bristol. Did you know that Bristol is the highest airport in the UK? It was built in the second world war for pilots to practice flying and landing in the fog. Well, guess what, it was foggy yesterday, so we tried to land twice and got diverted to Cardiff, in another country.

We then had to take a specially laid on coach to Bristol airport, except that it took us 15 minutes and 3 goes to exit the airport barriers. We drove through the city of Bristol where 75% of the passengers were heading, but didn’t stop as the service was point to point, out-of-the-way airport to out-of-the-way airport. We finally got to our destination 4 hours later than advertised.

Complexity is the problem. When you make things too hard, stuff goes wrong. And who suffers? Your end customer, which means that eventually so will you.

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Categories General, Marketing, Sales, Strategy
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