In a move that’s sure to unsettle America Online and Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have joined forces in the arena of Instant Messaging. The announcement was made today.
Essentially this is what it means:
“The deal, the first major alliance between two of the Web’s main providers of instant messaging, will allow users of Microsoft’s MSN Messenger service and Yahoo Messenger to swap instantaneous text messages with each other.”
You have often heard me rave about Seth Godin here and on the TomorrowConnecting blog. Seth is a widely admired and respected marketing guru and web commentator (I would highly recommend a visit to his blog).
Seth recently launched The Big Moo, a book that encourages companies and organisations to “stop trying to be perfect and start being remarkable”. Extremely keen to get my hands on a copy, I was stoked when I heard that the lads at Jo’blog were handing out free advance uncorrected proofs. How did they get hold of free copies, you ask? Well, the answer to that question is just one of the many reasons why this is a remarkable project:
* Before it’s official release, Seth posted this appeal, which announced the book and asked readers of his blog to spread the word that he was making 10,000 galleys (advanced copies) available in packs of 50 to ANYONE who wanted them, with the understanding that they were not for resale and ideall to be shared. Within days he had responses from all over the globe. Jo’blog was just one of them. How’s that for remarkable marketing?
* Another remarkable feature of the book is the collection of authors who contributed essays and short stories to it. 33 leading business thinkers including Tom Peters, Malcolm Gladwell, Jackie Huba and Mark Cuban (to name a few) all contributed freely of their wisdom to compile an easy-to-read selection of meaningful, relevant and inspiring stories (all great resources if you do presentations). None of the essays credit the authors, so there are no preconceived expectations. You know who contributed to the whole, but not who the individual parts belong to.
* None of these contributors charged a fee, and no-one will make a profit from the sales. All proceeds go to three preselected charities. In fact, a school in Nepal has already been built thanks to the Big Moo and it’s authors.
I’ve finished the book and thought it was great. It’s really quick and simple to read, is current and relevant and has some nice new thinking thrown into it. I would highly recommend that you buy a few for your company – they’re not pricy at all.
You can order the book here.
While many of us speculate, comment and muse on the future, there is a 50/50 chance we could be right, more likely an 80/20 chance we could be wrong, who predicted blogging would be so big?, or that the web would become so pervasive or even, more sinister, who could have predicted that the 9/11 attacks would take place (Funny thing, Clem Sunter actually DID predict this in one of his books on scenario planning!!) However, being a futurist is not an exact science!
So what is it that everyone wants to be a futurist? We all probably like the idea of looking beyond the horison and feel somewhat proud when our trend reading ability comes true and our predictions manifest themselves.
The role of futurist has become somewhat common nowadays and it seems that most corporates have a resident futurist in their hallowed halls. According to a Fast Company article, the next step is to become a qualified futurist. It seems that there is a drive to make the field more formal in its qualification and it is hoped that by 2009, there should be a formal course and recognised qualification on the table.
So, to all of us armchair futurists, there may be some interesting future (no pun intended) for looking into the great beyond, but then again, I think if you are reading this, you will agree already.
Seth Godin is undoubtedly one of the gurus of online marketing. His ideas never seem to age and he seems to often be one step ahead of the rest. In his latest move, he has set up a service called squidoo. In his words, this is what it is about:
“For a long time, the web has been about more. More links, more traffic, more hits, more choices. In the face of all that more, many sites (and most surfers) are not getting what they want. This free ebook, from bestselling author and Squidoo.com founder Seth Godin, proposes a different way of achieving your goals: less.�
The ebook outlines a technique that will increase PageRank, user satisfaction, clickthrough and the spread of your ideas, whatever those ideas are. It doesn’t matter if you use Squidoo or not… the idea of a lens makes sense whether you post it yourself or let us host it for you. And hey, it’s free. Once again, a great free offer from Godin, download his book here: http://www.squidoo.com/stuff/books/EveryoneIsAnExpert.pdf
Visit the Squidoo site here: http://www.squidoo.com/blog/
Amazing how the web changes, you gotta love it!
As I left for an overseas trip, I rummaged through my bookcase of “books to be read” and selected the clean, white cover of The Leadership Pipeline, by James Noel, Stephen Drotter and Steven Drotter (Buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). I’ve only just got into it, but I am intrigued and am already making notes.
The authors are focused on helping companies to develop their own leadership capacity from within – an essential capability given the talent wars going on in the world. Leaders leave if they are too challenged or not challenged enough. One of the problems is that companies don’t correctly identify the significant leadership “passages” that happen as leaders move from one level of responsibility to another. This book identifies 7 key stages of leadership, and therefore 6 major inflection points on the leaders journey. The seven stages are: Managing self (professional focused on output of skill), Managing others (first level supervision), Manage Managers (no more “front end” delivery required), Functional Manager (managing an entire department or business line function), Business Manager, Group Manager (a manager of multiple businesses, possibly across geographic regions), and Enterprise Manager (CEO).
This obviously applies best to a large, diversified organisation, but can be “flattened” to apply to small or medium-sized companies.
… Continue Reading
This week, the Liberal Australian government has started a massive public awareness campaign for its new labour law revisions, entitled: WorkChoices (read about it at the Labour Party’s website). Its about putting power into the hands of the average worker, and giving people more choices about how they will be contracted for work. It should reduce the plethora of Labour Laws complexity, and allow more freedom and flexibility into one of the world’s most regulated and expensive labour markets. But, there are many detractors.
Of course, the opposition politic parties are shreaking about it (expected). The Labour Unions are up in arms (they’re there to protect their own interests before the workers, as in every country, so also expected). And older workers, heading for retirement and fearing that these laws will undermine their comfortable work environments are also against the changes (The church is even against it, as it claims that it will destroy Sundays and the family barbeque). These types of changes are necessary, however, around the world, no matter how much the Boomers are threatened by them. Boomers the world over have by and large had a great run at the office. The most highly paid workers of all time, they’ve also been able to do so with quite a great degree of security and comfort. They don’t often see the stress they’re creating (or about to create) on the next generations coming behind them.
This is especially true where social security relies on younger workers paying for current retirement funding (e.g. USA, Germany, etc). Australia introduced superannuation in the 1980s to deal with this coming crisis. A stronger economy, growing well, will be the best retirement security the country can create. Will everyone see this? Or will the generation war escalate in Australia, too?
Picked this up from DK’s (his website & blog) changethis manifesto on the Youth of Today:
In their world technology is ubiquitous and not a differentiator (unless you don’t have a phone or access to a computer). However, technology is used as a tool to communicate first and entertain second. And because it is ingrained in their culture it is harder to impress young people with new gadgets or ranges.
I’m 25 (26 in a month 
) and consider myself to be relatively up-to-date with technological advancements. I love them, they keep me on my toes. But is this not perhaps an indicator of how “out of it” I am? If DK is right, new tech does not surprise our Millenials … but it differentiates us from them, and those who adapt from those that don’t!
The New Straits Times (Malaysia) is running a column today on “K-workers key to our survival” by Butt Wai Choon (MD of Microsoft Malaysia). The focus is on developing knowledge workers in the ICT sector of Malaysia. However, it starts with the following definitions which might be helpful as a “K-worker 101 primer” (emphases mine).
“But what exactly is a knowledge worker?
Many people tend to confuse the term with any skilled or trained worker, especially in the ICT sector, but this is not the case.
The difference lies in the understanding of what knowledge, information, tasks and skills mean. Information only becomes knowledge when you can utilise it to add or create value for your work and organisation.
Similarly, a knowledge worker is more than just an informed, trained or skilled worker. A knowledge worker has the ability to deal innovatively with the skills, tasks, training or learning acquired and has the know-how to enhance or create new value for his work.
A task worker, on the other hand, normally undertakes a rigid or structured process and follows a pre-determined set of tasks, often routine and repetitive in nature.
However, it does not mean that task workers are not essential for development. By their sheer numbers and volume of work, they are also vital for the maintenance of economic growth, and the aim is to ultimately move them up the value chain.
The term “knowledge worker” was first coined by well-known management guru Peter Drucker in 1959 (and refined over the next four decades in his books) to describe someone who adds value by processing existing information to create new information which can be used to define and solve problems.”
… Continue Reading
(Yes, this is sort of about Jacques Kallis – for those who know cricket, or Jacques, see previous post on this issue).
The Dilbert Principle refers to a 1990s satirical theory stating that companies should promote their worst employees to managerial positions so as to prevent them from directly affecting the consumer’s experience. (source: wikipedia). Yes, its satire, but one of the most common mistakes that companies make is to promote a high flying talented staff member to the next level up, and not give them the training or support required to make the transition properly.
In “The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company“, by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, James Noel (Buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net), they argue that one of the biggest failures in developing leaders is to not help a leader to change his/her frameworks/mindsets when they move from one level in the organisation to another. So, in a school, its common to promote a good teacher to be head of subject or head of department. In this role, they must train other teachers and have inputs at curriculum development and teaching style level. Do they get adequately equipped for this? Then, if they’re a good HOD, they get promoted to deputy head of school, where they become administrative and HR focussed. Finally, they could get to Head of School, where they may take on parent interactions, PR, media, admin and technology issues, and never teach again. Maybe we should promote our worst teachers to administrators!
… Continue Reading
TomorrowToday.biz uses SugarCRM software. After exploring many options that cost real money to but, we came accross this free open source version. We’re reading about Open Source all the time, and the big challenge is, ‘can opensource establish a sustainable business model into the future, and become a real threat to the established big boys of the software world?’
This BusinessWeek article offers up some interesting thoughts and stats.
Many companies today are recruting and attempting to retain staff in an environment where their ‘bright young things’ are being snatched with the lure of bigger salaries and more responsibility. Here’s a short article that caught my eye about SalesForce.com staff being rewarded for successfully introducing Seibel staff to SalesForce.com
It’s only getting hotter out there.
(Editor’s note – if this image is a bit esoteric for you, or you want to read its story, its about Odyseuss being enticed (poached?) by the Sirens, and tying himself to his mast with wax in his ears, so as not to hear their enticing entreaties – click here for the full story).
I found a link to the OutFoxed site listed on a Social Network Analysis Community. It’s an interesting concept, and I remember reading a related article in Time magazine not too long ago about how social networking and trusted referrals may revolutionise the marketing industry. The main premise was that people usually prefer to support a business that was recommended by a trusted friend, and that marketing executives should try to harness the power of these trusted social networks. OutFoxed seems to be based on the same principle, but applied to web content.
This is the introduction they have on their web site:
” There are over 8 billion web pages. Most of them suck. Outfoxed uses your network of trusted friends and experts to help you find the good stuff and avoid the bad.”
Go have a look on http://getoutfoxed.com – I think this is an interesting tool to play around with (have a look at the Visualization Demo).
Maybe not in Africa, but Reuter’s reports that Weblogs Inc., Jason Calacanis’ blog network, has been purchased by AOL. The sale marks the first major deal signed between a blog network and a mainstream media corporation.
The pricetag? USD25 million. Not bad going.
But why would AOL take interest in a blog network? Well, let’s take a closer look at Weblogs Inc. Jason Calcanis has networked more than 80 blogs in categories ranging from business and tech, to wellness, gaming, and more. The network caters for:
“According to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.� (Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett)
There I was yesterday, needing an “urgent” haircut, and finally only being able to get an appointment at the salon where my wife usually goes. They charge a fortune at this place, but they give a bit extra, too. I get a back and shoulder massage before they start, and while having my hair cut, they do a hand massage and cream – nice touch, I thought.
But, while I was getting my hair washed in one of those basins that feels like a medieval torture contraption, I had a thought….
… Continue Reading
Came across an interesting piece of information today. According to an article on IT Web (Paul Vecchiatto – 28 July 2005 ), Knysna is poised to become the first South African town to become fully WiFi connected.
They’ve signed a five-year deal with wireless ISP UniNet. “Sixty-two municipal offices, up to a distance of 40kms of Knysna, will be linked. This will include substantial rural coverage, including that of many of the informal settlements that dot the landscape.
“Our contract means that the Knysna municipality essentially becomes the anchor client and that a number of its services, plus e-government services and certain educational services will be accessible free by all those who live within the area,� Jarvis says. He estimates the installation could easily save the Knysna municipality about R4 million in Telkom fees alone over the five-year period. Knysna has a big disparity between the “haves� and the “have-nots�. Jarvis points out that the wireless service should make communication available to the poorest residents.
… Continue Reading
In a similar vein to Jotspot, another collaborative tool is writeboard. The difference is that it seems that writeboard has quite a bit more functionality and it is completely free, no matter how many “boards” you put up. Also, it has some pretty good organising functions, so take a look around. The company that has developed this is called 37 signals and they have developed a few other collboration tools such as:
Basecamp – web based project management tool
Backpack – personal and small business information organiser
TaDa list – web based to do list
Looks pretty good, take a look at : http://www.writeboard.com and http://www.37signals.com.
3 laptops. R 1,000. 3 days to create a sustainable business.
Four young SA entrepreneurs are taking business to the extreme.
From their press release:
How many times do we talk about the ‘great idea’ around the braai? How many times do we say ‘Sheez man, I thought of that idea first, and if only I had acted upon it!’? Mostly, we are limited by time. Our normal jobs or family lives prevent us from acting upon the ‘Eureka’ bright spark that we had in the shower, or in traffic, or lying in bed at three in morning. Well, what if time was not part of the equation?
Jon Hughes, Shane Dryden, Fred Roed and Andrew Smith are meeting at Kayos Casting (The River Club, Cape Town) between 6-8 October to bring life to the extreme business concept. They’re all Internet and marketing geeks who have a desire to walk the talk. On the first morning the team will get together for a meeting, put ideas on the table and choose a product that may be viable to sell on the internet. They will then start the business by formulating a strategy, creating the website, developing an e-commerce platform and making sales – all within 3 days.
The event will be filmed, and updates will be available on the internet at the Extreme Business site. Wanting to sponsor the event? Get involved by contacting the Extreme Business team go to the website.
All proceeds from the sponsorship of the event will go to Autism Western Cape – see www.autismwesterncape.org.za
Also of interest:
The Business Experiment – a global, open source Internet business start-up
http://www.ideate.co.za
http://www.extremebusiness.co.za
http://www.autismwesterncape.org.za
Calling all guys!! Tired of Formula 1? Think that A1 racing is a good thing, but possibly just more of the same? Then, get ready for the greatest racing formula yet…
In just under a year’s time, the Rocket Racing League takes off. Literally. It will involve specially designed rocket-boosted airplanes flying in 3D courses at breakneck speeds. Special cameras and GPS sensors will provide viewers with great views and updates of the game.
This is serious and will be here next year. WAAAYYY Cool.
PS – its from the same guys who gave the world the X-Prize. Gotta love ‘em.
‚If you ask the wrong questions, you’ll get the wrong answers every time.‛
Travelling to different conference venues means that I get to spend a lot of time in the car. One of the favourite venues of South African conference organisers is Sun City. Located in the Northwest Province in an extinct volcano crater, Sun City is one of South Africa’s premiere conference and holiday destinations. The 2 hour one way journey from Johannesburg to Sun City is reasonably scenic, and is a fairly descent road, although single-carriage most of the way � and if I’ve seen any really bad driving on my travels, most of it has been on this particular route.
Surgeons call it double gloving – one latex glove over another for extra protection in difficult or potentially dangerous procedures. Though not for the same reasons, scientists have now discovered that ‚double socking‛ – wearing two layers of socks could change your life… here’s why. Red blood corpuscles transport oxygen to every cell and organ in your body. More corpuscles mean more available oxygen, which is the most essential ingredient for optimal functioning, thus resulting in better performance on a mental and physical level. Fewer erythrocytes (corpuscles) mean less oxygenation in the blood, which leads to a condition known as hypoxaemia. Although the body adapts to this insufficient supply of oxygen over time, it can’t possibly operate to its full potential. The normal lifespan of an erythrocyte is about 120 days, after which it undergoes natural haemolysis or breakdown. That haemolysis happens prematurely for damaged corpuscles â€? and that’s where the socks come in handy (or is it footy?) Most damage related haemolysis occurs in the soles of our feet â€? due to the pressures exerted by walking, standing and exercising (no other part of the body takes the sort of beating our soles do). According to researchers, not only does the dual sock layer decrease the pressure effects on the feet, but also provides a layer of insulation that maintains a higher temperature in our extremities, resulting in an increased blood flow, with lower vascular resistance and ultimately less damage to erythrocytes. It’s a simple equation – more socks, mean less damage to blood corpuscles and more available oxygen, resulting in greater performance overall. No ‚sole searching‛ required â€? just do it.
Over at TomorrowConnecting I’ve noted that Google is offering free wifi access to San Francisco (Telkom take note). The interesting thing here is this initiative is the result of Google’s “20 percent policy” which allows its engineers to spend some of their working day on other (risky) projects.
The FAQ describes it thus: “One of our engineers recognized that secure WiFi was virtually non-existent at most locations. As a result, he used his 20 per cent project time to begin an initiative to offer users more secure WiFi access. Google Secure Access is the result of this endeavour.”
I see this as a great case for “wasting” time during a job – working on things which may well not lead anywhere, yet have great potential. Add other people into the mix and it gets exciting. The ThinkSync community is a local example of this…
Wired News – The internet has become more and more pervasive, maybe to the point of us not even noticing it. This means that more and more people are leaving “breadcrumbs” on their internet trail for the likes of Google and other to vacuum up. This brings a whole new meaning to privacy and a host of new challenges for avid Net users like most of us are.
There are however a few people who are managing to avoid being “Googled” hence the name “ungoogleable” how do they do it? Well for one, they dont blog, they dont build web pages using their own name and so on. As we know, identity theft is becoming more prevalent in this more transparent digital world, so how do we protect it. Take a look at the article.
Fast Company – Two German students have invented a coaster that detects when the beer glass is getting empty and notifies the bartender. Talk about spending too much time in bars!! What it does highlight is just how much the new world of nanobots and microtechnology has added and can continue to add value. The interesting thing is that in general, retail hasnt yet caught onto this in a big way. This should be a no brainer, Pick n Pay could do stocktake in 5 mins as opposed to 3 days. BMW could be notified when a cars brake pads start getting dangerously thin and SMS the driver and tell him that a service has been booked, shoes could tell you when they need to be resoled or tossed and your fridge can keep inventory of everything in it and in time in the kitchen. So why is this technology taking so long to catch on? Is it cost? is it fear? is it lack of innovative thinking? What probably needs to happen is more everyday people like these guys need to come up with useful everyday ideas of how to harness and capture this kind if useful technology!
Talent! You know it when you’re faced with it, but try to define it and it then begins to escape you (check out these links for more on what talent is: Hello_world: TalentMyth; What is Talent?). Whatever it is “Talentâ€? is the word we’re using more and more to describe the best amongst us/ employees/ entrepreneurs/ managers/ workers. What I do know is that talent = the rock stars of our world, the weird ones (take a look at Rich…! and the Missing link crew and how Tom Peters defines Talent )! Could it be that Talent is most found in the alternative story (read weird places) … in the lives of those who do not typically live up to the “best employee” stereotype (read dominant story) with a white picket fence and 2 ½ kids … and oh, a MBA?
The Sunday Herald, 2 October 2005, reported: “Forget the generation gap … teenagers say their best friends are their grandparents“. Some wag once said that teenagers and grandparents get on well mainly because they have a common enemy
But, in reality, there should be no surprise about this finding, if you understand Generational Theory. The Millennial generation (born 1980s to 2000s) are different from the Boomers and Gen Xers who went before them. They have stronger family connections, are looking to be grounded in their heritage (this is largely a defense mechanism against a world of constant change), are civic-minded, confident (so much so, they’re almost arrogant), networkers and street smart.
“When was the last time you walked into a retail bank and felt a real buzz of enthusiasm coming from the workers and managers?” A great question, really, since retail and investment banks are well known to be the highest payers of graduates, and are supposedly able to attract the cream of the talent available each year.
In the UK, The Royal Bank of Scotland gets more than 10,000 applications from graduates each year for about 500 positions. Barclays gets about 5,500 jobseekers for less than 100 jobs. The same is true of other banks – and is true the world over. And banks spend a lot of money on their talent, often with dedicated HRD and talent teams.
Of course, most of the emphasis goes onto the “back room” staff – analysts, accountants, actuaries, and the like. But not much emphasis on quality front end. In fact, some banks in South Africa even outsource their tellers to a labour broker. Many banks have relocated their call centers to India (and, increasingly, Cape Town and Ireland). This is all well and good if it improves service and creates stronger connections between bank and customers. In most cases, it doesn’t.
So Graeme is live on 702 and seems to be doing a pretty good job. Looking forward to hearing the callers.
I’m not talking about the glib friendships companies try to encourage by inviting their customers to be friends or fans on Facebook, but rather intimate and deep relationships that come from having a vested interest in the people that make their business possible. I recently came across a study by Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson [...]
I spend a large part of my year in conversation with managers working hard to try and understand today’s younger workforce. The pain they’re feeling is palpable. The evidence of change is overwhelming. Making the necessary changes, at times, seems impossible. The hope is that the challenges are being interrogated and slowly but surely acted [...]
Everyone agrees that something must be done about executive pay. One of the major contentious issues emerging out of the financial crisis is the way that senior executives and manager, especially in the financial industries, are remunerated. These days, executive pay often seems to be unrelated to the company’s performance, and in many [...]
For years banks and credit card companies have held a strangle hold over the movement of money and charged exorbitant rates for doing so. Now this is changing and fast.
Michale Ivey the founder of Twitpay has devised a system, using code that PayPal made available to him, that allows people to make payments [...]
Recent Comments