Category Archives: Main News

Have a little humility

There are lots of books coming out today about employees taking initiative. Not simply checking off items on a to do list that someone else gives you, but having the guts to take your ideas and run with them. Seeing them through and then asking for permission later. Empowerment and initiative are very important traits employees should have if they are truly going to help organizations grow today.

However I think that having a strong will and speaking your mind in the workplace has a negative side effect. If the position taken by someone on the team is one of defensiveness, self-righteousness and devoid of humility, this posturing and attitude is like a cancer eating away at an organization. I recently heard some great business advice that goes something like this.

“If an employee identifies a problem or something in the organization that they think is wrong, they can’t just bring their complaint to management. They must come up with three solutions to the problem as well”.

This is an interesting approach. It forces employees to take action, become autonomous and to shift their mindset from problems to solutions. As I observe the communication that takes place in our office, I hear a lot of defensive talk. “I would have done that if she didn’t do X”. Or “Maybe I could have done this better but she should have known Y”. I rarely hear anyone completely admitting to a mistake like, “I missed that one, sorry”. There is always a caveat, always an excuse, always CYA.

The question I would ask if you work in an environment like this is the following: “If everyone is so perfect, and no one makes mistakes, why does the company seem to have so many problems?”

Everyone points the finger at the other guy and its always because he or she did not do this, or didn’t tell me that or a process wasn’t communicated effectively. What happened to initiative? What happened to seeking knowledge? What happened to humility in the workplace?

Beholden: Lessons learned from Market Samurai and Google

 

Market SamuraiThere are many products that simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for an enabling technology or service. I am designing a pivot strategy for @ExumaTech that could revolutionize the way owners of late model cars, trucks, boats and RVs communicate with their dealers. One of the risk factors I’ve identified is the dependence this solution will have on dealer management systems (DMS). If the link between this app and the DMS breaks, no more value to customers.

Being dependent upon another technology is very different than simply providing another interface to an existing product or service, or adding new functionality. There are thousands of products that add a missing feature to popular services like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The Twitter “auto-reply” products are a good example. If the giants cough, the enablement technologies can either catch a cold or worse yet become irreparably broken.The legion of Twitter auto-responders are a good example of this. When and if Twitter releases this feature, so much for those products.

There is another class of products like Market Samurai that help people improve efficiencies by coalescing and organizing data from numerous sources and presenting it to the user in a common interface. A good example of this is HootSuite. Like Market Samurai, HootSuite is a great service because it helps us manage our social media activities across multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. Twitter and Facebook have published APIs in their services to enable companies like HootSuite and thousands to create valuable products. This of course bolsters the value of those services and creates an ecosystem of developers and designers promoting those services.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the giants (Google) coughed and it seriously disrupted the service provided by Market Samurai. Many companies that don’t have an open and honest relationship with their customers and the blogosphere would have hidden from these issues while their customers suffered. Worse yet they could have blamed Google for all of their problems in one simple blog post and then gone silent while they paniked behind closed doors. However Market Samurai did what any company operating in our open socially engaged world would do – they threw the doors open to conversation with their customers, fans and ditracters. That door was left open 24-hours a day through the weekend and into the following week.  Eugene Ware, their CEO, lays it all out on the line here. Bravo!

Living with ADHD: It takes a family

In May of 2010, I described a play that my wife and I saw about ADHD and the way it moved us. My son has ADHD. ADHD is both a wonderful gift and a burden. If one can manage to control the negative effects (impulsivity, hyperactivity, forgetfulness, aloofness, and the obsessive/compulsive traits) the benefits are remarkable. People with ADHD tend to have a higher degree of creativity, logic and reasoning capacity, objectiveness and quick recall.

Basketball Court Empty BenchIn children these positive traits are often masked because the child can’t seem to focus long enough to allow these to gifts blossom in the classroom. The lack of focus tends to be coupled with a number of anti-social behaviors like sudden outbursts, impulsivity and a lack of regard for people’s space.

We are very open in our household about ADHD. My son is aware that he has it, and although it frustrates him to no end, we refer to it as a “gift”. He is not the most popular kid in the class and is often embarrassed by things he does that appear to be out of his control or just plain weird. The act of him sitting through a one-hour mass is torture (I guess it can be for a lot of people…), but he tries. We’ve found little things that will help him cope when circumstances require him to be still, calm and focused. He will carry some silly putty in his hand and squeeze it to release tension and energy. When he was younger we found that brushing his arms and legs at night before bed or putting books on his lap or chest calmed him down.

We have found for our son that a well rounded “coping” program (I can’t bring myself to use the word “treatment”) is the most effective. Aside from taking Straterra, my son attends neurofeedback training once per week. This program has had some positive results thus far. To fall asleep at night my son was dependent upon Clonidine. He now no longer needs it and falls asleep naturally around 9pm on a school night. The neurofeedback is also helping him calm down.

This week my son was extremely disappointed that he sat the bench during his final basketball game at school. Like me when I was his age, he struggles with team sports. I think physical ability varies widely among those with ADHD, but in general it seems that individual sports are better suited for my son. Michael Phelps has ADHD and is regarded as one of best athletes of our time. My son was clearly frustrated about being a bench warmer this season. I can take some blame for not working with him much on his dribbling and jump shots. Many fathers dream of having a son that wants to go outside, play catch, shoot some hoops, etc. That’s not my son. Although we are beginning to notice a change. He is now becoming more interested in riding his bike and shooting hoops. He can’t do it for very long, but at least the desire is there.

Yesterday my son was given the highest honor in his fifth grade class for academic achievement. He maintained a 90% or above average in the first semester. Starting in fifth grade he began to take school very seriously. This was completely self imposed. He really drives himself at school and has worked his ass off this semester. We couldn’t be more proud.

If you are a parent of a child with ADHD, the best advice I can give you is to be open with it. Remind your child that they have a gift, but along with that gift comes some negative side effects that people won’t like. Prepare them for the comments that will come from friends and peers. Help them find coping tools. Listen and be understanding. Finally, take a holistic approach to this because it takes a family.

Two interesting news items from yesterday…

iphone-3gThis is an email I sent to my company on Thursday, Oct 6th, the day after Steve Jobs passed away. I felt compelled to make it public:

Team,

By now everyone on the planet knows that Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. He only resigned six weeks ago from Apple so the world was pretty shocked that he passed away so suddenly. Whether you love or hate Apple, what he deserves credit for is asking Why.

One of his favorite sayings was Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. This statement is plastered on my desktop background. He didn’t come up with this. He first saw this on the back cover of the final edition of the Whole Earth Catalog. (The Whole Earth Catalog was a hip collection of stuff you could buy mail order in the early 70s). He was inspired by this statement because he felt this statement encapsulated two primary beliefs that guided him throughout his life.

1. Stay Hungry — never rest on your laurels, never give up, its about the journey not the destination
2. Stay Foolish — you learn something every day. Never think you know it all or that you have everything figured out. Thats when its over.

To me the iPhone was Apple’s greatest invention. One of Jobs mentors was a guy named Alan Kay. Kay once said People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware and thats what Apple did with the iPhone. They looked at the popular smartphones on the market in those days like BlackBerry, Palm Treo and Motorola Q, and asked: Why have a keyboard? Why is half of the device taken up by something that isn’t really needed for every application?

In other words, software developers were having to work around limitations of the hardware. Why not make the hardware a clean slate, and let the software developer use whatever he or she needs to provide the best user experience for the problem they are trying to solve? Well the rest is history. Now we have a completely different way of interacting with computers in both the smartphone and tablet market.

Here is the video of the unveiling of the iPhone

So what’s the other piece of news? Buried in the headlines of Jobs untimely death and Amanda Knox arriving in Seattle (Seriously? This is news?), there was a little story in the LA Times that a company in India, with the help of the Indian government had just produced a tablet that costs $50 to make. With subsidies from the government they plan to sell them to students and schools for $35 OR LESS. I thought the Kindle Fire was cheap at $199. But $35 for something less functional and smaller than an iPad that starts at $500?

Here is the complete story

So what could all of this mean for us? The revolutionary changes in how people interact with computers from the iPhone to tablets is fundamentally changing how people work. No longer are they tethered to a desktop, monitor and mouse. They are now on the road, in the service yard, on the showroom floor, with something in their hand that is as powerful as the computer on their desktop just a few years ago.

This is an extraordinary time for us because we have the opportunity to now provide products to serve both our current customers and future customers in ways we couldn’t before. In the not too distant future our customers will be able to enter or look-up work orders, enter time, search for parts, accept payments on the move and check out a customer at a mobile register. All of these things are possible by doing what we’ve always done on a new platform.

Those of you that haven’t tried out our new DockMaster in the Cloud platform really must. We haven’t made a formal internal announcement about it yet, because we want to make sure that IT is ready for everyone to start using it. More to come on this. DockMaster in the Cloud is just a start. There are so many things this company can do with the right vision and guts to get out there and do it. So Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish and thank Steve Jobs while you are at it!

Cam

Steve Jobs – May his legacy endure

Stay hungry, Stay focused

Apple has been a part of my life since high school. I remember having one of the original Macs and installing a retrofitted hard drive myself. I also remember cursing my newly minted Newton as I struggled to make it work. Little did I know that I was holding the artifacts of what would evolve into technological greatness. What an incredibly inspirational man – from the company he left behind, the people he has touched and a legacy that will endure. Stay hungry, Stay foolish!

I screw this up all the time

I was typing out an email to an old friend and colleague when I ran into the dreaded grammar dilemma or “me” vs “I”. In my writing, I’ve become relatively good with writing things with a reasonable amount of grammatical accuracy based on how the sentence “sounds’ to me. But I am sorry, when it goes time to use a “me” or an “I” especially when I am talking about me going somewhere or doing something with someone else, neither pronoun sounds right to me.

In comes Google and the magic of search. In Google I typed “me and a friend” and the very first link was to an Oxford Dictionary tip that succinctly solved my problem. The bottom line: use the pronoun “I” when its the subject of the verb and use the pronoun “me” when its the object of the verb.

Problem solved…Next.

Why is this happening to me?

Seth's head

People wonder — why is this happening to me? When will I get paid what I am worth? When will the normal that we knew return? Newflash — it won’t. Welcome to the new economy. Its different and it’s painful, but the shift from 30-years working for one company and getting the gold watch is over – forever. As presented in Seth’s post, “Job creation is a false idol. The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way.”

Write more, talk less

In a world where people spend a lot of time talking and likely even more time reading email, I agree with people like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and Stephen Pressfield that its time to start writing more – essentially to create more and create often.

I spend a lot of time reading and writing emails. Many of these are simply unimportant or inane. We hide behind email in lieu of calling people or walking two offices over to have a face to face conversation. I am committed to share more, create more, live more and express more “publicly” through writing. Who knows, I may throw in some artwork, music and videos on occasion.

Remembering 9/11 Ten Years Later

As a kid I remember adults talking about where they were and what they were doing the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The same holds true the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

Ten years ago today our country was attacked by terrorists. Nearly 3,000 people died in New York, DC and Pennsylvania. Like most people, I remember where I was and what I was doing. However what hit home recently for me was my eleven year old’s recollection of that day. This is what he wrote recently for a class project whereby he was asked to write a news story about an important event in his life.

“It was 9/11/01. Ten days after my birthday. It was the day when the twin towers exploded. When my mom heard the news she fell on her knees crying because my dad was on a plane from Manhattan to Florida. Then she got a call and was happy when she found out my dad was still alive. I would say that was the scariest day of my life!”

I was actually flying from Palm Beach to Laguardia. Someone in the seat across from me had called home from the air phone and was told that there was a terrorist attack in New York. It was right around 9 AM, so there weren’t a lot of details at that time. A couple more people called down to the ground and we began to get sketchy reports about what was happening. Talk started flying around about airplanes crashing into buildings and a couple of us started to wonder if we were safe. Just then, the pilot got on the PA and said “There has been a terrorist attack in New York. We are safe and in control of the aircraft, but this flight is being diverted to Atlanta”.

Hartsfield International was a zoo when we landed. Everyone was heading in the same direction – out! I found a rental car (thankfully) even though I stood in line for two hours. I remember the 8-hour drive home and seeing people on the side of the road waving flags. The way we came together as a country was breath taking. We need to remember 9/11 often. We need to embrace our neighbors like we did that day and the days that followed. Some people will stick their heads in the sand and pretend nothing has changed. Others like Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder & CEO of Meetup will start great companies that promote the the connections made post-9/11. What will you do? God bless America!!

Bonnaroo – Peace, Love and Rock & Roll

I am not old enough to remember Woodstock when it happened, but as a kid I was certainly influenced by the artists and amazing music that was created on that farm in upstate New York. So when we got on invitation to attend Bonnaroo in Manchester, TN we were giddy at the prospect of going to the nation’s largest music festival.

Bonnaroo

Our accommodations were certainly over the top. We were part of a package called Total Access, whereby guests are given rock star treatment. We were assigned a Prevost motor coach in one of the only shaded areas on the 700 acre farm that provides the backdrop for Bonnaroo. Our “campsite” included a 24/7 open bar and a buffet serving concert goer favorites like grilled filet mignon topped with portabella mushrooms.

There were over 100 bands performing on five different stages. Furthermore there were various comedians, artists, lectures, food, “merch” (e.g. overpriced t-shirts and stuff), a hair salon, yoga sessions, etc.

Here is a run down of the bands and comedians we saw:

Friday:
Lewis Black and Friends (honestly I thought Hannibal Buress stole the show. Funnier than Lewis in my opinion)
The Decemberists (Best in show for me!)
Ray Lamontagne (overlapped Decemberists – only heard four songs. Packed house. I am a big fan!)
Florence + the Machine (Packed to the gills! Venue was too small. They needed to be on main stage. Awesome)
My Morning Jacket
(eh…)
Arcade Fire (bummed that we actually missed seeing them but heard the show from our motor coach)

Saturday:
The Low Anthem (aside from seeing them play a “saw”, this we could have missed)
Donald Glover and Friends (Donald was awesome, but Bill Bailey was right with him)
Black Uhuru (I am a huge reggae fan and love this band…but it was obvious they didn’t want to be there. The only one into it was lead singer Derek “Duckie” Simpson).
Alison Krauss & Union Station (I bailed on Black Uhuru to catch Alison. Only saw them do five songs. Wish I would have been there from the beginning)
Mumford & Sons (Incredible. Young, passionate and they had a blast. Stay that way lads!!)
The Black Keys (I was bummed that Jack White was no where to be found at Bonnaroo but man am I glad I was introduced to this duet. These two brothers had plenty of energy to fill the void. It was the best straight up rock and roll I heard at Bonnaroo).
Buffalo Springfield feat. Richie Furay, Stephen Still and Neil Young (I went to see Stephen Stills. I didn’t see that Neil Young was there because the awesome Bonnaroo app I was using had … for the rest of the title. I am staring at a greatly aged version of my childhood idle saying “that’s really him isn’t it?”).
Eminem (Great show all the way around even though I am not a real fan. Lights, energy, sound – it was all dialed in. He takes this deal seriously. We were told that he showed up on Thursday to do a complete sound check with his crew and then hung low until Saturday night).

Sunday:
G. Love and Special Sauce (This is the only show we had time for on Sunday since our flight was at 4pm. He was awesome. With both his guitar and harmonic strapped on, G. Love was very engaging – “high fiving” people in the front row and running up the center of a sectioned off area of the crowd. So glad I caught him before we left).

Check out my Bonnaroo Facebook photo album here