Occasionally I take a break from producing marine management systems and marina software to talk about what we’ve learned over the past couple of years about social media, blogging, SEO and measuring the effectiveness of various web campaigns and initiatives. In this presentation I begin with the philosophy that got me thinking differently about marketing and social media from great thinkers like Seth Godin and Josh Bernoff. I then talk about the strategies and tactics we’ve adopted to become #1 on Google in our particular search category. Continue reading UPDATED: Leveraging Social Media (or How to get a #1 ranking on Google)
Category Archives: Main News
What we can learn from Apple
Apple is all the buzz at the moment. Apple’s market cap over took Microsoft’s in May to become the second largest company in America.Speculation is now flying about as to whether Apple can overtake the worldwide market cap leader, Exxon Mobil. It is not likely, but it’s incredible that a company that was such a niche player in the computer industry only a decade ago now reigns supreme. Continue reading What we can learn from Apple
A terrific irony
A friend of mine just sent this to me. Wonder how long it will take for BP to get this and start removing these signs:
An Inflection Point: From DockMaster to Exuma
In 1996, Andrew S. Grove published a book called “Only the Paranoid Survive”. At that time he was also the CEO of Intel, the world’s largest microchip manufacturer. Mr. Grove coined this term to describe what he calls a Strategic Inflection Point. This is how he defines it (and I am paraphrasing):
“Strategic inflection points are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let’s not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.”
“But strategic inflection points do not always lead to disaster. When the way business is being conducted changes, it creates opportunities for players who are adept at operating in the new way. This can apply to newcomers or to incumbents, for whom a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for a new period of growth.”
In other words, they occur where the old strategic approach dissolves and is replaced by the new. I believe there are two outside strategic forces that can and will fundamentally change our business:
– The new economic landscape: The recession we are fighting uphill to overcome has as much to do with markets becoming more efficient as it does with the mortgage and banking crisis. If you look at the macro components of our changing economic environment, a large contributing factor to this is the reality that getting things done has become incredibly more efficient through the use of the internet and offshore labor.
Keith sent me a Wall Street Journal article that states “the financial crisis has accelerated the commoditization of more and more markets.†No longer are just blue collar jobs going overseas, but white collar and IT related jobs are too. You simply don’t have to hire someone locally to get a formulaic task completed. By “formulaic” I mean: here’s the script, follow it – if you have any questions, ask me. Winners in the new economy are what Seth Godin calls Linchpins. These individuals are creators, innovators, problem solvers, leaders (by example) and exemplary sales people. High value organizations need linchpins and rainmakers; not cogs in a wheel, not followers of a map, not order takers, not delegaters and not closed minded technicians.
Attitude alone can make someone a linchpin. The convenience store clerk that smiles at every customer who comes in, keeps the place clean and wishes them a good day as they leave is a linchpin, even at minimum wage. Why? Because they add value to a commodity and are creating a memorable experience for the customer. This is where the opportunity lies. We want Exuma to be a place where linchpins – value creators – can cultivate and grow.
– The commoditization of software: The value of software is being driven to ZERO. Software companies that base a large portion of their profits on license fees are in trouble (whether they know it or not). Two key drivers are at play here creating a perfect storm scenario: The internet and the widespread growth of open-source software. Many companies are beginning to realize that their cash cows are no longer sacred and are finding ways to cash in on ancillary products and services.
Google is a great example. It seems like everyday, Google releases a new web-based application that costs you the user nothing to enjoy. From e-mails to images to desktop publishing and virtual maps, Google gives all of this away, including storage space and bandwidth on their massive infrastructure all from the revenues they make on advertising. Creative, subtle and necessary advertising for basically any company that wants an online presence. The days of Microsoft charging what ever they want for Office is coming to an end. Not only is Google Docs a threat to them, but so are open source technologies like Open Office which rivals MS Office and its FREE!
The opportunity here is that people don’t buy software they buy solutions. Businesses users don’t buy software because it was built on the latest technology or has cool graphics. They buy software based on the promise that it will make their lives better. Providing our customers with high value solutions is the key to taking advantage of this opportunity to create value for our customers.
We can look at these trends as the beginning of the end for Exuma as we know it OR we can capitalize on them. Realizing we are at strategic inflection point in the growth of our business, we can use them to catapult us to new heights. I personally have never been more excited and enthusiastic about our strategic direction, because we can take advantage of these two dynamics to create real value for our customers.
There has been a lot of talk about our migration to the RV industry and the rationale for doing so. Last night we just got one step closer to realizing this goal by formalizing our alliance with Advanced Dealer Solutions (ADS). We have identified the RV industry as one that is ripe for real solutions – not just software and empty promises. We have done a good job over the years to provide real value to our clients by focusing heavily on consulting, training and support. Due to the trends of the commoditization of software, we’ve been reducing our software fees, but raising our consulting and training rates.  ADS provides us with a strategic competitive advantage over other suppliers in both the marine and RV markets. They have many years of experience working with or for another dominant software provider in the market. We see an opportunity to provide a complete solution that goes beyond the dealer management system and truly adds value to a dealership.
ADS will help us increase our “bench strength” of linchpins and in many ways help us elevate our game in some areas: especially as it relates to RV industry knowledge, sales process, solution selling and competitive analysis.
The beauty of this model is that we will not enter the market as a “me too†product. With the ADS team we will be offering a DMS Support Option for both marine and RV dealers not using our products. This Support Option also includes transition services to either DockMaster or RVMaster. The great thing about RVMaster is it allows us to leverage the investments we’ve already made to produce our current product with little development effort. Many of our competitors who have products in multiple markets (e.g. marine, RV, powersports) utilize the same staff members to support the products across all industries. We don’t need a marine training staff and an RV training staff for instance. It’s fundamentally the same product. What we need is not only RV industry knowledge, but a new mindset, a new selling strategy and some new branding. These are the valuable resources ADS brings to the table.
Another aspect of the “rush to free” in software is the trend of moving client/server based systems to a hosted platform. We’ve been talking about this for quite some time, but we are now actively moving in that direction on a number of fronts. We are all pretty comfortable with the notion that DockMaster could be hosted if thin-client technology (MS Terminal Server or Citrix) is used. The problem is that’s an expensive proposition, because licensing fees for the thin-client technology is expensive. We would need to build that expense into our subscription pricing to make a profit. For the small handful of clients we’ve discussed this with, we have priced ourselves out of the market. Part of this is a weak selling strategy, but the other issue is the real expense burden given our current architecture.
To remedy this we are moving in a direction to eventually provide a web-enabled version of our product. This will take multiple years and we are going to do this pragmatically and with flexibility. We are in the process of converting DockMaster to VB.NET. This is the most critical and time consuming component. Regardless of wheather we move to a web-based platform, this step must be completed for various technical reasons. The next step in the migration is to ASP.NET which would give us a true web-based front-end. However do we continue supporting all of our products as they are today with the same set of functions? The answer is “no”. We don’t want to make the same mistake that was made when we went from text-based to Windows. We need to rethink a number of our functions and weigh it against the value perceived by our clients.
One area that’s been under scrutiny lately is our marina reservation system. To be competitive it needs lots of work. This is where Hercules Marine and our friends at Leisure Interactive come in. Leisure, along with marinas.com has formed a joint venture with us to offer Leisure’s campground reservation system to the marine market. We are the exclusive distributor of this web-based reservation system. Hercules Marine also has a powerful slip management system that replaces much of the functionality in our Reservations and Storage & Billing modules. The strategy is to have Hercules Marine ultimately replace these functions in DockMaster. This way we can focus on parts, service, sales and accounting. We will build an interface to Hercules via our web connector so that the two products work hand in hand. We are not abandoning our marina modules. We will be supporting them for many years to come. We may find that Hercules Marina only adds value to pure marina clients and is not applicable for full service marinas and boatyards. We won’t know until we start on-boarding customers.
Beyond RV, I see us expanding our web offerings in the marine space and beyond. The DB2Web technology that we’ve developed basically enables DockMaster and RVMaster to communicate with any web-based platform. Using this technology we will begin to offer features like web-based service requests that create WO estimates, online bill review/pay, online parts stores, web-based lead management, online boat/RV rentals. We don’t need a complete cloud-based version of DockMaster to do these things. We can give our customers direct access to their customers via the web with DockMaster as it is today.
I know this communication will lead to more discussion and questions. We are still working through the organization, reporting and responsibilities of our new partners. I will be sending out a communication next week with contact names, e-mail addresses, etc. But I am very excited about this new direction and the fact that we finally got it done. It took a long time to finalize because both ADS and Exuma are making a long term commitment to one another. Moving into a new industry, with a new product and some new team members is not an overnight event. Furthermore, like our marine customers, RV dealers are typically pragmatic and slow to adopt new/different technologies and solutions. But with our new strategic partner we have the opportunity to reach new heights.
Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change. They can be caused by competitors but they are more than just competition. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let’s not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.
But strategic inflection points do not always lead to disaster. When the way business is being conducted changes, it creates opportunities for players who are adept at operating in the new way. This can apply to newcomers or to incumbents, for whom a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for a new period of growth.
A life of distraction
On a Sunday afternoon my wife and I did something rather rare for us. We dropped the kids off at my mom’s and drove down to the Caldwell Theatre Company in Boca Raton, FL to watch Distracted, a play by Lisa Loomer. We weren’t sure what to expect as we hadn’t seen a play in years. We had the sense that this play would have some personal meaning for us, but we did not know how it would manifest itself on stage.
Let’s just say that within the first 30 seconds of the play tears started welling up in our eyes. Why? Our oldest son who is nine has ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). He is a brilliant, creative, funny and generally happy kid. Happy go lucky is really a good way to describe him. His tennis coach has to remind him to “run” not “skip” when going after a ball. Not a care in the world and purely free is his normal mode.
These are the positive attributes of ADHD. The negative attributes include impulsivity, hyper-activity (mostly found in males), lack of focus, little respect for others “space”, challenged socially, etc. In our post-industrial world, where the foundation for structure and compliance is built into the fabric of our society, people possessing ADHD are labeled misfits, undisciplined or impulsive.
I happen to think that ADHD is a blessing and a gift. I have mild ADD (the “Hyperactive” part tends to fade away with age) and as a child I was simply labeled “hyperactive”. There wasn’t a widely known diagnosis for ADD or ADHD in the Seventies. I can relate to my son’s actions – most of the time! However the impulsive vocalization (e.g. yelling) and bouncing off the walls drives me as crazy as anyone else.
So there we are at the theater, the curtain opens to a modern living room filled with all of the distractions in our world today, including cell phones, Tevo, video games, etc. The mother of this nine-year old boy is trying to have some meditation time when she hears her son screaming in the background, along with phone ringing and other distractions. The emotion hit me when I heard the kids voice because he was stressing over going to school. Why? Because they were going to have a fire drill that day and the sound of the alarm freaks this kid out. My son doesn’t have a phobia about fire drills, but we are so often challenged my the smallest things that he seems to obsess over.
Small things become mountains for those with ADHD. This is one of the strange paradoxes of the condition. It is challenging for people with ADHD to focus on the task at hand, but they have bursts of hyper-focus on certain things. No one knows exactly why. In his book Delivered from Distraction, Dr. Edward M. Hallow discusses a number of the strange paradoxes of this condition. This book is a must read for anyone interested in learning about the wonderful and confusing world of ADHD/ADD.
As the play unfolds, my wife and I saw our lives flash before our eyes. The parallels to our reality and what was unfolding on the screen was uncanny. It starts with complaints to the parents from those of authority about this restless and undisciplined child. The parents spend a fair amount of time in denial until after a number of psychological evaluations the diagnosis comes back “ADHD”. Then you go through the treatments.
The first comment parents usually make is “I am not drugging my kid”. So the family on stage went through many of the same homeopathic steps that we did in an attempt to normalize their nine-year old boy. The teacher continues to send home reports saying that he is disruptive, doesn’t give kids there space and the universal zinger “he has some much potential but can’t seem to apply himself”. Growing up I heard those words over and over again!
They finally give in and try the medication (the same medication my son takes periodically) and it works great! At least for the teacher. She now has a compliant, focused and quiet student. The kid now “fits into the system created by our Industrial Age past”. The parents are happy to – at least initially until the side effects begin to set in. These include symptoms such as a lack of appetite, nervous impulses (e.g. teeth gnashing, nail biting), a withdrawn state, no desire for physical activities and radical mood swings. The boy rebels “I don’t want to take my medicine today!” My wife and I have heard the exact same objection from our little nine-year old many times and it’s the reason we are in an on again, off again cycle with medication.
The parents in an attempt to try anything begin to experiment with more radical holistic approaches which include a boarding school for children with ADHD. This also includes some radical diet modification. The list of things the boy can’t eat mirrors the diet my son is on: no wheat, no corn, no soy, no dairy, no fish, no turkey, no peanut butter. Do you know how hard it is to find something a kid will eat with all of those “NOs”? Every starch he consumes now is made of rice or potatoes. The only meat the kid can eat is chicken, beef and pork.
Dr. Hallowell and CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD) believe that effective treatment in children and teens requires a comprehensive approach. The best outcomes are achieved when multiple interventions work together as a comprehensive treatment. The play didn’t offer any answers because there is no cure. But the message was clear that love and attention are what children with ADHD really need, because its an attention deficit that their life lacks in our world of hyper-distraction.
The high cost of switching
I anxiously awaited the arrival of my new iPad. It was the first time I pre-ordered new technology, ever! In anticipation of its arrival I was thinking about “focus” (one of my three words for 2010). The iPad can only do one thing at a time. You can’t surf the web while checking e-mail. It’s one or the other and there are advantages to this single threaded interface.
Those close to me know that “focus” can be a challenge as I have to work hard to stay focused. You can label it Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), remnants of preadolescence impulsivity or just the fact that we live in a world of “hyper-distraction”. But staying focused is harder for many of us today than it was for our ancestors. These days we find ourselves tethered to our iPhones and Blackberrys scanning e-mails, checking Facebook and texting friends and colleagues while at the kid’s soccer game. (Remember: “Wherever you are be there?” I forget it all the time).
Habits are hard to change, especially those we’ve done for years. For instance, most of us believe that we can effectively multitask. Sure we can chew gum and walk, but when it comes to intellectually challenging stuff I stand by the notion that multitasking doesn’t work. That’s because it is humanly impossible to simultaneously harbor two conscious thoughts in your brain at exactly the same time. Sure you can unload the dishwasher and talk on the phone. Because unloading the dishwasher is a relatively “mindless” function. But if you were to notice a crack in a dish, your mind would focus on that. How did it crack? Was it cracked before it went into the dishwasher or did it break during cleansing?
For things that require mental effort what we are really doing is time slicing. We are “switching” our thoughts from one thing to another rapidly – thus creating the illusion that we can multitask.
How many times have you picked up the phone to take a call in the middle of reading e-mail? At first you might be focused on the call, but as the conversation begins to wind down you start focusing on e-mail again. Guess what? The person on the other end of the phone can usually tell when you’ve mentally checked out. I do this to people when they call me from time to time and it is ineffective and inconsiderate.
The pie charts above show the effect that interruptions (represented in green) can have on your thought process. When you are taken off task it takes some time to mentally pull away, pay attention to something (or someone) else and then refocus back on that task. Depending on the level of complexity the “refocusing” stage can be time consuming, especially if you are in the midst of doing something creative or highly technical.
In his book, “The Myth of Multitasking“, David Crenshaw shows how to minimize interruptions by coworkers and how to deal with distracting electronic communications such as e-mail and phone messages. I am not advocating you lock yourself in a cave and accept food rations under the door. But I do recommend setting aside times in the day for concentrating on projects or tasks. These times should be periods in which you can’t be interrupted unless the building is on fire.
Gmail IMAP trouble
Is it just me or does Google’s Gmail IMAP implementation just plain suck? I have two e-mail accounts, a work e-mail (@dockmaster.com) on an Exchange server and a personal e-mail (@camcollins.wpengine.com). I was using a simple POP account through GoDaddy for my personal e-mail and storing all of my e-mail in folders locally on my laptop. I back my Outlook folders up once per week.
When I got my iPad I decided it was time to get with it. So I started using dropbox for my personal files (which I love!) and Gmail for my persinal mail so my files/folders/contacts will sync with my Google account and I can start living in complete wireless iPad bliss.
I found some great article on moving POP accounts to IMAP using Outlook and then syncing those folders/files with Gmail. Click here to enable IMAP on Outlook and here to see how to sync files/folders.
It’s the syncing part that’s been painful. The files will partially copy and then I’ll get FAILURE notices saying that the server cannot be reached.
I have changed folder names to no avail. The error I get before this says that Outlook lost connection to the server. One I get this error, the error above will come up every time I attempt a subsequent sync. t might just be me and I hope so. Please comment if I am missing something…
A short customer service story
While reading Chris Kourtakis’ blog post in Boating Industry about the upcoming spring launch in the Northern U.S., I was glad to see that he commented on the industry’s need to “turn things around…one customer at a time”. This piece of advice remains the hallmark of virtually every business regardless of the industry or economy. He didn’t say “turn everyone into a customer” he focused on the “one”. One happy customer, turns into two, then four and so on.
It reminded of a recent trip I took to my local West Marine store. I was looking for some parts for my boat and couldn’t find exactly what I needed. I stood at the register for a minute or two while the clerks were helping other customers. One of the clerks finally noticed me standing there and radioed for the manager to come to the front register. The manager was in his office (hidden from my view) only a few feet from where I was standing. At this point the customer (me) wasn’t happy! What went through my mind was “what could have been more important than helping a customer that is waiting to buy something?”
To his credit, the manager turned things around pretty quickly. I could not find a specific part for my outriggers. West Marine didn’t carry the part. Once I realized this, I was already thinking that my next stop was Lewis Marine Supply. However he creatively found a part that was similar and gave me a suggestion on how to make a simple modification such that it would work.
Moral of the story: Earnest and thoughtful customer service can turn negative situations into positive ones by simply caring enough to help people solve their problems.
Add value to your core
What are you really good at? What recurring comments or suggestions do you receive from your customers or colleagues? Listening to customers, as well as colleagues and advisers is more than just noting the literal statements being made. It is also important to pick-up on verbal clues. I call this empathetic listening and it can help you add value to your products and services.
In the case of marine management software, simply adding features to our products because our customer says they need them doesn’t necessarily add value. Same goes for any business. Adding features to appease the few will disrupt the many. In software and web applications, layering feature upon feature makes products confusing and cumbersome. The value of your product is diminished if it causes frustration and anxiety because the customer is overwhelmed by features.
This scenario doesn’t just play out in the technology world. Ever go to a restaurant that had 50 to 100 items on the menu? It is down right overwhelming. Not only is it hard to choose, but I always ask myself “can these guys really perfect 50+ items?” The answer is typically “No”. Some of the best restaurants have 10 to 15 entrees that they’ve perfected. The menu changes over time as various ingredients go in and out of season. The goal is ultimate freshness for taste perfection.
So if you honestly ask yourself “what are you good at?” coupled with “what is your core business?”, you should be able to get the epicenter of your value. In their book REWORK, 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson talk about finding your epicenter and focusing on it like a laser. I will add that once you’ve perfected your epicenter, start adding “spokes to the wagon wheel”. There is a caveat! You can’t put all of your energy on “spokes” and neglect your “core”. The spokes must add value to the core.
Amazon illustrates this wonderfully with the Kindle. At the end of the day, Amazon distributes content. That content is typically in the form of books, CDs and e-books. The Kindle, their electronic book reader is a spoke as it gives readers another way to enjoy the content Amazon distributes. The Kindle adds value to their content and distribution empire.
There’s lots of talk about Apple’s iPad threatening the Kindle. While the iPad could certainly stymie Kindle sales, it should boost Amazon’s core – that is the distribution of books across various mediums. On 3/30/2010 an AP artcle in NYDailyNews.com stated “If the Kindle e-reader falls out of favor with people drawn to Apple’s offering, there could be a very thick silver lining for Amazon: It sells e-books that can be read on many kinds of devices, including the iPad and other Apple gadgets. That means the Kindle could fade and Amazon could still occupy a profitable perch in e-books.” In other words, the iPad becomes another spoke, or outlet for Amazon even though its not their product.
We have been looking for ways to help our customers provide better service to their customers, e.g. boaters. To that end, we have observed that more and more boaters want to use the internet to communicate with their marina, marine dealer or boatyard. Therefore we’ve decided to add web-based functionality to our core marina management system that allows customers to book a boat slip reservations online, submit an online service request or review invoices online.
What we as managers and business operators need to do is use these suggestions from customers and trusted advisers as points of reference. But you must have the fortitude and vision to guide your customers where they need to go. Just doing what they want today doesn’t necessarily help them or your business going forward.
“If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse.â€
—HENRY FORD
Keeping your eye on the present
In December of 2009 I posted a blog called Threads of interruption: How to keep your day from spinning out of control . In it I described a process that I use to keep myself focused on what’s important and abstain from being distracted by the “seemingly urgent”. In the second part of this series, I will explore the Pareto Principle , more commonly known as the 80-20 rule, and how you can use procrastination to your advantage.
The 80-20 Rule (applied to time and task management) basically means two things to me:
– Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time
– Shorten your time frame to ensure heightened levels of focus
Following these two principles will allow you to focus on execution with a very clear deadline.
Remember in high school or college when a teacher assigned a term paper three months in advance? What most of us did is procrastinate until the very last minute to get it done. When you think back on that experience, can you remember the final days or hours before the paper was due and the intense focus you had on completing that task?
That same level of intensity should be utilized in your professional life as well. I am not saying that you should freak out management by doing nothing for weeks and then pulling a handful of ‘all-nighters” to complete a project. But what I do advocate is to create short, compact time lines to immerse yourself into projects. Block out that time on your calender so you can focus on the project. NO PHONE CALLS, NO E-MAIL. I don’t care if you are a programmer, outboard engine mechanic or a writer; this act of compartmentalizing a project into a compact time line and then executing with intense focus to complete the task in my experience produces the best results.
Working on a project a little at a time far in advance of a deadline is ineffective. That’s because there is a ramp-up period each and every time you start working on a project. What people tend to do who perform a “little at a time” is attempt to multitask. The illusion that you can effectively multitask is the biggest time waster of them all.
QUICK TIP: Keep your calendar empty. Some of the most effective time managers I’ve met guard their calendar’s with their life. They will not schedule meetings too far in advance, so that they can remain nimble and thus shorten their work time. If something important comes up last minute they are able to make time for it on their calendar. In addition, don’t be afraid to say “NO”. If the meeting, event or task you are being asked to do isn’t in alignment with what’s important to you politely decline.
Further Reading:
Tim Ferris: 4 Hour Work Week Blog: How to Learn Any Language in 3 Month
@about.com: Pareto’s Principle: The 80-20 Rule