Feeding at a new Trough

As you may have noticed if you've been to the site lately, I've changed hosting providers, altered my site design, and more. 

Along with those changes, I'm moving my RSS feed to FeedBlitz, which means a new place to point your RSS reader.

You can either use the "Subscribe in a Reader" link in the sidebar on the right side of the main site, click here, or manually update your RSS subscription so it points to http://feeds.feedblitz.com/genuinecuriosity

And, as always, thanks to each and every one of you for hanging out with me these past 4+ years!

[Review] Success Mapping

I read a lot of books.  A lot of them are just good information to build my knowledge in a certain topic area.  The best ones are those that inspire me to take action, and Arlene Johnson's "Success Mapping" is one of those books. 

The subtitle of the book is "Achieve What You Want…Right Now!" and, while I think that's a pretty bold promise, I think Johnson's book pays it off.  This book takes a step-by-step approach to guide you through the process of challenging yourself, setting goals, and building out the texture to make those goals feel real to you.  This all culminates in the creation of a detailed execution plan with milestones and check-ins.

What's the big deal about this book?

I know, I know…there are a lot of books that help with setting goals and making plans.  "So what makes this one different?," you might ask.  In my opinion, one thing that sets this book apart are the excellent 'worksheets' throughout the book.  They take the concepts Johnson explains in her book and make them concrete and actionable.

I'm using the worksheets as I go along, and have found them to be very powerful in getting me to show my work around the ideas bouncing around inside my head.

The worksheets alone are worth the price of the book (I'm not kidding - the worksheets are sold in standalone form - check out the prices and you'll see that the book is a bargain).

Not just idealism

The other thing I like about the book is it tackles Obstacles head on.  What I mean is it spends a fair amount of time taking the reader through an examination of various obstacles to success, and helps you create plans to mitigate the risks those obstacles represent.  This basically means you can go into execution mode with your eyes open, and that you've already thought about contingency plans if one of these obstacles appears in front of you.

There is also practical advice on how to garner the resources you'll need (financial, people, skills, etc.) to achieve your successful outcome.

I recommend this book to anyone who's pursuing a goal (or who has lots of ideas but doesn't know where to start.  While the book is definitely biased toward business people I think the concepts presented can apply to any goal you may have in your personal life, as well.

You should also check out the Success Mapping web site, where you'll find book excerpts, additional reference materials, and audio & video clips.  And best of luck creating your personal success map with "Success Mapping!"

"The paper accepts everything"

The title of this post is something I heard from someone in a meeting today, and what it means is something like:  "You can write anything you want - but doing what you wrote is another story."

In a sense this is a double-edged notion - while it can be very liberating to create grand plans, they can also be very intimidating.  When it comes down to execution, what you wrote can be very hard to do.

Accountability is crucial in a team

This quote came out during a discussion in a team meeting, and was triggered when an "idea guy" was creating a wonderful vision filled with fantastic possibilities for our products. 

The "doer guy," whose team had to actually implement all of the ideas in our software is the one who said, "The paper accepts everything.  My team can't accept everything.  Now, let's get real about what we're going to do."  In other words, he wanted to take the possibilities down to a list he could commit to, and be held accountable for.

The interesting thing is that our team hasn't always been this way.  Typically, we would just say "yes" to everything (or at least to too many things), then try to make it fit during the product development cycle.  The consequences of this approach?  Disappointment in one form or another - either we fell short on product functionality or we missed our delivery date.

What changed?  Well, we agreed we'd be more resolute about creating specific commitments, and more diligent about enforcing accountability for those commitments.

We're not perfect at this yet, but the direction is right and the impact has been positive for us.

Even if "The paper accepts everything," that doesn't mean the team has to.

It's more than just the game

In watching my kids and the various sports teams they are involved with, one thing is apparent:  the athletes that put in extra time to develop their skills fare better in the game.

Some of the athletes on the team rely solely on scheduled practices to get them ready for the game.  In other words, they do what is required and not much beyond that.

In contrast, the "high performers" on the team tend to do more than that, such as practicing skills & drills on their own time, doing conditioning and weights to strengthen themselves, etc.  These “extra” activities make those players better athletes in general and you can see that in their performance on the field (and they also tend to experience fewer injuries).

There is something to be learned there about business, too.  Are you a “show up for practices and games” kind of person, or do you work on your skills, conditioning, and other aspects of self-improvement away from work? 

For me (while I’m not always consistent about it), this kind of extra conditioning involves reading, attending webinars / seminars, benchmarking with other people to share skills, and things like that.  It also involves trying out different skills in other environments such as some of the scouting, church, and other teams I’m involved in (it’s much safer to try out a new “influencing others” play in volunteer roles, and it can be fun).

What about you?  How do your sharpen your saw away from work?  If you have any best practices to share I’d love to hear them.

Marketing in the Time of Cholera

Just finished reading a book by a friend of mine, Mark Gaydos, who’s chosen the provocative title, “Marketing in the Time of Cholera: : 6.5 Fundamentals for Thriving in a Toxic Economy.” Mark’s an industry veteran in marketing, as well as a university instructor on this topic, so he really knows his stuff.

Mark’s premise is that you don’t have to create some wild, crazy, Kanye West-like incident to stand out in the market, and that “marketing fundamentals” can guide you on where and how to invest for maximum success and revenue influence from marketing programs.

The book is very instructive regarding how to view your marketing programs from the customer’s perspective, and what kinds of metrics and indicators you can use to measure your success.

The book include sample analyses of marketing programs, examples of effective & ineffective web sites, banner ads, newsletters, etc. which help illustrate how to take a customer-oriented marketing approach.

The best news?  The book is free, and Mark doesn’t even ask for your email address (I guess he’ll make it up in volume…) 

You can download your free copy at the Marketing In The Time of Cholera book site, where you’ll also find a couple of videos in which Mark discusses how the book can help you.  Enjoy!