Archive for January, 2009

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Personal Vision

28 January, 2009

I’ve just come back from an excellent training course that focusses on personal leadership. One of the exercises was to come up with a personal vision, that encompasses how you will be and live as a leader in the future.

Sounds easy? It turned out to be very very difficult for me, and somewhat difficult for other people in my group.

Finding your vision may be difficult

Finding your vision may be difficult

I did come away with pieces of a personal vision – I saw my team as successful in our work, and positive in the relationship we have with each other… but I also saw myself writing more, and frankly I don’t know how that’s going to happen in the short term given current workload and the rather turbulent environment in which I’m working.

I also came away with valuable learning, my 360 feedback showed me that there is a lot I am doing right as a leader (very good for my confidence!), some things to improve. The MBTI II was interesting – especially going into detail about how ‘extrovert’ behaviours might be received by introverts. As a very strong extrovert I learnt some tricks I can use to give others more space to speak in meetings, as one of my group members said “save to draft”.

In fact the group feedback was the most useful session, before it began the course leader talked about how in most cases the feedback would be 70% good – and asked us to receive it with that in mind. My group gave me feedback that was honest, insightful and useful; impressive since we’d only known each other five days.

I got a lot out of the whole week, and got a lot of energy from the classroom environment – the point where I’m now looking at how I can be in that environment more often. Perhaps as a group facilitator rather than a student. I can even see how that would bring the two threads of my personal vision together.

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The Cult of the Amateur

7 January, 2009

bookicon2Or “The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values” to give it its full title, by Andrew Keen.

As you might expect from the title Andrew Keen is against user-generated content and social media. For him truth should be in the hands of the experts, and reporting is in the hands of journalists. He sees the demise of traditional media, particularly print media and laments its passing.

It’s an anti Web 2.0 rant. He makes a valid point regarding the credibility of bloggers vs news journalists, but ignores that journalists have also been guilty of faking stories and other, unethical behaviour. But beyond that the view is so biased and so limited that it becomes annoying rather than enlightening. There are a number of pencil notations in my copy, next to contradictions in his argument. For example one big complaint is the lack of accountability on the web, yet Reed College also comes under fire for denying admission to a student who had published rude comments about the school.

I agree that there are issues to be solved that most Web 2.0 evangelists ignore, such as the issues of privacy vs anonymity, censorship (necessary to protect children) and intellectual property. But I am more optimistic than Mr. Keen.

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My Challenge for 2009

5 January, 2009

With the global economy in decline, and the financial services more or less freezing the flow of cash that is the lifeblood of small businesses it looks like being a year of challenges for all of us. Looking at my own team (cut by 20%) and my own budget (cut by 20%) and the goals for 2009 (also cut – but not by 20%) we’ll be facing challenges to deliver the quality we’ve built our reputation on. Lucky I have a smart team – we’re starting the year with an open planning session I’m currently working on how to make that as fun and productive as possible – which is pretty much my challenge for the whole year.

I said at the beginning of last year that in my view a great team was one which;

  • delivers on time
  • beats expectations on quality
  • has a strong team spirit

I still believe that, this year we add budgetary pressures, and development needs into the mix. I have a young team, for two of the team it’s their first “real” job. Two others only joined the team this year, so I want all four of them to develop in some way that we agree on. The fifth member of the team is nearing retirement, so I have to balance his needs – and facilitate the transfer of his knowledge.

So my workshop will be about;

  • budget
  • planning goals
  • year planning
  • individual goals (work & development)
  • what do we want to celebrate at the end of the year?

This last is very important, we’re a service team and much of what we do is behind the scenes and often goes unacknowledged. I try very hard to make sure we get recognition throughout the year – it means something to my team members and it helps with discussions with upper management during the year if they’re aware of at least some of what we’ve done.

I’ll be making sure the seniors in my team do some of the presenting, and everyone talks about their own goals. I have to find a fun exercise related to the end of year celebration – I want us to end on a high note.

And we need some jokes, it’s going to be a tough year – it’s important we keep our sense of humour.

Roll on 2009!

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Predictions 2009

2 January, 2009

It’s with some trepidation that I throw a few predictions into the ring for 2009; who could have predicted 2008′s global economic meltdown? Few did although in hindsight the signs were there. Without doubt 2009 is going to be full of challenges for businesses, perhaps especially those in the technology and communications areas.

Web 2.0

There has been a tidal wave of start-ups and social media tools. Without a doubt there will now be a shake out, those with a strong business – producing revenue and growth – will survive. Some will be bought by bigger fish, or merge with others who are providing the same service, others will die. We’ve seen this before.

Start-up money will be harder to come by, particularly in the US and Europe, so new companies are going to have to be cheaper and smarter in how they develop. VCs are likely to want a faster payback and ask more penetrating questions on the business model – not just the technology. We could see start-up money coming out of Asia and NEMA rather than the US.

Big Players

For big companies in the tech space like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo expectations will increase. Microsoft and Google provide a huge range of services to large corporates who are going to want more for the money they have available.

In terms of the services provided directly to customers Google needs to start providing service to the local user or disillusionment will grow – they’re no longer the cool start up and it’s going to get tougher for them.

Mobile

The technology has advanced, the content had advanced, but so far it’s been early adopters who’ve really benefitted. This is changing,  it’s going mainstream which means that it is generating an advertising opportunity. If this can be linked to location then we can get to micro targeting – and micro searching. Finally I can search for the product I want and get local results.

Cybercrime

The web is no longer anonymous. Open standards, services like Sxipper, will develop further to improve authentication on the web. Companies, registration authorities and governments will pressure IP suppliers and other web site suppliers to crack down on cybercrime – forward fee fraud alone made more profit than Disney in 2007. In the past financial services companies have paid up in some cases of cybercrime even when not at fault, but this year they haven’t got any money so I predict a greater fightback from them.

So overall, a shakeout of the proliferation of social media sites and apps – those with a real audience and a revenue stream have the best chance of survival (however good the concept is). Opportunities for real innovation, both from startups and established companies, and bigger demands for companies and customers who are also trying to do more with less in their own fields.  2009 is here;  ready, steady, GO!

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