Getting Lots of Things Done

Not Enough Time

None of us has enough hours in the day to do what we need to get done. We need to get these things done so that we have time left to do what we want to do. Bill Patterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame says “There is never enough time to do all the nothing you want. I have a trick that you can use to make more progress every day.

My Approach

I picture all of the things that I want to do as balls on my desk. Some of the balls need to go all the way across the desk and some of them only part way. Some people will help me move the balls across the desk and that is great. Some people want to take the ball off my desk and that is even better. Some people try to get in the way of the balls or even move them backwards on me. When I have all of the balls mentally lined up on my desk I decide which one I am going to push next. If something is blocking your way ignore that ball or move it sideways a bit.

Change Your Approach

It is amazing how many balls you can keep in motion at any one time when you take this mental view of the tasks you need to accomplish. The best part is that you stop stressing about the balls you cannot move. You will learn that you might not be able to move them at all today but tomorrow the obstacles move and you can kick that one forward again. My favorite is when several balls line up at once. I call this aligning the stars. Instead of struggling with them one at a time, one big boot sends them all home. Practice this and let me know how it works for you.

I am always looking for new ideas to make more things happen faster, so please let me know. What do you do to maximize your time?  mmccourt@ddauto.com.

More Thinkers Thoughts on Productivity

33 Rules to Boost Productivity

Productivity 501

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I can’t believe the pace at which the world is changing now. The crazy thing is that the rate of change keeps getting faster too.

As Strafordians, Ontarians Canadians and members of planet earth we all know that if we do not keep up we will get left in the dust. I know that sitting in my rocker muttering something about “I mind the time…” is not going to be good enough for me and the people around me. I owe it to myself, my family and my community to at least try to be a thought leader. Success is for others to judge. It’s up to me to make the best effort possible.

The best thing I have discovered is to surround myself with people who are trying hard too. There are lots of mutterers and always will be. When I go to conferences and reach out to network with other people the learning happens fast and it is exciting. No one knows for sure what the world will look like in 10 or even 5 years, but I know that I will be running fast and keeping pace. I am always looking for motivated and energetic people, so please let me know. What do you do to learn and grow?  mmccourt@ddauto.com.

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Driving Forward

It takes a lot of drive and stamina to keep moving forward when you are creating new technology. It is good once in a while to raise your head from your work and look around at what is happening around you.

Government Money Spent Well

We looked up recently and found a grant program that will pay for a PhD Student to work with us to help solve some technical hurdles. I forgot how resourceful and connected the student world is. Some of our bigger hurdles turn out to be easily solved using open source software solutions.

You Can Partner for Success

We are working with the University of Waterloo to stretch the grant dollars as far as we can. Canada has put together this program to help connect industry to academia through the National Sciences and Engineering Research council of Canada. (nserc) It is a great win – win when companies can advance their technology and students can work on real world applications. Canadian companies can have an advantage over our competitors when we think outside the box. Connect with your local University and start reaping the rewards.

Ask me and I will be happy to help connect you.

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Find a Winning Idea

There are a million ideas out there. The problem is that only a few of that million are really any good. The numbers are smaller are even smaller if you want the idea to be profitable. I find ideas all the time and love most of them right out of the gates. Sober second thought and a vetting process takes the luster off many of them pretty quickly.

Sort Your Ideas

The first step when you find something you really like is to write it down and leave it alone for a few days. I love the way our minds continue to work even when you are not consciously thinking about it. If you still love your idea then next thing I do is apply a rigorous filter to it. Ask yourself some hard questions and be honest.

Sample Filter Questions

·         What are the goals for this idea? (don’t forget minimum and stretch goals)

·         What resources are required to reach your goal in dollars?

·         What people are required to reach your goal?

·         How long will it take to reach your goal?

·         How big could this idea possibly get? (Dream Big - I love this one!)

Now What?

Create a form with these questions on it that you can use over and over again. Write down your answers and tweak your form. It is therapeutic to write these things down. The one person you really have to sell your idea on is yourself. If you are still bought in after all of this its time to find someone you trust and respect. Ideally you should find someone with some expertise in the field. Take your filter sheet with you and pitch the idea to them. Be ready to accept honest feedback. If after all this you are still bought in then go for it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Don’t forget, if innovation was easy, everybody would be doing it.

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Being Prepared is Critical

I remember the good old days at D&D when we got an order for a controls solution and we’d shoot someone out to provide the service. Our person would have to find someone to answer their questions on site and figure it out when they got there. Wow that was awesome.  Wait a minute. That was terrible! Our technician was hung out to dry with no project information, the client had to explain what they wanted a second time and no one was clear on the commercial details. We had to get better and we did.

“A winning effort begins with preparation.” Joe Gibbs, coach Washington Redskins.

How to be Prepared

We borrowed an idea from a company in a similar business called Project Execution Plan or PEP. A PEP is a meeting with all of the key people to ensure that all of the information about the project is transferred to the people doing the work. You will have to figure out what is important to your company but we focus on 3 critical areas; people, contract and quality.

Know the People

In this section we inform our team about all of the people who are involved in the project in any way. Every project is ultimately about people so this is a key point.   Your technicians need to know who they are working with and what their involvement is in the project. Who can help internally and which supplier partners are preferred.

Know the Contract

In this section we ensure our people understand what is included and what is not included in the contract. It is much easier to manage expectations when you understand the agreement. Over delivering can be just as problematic as under delivering. We always try to over deliver just a bit and this is only possible when you completely understand what is contractually required.

Have a Plan to Ensure Quality

In this section we talk about how to ensure quality on the project. We decide ahead of time what we are going to do to ensure a quality project. We decide how many peer reviews and client reviews we will have. We decide if we are going to do a D&D-3&3 project review on completion and we look at all other tools for quality control. Having a plan for ensuring quality is the best way to make sure it happens.

What if No One Knows Anything?

This is a scenario that we run into from time to time.  Still do a PEP. Imagine going to a job site and knowing almost nothing about what you are expected to do or who you are to meet.  Believe me it happens. With a PEP you know you have all the information available.  You will be much more comfortable stepping into the breach than if you think there is information available and you are not up-to-date.  Now you know will that your first step is to begin a fact finding mission.

Build a Process to be Prepared Every Time

Build a PEP sheet that clearly lists the key issues that you might run into on any given project. Create a process that ensures that this critical meeting happens each and every time you are called to a job site. Taking a few minutes to get prepared up front will save you hours in the long run.

You can see our PEP Sheet here to get you started.

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Creating Client Partners

Prospects will become customers and customers will become clients but only if you are doing things properly.

One of the keys to success for any business is to truly connect with your customers to make them clients. Clients truly ‘like’ you and want to succeed by helping you succeed in a mutual win-win scenario. I often tell our customers, “I want to grow my business by helping you grow yours”. It’s not just a catchy slogan, it’s the truth.

Get Customers Involved

When we complete a project for a good client partner we try to engage that customer in a D&D-3&3 meeting. This type of meeting is intended to get direct, candid feedback from our customers about our most recent project and then create a plan to make changes based on that feedback. The customer now buys in to our company processes and an incentive to work with us again as soon as possible. This is a competitive edge you can’t afford to miss.

D&D - 3&3 – How does it work?

The beauty of the D&D-3&3 is its simplicity. We bring our key project team together with key stakeholders in the completed project and actively listen to everyone’s concerns. First we collectively decide which 3 things went well on the job and create a plan to ensure that these 3 things continue to happen. Secondly we decide which 3 things could have gone better on the project and pick one of those 3 to fix on the next project.  We believe that if you pick more than one you will end up fixing nothing. The D&D-3&3 document is stored in a client file on our server and pulled out when reviewing the PEP for the next project. PEP is an acronym for Project Execution Plan and I will explain that in another posting.

Just Ask

How many times have you had feedback for a service or product you bought? How many times have you been asked for that feedback and had it honestly listened to and acted upon? This is a golden opportunity to make your customers and client partners in mutual success so listen and act. Get your customers involved and they will be your clients for life.

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First Hand Account

Julian Assange spoke to the YPO-WPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver Colorado via Satelite Link from England on Friday February 25^th at 9:40. George W Bush was scheduled to speak live to the same group live on Saturday February 26^th at 11:00. George W. Bush cancelled by 8:00 Friday evening because “The former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States.” Wait a minute! These two men were not debating a topic. They weren’t even supposed to be speaking on the same topic.

Why is this Important?

The basic idea of free speech implies that we also need to listen. Standing with a megaphone and blaring nonsense is not what free speech is all about but neither is covering your ears and not listening to what others have to say.

In refusing to “share a forum” the former President lost a great opportunity to speak to business leaders across the globe. I think he should have quietly listened to what Julian was saying. If he truly has “willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States” maybe it would be a good idea to get a better handle on the guy. More importantly Mr. Bush lost the opportunity to find out first hand what 2000 YPO business leaders across the globe think about Julian Assange and what he and WikiLeaks are doing. What a shame!

Take Time to Understand

The next time you hear about something you like or don’t like, take the time to really listen and find out the facts. More importantly look and listen to others around to get a feel for the impact of the message. We base too much of what we believe as a society on the headline grabbing sound bites and opinionated reviews of the facts. Dig a little deeper into the story of the day, you might be surprised to learn what is really going on behind the headlines!

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I was at the Young Presidents Organization Global Leadership Summit in Denver this past week, where I witnessed, first hand, the controversy and excitement over both the appearance of Jullian Assange and George Bush’s last minute cancellation because of Assange’s appearance. Bush refused to share a forum with a known terrorist – so named by the US State Department and the FBI!

Why All the Fuss?

Assange is the director of WikiLeaks,[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks] a non-profit organization that publishes private, classified and secret media from anonymous sources and news leaks. 

Now we all have preconceived notions about people. Because of Assange’s notoriety, I was expecting him to be kind of creepy – a shameless face for people who hide behind the anonymity of the internet and throw verbal rocks at whatever catches their attention. Have a look at the comments section on sites like MacLeans Magazine or the CBC to see what I mean. But I was surprised to find Assange was poised and extremely articulate. I was struck by his obvious intelligence and his direct approach to all questions.

Assange Gives Us a Lesson On Principles

The most striking thing Assange said was that he has a vision for his company and a mission with guiding principles. He was clear he wouldn’t compromise his values in pursuit of his vision, no matter the cost. He may end up paying a huge price for his values, time will tell.  But whether or not you agree with what he does, his passion is very inspiring!

Is All News Media The Same?

Tom Browkaw, George Bush’s replacement, was asked a question similar to one posed to Assange:  Would you have posted secret D-Day information before the raid? Brokaw’s answer surprised me. He said that in return for not breaking a story of national concern and delaying the release for 24 hours, the network (NBC) demanded and received exclusive interviews with key people. It seems to me, that in this context at least, Brokaw’s network is certainly no better than WikiLeaks. What are the values that drive NBC to take a payoff for withholding information in support of national security?

What Is The Truth?

Where do I stand on Assange? I can’t say. But his passion and commitment to his values are impressive.

Our Values Direct Us

D&D values Safety Caring Ambition Learning Excellence Integrity and Trust. These are values that we will not compromise on while pursuing our Vision and driving our mission to be the best company to do business with. Values are not about some big company-wide initiative that everyone gets involved with. They are the little things we do everyday that we believe make our world a better place. Maybe that’s what’s behind Assange’s actions too.

What do you think?

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D&D's Work Gets in a Super Bowl Commercial!

The Canadian feed didn’t carry it but BMW ran a great built in America ad at Super Bowl XVL. Imagine our surprise when we noticed that their ad included footage of the control system that D&D designed and installed in the Spartanburg SC plant to build the new BMW X3.

You can see the commercial on our YouTube channel at ddautomation1. Subscribe to stay on top of our latest uploads.

What’s In The Video?

That’s the cool part! Anywhere that you see car parts being assembled, we designed and programmed the controls for that. There are parts where you see cars being painted and we did the tracking system for that. There are even some places where you see robots handling the car parts and we did the controls for that too.

We’re Famous

We’re not really famous but I never thought that the work that we did would be featured in a Super Bowl commercial. 25 million viewers saw our work. Well, except for the ones that were out getting another beer or some more chicken wings.

The Cost of this Exposure?

It is incredible to think that 30 seconds of television commercial space at Super Bowl XLV cost $3 million and BMW chose to showcase our systems. How are we going to follow this up? We have designed, programmed and commissioned a lot of systems over our 20 years of business. Maybe we should have our own spot at Super Bowl XVLI?

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AT D&D we meet on the first workday of the week at 8:15 until 8:30 to talk about the coming week. We call it Monday Morning Meeting (MMM). It is a stand up meeting. Our people who are on the road are able to call in using conference phone technology. I borrowed this idea from Brian Scuddamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Awesome idea, thanks Brian.

Agenda of the Meeting

Our three item Agenda consists of Positives, Review of Uptime and Reviewing the Schedule. .

1- A Positive

Everyone has the choice on how they choose to start the day and week. We take a few minutes and celebrate life. Someone’s birthday or anniversary is a great one. A new customer or new project is awesome. Anything as long as it is positive.

One of my favorites is Leafs vs. Canadians. Two of our people have a running bet. If the Leafs win, Marlin wears Steve’s Habs jersey for the day. If the Habs win Steve wears Marlin’s Leafs jersey for the day. Check it out

2 - UpTime Review

We look at our current UpTime numbers, celebrate achievements and review targets.

3 - Schedule Review

We update everyone on management’s schedules and travel plans…where they’re going, where they’ve been.  Who are we meeting with…what industries and companies? What opportunities are we pursuing?

The project schedule is reviewed and discussed making sure everyone knows what’s expected for the coming week. We go around the room for contributions…this is key in conveying meaningful input from on site projects. In some cases people could use some  help and some people may have time to help… it’s critical to make these connections.

Additions to the Agenda for 2011

4 - Innovation

Innovation has been added to the basic agenda. We are doing some cool things like vision guided robotics and industrial building automation among others. When people are not on UpTime projects they make great use of their time by driving innovation. This addition to the agenda will help us to keep innovation rolling.

5 - NewsRoom

We have also added NewsRoom to the basic agenda. Newsroom is a simple tool to keep social media channels up to date. (Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn) I will detail the NewsRoom in a future blog once we have all of the kinks ironed out. Subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss it.

Why Just 15 Minutes?

Everyone knows that we are going to be there for only 15 minutes. A short meeting self filters the meeting. The most important things are covered and the rest gets taken care of during the normal course of the day. A variety of items are wrapped up in the MMM with “I will talk to you about that at 10:00” or “let’s meet about that later”. Jaclyn Wells has a good article on short meetings.

Why Stand Up?

Do you notice that the clock starts on most meetings when every one is sitting? Do you notice that may people settle into their chairs and lose a ton of their energy the second they sit? A stand up meeting is a different animal. It screams ‘quick meeting, be on your toes and don’t waste any time.” People come to a stand up meeting engaged and energized. Martin Fowler has some great insight on standup meetings. Try it, we love it!

We Need Better Conference Technology

Conference phones and conference calls are not designed for our type of meeting with lots of people calling in. The technology we have used has noise cancelling features that filter out too much of the great energy of the meeting. We are going to try standard microphones into a PC. The problem with this is how to call in using a mobile phone. We don’t seem to be able to mix the traditional phone call with web based technology.

Do you know anything about this kind of technology? Please let me know.

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Setting a goal is business 101. Successful people have goals and so do successful companies. The same logic that applies to sharing your KPIs with your team applies to sharing corporate goals.

At D&D we use total number of hours billed in a week as our goal.

Our current goal is to hit the UpTime target 3 times in a 6-week period. This is simple and reinforces our objective of work life balance for our people.  A single one-week target does not support this.  The UpTime number achieved along with the current goal is announced weekly.  Everyone is in the know. 

Reward Goals Achieved

When we hit our UpTime goal we immediately pay out a $50 bill to every employee. I adapted this idea from Jack Daly. A $50 bill has special power & punch. I love to get a $50 and I can’t really explain it. What ever you decide to do, don’t issue checks for $50 minus the income tax. It doesn’t have the same effect on people. People won’t turn it down but believe me a check for $38.42 does not have the same positive impact as a nice crisp $50.

The bill is put in an envelope with the UpTime logo, the employees name with a thank you along with the target achieved and the date. We deliver the envelopes personally whenever possible.  It is critical to have the $50 in the employee’s hands ASAP to ensure relevance and appreciation.   I have every UpTime envelope I have ever received on my desk and so do many of our people. Even in slower times we are reminding ourselves of the good times.

We also put $500 into the FunTime pool when we make an Uptime target. Read my previous Blog post ‘You Work Hard. Do You Play Hard?’ to learn more about FunTime.

Super Goal

We recently added a Super Goal. Our Super Goal is a big one time UpTime hit.  We make it a stretch for the team. The message in Super Goal is that we plan to grow and while the target might seem BIG now, it won’t in the future.

What are we going to do to reward Super Goal? I’m not sure but it will be cool. Maybe a nice crisp Hundy!

Can’t Afford to Pay Out $50 to Every Employee?

If D&D made solid UpTime numbers every week I would gladly pay out the $50 every week. The best part is we could readily afford to pay for it as long as we make solid UpTime numbers every week.

Examples of Simple, Immediate KPIs

·         Courier Company - Boxes delivered per day

·         Coffee Shop - Customers per hour

·         Car Lot – Cars sold per day

·         Trucking – Miles per Week

·         Taxi – Fares per Day

What business are you in?  I would love to help you come up with your KPI.

What does your company do to reward achieved goals?  

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Knowing the Score

Every successful business owner has the tools they need to keep score. They know if they are profitable.  It is just as important for your team to know this too. People want to be on a winning team. To know if they are winning they need a simple Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to tell them the score.

Your KPI Must be Simple

At D&D our KPI is called UpTime. We sell our time at D&D . When time is billable to a project it is called Uptime and is totaled weekly. If I were to run this company with only one measurable it would be UpTime.

It is important to think about what your one KPI is and make it as simple as possible. One number is simple and with employee feedback we added percent capacity to our weekly UpTime figure. Capacity is the number of hours we worked that was billable as a percentage of the total number of hours that we worked. As I write this I have just received our weekly UpTime email and I see that we are at 93% capacity. This is a strong indicator telling us to review staffing and consider hiring.

Your KPI Must be Immediate

As in sport you want to know what the score is right now. We do this weekly because of our time card schedule. Our accounting team is efficient so we know by Thursday at 10:00AM how many hours we billed for the previous week. An email goes out every Thursday before noon telling everyone in the company our current UpTime. As in sport people dig in a little more when they are behind a bit and get charged up when they are winning. This builds a great team atmosphere.

Share Your KPI with Your Customers

Wouldn’t it be cool if your customers got on board and helped you to achieve your goals? I believe that your best customers would want to.

Is this a scary thought?   

Does your company share it’s KPI’ with its customers?  

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I have been blogging about the D&D Advantages and a really cool Advantage is FunTime. Many companies have a social committee or have standard annual outings that are planned and executed by management. Christmas Parties and Golf tournaments are classics. At D&D we have FunTime.

The Past or Status Quo

We have always been a company that worked hard and played hard. Our company Christmas parties were legendary, just ask Jay over at the Queen’s Inn.

We did what most companies do… whatever management decides and whenever management decides to do it. The worst case is for a company to do nothing at all.

We even played with a social committee for a while but that fizzled out. 

The Game Changer

Now D&D management does not decide what we do to build team spirit events.  A few years ago we launched  FunTime. It is a magical thing when people work and have fun together.

How Does FunTime Work?

Step #1 - Someone has an idea and they decide to champion it.

Step #2 – The idea is submitted to management to decide if it is legal and appropriate. This is not always obvious and leads to some great coaching opportunities.

Step #3 – The Champion draws up a budget

Step #4 – The entire company votes on the idea. We use survey monkey.

Step #5 – If it the idea receives a majority approval from at least 1/3 of the employees it is approved.

Step #6 - The Champion organizes and runs the event.

We couldn’t make it much simpler than that.

How is FunTime Funded?

Regular stable funding is allocated to FunTime every quarter. A complete accounting of FunTime is posted on our internal website so that everyone knows how much money is available and how much was spent on past events. In addition to stable funding we top up when company UpTime targets are met. I will talk about UpTime in a later blog. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

Open transparent funding of social events lead people to really take ownership of FunTime activities at work.

Cool Things We Have Done

Blue Jays Baseball – We took a bus and each person brought a guest.

Poker Night – We bought online software and have had our people play from across oceans. This grew into an “Awesome Night of Poker” where we invited customers and suppliers.

Toronto Rock Lacrosse – We took a bus and each person brought a guest. If you’ve never seen lacrosse you have to go.

Golf Tournament – This is an old standby but some of the ideas that have come forward are great. A prize for best dressed, nice!

London Knights Hockey – We got a private box and brought guests.

We had a Toronto Zoo Day – We covered employee’s admission as long as they took pictures for our photo contest.

We had D&D Burger Day – Where ever our people were in the world, we bought the burgers that day. This turned out to be a lot of fun. I was in Virginia that day and thoroughly enjoyed a 5 Guys burger!

My favorite is called Holiday giving. For 2 years in a row the team has voted to give $500 to local families in need through the Salvation Army’s Adopt a Family program. What a great team to do this.

A Great Day

It was a great day when we turned over the ‘team spirit’ budget to the team and let them drive their own ideas. Call or email me and I will be happy to give you more details. mmccourt@ddauto.com

What Does Your Company Do?

Comment or subscribe to the blog to hear more.

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About 5 years ago I realized that we had been working diligently at building a great technology business but not any great technology. We didn’t and still don’t have any patents hanging on our walls. We will get there. One of our D&D Advantages is Innovation – Acting on Dreams.

The Story of Omron

I was inspired when hearing the story of Omron and their founder Kazuma Tateisi. Omron is an R&D innovation machine. It is amazing when you look at Kazuma’s life and what he was able to accomplish in some of the most challenging economic and political times in history.

Small Steps

Innovation almost never takes place in one gigantic leap. Television and the internet, these great technological leaps were a long series of small steps. We encourage each member of the D&D team to take small steps everyday.. This way we can stitch our steps together into a pathway toward innovative success.

True Story About Small Steps

A neighbor at the cottage (he’s in his eighty’s) had a large beam dropped off in his yard. I noticed that it was getting closer to his house and one day it was stuck partway in his back door. I went over and asked if he wanted me to get some of the boys from the neighborhood and help him move it He said that it was for the ceiling in center of his living room and ‘no’ he did not need any help. His plan was to move it 3 inches everyday and he had been doing that for a while now. It took 2 more months for him to move it all the way in and up. It looks fantastic! The magic of Small Steps!

Have Your Own Idea

At D&D people are encouraged to take the time and the resources to chase their inspiration. Cool things happen when people are given this freedom. Excitement and camaraderie build as we succeed and fail and then succeed again.

My Favorite Innovation

Right now my favorite innovation is our ”Vision Guided Weld Robot”. We do a lot of work in robotic welding. The biggest issue with robotic welding is consistency of parts and variation in clamp position. We are overcoming this with a 3D vision camera, an industrial PC to crunch the math and any robot our customers choose to use. We have a lot of brain power invested in this and so far it is working great. We are even beta testing with a create client partner now. Great work team.

Why Innovate?

People are naturally innovative and inventive. Give them the tools and a place where they can let their dreams grow. Nurture it and you will be amazed where it leads you.

Are You Chasing Your Great Idea?

“All men dream: but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible”                 T.E. Lawrence

I love that quote!

Are you dangerous?

What are you dreaming?

Comment and let me know. Subscribe to stay posted.

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Corporate Networking * Gather – Organize - Maintain

It is important to be ‘top of mind’ with all of your customers and suppliers. Especially when they have the need for your product or service. My process is called the ‘Touch System’. If you want to be consistently ‘top of mind’ you need to build a systematic process.  I’d be happy to share more about how my Touch System works. I have done some group presentations and can do one for your team too.

Gather

The first step is to find all of these people and to build a database full of this information.  Everyone in the company is responsible for gathering contact information whether through emails, vcards or business cards. Whatever works is fine.  We even run a contest and post a graph showing how many contacts each employee has submitted.

Don’t tell anybody but we are thinking about handing out $50 bills. We would give a $50 bill each month to the person who gathers the most contacts for that month.

Organize

Now that you have the contacts and a means to continue aggressively building the database you need a database software package. We use ACT by Sage. Figure out what you want to do with the database and thoroughly research them before you choose. It is possible to switch later but can be a huge pain.  Take the time upfront. We organize our contacts into the following categories:

·         Prospects – These are People with whom you would like to do business

·         Customers – These are People with whom you do some business but not regularly

·         Clients – These are People with whom you do regular ongoing business

·         3^rd Parties – These are People with whom you will not likely ever do business with but could be helpful to your business in some way. Like suppliers.

It’s important to know who is in your database and to group them accordingly so that you treat them properly and personally. Notice that they are all people, not companies.  You can only do business with people.

Maintain

Everyone maintains their contact with people to some degree or other. When you do it systematically, magic happens! I struggled with this systematizing for a while and then the Great Jack Daly gave me a lesson over lunch in Quebec City.  He asked if I truly wanted to keep in contact with these people to help grow my business.  Of course I do. Then he asked me how I could to that without being efficient at it. That is a key point and my game changer.

So, Prospects I reach out to every 4 months. Customers I reach out to every 3 months and Clients I reach out to every second month.  I have 4 groups of prospects so that I am reaching out to a different person in a target company each month. Likewise I have 3 groups of Customers and 2 Groups of Clients. I usually send a joke.  Appropriate, of course.

One of the jokes I sent this month.

A young man looking to get married asked his friend.

 "Every woman I bring home to meet my parents, my mother doesn't like."

"Oh, that's easy," his pal replied. "All you have to do is find someone who is just like your mother."

 "I did that already," he said, "and that one my father didn't like."

Did You Already Get This One?

If you did then you know that you are a person who I value. If you didn’t get it, let me know. I am keenly intent on maintaining a relationship with my important people. 

How do you maintain contact with your important people?

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My first 2 posts were about Social Media and our push to become a leader for our industry.

At D&D Social Media is a subset under Net-Works as part of our corporate Advantage Program. Social Media is only one of the D&D “Advantages” that we have formalized.  It contributes to the growth and success of our team and reflects our corporate culture of sharing. 

I’m happy to give a shameless plug for the 2 Blonde Chicks. They are the creative minds behind all of our branding both inside and out.

Anyone Can Do It

People inherently want to be part of the team especially a winning team. Most just want to understand the game. Make sure you explain it to them. Share a clear picture of what winning looks like. Everyone wants to win.

Our “Advantages”

Our company, D&D has a wide variety of formalized programs or “Advantages” that we use to explain the rules of each part of our game to our employees.  The advantages and their taglines are:

·         TechLeader * Excellence in Education

·         Case Studies * Document & Promote

·         UpTime * Increasing Performance, Ensuring Success

·         Monday Morning Meeting * Connecting People - Driving UpTime

·         Innovation * Acting on Dreams

·         Safety Shares * Driving Our Culture of Safety

·         PEP * Project Execution Plan

·         FunTime * Team Building Activities

·         D&D = Quality * Continuous Improvement

·         Profit Sharing * Team Performance - Group Reward

·         Corporate Networking * Gather – Organize - Maintain

A big list for sure.

Never Stop Tweaking and Implementing Better Ideas

Corporate Networking is in the process of becoming “Net-Works”. This change will help us to integrate Social Media into our existing program of formally gathering new contacts, organizing them into appropriate groups and systematically keeping in touch with them. Social Media is a key part of corporate networking but it is different and separate from traditional networking. Both are key to thrive as a company

Your Programs or Advantages

I plan to talk about all of our Advantages in this blog over the coming weeks. It will help to paint a picture of who we are. I am also very interested to learn  about how your company.  I hope you will borrow some of our ideas.  Please let me know what you do.   I might borrow from your ideas.

What does your company do to build and maintain its corporate network?

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A Great Working Lunch

Chaiman Mo and I spend a grueling afternoon at a local restaurant called Molly Bloom’s. (No Wireless connection unless you have a MAC - Strange!!) We dug deep into the 4 pillars of D&D and found that we care most about these key things. Project Excellence – Caring – Trust – Inspiration. You will need to find a good moderator to help you boil your own vision down. Chairman Mo was excellent for me. The overriding piece for D&D came down to INTEGRITY.

Integrity by Jack Welch

I went to a fantastic event at Radio City Music Hall a couple of year back and heard The Great Neutron Jack – Jack Welch speak. He was engaging and entertaining until the moderator asked him if he thought integrity was a necessary value for a company. Jack snapped! He hammered the table with his fist and yelled “INTEGRITY IS NOT A VALUE – IT IS A TICKET TO THE GAME!” I still have that quote pinned up on my desk and I love it.

Who are you?

I think it is important to know for sure who you are before you start a blog and to build a corporate on-line presence. People need to know who you are and what you are all about. I know that D&D is about integrity. The exercise with Chairman Mo proved that to me. Get a great mentor / moderator and dig deep to find out for yourself who you are. This is very important.

Roll it out

We had a meeting this week to roll out our pillars. Project Excellence – Caring – Trust – Inspiration. I had a few doubts about how people might react. I decided it didn’t matter. We don’t want people who cannot buy into the key pillars and cornerstone of our company. People who cannot truly connect with our cornerstone - ‘Integrity’ - are probably better off moving on to a place where they do connect with the core. I know that D&D is further ahead to make some room for new people who do connect. D&D has great people so I doubt that anyone will want to move on. They will more likely be even more engaged and have more fun when it is laid out for them like this.

Do Something Cool

I have volunteered or been volunteered to take part in Ignite Stratford. It looks like a fun night with some really cool people. It is also a great social media driver. I am amazed at what people in our own back yard are doing and I hope to surprise a few with what we are doing here at D&D. Have you ever heard of Ignite? I would love to hear about other peoples experiences.

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Getting Started

Well I think the first step is to start a Blog. So that’s what I’m doing today. But before I dove in, I watched a few videos on YouTube. I really like this one with Mike Agerbo and social media expert Darren Barefoot.

Get Yourself a Social Media Guru / Mentor

I was lucky enough to find Maureen Argon or “Chairman Mo” which is a great nickname for her. She’s been a fantastic resource and a treat to work with. The Social Media space is changing so fast that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. So for me, the first step was to find someone who knows way more that I do and also has a great personality I can work with.  Personality match is a key component when you are going to spend a lot of time together.

Scare Yourself

Maureen did a presentation for our Senior Team at D&D that brought home how we really need to get on board and fast. She showed us this cool video that puts the Social Media world into perspective. It spur our team into action. Watching videos like this are great to really drive home the point that Social Media is here to stay and if you don’t get on board you’ll be left behind. The good news is –you can catch up.

It’s A Whole New World

Close your eyes and imagine yourself early in the last century. The 1900’s that is. Your wife wants to buy a radio so she can listen to the weather forecast. “Why?” you ask, “you can step outside to see the weather.” That radio thing will never catch on. And then that TV thing will never catch on. That Telephone thing will never catch on.That Internet thing will never catch on. No one will ever use email. No one will ever use Social Media. Well brother, it’s already here and you may be the only one in the global neighborhood that is still looking up at the sky to see if it’s raining!

Our Progress at D&D

Many companies have great people, who are well below the President, who are trying to get their company to embrace Social Media. They may not be getting enough of the boss’s attention to make it happen. At D&D, we’re the other way around. I know we need to do it but I can’t just force my team and employees to get on board and hope it works. It has to happen much more organically. My next posts will be about the progress and process that we undertake to become drivers for our industry using Social Media.  I hope you’ll join me in the journey.

Help Me!

There are some great stories and some horror stories out there around corporate Social Media projects. Please share your experience with corporate networking.  Here’s a Great One about Best Buy.

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