September 24, 2008 by Dan Graham
It happened. Today. And it was me.
The City Council, the Austin Chamber, a commercial real estate company and some local business owners came together today and provided lunch for Austin Chamber Members at a new commercial development off 2222 and Jester. In what was part commercial real estate advertisement, part city council anti-endorsement of Proposition 2, and part panel of local Austin business leaders, business professionals gathered to eat $20 a plate catered food and listen for an hour.
Really, it was an advertising gimic with not too much commentary from the draw of the event, the business owners. The first 30 minutes were networking with well placed commercial real estate property advertisements; and Brewster McCracken (City Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem), before introducing the panel went on an odd tirade about Proposition 2 and gave a completely one-sided perspective on the issue saying that by voting for the Proposition I’d be voting for a lying, backstabbing city government. After doing more research, I will be voting against the Proposition, but come on Brewsky! be a little more objective. There are actually some legitimate and good points the proponents have.
The event was mostly advertisement after advertisement and it was annoying. Why do these events have to be that way? Don’t we pay them enough in dues? Maybe no one has pointed out to them that commercializing network events to that extent might not the best thing — maybe I should get more involved and point it out. There are plenty of ways to leverage business that don’t turn your event into a walking commercial and political agenda setting.
Brewster McCracken lead the panel of business owners: Brett Hurt, founder of BazaarVoice - best speaker there; Bobby Jenkins, the ABC Services guy - 1 of 3 brothers who runs the company, some Sweet Leaf Tea guy - who stood in for one of the founders who got sick or something, and Sharon Watkins, the founder of Chez Zee - who said she was thankful everyday that she didn’t kill anyone with her food)
.
I will be looking for Brett Hurt again to be speaking, hopefully with fewer commercial interruptions.
Posted in Austin, Business | Tagged abc services, austin chamber meeting, brett hurt, brewster mccracken, chez zee, networking austin | 4 Comments »
September 21, 2008 by Dan Graham
In today’s fast growing company it is easier than ever to stay in contact with the other members of your organization during any time of day and any day of the week. Weekends, vacations and evenings may be ‘off hours’ but the definition of that term is changing. At least it is for those who are trying to move up in a company and see fast growth and employment success. The idea of working hard while at work and having the rest of your time be ‘work free’ is gone — too much happens during off hours and employees who are looking to succeed can’t afford to be omitted from those conversations.
Does that mean that there should be no vacations and no weekends and no evenings off? Of course not! What I’m suggesting is a less intensive but more integrated role for those looking to be on the ball all the time. During ‘off hours’, by engaging in Twitter commentary, reading through company related news articles, shooting off a few idea emails as they come to you, and answering emails that you can contribute to, you may lose a couple hours of your weekend or an hour or two during the week during the evening, but you gain a less stressful morning and a less stressful Monday return to work — all the while staying in the game and contributing in meaningful ways; ways you may not be able to contribute during the day to day chaos of the office.
I’m sure we have all experienced the stress and burnout experienced by repeatedly letting your inbox of emails build up to 100+ and having to go through them all at once to catch up. It turns out to be much less stressful when you are able to answer them as they come in, never letting them build up past 10. This can’t be done all the time, but it illustrates a more integrated approach to email answering that results in more scattered work time (not much more total time!) which alleviates a large amount of stress and also shows the people you are responding to that you care about their emails and about responding to them quickly. The same is true of other types of correspondence, involvement and decision making!
From the persective of the employer, the employees who maintain contact during ‘off hours’ and appear to be available for questions, ideas and decision making will be seen as the most committed and most eager for advancement, responsibility and contribution. On the flip side, those employees you hear from only during the week and during office hours will not only lose out on giving input during decisions made through email commerce (a very tangible loss), but will also lose out in the intangible — the appearance and benefit of eagerness, excitement and commitment.
You may think you can point to employees with particular jobs who work at particular companies that would not benefit from this ‘off hours’ advice, but I think I could point to other employees at those same companies who have shot past them because of a more integrated and continuous approach to handling their job.
Posted in Business | Tagged after hours email, integrated work approach, off hours work | 8 Comments »
September 20, 2008 by Dan Graham
Well…Bush does! Just saw President Bush on TV talking about why he decided to act to help solve the financial crisis. I may be getting this somewhat incorrect and I can’t find the speech online yet, leave a link if you find one, but it was pretty close.
“My first instinct was to let the market work itself out. But after I was briefed by the experts, I realized how much serious the situation already was. It turns out our financial systems are all interconnected. If one piece fails, the impact won’t be felt just within that one piece. It will affect other pieces.”
Does this scare anyone else? Nice to be reminded I try to turn the TV off whenever he comes on to talk…
Posted in General | Tagged bush on the economy, bush speech, financial systems interconnected | 4 Comments »
September 18, 2008 by Dan Graham
Companies can personalize your emails with your name, what you’ve purchased, what settings you like and what your demographic data is. They can personalize the ads you see based on your preferences, your purchase history, your age and your gender. At BuildASign.com we can even personalize a web page with sign templates that contain your name, phone number and a photograph of you. I get phone calls and links to pages pre-populated with my name and information constantly; prices are customized to fit my buying patterns. Where does the line get drawn?
We are still in an era where people expect companies to mind their own business (or at least pretend to) with certain information. Maybe visiting a website with your own picture on it is too personal? Maybe getting a higher set of prices based on your willingness to spend more is unfair? Is getting an advertisement that shows you products only you could need too invasive?
I think the answer is Maybe, but only for today. The next generations will become more accustomed to privacy release — they will be comfortable giving out their purchasing patterns, bank balances, credit information, age, sex, ethnicity, resident information and more in exchange for cheaper and more directed products and more customized pricing.
Custom pricing will be one of the last personlized criteria to change, but static pricing will be a thing of the past. E-Commerce companies like Amazon are already moving pricing around on a per visit basis, Ebay and Craig’s List are making internet users accustomed to paying varying amounts for the same products, and why not? Allowing businesses to maximize their profits in the face of fierce competition is the very essence of capitalism. Allowing consumers to place a monopoly on pricing doesn’t make sense in a global economy.
Think about it. It seems perfectly reasonable that an orange in Maine may cost X in a grocery store while an Orange in Denver may cost Y. Why then is it so offensive that an online web site selling to both Maine and Denver charge two separate costs? We are conditioned to think that pricing in a single physical location should remain constant across all purchasers — but that doesn’t reflect the reality of regional markets, logistic differences and other factors.
Static Pricing is about to change.
Posted in Business | Tagged dymanic pricing, personlized ecommerce, pricing change | 1 Comment »
September 16, 2008 by Dan Graham
Being here in Puerto Rico, I’ve noticed that it is very similar to the resorts that I’ve stayed in while visiting Mexico. The hotels put on a great show that depicts a very different place than the country that is only a few blocks away.
I imagine it is pretty common in countries where tourism brings in so much revenue, but while here at our hotel, I find staff who speak perfect english, restuarants that I recognize the name of, drinks that I like and gorgeous pools and beaches that are limited to other guests like myself.
Against the recommendation of those who are here, we took a walk down the street into town from the hotel and the stores are crammed with day laborers, construction, littered streets, graffiti and people begging for money — none of which, I’m sure, would be permitted anywhere near the hotel we are staying at. So what’s going on here? It’s a simple matter of money and attaction.
Some of the poorest countries and areas on the world are home to the most gorgeous beaches, landscapes and rainforests in the world and these countries have figured out that they have to paint a certain picture to attract the type of business and money they so desparately need. But you don’t have to wander too far to get the full picture.
I wonder how many of the visitors to Cancun, Puerto Rico and similar places how close they are to extreme poverty and how it might change their perspective if they thought it about between cocktails…
Posted in Business | Tagged puerto rico, resort illusion | 2 Comments »
September 13, 2008 by Dan Graham
With the recent onslaught of hurricanes pounding our shores once again, many individuals are doing what they can by donating time, money and resources.
Austin has opened its shelters once again to give aide to thousands of evacuees across the state and gulf areas, but what else are we as Austinites doing? The hurricane has shut down airports, roads and companies across the lower united states and while Austin enjoyed a near miss, dodging the path of the hurricane, we aren’t going to be missed by the impact on our economy. Many local companies will be severely affected by the impact on coastal cities like Galveston and Houston.
It’s time to do our civic and moral duty as Austinites and give back.
My local Austin company, BuildASign.com, has been helping out in the best way we can by providing fast, completely custom signs to businesses preparing for the hurricanes or to businesses already impacted for Free. We don’t want people to think about costs right now, but instead thinking about safety and recovering their businesses from the disaster. We know that by helping all these businesses get back on their feet, we will benefit by a faster recovering economy. Not to mention that it’s the right thing to do.
Every company here in town should be able to think of its own way to help out during this time. What goes around comes around and one day your business will be grateful for other companies doing the same for you.
Posted in Austin, Business | Tagged austin companies, austin hurricane, austin hurricane aide, hurricane aide, hurricane donations, hurricane evacuees, hurricane signs | No Comments »
September 13, 2008 by Dan Graham
Companies can generally increase their bottom line in two ways: making money and cutting costs. Cutting costs is sort of like panning for gold (since most of you probably can relate to gold panning…). You focus on an area, look at the costs, look at the value those costs are bringing (in the form of revenue) and then you look at alternatives. If the cost is already worth it, then maybe an alternative would be more worth it. If the cost is not worth it, then maybe an alternative would be.
This is a simple thing to do in a lot of cases: box costs, materials cost, payment terms, waste numbers, etc. But a lot of times, the biggest savings are hiding in places that aren’t so simple.
One more complex example is Customer Service and what they do with their time and what size team is best. Given the sporadic nature of calls and their tendency to come in large chunks rather than a smooth curve of call and chat volume, most companies will hire a customer service team that is scheduled to overlap during the ‘busy’ periods and thin out during the sparser call/chat times. This means that your team will have an abandonment rate of greater than 0% (people who get tired of waiting for someone to answer and hangup — after 30 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes, etc). The question becomes, how much are those calls you are missing worth to the company? Is it worth doubling the size of your customer service team to answer an extra 100 calls a day? 10? 1?
Even tracking all calls (abandoned and answered) to their final purchasing decision won’t answer this question completely. It might tell you that an answered call typically spends $5 dollars more than an unanswered one but it won’t tell you how upset that potential customer might be that their call wasn’t answered and how many people they won’t tell about your company’s great responsiveness.
There are obviously a lot more variables than what I’ve just discussed, but it makes the point. Drawing the line at the right balance for answering calls and chats is a difficult problem, but easily one that holds large gains for even medium sized companies.
Posted in Business | Tagged abandonment rate, call and chat revenue, customer service | 4 Comments »
September 11, 2008 by Dan Graham
Do you want to have children? If so, you better not be arrested and brought before Travis County Judge Charlie Baird. He recently sentenced a woman (Felicia Salazar) to be forever more without child.
Can a judge really do this? Apparently there is some precedent although many legal experts say the ruling is probably unconstitutional.
The only case I remember from my stay in law school that comes close is Buck v. Bell, where the Supreme Court ruled a mother undergo a sterility procedure because she came from a long line of mentally incompetent people and the court wanted her to stop breeding (which is still good law by the way — has yet to be overturned).
Not one of our finer moments…
Posted in Austin, Crazy News | Tagged buck v bell, felicia salazar, forced sterility, judge baird | 1 Comment »
September 10, 2008 by Dan Graham
My company suffers from a type of projected hubris.
We are a succesful startup that loves technologies and is run by people who love other new startups and businesses. The result is that we are often very willing to integrate new programs, ideas and technologies into our business: we use Twitter for internal communications, Google for our business apps, Vox for article sharing, Gliffy for presentation building, and until today ItzBig for resume review and resume sharing.
Why Until today? Today ItzBig shut down and is closing up shop because it ran out of money, and ran away with our money as it happens. ItzBig required an upfront deposit in order to use its services which it then drew on as it hunted for resumes — similar to how Yahoo operates it’s SEM program for many companies.
The chances of us getting our deposit back are probably a big fat zero. So where was the guy that is supposed to say “They’re a startup, we should probably find a more established firm”? Well, we don’t like hiring those people because they don’t fit with our model of pushing the envelope of technological advancement which we pursue strongly on our backend as well as our front end.
It goes back to that old Latin expression ‘caveat anter per nur,’ which roughly translated means, ‘not all startups make good business partners but don’t change your culture — just be careful’ … or something like that.
Posted in Austin, Business | Tagged austin startup, itzbig close, itzbig fail, itzbig shutdown | 3 Comments »
September 8, 2008 by Dan Graham
As your company gets to be a medium sized company, communication becomes exponentially more difficult and vision becomes exponentially harder spread. When you are smaller and only have a small handful of people working with you, it is easy to keep everyone focused on the same goals and for everyone to know what is going on in every part of the company. In fact if one department is running a bit behind, everyone is able to jump in to help them out.
As you get larger, departments become more defined, responsibilities more restricted and goals more divided. The daily goals of the graphics department may seem to be completely different than the goals of production, the goals of customer service or the goals of the software development team. This is, of course, not the case. The company as a whole has a united goal — to accomplish it’s purpose. This may be making money or some other more altruistic goal, but the board or the owners should be able to tell you what that goal is. The business then has certain milestone goals that will, if done successfully, lead the company down the best path to accomplish those goals. It’s these broader goals and even the milestone goals that tend to get lost as the company grows.
We’ve decided to really begin pushing our company wide goals across all departments and to make it simple we limited it to the top 5 milestone goals that we’d be pushing everyone to focus on for the given week or two week period — more of a company wide task list. This may seem like too few for a company with 75+ employees, but I think that if you really examine the ideas and goals that will be successful for your company, 5 at any one time is plenty.
Despite what seemed like constant repetition in all of my meetings and a company wide email enumerating all 5 milestone goals for the week, almost no one had the same answer when I walked around this afternoon and asked people to name me all 5. I even offered up $10 dollars so that it would seem more like a challenge and less like a “are you doing your job?” type inquisition.
Getting everyone on the same page is well worth it so that the companies resources are being used in the most direct and efficient way possible. It’s not enough for senior level management to understand where the company is going and in what priority; everyone throughout the company should know so that they can be doing their part to move toward accomplishing the company’s goals.
Posted in Business | 3 Comments »
