Archive for May, 2008

Life Beyond Email

Friday, May 30th, 2008

By Dean Whittaker

Modern life seems to consist of an abundance of information and a poverty of attention. Managing the flow of information through our lives has become a full-time endeavor.  Dealing with email alone feels to me like swatting flies. As soon as I swat one inbox message, another one or more appear.  Despite elaborate (read expensive) spam filters, I still have to deal with the few pieces of junk that slip through, and scan the filtered spam to insure that nothing important got “spammed.”  One time-and-motion expert estimates that by 2009 we will be spending 41% of our time managing email, not to mention our social networks, RSS feeds, and documents. If it feels like you may be approaching that figure already, read on.

Merlin Mann (www.inboxzero.com) offers several ways to help manage that tidal wave of email:

  • Process your email rather than just checking it
  • Process it by: deleting, delegating (keep a reminder to follow up), responding, deferring (rarely), or doing it (whenever possible)
  • Limit your email responses to no more than five sentences
  • Do less email – turn off automatic notification (see Outlook help – email notification), and check only once per hour/day
  • Cheat – use filters to route email automatically into folders (see Outlook  help – folders)
  • Remind yourself that time and attention are finite
  • Move all of your old email into a “DMZ” folder and start fresh processing daily (but deal with DMZ mail later)
  • Declare “no email Fridays”
  • Blind Copy (bcc) your friends and family and tell them to call you if they really need to reach you
  • Remember what is important to you and focus your time and attention there.

In his book The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch recommends that we manage time explicitly, like money. He said, “Ask yourself: are you spending your time on the right things?” Develop a good filing system. Rethink the telephone by keeping unnecessary calls short and hang up on telemarketers while you are doing the talking (they will think the line went dead).  Delegate whenever possible and take a periodic time-out from technology.

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The Changing Selling Cycle

Friday, May 30th, 2008

By Todd Smithee

You know the old sales adage: the larger the transaction you are attempting to close, the longer you will need to be in touch with your potential customer.  But long-term customer relationships don’t always happen the way they used to.  To start with, you will probably be in touch with your prospect long before you even know it.  I recently spoke with a company that has seen the time its representatives are actively involved with its potential clients shrink by 66%.  But in reality, the client’s selling cycle is likely the same as it would have been in the past.  The major difference is that clients are now conducting much of their research on the Internet before they begin contacting the dreaded “pushy sales representative.” The availability of extensive online product and service information, combined with configuration programs, allow potential customers to “kick the tires” before contacting a real person.  While this change forces adjustments in the sales processes of most companies, it is not necessarily a bad thing, assuming these changes are embraced by marketing and sales teams.

As the nature of the sales cycle changes, marketing will need to become more and more integrated into the sales process.  Marketing teams will need to place significant emphasis on benchmarking their web presence against that of their competition.  This will become a never-ending process of delivering the most user-friendly, information-rich experience possible to website visitors.  As more and more of the sales process takes place online, the implementation of continuous improvement principles will be required to stay ahead of the competition.  Marketing will also need to work more closely with sales to ensure that once a lead is identified, it is immediately delivered to sales with supporting information to ensure prompt follow-up.

As marketers take on the traditional role of sales, sales teams will adopt more of a marketing stance as they become much more responsive to potential sales opportunities.  As more and more of the sales process is conducted online, sales teams will need to do more than be involved in managing sales transactions.  Immediate, continuous responses to inquiries and “politely aggressive” follow-up will need to become the norm.  Furthermore, continuous relationship-building outreaches will become more important.  Working to build relationships with likely prospects will take more and more of the average sales representative’s time.  These relationships may take many months, or even years for larger transactions, but will pay off in the long run.  In times of increased competition and shorter selling cycles, a strong relationship is a tremendous advantage.

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Looking Beyond the BRIC Economies

Friday, May 30th, 2008

By Vidhan Rana

We have heard a lot about globalization in the past few years, but the attention has been mostly focused on a handful of key countries in the global market. We hear a lot about Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are collectively known as the BRIC economies. Nevertheless, much economic growth is taking place outside of these four countries. Economic development professionals need to keep track of businesses outside these four economies if they are to maintain an advantage over their competitors in attracting international business to their communities.

In today’s globalized world, businesses are on the hunt for talent and resources and are open to locating anywhere in the world if conditions are suitable. We hear politicians in the United States cite globalization as a threat to the American economy, but that is hardly the case. As countries such as China and India develop, not only do millions of people come out of extreme poverty, but businesses rise up to compete on a global scale. Last month, Tata Motors, a part of Indian conglomerate Tata Group, bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford and established itself as a global brand. A study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found 100 companies from emerging markets with total assets in 2006 of $520 billion, more than those of the world’s top 20 car companies. By 2006, foreign direct investment from developing countries had reached 14.3 percent of the world’s total from a meager 5.2 percent in 1990.

Enormous companies have arisen within the BRIC economies–Chery Automobiles, China’s largest auto exporter; Brazil’s Marcopolo, the world’s third-largest components-maker for buses and vans; India’s Suzlon Energy, the fifth-largest company for installed wind energy capacity; and Russia’s Inter RAO UES, the country’s number-one importer and exporter of small electronics, which earns 64 percent of its revenue outside Russia. However, companies outside of BRIC are also leaving marks on a global scale. When BCG first published its report in 2006, only 10 companies in the list were from outside the BRIC economies; in 2008, the list includes three more. The 2008 report lists companies from Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Poland, Thailand and Turkey.

Cemex, a Mexican-based maker of ready-to-mix cement, now earns more than three-quarters of its revenue outside of Mexico. It started producing cement in the US when lawmakers in Congress placed anti-dumping duties on cement imports. Today, it is the largest producer of ready-to-mix cement in the US.

As the competition among communities to attract the right businesses gets more intense, economic development professionals need to expand their field of target markets. While some are already targeting companies like Chery Automobiles of China and Suzlon Energy of India for investment, those that are able to attract businesses from outside the BRIC economies will have a competitive advantage in our global economy.

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Remember the Milk

Friday, May 30th, 2008

By Jami Miedema

If you happen to stop by the Whittaker Associates office, please don’t look in my cubicle!  While I consider myself to be a fairly organized person, today, my desk is filled with books, folders, and endless little pieces of paper, scribbled with my latest to-do items.  I guess that’s what I get for using sticky-notes instead of my online calendar.  My method seems to work for me most of the time, except when I can’t recall whose name went with the random phone number written on the back of a memo or when the occasional note is lost.  As an attempt to sort out my life, both personal and professional, I’ve decided to enlist the help of Remember the Milk, an online tool for creating prioritized task lists.

Once a user creates a free account, he is ready to plan, organize, and manage both tasks and time.  The tool is easy to set up and use, thanks to the online help guide that introduces new users to the site.  Tasks can be categorized under separate tabs such as personal, study, or work, or the user can create his own tabs to classify items in a way that makes sense to him.  Each chore is assigned a due date, location, frequency of occurrence, time estimate, and priority.  Notes can also be attached to each item and shared with other parties who need access to them as well.  Perhaps one of the most unique features of Remember the Milk is the map that plots the location of each task.  This enables the user to plan better, more logical routes and use time in a more efficient manner.

Remember the Milk can be accessed and managed from any location, even offline, and it syncs with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.  It can be used with Gmail, iGoogle, and several other applications.  Task reminders can be sent anywhere and to anyone you please, so assignments will never be forgotten again.  It even has the option to print a weekly planner that formats items in priority order by day, complete with check boxes to fill in when a chore is completed.

If you’re like me, and need to restore order to your desk, please visit www.rememberthemilk.com to build your own to-do lists.

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Safety and Circumstance

Friday, May 30th, 2008

By Maria O’Connell

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, three states (Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York) and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that prohibit the use of handheld cell phones while operating a vehicle. California and Washington will join this list soon, effective July of 2008. For all of these states except Washington, the law falls under the category of primary enforcement–this means that an officer may ticket a driver for using a handheld cell phone even without the occurrence of another traffic offense.

Undoubtedly, other states will soon follow suit, if the federal government does not beat them to it. As new laws close the communication channels, Bluetooth technology has found uniquely creative ways to reopen them. The time has come for the world to go hands-free.

A vast variety of Bluetooth options for hands-free driving are available – most have already been advertized enough to raise awareness. But I’d never tested the technology until I tried out a fairly new Bluetooth option that channels your phone conversation through your car’s speakers.

The Motorola T505, released in October of 2007, is a portable Bluetooth option that clips to your car visor, or your friend’s car visor if you so choose. The built-in digital FM transmitter allows you to stream not only phone calls, but also music from your MP3 player through your car stereo. The music will automatically pause when you have an incoming call. The device is slightly bigger than a garage door opener, comes with a car charger, and has a longer battery life than your phone.

Just last night, I got to experience the T505 first-hand. It took just five minutes to match the device to the phone, choose a compatible radio station, and make the first call. The sound quality was superb; talking at a normal volume, I could clearly understand and be understood.

Many argue that the problem with cell phones and driving does not lie in the difference between handheld or hands-free talk, but in the conversation itself. While I know that phone conversations in a car can be distracting, I don’t believe that having a conversation via a Bluetooth device is any different than having a conversation with your passenger – unless our governments are ready to ban all conversation within a moving vehicle, I don’t think that they can reasonably ban hands-free cell phone conversations in an automobile.

The issue is safety. Maybe you talk on your handheld cell phone frequently and have never been in an accident. Therefore, you feel invincible and you don’t want to spend the $20-$100 on a hands-free option. But the reality is, handheld cell phone talking while driving is a huge distraction. Hands-free talking is safer. There are plenty of great choices; I only discussed one of them.

More and more state governments are catching the waves of safer driving by passing new legislation. Your state could be the next. Be proactive.  Invest in a hands-free option before you are legally forced to do so, or before you do get in an accident.

(Motorola T505: http://direct.motorola.com/ENS/T505/T505_carkit_details.asp)

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Does Place Matter?

Friday, May 30th, 2008

By Jim Bruckbauer

Many people say that the two biggest decisions a person makes in a lifetime are choosing a career and a life partner. Deciding what you would like to do for 40-plus hours a week is critical and can be directly proportional to your fulfillment in life. While occupation is certainly important, deciding who might unconditionally love and support you for the rest of your life is arguably a more critical decision.

I’d like to throw in another decision that should rank high on the priority list – place. Deciding where to live is arguably just as important, if not more important, than finding the dream job or perfect life-mate.  The reason for its importance may be so obvious that it is overlooked. It’s important because of how much “where you are” influences “what you do” and what or who you have available to choose from.  Take this excerpt from Richard Florida:

It’s always terrible to lose a job, even worse to suffer a breakup with a significant other.  As bad as those are, however, they are substantially worse if you also happen to live somewhere with few options in the job market or the mating market. It’s exponentially easier to get back on your feet when your location has a vibrant economy with lots of jobs to choose from, or a lot of single people in your age range to date.

Obviously, you have a greater chance of meeting your life goals when you live in a place that has the available resources to help you meet those goals.  Place can provide you with more than just job and soul-mate; it can also determine income, friends, and other options for yourself or family.  Different life stages may give you different values, and those values will be a reflection of where you choose to live.

This may be contrary to what you might expect as technology further flattens the world, making “where you are” not as important.  Some argue that the products of the new globalized economy have freed us from geographical barriers.  They say cities no longer need to be confined to the natural resources and raw materials they produce.  Place, according to this view, is irrelevant.

While that may sound logical, it has its shortcomings when you look at where the great concentrations of talent, innovation, and creativity cluster.  They are not spread evenly across the country, but concentrate in specific regions and locations.  The generation of new ideas and productivity increases where these clusters happen.

Knowing that 90% of all economic output is produced in metropolitan regions, with the largest 5 metro regions accounting for 23% of it, what’s your take? Does place matter?

How does this different approach to looking at where you live affect your sense of community and place? And what does it say about your place? How can you show that your place is the place to be?

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