Leadership Part 1

http://www.earlbakken.com/Earl-Leadership.pdf

There were a few highlights that really captured my attention.

1. The customer first. We often work behind a series of screens. The sales guy, distributor, the sales rep, the sales manager.... etc etc etc. As such, no wonder the probability of new product success is so low. We never get out an interact with the customer. In Earl's case, he was in the operating room. Even my tech from years ago, spent time in the operating room. Its a key, one has to experience things from the customers standpoint as close to their shoes as possible. The internet has the potential to put us closer, or to create even more screens. Earl thinis the candor of the technical symposia and conferences are a great way to find the real story as well. Years ago, I think he was correct. Today, we can go one further. We can search out candid and negative opinions on the net, that way, we can work on them prior to symposia.

2. The importance of the sale. Earl say's its a company wide effort. I have to agree. The engineer so gung ho on his new product often times does not listen to the customer. The sales manager likes to see facts and figures. The production folks have a serious disconnect. But its key.He makes mention of the small company and how they know every sale. Back in 89, as a small startup of 12 people, we knew everything. Every order, every customer, all the details. As we grew, the magnitude of information became overwhelming. At that point, we only knew the problems, or customers with squeky wheels. Earl has a lot to say to make the importance of the sale visible to the whole team, whether big or small.

3. The case of the brilliant maverick. Hey, I'm one of those.... so what did I do, I hired brilliant people with a maverick personality much greater than I. It does make for a challenge in management. As a scientist, I had zero business training. Today, my experience is a function of books and experiecing taking my head and banging it on the wall. Would I hire the same guys today, absolutely. It creates dissention, upset, and many issues. It also fosters an intensely creative and productive environment. What Earl says is to set boundaries. I wish I would have known that years ago. It took years of working, reading, and managing to pull an effective team out of the mix. The other thing it does from my standpoint, is drive home the fact that a team is required. The operations issues will pass the maverick by as unimportant. I used to force them, I wish I didn't have too... so I have a partner who sees things differently keep us on track operations wise. He too was a maverick of sorts. One of Earls competitors took the opposite standpoint, they fired all their mavericks. They are cash cowing on the maverick visions for now, but insiders are telling me the company is seriously lacking in innovation. Hmmm, I wonder why.

4. Breaking free of the policy bins. This is a good one..... I liked Earls example of bringing in the corporate procedures manuals on a chain attached to his leg, and then burning them in the meeting. Its an area where the small company can really fly, as the procedures manuals are small, or even non-existant. Its common practice to let procedures dictate over sound and common sense business judgement. Its a wimps way out. Consistency of approach and method can be a good thing, as long as it doesn't stand in the way of efficiency, customer response, or innovation. Procedure manuals may be needed in the litigious world we live in. However such manuals should be subject to intense P&L and 360 degree feedback review. No, not the people, the policies....

5. Communication vital to success This is always a tough one. How much to share vs the risk of key data loss to competitors through social engineering. Earl's standpoint is the loss of productivity is much more costly than the loss of key information. I think he may be right.

Data Mining

I have found data mining of interest for quite some time. My first exposure was at an IBM seminar where they discussed data mining as applied to the supermarket. The one thing I remember from all those years ago was combined purchasing habits. The idea is to place combined purchases in a close location, such that if one goes in to buy item A, more than likely they will be buying item B. As a customer service issue, it saves them time, due to convenience. As a revenue enhancer, the person that is going in to buy A, may not have even thought of their need for B. As such, by making them close to each other.... more than likely B will be purchased, even if that was not the original intent.

Its a win win for all. The customer saves time, and the store does additional business. For example, milk and orange juice are always within line of sight. It makes sense. The same can be said about having baby wipes next to diapers. What data mining does, is capture the less than obvious purchasing habits of a consumer. The data is all there in even the most simplistic cash register systems. Its just a matter or sorting it out. If we add in the consumer discount purchases, we can also capture age, sex, and long term buying habits. Its way more than simply getting a free bag of cat foof for every ten at Petco. They can target coupons, mailers, and email to what your needs are. The result, applicable ads eg if you send me a coupon or deal on dog products I'm guaranteed not to buy. I don't have a dog. If you send me kitten ads, I just might do so, as we have a bunch of them. Its a win for both, I get less junk mail, the store gets greater purchases. However, there is an insideous priavcy issue. Do you really want the store to know that much about you????

Getting back to the IBM data mining example. Lets say item A is diapers... so we would expect item B to be baby powder, baby wipes, etc. In reality, its not even close. Apparently the consumption and packaging of the ancilliary items does not make them correlate evenly with diapers. What does correlate is BEER. This caused much laughter and crude comments by the engineers. Yet the data was right there in front of us. The combination is so odd, it would not be acceptable to the consumer to have them side by side. However, since the seminar all those years ago, I have noticed that beer is often within line of sight, or within an isle of baby products. Next time you are in a Super Walmart, note where the baby items are relative to the beer.... you will find it of interest. It is probably not by accident.

Hello World #2

Hello world is at my main blog inventors viewpoint, where I run blog:cms on my own web space. I signed up for blogger for 3 purposes. The primary was to concentrate on the farther out visionary concepts. The second was so I'd have a way to comment on blogger. And the third was to play some games with SEO.