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Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Monday, October 5, 2015
Toyota Codes Engine Familiarization
Capacity: 1077 CC
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Monday, January 19, 2015
Secret Revealed: How To Change a Habit
When I talk to people about their happiness challenges, they often point to hurdles related to a habit they want to make or break. My book describes the multiple strategies we can exploit to change our habits. First up: Self-knowledge. Key! Crucial! Essential! When we're trying to shape a habit, it's key that we understand ourselves.
We have to shape that habit in the way that suits us, or else it's not likely to stick. For instance, if you're a night person, and you try to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go for a walk, you're likely to fail. But if you go for a walk after work, you might have much better success.
So the secret to changing your habits is to know yourself. One aspect of Self-Knowledge is knowing where you fit in the framework of the Four Tendencies. That's a whole separate topic, it's so huge -- and here's a quiz you can take, to identify your Tendency. There are many other distinctions to consider, as well:
But there are many important distinctions that can help us know ourselves better. To read more about the ones I mention…are you a:
They say there are two types of people: those who love dividing the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. I love dividing the world into categories. I could keep going. Abstainers and moderators. Radiators and drains. Leopards and alchemists. Under-buyers and over-buyers. Eeyores and Tiggers.
Do you find that thinking about these distinctions helps you understand yourself better? Of course, this exercise is meant to broaden self-understanding, not trap us into a single rigid identity.
As I mention above, my current writing project is a book about habit formation. Such a fascinating subject. I identify the multiple strategies that we can use to make or break our habits. Some are quite familiar, such as Monitoring, Scheduling, andConvenience. Some took me a lot of effort to identify, such as Thinking, Abstaining, Identity. Some are more complicated than you might assume, such as Rewards andOther People. The most fun strategy? Treats. My favorite chapter? The hilarious strategy of Loophole-Spotting -- I love keeping lists of the loopholes I spot. To pre-order the book, go here.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Health Data: Are You with the Sharers or the Hoarders?
My former business partner Todd Park is pretty busy these days as Chief Technology Officer of the U.S., setting data free through President Obama’s Open Data Initiatives. A passionate believer in the power of information, Todd embraces the idea that by putting data out into the public domain, we create the potential for entrepreneurs and innovators to transform that data into products and jobs.
He’s not alone. This approach has sparked innovation across information categories, such as weather (Weather Channel) and global positioning (Waze), and is now being rolled out in a variety of sectors, from energy to education.
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We are often asked, “what is the best way to create an analytics organization within my company?” While there is no one right answer, we have had the opportunity to observe many highly successful organizations and have identified a few keys to building and running a successful analytics organization.
Let’s start with the reporting structure. Who reports to whom? Who sets the strategy? We have observed firsthand the struggle organizations go through when trying to figure out where analytics should live within the organization — IT, Marketing, Finance, Operations, Office of the CEO. We believe that the analytics organization should report up through a “neutral party,” this avoids as much as possible the political infighting that happens when insights generated by the analytics organization reflect poorly on the performance of team leadership.
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Bug Labs, a software firm behind a of a variety of connected devices and services, is sick of the fragmented nature of the internet of things. So it has created a technology toolset to help tie different devices together and make playing with connected hardware a little easier. The first tool, Dweet was launched in February and lets you insert a bit of code onto a device to start tracking it.
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Snowplow Analytics provides an event analytics platform. The UK-based company enables its clients to collect granular, customer-level, and event-level data from multiple platforms, including web and mobile, and load that data into structured data stores to support advanced data analytics. Snowplow customers, who include retailers, media companies and gaming companies, mine and visualize data using Business Intelligence tools such as Looker and Tableau, and statistical and modelling tools like R and pandas. Snowplow is an open source platform: businesses can download Snowplow and set it up on their own AWS accounts, giving them complete ownership and control over their event data.
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I have for decades watched CEOs and other executives try to explain a corporate strategy to a small group of senior managers or to a much larger group of staff. For the most part, it has not been a pretty sight. In the case of senior managers, I usually hear 3 or 4 different interpretations of what the boss said, or disagreements about what they thought he or she said. In either case, no alignment at the top. In the case of a larger group of staff, often many people look on blankly during the presentation. They may appreciate a CEO’s willingness to share crucial plans. But because they don’t have the context or experience, they can’t even begin to understand what is being thrown at them in a thick PowerPoint deck. And what they do see certainly doesn’t make them want to get up in the morning and come to work.
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Monday, April 21, 2014
10 Things You NEED to Do if You Were Hired Today
The woman right next to me was alive one second, then a taxi came up on the sidewalk of 42 Street between 6 and 7 Avenue, hit her and veered off and now the woman was lying in the street, blood everywhere. This happened on the first or second day of my work when I started at HBO. I tried to call 911 in the payphone (there were still payphones in August, 1994) and then I had to go. The woman was dead.
I loved HBO like I would love a parent. I wanted them to approve of me. And kiss me as I went to sleep at night.
Before I got the job offer to work there I would watch HBO all day long. My friend Peter and I would watch HBO or MTV for 10 hours straight. I’d go over his house around 1pm in the afternoon and by 10pm we would look at each other and say, “what the hell did we just do”. Everything from the “the Larry Sanders Show” on HBO to “Beavis & Butthead” on MTV. We couldn’t stop. I loved the product. I wanted to work there.
Rule #1: Love the product.
You have to love the current output of the company. If you work at HBO, love the shows. Watch every single show. No excuses.
If you work at WD-40, know every use of WD-40. Make up a few more that nobody ever thought of. If you work at Otis Elevators, understand all the algorithms for how it decides which floors to stop on when.
If you work at Goldman Sachs, read every book on the history, study every deal they’ve done, know Lloyd Blankfein’s favorite hobbies and how he rose through the ranks. You have to love the product the way Derek Jeter loves playing baseball.
Rule #2: Know the History.
When the business I started, Reset, was acquired by a company called Xceed, I learned the history of the mini-conglomerate that Xceed was created out of. There was a travel agency for corporations. I visited them in California. There was a burn gel company. I visited them and met all the executives and learned the technical details how the gel was invented. There was a corporate incentives company. I met with them to see if any of their clients could become my clients.
At HBO, I learned how Michael Fuchs (the head of HBO Sports at the time. Later CEO of HBO) in 1975 aired the first boxing match that went out on satellite. And how Jerry Levin (the CEO of HBO, later CEO of Time Warner) used satellites to send the signal out to the cable providers. The first time that had ever happened. Ted Turner had been so inspired by that he turned his local TV affiliate, TBS, into a national TV station, and the rest became history
Rule #3: Know the history of the executives.
At HBO I studied the org chart religiously. My title was “programmer analyst, IT department” and yet I was always asking around: how did John Billock become head of Marketing (he trudged around house to house selling HBO subscriptions in Louisiana when Showtime started up, for instance, decades earlier).
Where did my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss work before arriving at HBO (Pepsi). Where did the head of Original Programming get his start? (he was a standup comedian, later CEO of HBO, before being forced to quit when choking his girlfriend in a Las Vegas parking lot). It was like reading about the origins of all the superheroes. I was a fanboy and my heroes were the other executives. I wanted to be one of them. Or better.
Same thing: know all of your colleagues and what their dreams and ambitions are. Get to work 2 hours before they get to work. If they need favors, do them. You have a whole two hours extra a day. You can do anything.
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Tuesday, April 15, 2014
A 10-Step Guerilla Job-Hunting Program
Recruiters Find Peolple For Jobs,Not Jobs For Peolple
Last year, a major job board (not LinkedIn) asked me to put together a video program for their job seekers. Since my approach was so different than what they imagined, and since I referred to LinkedIn so often during the program, they trashed the whole project. For those who are willing to forgo the CW and try some out-of-the-box techniques, I resurrected the project here. You only to need to listen to the first intro video to give you a sense of why getting a job these days is more like an obstacle course than a professional business process. (Use HIRED30 as coupon code if you feel compelled to watch the whole program, but use caution.)
Here’s a quick summary of the first part of the program. (I’ll post the back half next week.)
One: play the job-hunting game to win. Most job seekers don’t know the real rules or the fact that there is a hidden job market. Understand that once a job is posted in the public job market, skills and experience dominate who is interviewed and ultimately hired. If your skills and experience aren’t a perfect match, you’ll need to find a job in the hidden market. Here past performance and future potential determine who gets hired. (This important idea is covered in the intro video.)
Two: get referred if you want to work with a well-networked recruiter. Recruiters find people for jobs, not jobs for people! And to do this, the best recruiters spend most of their time getting referrals of highly qualified people. Many of these people don’t have the exact skills and experiences, but recruiters can often arrange interviews with hiring managers if the candidates are highly referred. If the person hasn’t been referred, the candidate needs to have the exact skills and experiences listed on the job description. That’s why networking is so important if you want to work with recruiters, especially if you're not a perfect fit on skills and experiences.
Three: implement a 20-20-60 job-hunting plan. Only 20% of your efforts should be spent on applying directly for a job via a job board. (I wouldn’t retract this comment. It’s the other reason the job board canned the project.) Unless you’re a perfect match, don’t apply directly. Instead, use the job posting as a lead to find someone who can refer you to the hiring manager or department head. LinkedIn is great for this type of research. Another 20% of your efforts should be spent on making sure your resume is found by recruiters looking for a perfect match to an open job. Most of your time (the other 60%) should be spent networking. The best way to do this is to find people who can fully vouch for you to refer you to some of their close associates. You’ll need to meet these people, and ask them to refer you to their associates. If you do this a few times you’ll soon have about 40-50 people in your network. Once your network gets this big you’ll start hearing about job opportunities in the hidden job market.
Four: give your resume a 10-second workout. A resume is NOT a life history. Its only purpose is to be found, to be read, and to get you a phone call. In the public market, if you’re not a perfect match on the skills listed, it’s unlikely if your resume will be even found or read. LinkedIn shows you the probability of making it to this round when you review a job posting. For example, I just noticed I’m in the top 50% of 185 applicants for a VP Marketing job I’m totally not qualified for. Don’t apply directly unless you’re in the top 10% or in the first group of 50. If you make it this far, a recruiter will initially give your resume only 10-15 seconds to determine if it should be read in depth. To see where you stand on this “wow!” factor, give your LinkedIn profile and/or resume a 10-second review circling or highlighting those things that stand out. If it’s not of the “call me right now” stuff, you’ll need to redo it.
Five: understand the real job. Recognize that a list of skills, experiences, and academic requirements is not a job description; it’s a person description. This is good news if you can do the work, but are not a perfect match on the skills side. Knowing the real job will help you get an interview using the back door and then help you ace the interview once you’re in. Here’s a list of questions you can ask the recruiter or hiring manager during the interview to figure out the real job. You’ll then need to describe some comparable accomplishments to be considered a serious candidate. To get the interview though, you’ll need to demonstrate you’ve done comparable work to what’s described in the posted job description in some unusual way. For example, a marketing analyst recently told me he prepared a competitive analysis to land an interview in a new industry. I’m now working with an HR manager who landed the job with absolutely no HR experience, by demonstrating that managing five drug stores required more HR experience than was listed on the spec.
Getting a job without the skills and experience listed on the typical job description is not easy, but it’s not as hard at most job seekers make it. The worst way is wasting your time applying to dozens of open spots. Instead, pick 6-8 that seem like reasonable opportunities and network your way in through the back door. These five steps will help you get started, and the next five will give you a good platform to begin a full-fledged guerrilla job search. Most important, though, is to be different, network like crazy, and don’t give up.
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What Apple’s Move to Digital Marketing Means
It’s hard to think of many companies that have had more of an impact on mass media, culture, and technology than Apple. From its products to its ads, Apple has taken brand marketing to new heights (when a silhouetted image with white ear buds is instantly recognizable, you know you’ve done something right).
So it’s intriguing to see how Apple is making more of a shift to digital marketing. The recent announcements about its decisions to bring on board new agencies (AKQA and Huge) that are generally “digital first” organizations is noteworthy. For all of the modern feel of Apple’s marketing and advertising, it has been very much an old school way of doing things: we know best and we’re going to talk at you. Apple’s recent moves are a significant shift in the direction of on-demand marketing, which is what successful digital marketing is all about.
On-demand marketing is all about being actively responsive to your customers (and potential customers). This shift is very much about responding to four important trends in consumer expectations:
1. Now: Interacting anywhere at any time.
2. Can I: Doing things they’ve never been able to do before
3. For me: Having truly personalized experiences.
4. Simply: Having all interactions to be easy.
This world of marketing is about moving from “always-on” to “always-relevant,” from “marketing at customers” to “marketing as a service.” For marketing to be relevant and a real service – and by service, I mean something that actually helps the consumer either answer a question or get something done – that means having a very clear sense of the consumer decision journey. That requires three levels of analysis:
Telescope. A clear view of the broad and long-term trends in the market, category, and brand. Digital sources that track what people are looking for (search), what people are saying (social monitoring), and what people are doing (tracking online, mobile, and in-store activities) represent rivers of input providing constant warning signs of trouble or signals of latent opportunity. For Apple, such analytics could help them better understand which people get stuck - and where they get stuck - in using their applications, or providing guidance to their app developers on customer behavior that could help them design better experiences.
Binoculars. A complete, integrated picture of where they spend their money, which interactions actually happen, and what these outcomes are. Most direct-sales companies (retailers, banks, travel services), for example, measure the performance of their spending by analyzing what consumers do just before making a purchase, e.g. Googling a product. That level of analysis is too narrow because it doesn’t take into account the advertising, social media chatter, and other media out there that also influence the consumer during his/her decision journey. Getting such return on marketing investment data, may lead Apple to major shifts in how it connects with its customers, such as trying out and scaling personal recommendations, educational material, or crowdsourced suggestion contests. These would be huge changes for a brand that has always acted as if it knew what was best, but they would be steps towards a new level of emotional engagement from the brand's fans.
Microscope. Technology and analytics to create services, messages, and offerings that are relevant to the individual. Research shows that this level of personalization can deliver five to eight times the ROI on marketing spend and lift sales 10% or more. Apple will likely develop a much better sense, over time, of how to manage the messaging and support it provides each customer to get them fully engaged with their products, apps, and content. Right now, little contact from Apple feels very personalized.
It will be interesting to see how Apple merges its fantastic creative energy and capabilities with a more digital, interactive, and analytical approach to marketing.
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Monday, April 14, 2014
Video of Where Facebook and Google Put All Your DATA
Google: Getting To Know Us and Help Us Better
Instead, Google has been very clever in strategically picking new areas that all have something in common: They are all tied to the cloud and collecting data, information, and insights about how we live, work, and play, and then turning that data, information, and insights into new products and services that can help us navigate the world better.
In other words, the real value for Google is in the backend—in the data. By knowing what you’re using, how you’re using it, what you’re doing with it, when you’re using it, and where you’re using it, Google is generating a goldmine of information, and then using that information to both generate revenue for its advertisers with increasingly personalized ads, and using what they learn to create the next “must have” item. Here are just a few examples.
Let’s start with Google Glass, which is Google’s first wearable technology and is tied to their dynamic information repository in the cloud. How we use it, what we use it for, and what we see and record all goes to the cloud. Will we all be wearing Google Glasses? The answer is no, but many will be using Google Glass for a lot of specialized functions. In fact, surgeons are already using Google Glasses so they don’t have to take their eyes off the patient. They can see, on the little screen in the lens, the patient’s heart rate, pulse, temperature, blood pressure, and all the vitals. And there are a wide variety of other professions that will be using them as well.
Remember, you can make things smaller, and the size of the earpiece and other components are going to continue to shrink, allowing Google Glass to look more and more like regular glasses. In fact, Ray-Ban sunglasses maker Luxottica recently announced that it has finalized a strategic partnership with Google over its Glass eyewear that could pave the way for a new look and market in smart glasses.
YouTube is another strategic part of Google, and they’re continuing to redefine television and the viewing experience by creating an ever-increasing number of channels and live streaming events—some that even incorporate Google Glass. For example, the Sacramento Kings basketball team has recently started to wear Google Glass, giving the audience live streaming from them so viewers can see what the players see when they go up for a dunk, what the referees see, and what the cheerleaders see.
This started with the Sacramento Kings, but you can clearly see that you’re going to get a bird’s-eye view (and a very personalized view) of the action in many more arenas, thanks to more and more players in more and more sports using Google Glass-type wearable devices. I expect this to quickly spread to a wide variety of events, from plays to rock concerts.
Speaking of TV, another related area Google has now entered is with their new product Chromecast, which is basically a $35 bridge that beams web video to your TV screen. One of the reasons I believe Google wanted to get into this is because Apple’s biggest seller in 2013 was Apple TV. So, of course, Google wants to get in on that. But it’s not just selling Chromecast. That’s just the front end, like Google Glass is the front end that you get to use. Google is more interested in knowing your viewing habits and how they can turn those insights into better ads for their advertisers as well as continue to shape the future of TV.
All of this takes fast networks, so it should be no surprise that Google launched Fiber Boost, which is bringing gigabyte Internet service to cities. So far, Austin, Texas; Provo, Utah; Los Angeles, California; and Louisville, Kentucky, among others, have this service. I’m sure you would like your city on the list, because it would be great to have a blazingly-fast Internet connection. What does Google get by offering this? Faster connections lay the foundation for a new level of online products and services. With faster speeds, it would make sense for Google to introduce a 3D web browser.
In all, Google is getting to know how we all live, work, and play better and better every day, and using that knowledge to come up with new ways to do even more cool things. In Part 2 of this look at Google, we’ll explore some other offerings designed to increase Google’s knowledge base and increasingly intelligent search capabilities.
How I became a social media believer and why banking’s future is digital
I joined LinkedIn’s influencer program last year and it was reported on the front page of Australia’s major business newspaper as breaking news. Front page? Perhaps it showed how novel it was for CEOs to embrace a presence on social media.
At this point I need to confide that this didn’t come naturally.
My own journey to becoming a social media believer came a bit late. One of our directors, Greg Clark, who chaired the Technology Committee of the Board, encouraged me to take our directors and management board to the west coast of the United States. The idea was to explore the thinking in major companies that were regarded as innovators in financial services and in technology, companies such as Google, Cisco, Apple and of course LinkedIn.
It was a bit of ‘light bulb’ moment. It was already clear to me that digital financial solutions were redefining our business. Here at ANZ we were first to market in Australia with our goMoney app in 2010. Today, that app provides banking to 1.4 million customers in Australia and New Zealand who undertake 273,000 transactions a day.
What wasn’t quite so clear to me – apart from observing my children with mild amusement – was that social media had become completely main stream and was driving a fundamental shift in the way people find and consume information, and how they expect organisations like ANZ to communicate.
Jeff Weiner at LinkedIn must have seen the switch go on because he invited me to join the LinkedIn Influencer program.
The visit to the west coast and my experience as a LinkedIn Influencer has served to reinforce my view that there’s now both a need and an opportunity for business to move faster in becoming socially-enabled enterprises.
The opportunity exists because innovation is often incredibly difficult in large companies and if you can create a culture that supports and embraces change, there is a prize for first movers.
With social media the opportunity is to have a more direct, deeper and authentic relationship with our most important audiences including customers, staff, investors and other stakeholders. Ultimately that’s a prize that’s worth having in terms of customer satisfaction, corporate reputation, attracting and retaining talent, gaining market share and reducing the cost of doing business.
The reality is that for many of our customers, the digital and social future is already here. As a business we need to respond more quickly to participate in the opportunity. That’s why I have made accelerating ANZ’s progress with digital solutions for our customers, and engagement through social media a key business priority over the next three years.
Ultimately I don’t see this being about technology or being up to date with the latest thing. It’s part of the focus business needs to have on being customer-centric by engaging customers and improving their experience with us.
However, the transformation of legacy systems and the cultural shift required to achieve this isn’t without its challenges.
In social media our strategy is rapidly evolving. It is centred on ANZ participating in the social web through our organisation and through our people. This includes me as CEO, my management team and ultimately all our people. This broader, less centrally driven conversation is requiring us to think differently about who communicates, why they communicate and how they go about it.
Becoming a socially enabled organisation also requires us to think differently about the approach of our specialist support functions such as marketing, communications, legal, risk and technology, and how those functions work together much more closely in this new internal and external environment.
We also know part of this transformation is being more transparent, more engaged and more responsive in our communication. As a step in addressing this need, we have launched our own digital publication for news, insight and opinion called BlueNotes. It covers the economy, financial services, investment and society from both within ANZ and from experts outside the bank and provides great thought-leadership content to build our engagement with the social web.
We still have a lot to do to bring about our digital and social transformation at ANZ, and to build a more customer-centric 21 century business. We are not alone in that but we are making good progress with what I consider to be of the most urgent priorities in business.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Funding Probabilities: Are You One of The Best 10? 100? 1000? Companies Raising This Year?
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Find me on Twitter @cyrustmybjaz29
Find me on Twitter @cyrustmybjaz29
“The partner is likely writing just two or three checks this year. How are you going to convince them you’re one of those companies?” This was the way a friend described their mentality in pitching VCs on A, B or C round financing. What he meant was, the average venture capitalist at those stages will only be funding a few companies each year but seeing many pitches. In that sense it’s not just about proving that you’re a great opportunity, but also that you’re worth the opportunity cost of using one of those “slots.”
I’m thinking more deeply about the A Round fundraising process as the set of companies we’ve backed start to mature. At least three will be out in market this year for their next financings, and in other cases, pre-emptive interest is starting to bubble. The potential I want our companies to communicate isn’t just their own traction, roadmap and strength of vision but that they’re one of the best opportunities the VC is going to see this year. How do you signal that and what are some strategies?
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I don’t think it should be a large part of your initial deck but do recommend a few minutes and single slide (or whiteboard sketch!) to educate the VC about the dynamics of the market you’re in and why the timing for disruption makes sense. A founder’s unique insights are always captivating – at least to me.
For some it’s also about matching the type of risk inherent in your business to the partner or firm who (a) is comfortable with that risk and/or (b) believes they can help solve it. For example, your billion dollar outcome might have some regulatory speedbumps along the way. For some firms that’s a very scary issue and maybe even a deal killer. But others feel like they’ve seen those navigated before and perhaps even can assist you in doing so. By looking at their current portfolio and talking with some of their founders you can map which partners like/dislike specific issues (note, in some cases the reverse might be true -> continuing the example above, if their portfolio is already full of regulatory-challenged companies and they don’t want to bear any more of the same risk).
Finally, and the most direct, is just naming this during your pitch process. “Look, I know you see a lot of deals and the sheer law of numbers say that you’re not going to fund most of them, even ones you like. We believe we’re one of the 10 best opportunities you’re going to see this year for reasons A, B and C. Do you agree? What else do you need to figure out in order to agree with us?” Of course some investors might be put on their heels with your directness but I think that’s fine – you’re not being inappropriate, you’re trying to find out how their process works and what questions they have. The investor who can’t articulate what they’re trying to learn from you is an investor who is unlikely to ever commit!
What are some ways you’ve been able to signal to investors that you’re one of the 10 or 100 best companies raising this year?
As an aside, here’s how Homebrew’s process works:
Stage 1 – you meet with Satya or myself. We’re taking the meeting because based on what we know about you, we think we might be a good match for your company. The goal of phase 1 is to see if we can get from *think* to “this IS interesting, pending some more discussion around points A, B, C”
Stage 2 – with those specific points named, the other partner joins the conversation so you can get a sense for both of us. We try to work through the open questions – with you, with data or references you provide and on our own. Our goal is also to make this part of the process feel like working together, not pitching one another, because we’re also trying to give you a feel of what it’s like to work with Homebrew.
Stage 3 – even if we’re still working through some of the points, when we reach the point of conviction we’ll provide you guidance on the way we were thinking about participating in the financing (terms). That helps you react in a concrete manner and also know where you stand.
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