Usefulness of data

We are used to gathering data, businesses do and so do governments. This garbaged data is not much useful by itself but only by mining it with a specific focus – a purpose. This data is only useful if it is used and merely just collecting it does not make it any useful but might cost you hundred of thousands of dollar in storage costs.

So look at your systems. What data are you gathering and what can you use it for? Will you use it at all? How can this data help you serve customers better by creating an even better product? What is the expiry date of data that you are collecting?

Managing Change

Dealing with Change/Transformation Programs for organisations I am constantly managing change and dealing with change.

Here are some of my take aways for managing change:

  1. Almost everybody is scared of change, even people dealing with change on a regular basis. Everyone has their own comfort zone and managing change is about expanding the horizons this comfort zone. Explore ways to expand this.
  2. Management and Leadership teams should re-inforce again and again and yet “again” that change is good and the only way to move forward. Only change is constant and the way to future success.
  3. Link change with opportunities and excitement and remove/eliminate team and individual fears of how it will impact them. Change is implemented for a brighter future. Explore and talk about their future often.
  4. Get the leaders on your side. Even better get end-users on your side first.
  5. Empower people to ask questions.
  6. Leaders need to be firm on their stance on change. It is either “Change” way or take the “High” way approach. Negativity and people hanging onto status quo can be a massive impediment in implementing change.
  7. Managing change is just not a leader’s role. Empower individuals to be change champions and to be change advocates.
  8. Strengthen the change muscle of individuals, teams, business units and organisation.
  9. Implement appropriate and engaging training to the right people at the right time.
  10. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Worse news must be communicated before good news. Link good stories to the upcoming and future possibilities.
  11. Don’t forget to smile.

Making task completion a social activity

Today, I came across Complete app – a Twitter/Facebook like service for task completion. Using the app, we can create tasks that we want to complete, mark it private or public and get tasks to completion. Having tasks out in open will create accountability and friends and other visitors can assist us in getting the task done. A simple idea that can do miracles. Friends can provide feedback, validation, encouragement, hint us on their experiences and potential pitfalls.

I find the idea very powerful. We all create tasks and lists which most times are “for my eyes only” and hidden away from the rest of the world. Our task/lists tell a lot about us. Using social media we can try to control how we are perceived but our task lists most times can tell a naked story. Having publicly shared tasks, we can truly demonstrate what we value individually and how we add value in other people’s lives by assisting them.

The app itself is in early days and have a long way to go. But I don’t see why we can’t run our own social experiments in sharing personal tasks and allow others to monitor the progress and be willing to learn from their experiences. This will just make the journey for completing the task easier. A lot of people are already doing this by participating in #WOL [Working Out Loud] forums. Some of us might been doing this for a while in work based environments using several ways, e.g. agile walls.

What one experiment would you start today that will see you sharing your task publicly and committing to it? For me, it will be writing 5 blog posts this week.

Build your ideas bank

Few days back I wrote about collecting ideas but focusing on one (or very few) ideas or projects at a time. I got few messages agreeing and some that did not. Couple even went to say that “Ideas are dime a dozen.” OK, may be or may be not. I don’t know as I have never bought ideas for a dime!

I have always maintained an ideas note – what I call it my “Ideas Bank”. Initially I used to jot only the ideas that were relevant to what I was doing or what I wanted to focus on and was very picky of what I added to my ideas bank. Initially the intention was to capture my ideas (my moments of brightness) so I could select them on the future and potentially use them and execute them when the time is right.

Then late last year I read few tweets about strengthening the ideas muscle (tweets that I should have saved but did not). This got me thinking of expanding the scope of my ideas bank. A bit more research and it made sense to strengthen the ideas muscle and give it a regular exercise. Very recently, I have started to jot ideas of all sorts. Things that may or may not be of any use to me at this given time. Over time (consider time frame in years) this should serve me atleast two purpose, 1) I should improve my problem solving/solution finding skills, 2) I will have this massive collection of ideas, some of which can be applied to a problem that I or others have at hand.

So you may want to focus on one task at a time but don’t let this stop you from building up your “Ideas Bank”.  You never know what future problems you might be solving today in your notes! Go strengthen your ideas muscle.

Smile please

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If you do one thing this week – make a decision to smile more. Laugh more. Smile when looking at yourself in the morning. Smile at a stranger. Smile in a meeting. Make it a personal resolution to smile at least 4 times for each waking hour. Once done see for yourself how much difference did it make.

Ideas Unlimited

Ideas are in abundance. You are smart if you can look around and identify ideas and opportunities. You are doing yourself a huge favour if you make a notebook of all your ideas and visions and keep adding to the list as frequently as possible. But thinking of ideas and making a notebook will not make it a reality neither working on 10 different ideas at the same time. This is what I have learnt and re-learnt many many times over the last many years.

Almost everybody  have multiple constraints on why they cannot work on 10 different ideas at the same time. If there are no other constraints then time certainly becomes a constraint. Be an ideas individual but become a doer than a thinker. Think and Do. Focus and make an idea a reality. That is what’s going to add value to your life and to the world.

So how do I make money on Twitter?

A friend – How do you make money of Twitter?

Me – I don’t

Friend – How can I use it so I can make some?

Me – If I knew I would have made millions by now!

Jokes apart – Twitter or other tools try to add value first to get some value back in return unless you are some sorts of Guru already. If your Twitter or Facebook stream is full of “sounding your own horn” tweets, you might not necessarily get a lot of interest nor engagement from your prospective customer. Try to engage with them, get their attention before putting forward your products and how it is going to solve known problems. Aim for 80% messages that add value to others first, 10% of your own thoughts [originality greatly helps] and 10% “sounding your own horn” [innovative ways surely helps again] messages while connecting with your customers.

Want to see examples, I will let you do some work. Go and check out famous services or software developers accounts and observe how they engage in conversations? See any common trends?

Do what you love the most?

Do you agree that the jist of all things we do is to make ourselves and our loved ones happy? You work hard for exams, as you may want to achieve good scores, so that you can get in the desired courses, so that you can become what you dreamt of, as you think becoming that “person” will make you happy. Some people work weeks on weeks without seeing their family, so they can earn money for their family which will allow you to buy things for them and this may make everyone involved happy.

So if you are not doing what you love the most, – Stop, think and do something about it today. You certainly don’t have to leave everything you are currently doing and take that plunge (although you certainly can!). You can start small today and take it forward tomorrow. As long as it makes you happy.

The more happy you are doing something, the higher the chances of you becoming successful in that endeavour.