May 2007
Write Your Own “Darn
Recently I had the experience of helping an individual work on their resume. What was interesting was that I received an email from the person and then received a barrage of emails from the candidate’s spouse. What is wrong with this picture? I worked on over 6 revisions with the spouse of the job seeker.
What happens when the interviewer says, “On your resume you say you increased sales by 75%. . how did you do that?
Change is hard
Making change is not easy. It takes a lot of work. Often, it takes a leap of faith.
I was thinking a little about the changes that Fisher's Document Systems has undergone over the last year which naturally led to thinking about change in general. It is not easy to make any change. Anytime you work to make a change, you probably are trying to improve things. Usually it gets worse before it gets better. There is always a learning curve. Understanding what the end goal is sometimes the only thing that can keep you sane. You have to take the leap of faith knowing that what you are changing will be positive if you can overcome the initial obstacles... even if those obstacles are simply in your mind. Don't go changing something for the sake of changing, but understand that in order to improve, you must change. In order to change, you have to accept that it will likely not be easy. Take that leap of faith.Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
Communicating Concerns
Have you ever been told by a vendor that you needed to shape up? I had that experience this week and it left me questioning when it is or is not appropriate to tell a client that they need to get their act together.
In order to properly evaluate this question I suppose I could talk about the value of the client, the vendor’s bargaining power, customer service norms and several other such issues, but I don’t think that’s necessary. Perhaps the question I should be asking is not if you should express a concern to a vendor but rather, how you should express a concern.
The vendor that told me to shape up did so via email. I wasn’t having a particularly good day and it didn’t take more than two to three sentences before my ire was up. I immediately started my email reply in which I expressed several frustrations in some rather aggravated tones. Fortunately, my brain turned back on before I sent the message and I spared myself the embarrassment associated with thoughtless email communication. Instead, I settled on acknowledging his concern and his transparent frustration with me.
Within a few minutes of my email I received a phone call from the vendor who apologized for allowing as much emotion into his email. He informed me that he wasn’t frustrated with me as much as he was with some of the complications of our project. We laughed about the exchange and both learned a lesson in the proper delivery of a message. For me, the lesson is that email, although easy and fast, is often a vastly inferior means of communicating sensitive information. You know that device on your desk with all the buttons and much smaller display then your PC? Use that when relaying information that may be construed as negative.
Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
That seems to be the prevailing attitude in the country today. How does that affect innovation?
Jared points us to a CNN article titled Put off reading this until tax time: Americans procrastinate. (I'd link you there, but they have pulled the article.)
A Canadian psychologist took ten years to complete a study indicating that 26% of Americans consider themselves procrastinators. He was supposed to complete the project in five years, but must have procrastinated himself.
I am surprised it was going to take five years. I could have told you that people procrastinate in about five minutes (well, that is if I procrastinate getting the words out of my mouth). I am also surprised that the percentage is so low.
I do believe that procrastination is one of the key obstacles to innovation. If we always wait until the last minute, then there is no way that we can truly be proficient in what we do.
Here's a thought. Start early and set intermediate deadlines. You may be surprised what you can accomplish and learn.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
Einstein on Ideation
“Imagination is more important than knowledge."
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Imagination is key to the success of your business. If you can't imagine how it could possibly be, then you may never accomplish the magnificent.
Thanks to BrainReactions.com for this quote.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
RSS feed copyright?
If you will notice on the left hand column of our site, we have two news feeds. Our intention with these feeds is to share blog and article posts from other sites that we have found interesting in the past.
There was a little concern last week about how we share the information. Take a look from the HR News Feed at the comments that were made on one of the posts. You may not be interested in the article, but it is a great discussion on the use of RSS feeds.
I am curious as to know your thoughts on this. Is there a problem with sharing information this way? Is this valuable for the furthering of discussion? Is there a better way to do this?
Our thought is to have feeds for a number of different topics and we'll add them as soon as we have enough feeds to pull. If you are interested in having your feeds appear just add a comment to this post with your RSS feed and what category you think is appropriate and we'll put them in our feeds. If we are pulling your feed now and you would prefer we don't, lets us know that as well.
Bear in mind, if your RSS feed doesn't include your name, then we won't know. That is why all of the posts at Master The Business have a signature line. This way, if the RSS aggregator doesn't grab our name, we are assured that our name can be found in the feed. We want to have credit for our posts and that is the only way to ensure that our feed will always include our name.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
The four drivers of innovation
Earlier this year, Gallup has a great article about innovation.Take a look at the full article on The Four Drivers of Innovation at Gallup. #1. Finding and Fostering Talent
#2. Managers Matter
#3, Relationships Matter Too
#4. Keeping The Right Leaders.
Earlier, I blogged on the priority of innovation. I pointed out that innovation doesn't necessarily mean getting new technology... it means you have to set the right priorities. These four drivers of innovation from Gallup are critical priorities to innovation.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
The priority of innovation…
There are many new things to learn and implement. How do we set our priorities?
I am an avid woodworker on the weekends. Come to my garage on any given Saturday and you'll find saw dust flying. I see advertisements for new table saws and simply ignore them. I don't have the fanciest table saw, nor the most expensive. I don't even have the saw with all the extra accoutrements or trappings. What I do have is experience with my table saw. I know how my table saw works. I know how to adjust it. I know how to make it work for my designs. I understand what I have.
Does that mean I am not very innovative in my woodworking? Not a chance. Sometimes a tool is just a tool. Do you really care what the tool is as long as you get your job done... efficiently?
Efficiency is the key. If you have the right tool, use it right... don't change it. Sometimes we change for the sake of change. If you make a change, have a good reason for that change. It doesn't make sense to look for things to change. If it can increase efficiencies, then you can consider it.
Bear in mind, anytime you make a change, it will get worse before it gets better. There is a learning curve. For example, a new software application may run into problems during implementation or training... it will be worth it if, in the end, you have increased your operational efficiency.
Set your priorities by not trying to change what is working well. Sure, you may need to analyze it to see if what you are doing works well.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
A Few of My Favorite Things
I love reading resumes. Some people enjoy novels, or programming computers. I just love reading resumes. I like to see how people phrase their experiences and accomplishments. Could you please do me a favor?
Use words that show forward action. Here are a few of my most beloved words:
achieved-expanded-prevented-negotiated-coordinated-trained-simplified
When you write your resume, you have to use words that create pictures. The words listed above will help you. You can buy books that give you more of these types of words. Just make a picture for the recruiter to see.
Jeff Bettinger is the Senior Vice-President of Human Capital and Investment at masterthebusiness.com and a Senior Recruiter for an International Construction Firm.
Jeff Bettinger is the Senior Vice-President of Human Capital and Investment at masterthebusiness.com and a Senior Recruiter for an International Construction Firm.
Does Qwest finally get it?
Two years ago, I left Qwest for VoIP because I was so upset with Qwest and their lack of knowledgable workers. I felt that everytime I called, I had to teach them about technology so that they could help me.... it was a pain.
From a marketing percpective, one of my biggest complaints was that they were more concerned about new customers than existing customers. You would get a better deal as a new customer than a loyal customer.
I got a post card on Saturday from Qwest that is titled "Qwest invites you to kick start your day on us.... just show us your Qwest bill for a free cup of coffee."
Well, I thought, that is a good start in showing customer appreciation. It may be a small token, but it is good for the exisiting customers.
I looked at the bottom of the card and saw the following tag line, "Not a Qwest customer yet? Bring in your service provider bill and we'll show you how to save big. Plus you'll get coffee on us!"
So, the question I have is this... Are they finally understanding what it means to take care of loyal customers or is this a cheap marketing gimmick because they don't do something special for existing customers that they aren't doing for new customers?
I would be interested in your comments about how Qwest is managing the customer experience.
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.
