Instead of another Cars and Coffee or Coffee and Cars, why not have a Coffee and Clunkers? Bring out the worst of the worst. The most hideous makes and models. The most horrific looking wheeled nightmares, even ones that haven't been washed since the beginning of the Clinton administration. All together maybe for the last appearance. Instead of the ritual burnouts and idiocy of too much testosterone and horsepower, the sight of a few tow trucks to keep us all humble.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Friday, September 26, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Firing My Company Was About The Best Thing That Client Could Do.
With no warning, at least other than the fact that one of my employees felt "something was up", my company was fired after 18 years of service this week. There were no complaints, no adversarial confrontations, not even any recent or older recommendations on how we might improve our service to them. Three months ago, they asked us to add two specialists which we did quickly and they were very happy with them. In fact, as recent as a month back, the client had had blue sky discussions with an employee of mine on how they would provide all manner of improved circumstances at the workplace. It would be great!
One paragraph dismissal. In a pdf file. On an email. From a secretary. No explanation.
And to be honest, after a few moments of that stinging feeling you get when you have been cold cocked like this, I rebounded. I'd read articles about firing clients from the likes of Seth Godin, and while this was clearly my client firing me, I quickly took stock of what this meant and set about getting a better understanding of what a business relationship really means.
I always considered the nature of this to be a partnership, one in which I provided people who served and protected the client from bad things. Over the course of time the number of people varied, sometimes as much as ten, and for some years as little as one. Given the number of new and old projects, the funds available and so forth, we'd simply played court to their needs, and were perfectly happy to do that.
But on closer inspection I knew that this wasn't actually a good relationship for several reasons:
1) Communication. Initially and for most of these years, it was no problem to get my direct contact on the phone to discuss needs, pricing, billing, work situations, or just check in. Most of the contacts who I interfaced with had no problems returning any message, no matter what the media. The newest contact though was never willing to return calls, or messages unless it was an immediate threat to his circumstance. He not only avoided me, but scheduled and cancelled countless meetings with my people to discuss important issues. Busy, he would always say, but busy can sometimes be read as indifferent.
2) Strategic to my business. At one time, providing this type of employee to a client was a third of my entire business. However, for over ten years, this remained the only client in not only this area of service, but in this industry as well. Beyond the issue of losing the client, the fact stands out that due to the riskier roles my employees were being involved with, my own costs (such as liability and workers' compensation) were rocketing up. While losing this client does affect my bottom line and certainly the gross revenues of my company, that net change when I consider the costs associated isn't all that much. Adding a client in the main area of my business would easily make up the difference in revenues and actually increase the net profit of the company.
3) Accounting. Along the way this client went from paying in Net 15 to Net 30 to Net 45 and then changed their accounting so that billing could ONLY happen once a month (resulting in technically a Net 60 arrangement). The complexity of billing required more hours to decipher and compile than any other client we have ever had (including ones that were not only larger but also more profitable). At times, the client's inability to pass our invoices on to payables meant that we were not paid for months and months. For a small business, being hung out to dry for $100,000 in past due receivables can affect any firm's cash flow.
When I added up all of that, and realized just what this customer really cost (I confess I'd never really put pencil to paper on it), I realized that in fact I should be thanking them for cutting me off. It was long overdue, and should be appreciated, and not a cause for panic or anger. In fact, within a day, I decided that instead of writing a nastigram on how wrong they'd been, I would write a thank you note (to the executive office) gratefully noting the long term nature of our relationship, and appreciating the years of service my company was able to give them.
And so I will
Monday, September 15, 2014
The Purpose of Sales
In these days of incredibly varied forms of communication I am sometimes at a loss for how to manage being an effective sales person. Phoning, texting, emailing, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc etc, it becomes overwhelming. It's not really time management or even project management, it's how to shout out in all of these places so that someone, who is a potential customer can hear. And buy.
In the world of electronic signaling, there's something called "signal to noise" ratio, and today, the ratio is pretty small. In essence with all of these channels coming in, most people are likely to dismiss or simply ignore all of the feeds. We hit Next on our voice mail before three syllables come through, we auto filter immense amounts of email (most we'll never even open), and we scroll and scroll and scroll through posts by friends, family, strangers, business associates, and so on. In a lot of cases we could flip through most anything.
I admit there's a lot of trash. There's a huge amount of trash. Communiques that needlessly flow in all directions clog and flood our sensibilities and about the only thing left is to ignore. It's a room full of noise that we have to excuse ourselves from, just to think. For that reason, people who sell products and services are left to increasingly shout louder. Send more emails, post more pieces, Tweet until your fingers bleed. Somehow if we just repeat the signal enough, it's bound to get through.
Stop!
There's only one purpose for sales. One. And that's to create action. If what you're doing is not creating action, then you are not doing your job. That's right, if your phone call, email, post, tweet, text, airplane pulled sign, whatever, does not cause someone to DO something, then you wasted your time. Worse, you wasted your company's time, your clients time, and all of the money associated with making that communication happen.
In the world of electronic signaling, there's something called "signal to noise" ratio, and today, the ratio is pretty small. In essence with all of these channels coming in, most people are likely to dismiss or simply ignore all of the feeds. We hit Next on our voice mail before three syllables come through, we auto filter immense amounts of email (most we'll never even open), and we scroll and scroll and scroll through posts by friends, family, strangers, business associates, and so on. In a lot of cases we could flip through most anything.
I admit there's a lot of trash. There's a huge amount of trash. Communiques that needlessly flow in all directions clog and flood our sensibilities and about the only thing left is to ignore. It's a room full of noise that we have to excuse ourselves from, just to think. For that reason, people who sell products and services are left to increasingly shout louder. Send more emails, post more pieces, Tweet until your fingers bleed. Somehow if we just repeat the signal enough, it's bound to get through.
Stop!
There's only one purpose for sales. One. And that's to create action. If what you're doing is not creating action, then you are not doing your job. That's right, if your phone call, email, post, tweet, text, airplane pulled sign, whatever, does not cause someone to DO something, then you wasted your time. Worse, you wasted your company's time, your clients time, and all of the money associated with making that communication happen.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Remarks on Marc Andreesen's Twitter Essay, and the New Yorker's Disruption Article by Clay Christiansen
Mark Andreeson's Twitter Storm/ Essay this morning has some unique insights. I've been thinking for some time now about the correlation between trends in Big Computing and Process Control Systems. Maybe it makes no sense, but as someone on the front lines of recruiting people who do these sorts of projects, I can see a tipping point.
Much of the DCS landscape of the past 20 years has been similar to large scale computing companies and their business models of the '50s and the '60s. Initially there were a larger variety of independent companies producing large architecture distributed systems, some focused on specific markets, some competitive based on smaller or larger systems. Over the course of time through natural marketplace consolidations, we are left with only a handful of DCS vendors, and some would argue that it's now down to less than half a dozen or less. From where I sit, I see roughly only three or four viable competitors. I am not completely sure there won't be less within the next few years.
Where the traditional offerings of hardware, software, and services were applied in the marketplace, each a profit center, the new standard is that hardware is a remarkably non profitable part of a project, with the profitable part of projects being the software and services. This may not be unlike Big Computing's realization by IBM and others that providing the client front to back services in supporting the system is lucrative enough to offer the hardware nearly for free. Marc's comments on bundling (as well as Clay's arguments on disruption) seem to be analogous for the process controls industry since leading vendors such as Honeywell, or ABB, or Emerson would prefer to bundle a very proprietary product but make the hardware largely a gimme.
What I've seen over the last decade or so, is vendor consolidation and the growth of standards in network communication between devices (and a generally more simplistic approach to programming). The vast difference between the programming, maintenance, and upgrade support of these newer systems has meant that the threshold to competence on supporting these systems has meant that vendors no long hold end users at ransom. The vendors themselves have chosen some of this path by reducing costs (by using semi qualified programmers offshore). The result works, and it's less expensive (even after the challenges of offshoring anything), but it also means that the holy priesthood of in house proprietary programmers has been replaced by lesser capable specialists who aren't as loyal to an individual vendor.
The PLC applications industry is parallel and roughly 15 years ahead. In 1985, a user nearly required a vendor employee to write ladder logic programming on a controller for them. Today, the interfaces are easy enough that most instrument techs can read, understand and write control logic. I believe DCS isn't far behind this trend.
Marc's argument seems right. DEC unbundled IBM, only to later bundle (and decline), was followed by SUN who unbundled DEC only to bundle against Microsoft (and then decline), followed by Microsoft's unbundling SUN/ IBM/ DEC, and then bundling (and then declining), and now firms like Google who are bundling, etc, etc. Professor Christiansen's disruptive article in the New Yorker points to this same natural process.
If this holds for DCS, then as we've seen with the consolidation of the vendors, and then making hardware a commodity (unbundling), and later making software for the system a commodity (unbundling), the future hardly looks bright for the traditional full line control systems vendor. Instead, by virtue of driving down hardware prices, and the growing ease of software work, what little strength these vendors will have will be to create in house backend support as maintenance providers.
Mark Andreeson's Twitter Storm/ Essay this morning has some unique insights. I've been thinking for some time now about the correlation between trends in Big Computing and Process Control Systems. Maybe it makes no sense, but as someone on the front lines of recruiting people who do these sorts of projects, I can see a tipping point.
Much of the DCS landscape of the past 20 years has been similar to large scale computing companies and their business models of the '50s and the '60s. Initially there were a larger variety of independent companies producing large architecture distributed systems, some focused on specific markets, some competitive based on smaller or larger systems. Over the course of time through natural marketplace consolidations, we are left with only a handful of DCS vendors, and some would argue that it's now down to less than half a dozen or less. From where I sit, I see roughly only three or four viable competitors. I am not completely sure there won't be less within the next few years.
Where the traditional offerings of hardware, software, and services were applied in the marketplace, each a profit center, the new standard is that hardware is a remarkably non profitable part of a project, with the profitable part of projects being the software and services. This may not be unlike Big Computing's realization by IBM and others that providing the client front to back services in supporting the system is lucrative enough to offer the hardware nearly for free. Marc's comments on bundling (as well as Clay's arguments on disruption) seem to be analogous for the process controls industry since leading vendors such as Honeywell, or ABB, or Emerson would prefer to bundle a very proprietary product but make the hardware largely a gimme.
What I've seen over the last decade or so, is vendor consolidation and the growth of standards in network communication between devices (and a generally more simplistic approach to programming). The vast difference between the programming, maintenance, and upgrade support of these newer systems has meant that the threshold to competence on supporting these systems has meant that vendors no long hold end users at ransom. The vendors themselves have chosen some of this path by reducing costs (by using semi qualified programmers offshore). The result works, and it's less expensive (even after the challenges of offshoring anything), but it also means that the holy priesthood of in house proprietary programmers has been replaced by lesser capable specialists who aren't as loyal to an individual vendor.
The PLC applications industry is parallel and roughly 15 years ahead. In 1985, a user nearly required a vendor employee to write ladder logic programming on a controller for them. Today, the interfaces are easy enough that most instrument techs can read, understand and write control logic. I believe DCS isn't far behind this trend.
Marc's argument seems right. DEC unbundled IBM, only to later bundle (and decline), was followed by SUN who unbundled DEC only to bundle against Microsoft (and then decline), followed by Microsoft's unbundling SUN/ IBM/ DEC, and then bundling (and then declining), and now firms like Google who are bundling, etc, etc. Professor Christiansen's disruptive article in the New Yorker points to this same natural process.
If this holds for DCS, then as we've seen with the consolidation of the vendors, and then making hardware a commodity (unbundling), and later making software for the system a commodity (unbundling), the future hardly looks bright for the traditional full line control systems vendor. Instead, by virtue of driving down hardware prices, and the growing ease of software work, what little strength these vendors will have will be to create in house backend support as maintenance providers.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Response to a colleague when a job disappears
Sounds like the project is "on". You have to wonder how it is that someone supposedly looking for this sort of help is "so busy" as to not find a few moments in his week to talk with a person that, even allegedly, is needed to do what their project requires done.
Actually (and forgive the frustration), this is sort of the same thing that's happened for the third time this morning, and I'm seriously trying,without getting either discouraged or angry, to understand What I'm Doing Wrong.
First example was a need two weeks ago by a guy I've done split work with in the power industry. They needed someone with Enterra SCADA experience (never heard of that? Neither had I). Preferably Version 2.5 and 2.6. Needless to say a bit of a needle in the haystack, and yet given the paucity of job orders on my desk, I thought, well this might be interesting. Read up a bit, then sailed out there and lucky me, found someone who not only knew it, but had been working on it (for Alstom), and for the right bucks, would be willing to help. The right bucks I'd been told were available for the right person. So I copied my colleague the resume, and he asked for a blinded version that he could send the client. Did. Silence. Two days. Silence. Colleague doesn't call me back for a day or so. Finally catch up, and he's as much in the dark as I am because his client (Burns & Mac) won't call him back either. For a week. My suspicion is that finding a needle in a haystack isn't much good if they've given up sewing.
Second example is an integration group I've known and not done work for but we've spent plenty of time in the last year talking about working together when they're not able to farm out people. Had a call for Experion help. Two people (Ohio, just like the last example). Had sent resumes of Honeywell help, and never heard boo. In this case, I'd let up to a month pass before checking back. Got the integration guy on the phone, and sure enough, he'd heard nothing. Now how is it that his client had a need for two people (one for one year, the other for two years), but couldn't bother to respond to a resume, let alone have an opportunity to pursue it to the stage of having a phone conversation? It's a phone call, not a marriage commitment.
I'm starting to have my doubts on days when I'm depressed. But for the rest, on a more positive basis, I'm wondering EXACTLY what I might be doing wrong. I mean, sure we can cry in our beer or go commit hari kari, but really, does that solve anything? I'd rather improve my technique, method, or at least judgement. Of course I could use your input since you've seen it all from a lot of different angles.
One of the problems I think might be happening is not talking to the right person. I discovered long ago that if I talked to someone too removed from the action, I got watered down inaccurate information on basically every element of the need. I'll lump HR in that category. It's a rare job description written by that department that accurately describes the job. Second, there's talking to someone too far down the totem pole. Those are the guys who might wish for the moon, but either don't have the political or financial clout to seriously make a decision (sidenote: those are also the guys who will have you search Kingdom Come for someone excellent enough so that they can sell their wet dream to their boss). Lastly there are the folks who are too elevated. Sure, they have the clout and financial pull to get you paid, but they don't necessarily have the means to make things happen with a contrary subordinate who either doesn't like direction, or is worried you'll be proposing his or her replacement.
Another problem is timing, perceived and otherwise. Sure, they'd hire the right person right now, for the right price if he has the right skills and right experience. But rarely does that person just happen to be available so immediately. Nor can I expect to find someone who will be available in six months. No one know what they'll be doing in six months and if they're working (like you), they'll probably be working in six months and maybe on something else. Capable people are not stacked firewood (which could be the title of a long article).
So, at this point, I'm sort of evolving or refining how I take a job order (and PLEASE do not take offense at anything I've said here. I'm just trying to get better and put more people to work). For one thing, if someone needs help, I want not only a reasonably good description of what the need is, what the person will be doing, and what the person needs to know to do it. I also want a committed time frame on when that person will actually need to be there. Right now isn't the right answer anymore than 2015. Second, I want the name, and contact info of the guy or gal who this person is going to work for. Sure, they're busy, but I'm not going to bother them uselessly other than for them to know I'm spending my time helping them, and if there's anything else they'd like to add to what's actually needed, speak up now. It's also an indicator to me that if they have no time for me, I probably shouldn't have much time for them. Some folks don't want help. Actually you've met people who didn't deserve help. Dollars and sense questions could be answered right there too (as compared to vague What They're Worth) comments.
I believe I've gotten lazy, or stupid (I'm not willing to concede old just yet). I think there are needs for the sorts of people you and I know, and there's going to be lots of good projects ahead. Like any sort of problem solving effort, asking the right questions makes all of the difference.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Part 2: Response to a request for help with a local NPR station tele campaign request
R,
Many years ago, before KUHF even had a website, one day I was visiting with Deb and I basically stated to her that I was very sorry (and hoped I was wrong), but sadly radio is dead. This was when Compuserve was still around, Netscape was a new "browser", and I'm not even sure Google had done its first search. I'm not good with predictions and this still hasn't exactly come to pass, but rather than excoriate Lisa further, or be confused by the gloss of Stephanie (we're talking S B? Heck I don't even know who your boss IS!), let's look at the bigger picture.
First of all, a media channel (radio, tv, website) that doesn't deliver content unavailable elsewhere, is redundant. It's simple market economics. The fact is, as online as the world is, any compelling content the station has that can be accessed more quickly and more efficiently will be accessed elsewhere. Further, any content that doesn't appeal to a consumer (viewer, listener, etc), is going to be disregarded. At one time, KUHF was an aggregation point for a local, regional, national, and international news of a particular variety and slant. Paul said it best once in his hatred of the sort of soundbite news broadcasting that had cropped up. He said that what KUHF offered was in depth information delivered on a radio. However, that same information is now available online from a plethora of voices, many in as much depth, and aggregated elsewhere. Fact is, most of it was created elsewhere. Boiled down, I can listen to, or read NPR copy from a huge number of sources. It is almost a totally linear collection of Stuff Found Elsewhere. Dumbing down the system by demoralizing or axing the reporting staff, or making everyone shoot their own videos probably only makes it worse. The future is online content, and hiring a lot of administrative people from another dinosaur industry (as in the crowd from the Chronicle), isn't going to save it. And I don't even care who the manager is.
If I were a media person today with unlimited resources, I would start looking at what the folks who have opted out of traditional broadcast media have done. Folks like Bob Edwards, or Howard Stern. Guys like Jerry Seinfeld even. All of these people have a significant following and provide unique content that consumers want and can easily bookmark. A company created that valued those unique offerings would be able to find funding for this. And while no one in management there seems to say that Elaine's voice and choice of materials is an art form, or what Deb did either in material or editorial choice is an artistic statement, I think it is. Eliminating the bureaucracy of what exists where you are today would free up an organization to do not only what it was intended, but to do it where this was the only place you could find that artistry.
I happen to like Jonathan Schwartz. He is a octogenarian who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the American songbook. He's also probably the most well versed man on Sinatra there is. He held sway at a mainstream NYC private station for decades (I remember being able to tune that in when growing up in PA). As you might expect, at some point that station switched formats and he was dumped. I believe there was a period where he was silent. WNYC, the flagship public station in New York took him on because of his former popularity. He does his shows for them twice a week. On the other hand, he has an online channel, which is the only way I would hear him. It will play 24 hours a day, and at certain times, play his most recently created shows. Now, there's any number of ways I could probably find those songs he plays (forgive if it's not your style), but his is a very unique voice attached to a very unique brain which not only enlightens me to the what and why of pieces I am listening to, but knows insightfully how to arrange that playlist in a more meaningful way. Perhaps it's too cliched to call him a brand, but I believe he is, and I think Elaine is, and I think Deb is as well as the others. I mean this in the most soulful and respectful way. Eliminating a brand is boarding up a room in your house (with a family member still in it).
I am sorry that you and I happened to be present when the world changed. In fact, in another era, I don't think the regents would have hired an on air personality to run one of the largest public broadcasting enterprises in the country. But this happened and we can't really go back. The fool's money is on thinking that things haven't changed, or that we can spin it to make consumers not notice this. Biting the local hand that feeds might just hasten the process. Not considering the enterprise as a collection of artists in their own right, is a senseless squander
Many years ago, before KUHF even had a website, one day I was visiting with Deb and I basically stated to her that I was very sorry (and hoped I was wrong), but sadly radio is dead. This was when Compuserve was still around, Netscape was a new "browser", and I'm not even sure Google had done its first search. I'm not good with predictions and this still hasn't exactly come to pass, but rather than excoriate Lisa further, or be confused by the gloss of Stephanie (we're talking S B? Heck I don't even know who your boss IS!), let's look at the bigger picture.
First of all, a media channel (radio, tv, website) that doesn't deliver content unavailable elsewhere, is redundant. It's simple market economics. The fact is, as online as the world is, any compelling content the station has that can be accessed more quickly and more efficiently will be accessed elsewhere. Further, any content that doesn't appeal to a consumer (viewer, listener, etc), is going to be disregarded. At one time, KUHF was an aggregation point for a local, regional, national, and international news of a particular variety and slant. Paul said it best once in his hatred of the sort of soundbite news broadcasting that had cropped up. He said that what KUHF offered was in depth information delivered on a radio. However, that same information is now available online from a plethora of voices, many in as much depth, and aggregated elsewhere. Fact is, most of it was created elsewhere. Boiled down, I can listen to, or read NPR copy from a huge number of sources. It is almost a totally linear collection of Stuff Found Elsewhere. Dumbing down the system by demoralizing or axing the reporting staff, or making everyone shoot their own videos probably only makes it worse. The future is online content, and hiring a lot of administrative people from another dinosaur industry (as in the crowd from the Chronicle), isn't going to save it. And I don't even care who the manager is.
As such, membership, fundraising, and underwriting, can
only wither away as fewer listeners means fewer corporations are going
to cough up the real bucks to pay for the expanded staff which reaches
less ears and eyes. Membership largely meant a local community of people
on a two way street of getting and giving back. That transaction is
spoiled when the station feels less community oriented because of the
piped in programming and disregard for the unique voice those announcers
offered. As spending mounts, and funding falls, it's even more of a
disjoint between the inside of that building and the outside world, and
even the best administration spin artists eventually won't be
believable.
If I were a media person today with unlimited resources, I would start looking at what the folks who have opted out of traditional broadcast media have done. Folks like Bob Edwards, or Howard Stern. Guys like Jerry Seinfeld even. All of these people have a significant following and provide unique content that consumers want and can easily bookmark. A company created that valued those unique offerings would be able to find funding for this. And while no one in management there seems to say that Elaine's voice and choice of materials is an art form, or what Deb did either in material or editorial choice is an artistic statement, I think it is. Eliminating the bureaucracy of what exists where you are today would free up an organization to do not only what it was intended, but to do it where this was the only place you could find that artistry.
I happen to like Jonathan Schwartz. He is a octogenarian who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the American songbook. He's also probably the most well versed man on Sinatra there is. He held sway at a mainstream NYC private station for decades (I remember being able to tune that in when growing up in PA). As you might expect, at some point that station switched formats and he was dumped. I believe there was a period where he was silent. WNYC, the flagship public station in New York took him on because of his former popularity. He does his shows for them twice a week. On the other hand, he has an online channel, which is the only way I would hear him. It will play 24 hours a day, and at certain times, play his most recently created shows. Now, there's any number of ways I could probably find those songs he plays (forgive if it's not your style), but his is a very unique voice attached to a very unique brain which not only enlightens me to the what and why of pieces I am listening to, but knows insightfully how to arrange that playlist in a more meaningful way. Perhaps it's too cliched to call him a brand, but I believe he is, and I think Elaine is, and I think Deb is as well as the others. I mean this in the most soulful and respectful way. Eliminating a brand is boarding up a room in your house (with a family member still in it).
I am sorry that you and I happened to be present when the world changed. In fact, in another era, I don't think the regents would have hired an on air personality to run one of the largest public broadcasting enterprises in the country. But this happened and we can't really go back. The fool's money is on thinking that things haven't changed, or that we can spin it to make consumers not notice this. Biting the local hand that feeds might just hasten the process. Not considering the enterprise as a collection of artists in their own right, is a senseless squander
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