Contrasts

I've spent the past few days in India launching some new products to our offices here. It's been a fascinating experience, to say the least. I now understand the true meaning of contrast.

In one moment you're in a glass skyscraper eating delicious Chinese food and the next moment there are shoeless children in rags rapping on your car window, begging for a few Rupees.

There are BMW's speeding past men on bicycles loaded with bundles of sticks and narrowly missing cows wandering the streets.

There are dirty streets lined with refuse juxtaposed with women in beautifully colored saris.

There are smiling powerful executives being served by emotionless hopeless servants.

There is spicy curry and extra spicy curry (please, no more curry!!)

There are slums and there are mansions.

It's truly an amazing culture... and I've learned a lot about the market and the way people operate. But I'm really looking forward to my flight home tomorrow -- back to the U.S. where contrastss aren't quite so sharp and where I can get brush my teeth without using bottled water.

The Best Hot Dog - Gray's Papaya

I'm just returning from a marathon trip to New York:

• Red-eye flight Sunday night
• Two hour nap at hotel
• Eight hours of meetings to prep for our client meeting
• Five hours of sleep
• 90 minute client meeting
• 15 minutes lunch at Gray's Papaya
• Flight home
  

I'd never been to Gray's Papaya before, but a colleague refused to leave New York without one of their hot dogs.

The "Recession Special" was priced at $4.95 and I got two hot dogs (one with sweet onions and the other with ketchup and mustard) plus a cup of Papaya drink.

Perhaps I was delirious, perhaps just really hungry. But I placed it on my top 20 list of restaurants. Now, everytime I come to NYC, I'll be required to have one of their dogs.

Twitter: The New P.R.

I have a great employee, Courtney, who has been wanting to bring FranklinCovey into the 21st century. So, she has started the official Stephen R. Covey facebook account, the official FranklinCovey Facebook fan page, the official FranklinCovey YouTube account and now the official Stephen R. Covey Twitter account.

At first I was sceptical. Who would ever want to follow these micro-blogs. 140 characters. Too basic? Too simple?

I'm now a believer.

I am truly amazed at the viral nature of Twitter. Within just a few weeks, we have 600 Twitter followers including many other authors and celebs like Tony Robbins and Oscar de la Hoya. The marketing power behind Twitter is amazing. It it truly the new PR.

We can try to get people to come to our website, or we can go to where the people are. It's really exciting to go where the people are already congregating and provide them with something the really want.

If we continue at this pace we'll have a great social community on Twitter where we can really help people and help educate them on how to be more productive in their lives, at work and in society.

By the way, you can follow my Twitter here :)

Book Review: Outliers

I'll admit it. I never been a Malcom Gladwell fan. I read Blink, but didn't really enjoy it. I thought it was quite, well, ordinary common sense.

When my father-in-law gave me Gladwell's latest book, Outliers, I was less than excited (sorry Ken). It sat on my nightstand, looking at me every night. Then finally, my wife got tired of it sitting there and started reading it. "I think you'll really like this," she said every night and she devoured the book.

I'm happy to say that I'm now a Malcom Gladwell fan. This was one of the best books I've read in a quite a while. (Even though this guy has insanely crazy hair:)

The following paragraph sums up the book nicely, "[Successful people] are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and ingeritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky--but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all."

I thought the most intriguing part of the book was the discussion of 10,000 hours. Gladwell's theory is that to become an expert at something, you have to practice doing it for 10,000 hours. He cited the Beatles, and how they would play gigs all night in Hamburg, and that because of this time, they learned to work together and create the genius music they did. It left me wondering what I'm going to become an expert it. 10,000 hours is a long time...

Matt's Rating: ***** (out of 5 stars)

I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I!

5 Tips To Help Avoid Burnout

Stress, anxiety, and doing more with less. These are all things that are happening in today's workforce. I've never been one to back away from hard work, I put in my time. But when you work tirelessly without the chance to take a break, burnout can occur.

So, if you're 10 minutes from burnout, here are some tips I've learned to help you keep going.

1) Eliminate Chaos: When everything around you is moving fast and you come back from one meeting only to have to to go another, you don't have time to get organized. Do what you need to do to prepare yourself for your tornadic days. Come in 15 minutes early and straighten your desk. Organize you files so you know where everything is. Block out large chunks of your days to ensure you have time to get work done.

I know that when my life is chaotic, I work minute-by-minute. I can't see the horizon and I start to feel overwhelmed.

2) Embrace Others: Odds are, when you're working fast and furious, there is probably someone, somewhere in your organization that doesn't have enough to do. Find them. Capitalize on their skills. And have them chip in. People are generally happier when they're engaged and contributing. Sure, quality might slip a bit and it might take longer for you to get that project done. But there is a major feeling of relief when you delegate a task to someone and you go back to your office and are able to tackle something else. And there is an even better feeling when they come back to you and the project is finished and better than if you did it yourself.

3) Plan or Perish: If you're like me, you have several lists of projects each with a dozens of tasks. Before your work week begins, review this list. See what the critical items are for the week and see what you can delegate. Then, try to focus on one task at a time and get it done. You'll always have interruptions you'll have to manage. But come right back to the task at hand and execute on it. It will keep you moving forward on your plan and keep you sane.

4) "No" is not a four-letter word: When times are tough, people will ask you to do more. It's important to help others as much as you can. You may have the knowledge or skill they need, plus it's always good karma. However, there are times when you just can't do it all. You'll know when they are. And if you can sense that the request isn't "mission critical" just say no. The other person will survive. And it will keep you from getting distracted on your plan.

5) Find Time for Self: In the past this was the hardest thing. When I get to work I tend to be heads-down and not resurface for a long time. I would eat at my desk, or not eat at all. But what I found over time is that burnout comes faster. So, take time to read a news story of interest, run an errand at lunch, or call a family member or friend for a few minutes. Once I even went to Costco, grabbed a hot dog and walked the aisles for 20 minutes. It opened my mind and kept me fresh for the remainder of the day. Regardless of what you do, find some time just for you.

Hopefully these steps will help you avoid a crash and keep you moving forward.

The Art of Shawn Ray Harris

I've known Shawn Harris for years (decades actually). I've seen his artistic styles grow and expand over the years. My claim to fame is being the first first face from which he made a plaster mold -- I'm still missing part of my eyebrows from getting the mold off.

Recently I was amazed with his "Ice Project" -- a photography series of things melting in ice. You can see it on his website shawnrayharris.com or on his Facebook page. My favorites are the gold fish, the foreign currency and the eyeball (I'm afraid to ask who's eye this is.)

Some of my favorite photographs are his self portraits at the top of this page -- they're definitely worth a look.

I Like Chicago

There's something about Chicago that I really like.

My first trip to Chicago was about 10 years ago when I was doing market research for a client. At that time I categorized the people in Chicago as New York style without the attitude.

I just got back yesterday and realized that people are still the same. In Chicago people held the door for each other. Greeted people in elevators. Looked you in the eye on the street and smiled. There's something great about this city.

And then there's the cold. I've been to Chicago probably two dozen times, but never in the winter...until now. It was biting cold!

Monday night I needed to walk eight blocks to the Apple store to get a new headset for my iPhone but I walked two blocks, thought my hands were going to freeze off, and went right back to my hotel. People were walking around in full body-armor winter gear to protect them from the bite, all I had was just a thin leather jacket--no hat, no scarf, no gloves and no boots.

Perhaps now I realize why people were looking at me on the street.

Book Review: Lessons From Private Equity Any Company Can Use

Here's a short book that carries a punch. Although "Lessons From Private Equity Any Company Can Use" is the more boring title of any book I've read lately, the content is quick, easy and informative. Here's my book review.

(Authors: Orit Gadiesh and Hugh MacArthur, Bain & Company; Harvard Business Press)

MATT'S RATING: * * * (out of 5)

WHO SHOULD READ THIS? Managers, Directors, Executive. Small business owners will learn something from this as well. I think it's a bit too analytical for the typical front-line worker.

WHAT'S THE POINT? Exactly what the title says. They try to offer "clear, practical suggestions" for implementing the ways PE firms do business in order to make your business more valuable.

WATCH-OUTS: I'm always suspect of books that use the word "top-quartile" within the first 100 words. Don't plan on some fast-reading Dan Brown novel.

SUMMARY: They cover six main lessons.

1. Define the full potential.
2. Develop the blueprint.
3. Accelerate performance.
4. Harness the talent.
5. Make equity sweat.
6. Foster a results-oriented mind-set.

Here are quick take aways that I learned from the book:

• No company can be successful when it divides it's resources among too many initiatives. I'd like to also extend this to say, an individual worker cannot do this either.
• "The prospect of being hanged focused the mind wonderfully." -Samuel Johnson
• The discipline of NOT doing things can preserve tremendous value.
• You need to be committed to your short list of key initiatives and designing action oriented plans to achieve them.
• Make managers owners of the business. Often management teams will own 10-30% of the business - sometimes through phantom equity.
• Watch cash more closely that earnings. It is the true barometer of performance.
• Use substantial bonuses to reward great performance.
• Find the entrepreneurial people in your business and harness goals to them.
• Embrace those individuals in whom the company has invested a great deal and who could know more about any outsider ever could.
• The job of a CEO is leading. And many times leading into change.
• The best communicators find new and different ways to get the vision of change and milestones across to as many different internal audiences as possible.

The Leader In Me

Here is a great new video by FranklinCovey that has really cool execution and style.

iProjecTrak™ - Free Project Management Task Software

I've been really frustrated lately trying to manage dozens of projects and their tasks. It seemed like every time I went to a meeting I was having to try and dig through my brain or old notes about the status of my (and others') tasks.

So I've created a solution that I've named iProjecTrak™. This is a simple project management task tracking solution that keeps all of your projects in one Excel document. I built it so you have everything you need in one place. No more digging through old notes (or brain cells). It's all at your fingertips. Running to you project managment meeting? Just print it out and use it for notes. After the meeting and put the notes in the document. Managing multiple projects? Just add additional tabs for all of your project management needs.

It's free-ware for now. If you like it, just refer people to my blog to download it. If you have suggestions on how to improve it, please leave a comment.

To my new Italian friends...

Since my post, dated October 2, I seem to be attracting a lot of readers from my most favorite of all of the countries, Italy. And to you, I say, "Ciao amici miei!"

Italy has had a powerful imact on my life. I've been there many times and every time I experience something new and amazing. It's also where I took my wife on our first date.

So, to all of my friends in Italia, I hope you enjoy my blog. I hope to see you soon.

A Pile of Books

Ok. So over the past two months I've been the recipient of a load of different business books by many different people. I've stacked them all on my desk at work -- it's become quite a teetering library. I have the best intentions to get around to read them all. But where does one start? They are all on the "best seller" list and they all cover a wide variety of topics -- which are all of interest to me.

However, lately when I come home from my 12 hour days at the office [pause for tangent: when I leave at 5:00 pm and a co-worker breaks out the old joke, "Only working a half day today, Matt?" I can honestly say, "Yes."], I really just want to read something fun. My other personal problem is that when I read, I don't like to rush through books. I like to chew on all of the words [i.e. I'm a slow reader].

I estimate I have about 2,500+ pages of work related books to read. My goal is to read them all within the next six months. I'll post a brief synopsis of each of them when I'm done.

Stay tuned...

Wii Fit Reviews

For Christmas we got our kids a Wii Fit. It's quite an amazing video game. My kids can't get enough. Here are our reviews:

Bud (age 9): It's fun. It makes you energetic and skiing is awesome. You can exercise without even leaving your front door.

Princess (age 7): It's really cool. Hoolahooping is really awesome. You have a piggy bank on it and you get money to get more games.

Tiger (age 5): Soccer is my favorite game.

Cousin Oshkosh (age 10): It's fun. My favorite thing is running. It sometimes hurts and you can trip.

Dad (age undisclosed): This is a great way to burn off all of the excess energy the kids have when you really want them to go to bed.

So there you have it. Our family gives Wii Fit it 5-stars.

E-mail Overload

I believe that communicating with each other has become MORE difficult with the advent of certain technologies. Is there a light anywhere in this dark abyss we've all fallen into?

For a long time now, I've wanted to calculate the number of e-mails I send and receive in any given year. So I just did. For the last 12 months, I sent 8,420 e-mails. I received 13,980 e-mails (not including all of the sp*m that ended up in my landfill account, a.k.a. Yahoo Mail). That means for every e-mail I sent I received 1.7 e-mails in return. Yikes!

Am I sick? Is everyone experiencing this amount of volume?

This pattern has got to stop!

It's taken me a long time to realize the benefits of IM. I know. I know. I've been a real laggard in the adoption of this technology. I text message like my thumbs are on fire, but the whole IM thing has taken some time to adopt.

However, today, when I had a server malfunctioning at a very inopportune time, and I needed to get a tech to troubleshoot it fast, I realized the true benefit of IM. [Tech geeks have used IM for years. What's taking the rest of us so long to widely adopt it?] With my server crisis burning, I was able to communicate quickly, effectively, and get the problem resolved without a single e-mail.

I just found an article written by By Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer. She did a review of a book called The Hamster Revolution, written by some people that help "the sickies" cut down on e-mail.

Here are a couple of points that are sort of "duh" but it doesn't hurt to read them anyway.

Send less. Think hard before you use the "reply to all" and "cc" features, and use group distribution lists sparingly. By targeting your e-mails, rather than spraying them, you'll be more efficient and effective.

Quit boomeranging. Send 5 e-mails and you'll get, on average, 3 responses, most of which aren't necessary. If you eliminate just 1 in 5 of your outgoing e-mails, you'll instantly shrink the incoming volume, and save time on needless back-and-forth exchanges.

Stop - then send. Before hitting the "send" button, ask yourself: Is this information timely, topical, and targeted? Will it help the recipient do his or her job better? If not, skip it.

So, in short, if you need to communicate with me, please consider my plight.

He Tried It

I laughed. I cried. I'm glad he tried it.

http://hetriedit.blogspot.com/

This is a fun blog to check out: hetriedit.blogspot.com.

Useful Information for Web Developers and Designers

Here is another great site chock-full of resources: sixrevisions.com.

Here is a sample of things it offers to date, with regular additions coming I'm sure:

20 Exceptional Websites for Learning Adobe Illustrator
20 Websites to Help You Master User Interface Design
30 Beautiful Photoshop Illustration Tutorials
15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity
6 Exceptional Web-based Image Editors
30 Beautifully Blue Web Designs
8 CSS Techniques for Charting Data
6 Tools to Help You Analyze a Web Host
30 Beautiful Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials
Useful Cheat Sheets for Web Designers

Lessons from a Mexican Restaurant

Five years ago a friend and collegue of mine recommended that when in Chicago I eat at a restaurant called Frontera Grill. I then got a second recommendation from another co-worker that this is the best Mexican restaurant north of the border.

As luck would have it, I'm in Chicago and the Frontera Grill is only two blocks from my hotel. I got there at five o'clock. It didn't open until 5:20. But that didn't stop the fifty people lined up to get inside for dinner.

The restaurant is in a very non-descript part of town. It's about six blocks off of Michigan Ave. And there aren't any big attractions nearby to draw patrons. Yet, by 5:30 the entire restaurant was full and people were waiting for tables.

So, how come so many people know about this place? Well, my guess is it's word of mouth. How else would I, a guy thousands of miles away, know about this restaurant and wait in line to get in? Especially when I have so many other dining options.

I believe the same goes for website traffic. Word of mouth is one of the three keys to web traffic: 1) Search Engines, 2) Direct Traffic, 3) Referrals (i.e. word of mouth).

Case in point: I dig through Google Analytics tied to my websites several times a day. I also watch my wife's blog analytics on a daily basis. With her stats lately I've noticed something very interesting . She has several friends who link to her blog from theirs. One of these blogs has gained dramatically in popularity, and in kind these visitors have found my wife's blog. Just by having that referring link, my wife's visitors have practically doubled. Why?

One could say they came from a "trusted" source. But many of these people were just "surfing" and found the first site (that of my wife's friend) through a search engine. Is that enough to make is a "trusted" source? Perhaps. Regardless, a simple link on other high traffic sites, will most certainly provide a new channel for traffic. I'm beginning to wonder if a linking strategy trumps a search strategy. I don't think you can ignore either, but it sure seems that getting your link on more relevant sites will bring fantastic traffic -- both in quantity and quality.

And by the way, Frontera Grill had the best taco's I've ever eaten in my life. If you happen to go there, tell them I referred you.

SEO Gurus

For the next 12 months I want to learn as much as possible about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). As I discover great resources, I'll post them for all to see.

Here are a few that I've been reading lately:

Occam's Razor, written by Avinash Kaushik

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash

Bruce Clay, SEO expert

http://www.bruceclay.com/

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Converting MSS2 and wmv9 files to mov

After weeks of research and e-mails to many different vendors, I've finally figured out how to convert an MSS2 file into a format that I can modify in Final Cut Pro. I'm still a bit uncertain about the relationship between MSS2 and wmv9, but there was a relationship in my files. I believe (and I could be incorrect) that MSS2 are essentially screen sharing files. Which would make sense because my files are webcast archive files produced with Citrix (Go-to-meeting).

So here's what I found.

1. You need to download Windows Media Encoder 9 onto a PC (it's free).
2. Click on "Convert a File".
3. Locate your original file and name your new file.
4. Continue to follow the simple onscreen steps until your file has been saved.
5. Transfer your file to your Mac.
6. Buy and download Flip4Mac WMV Studio Pro ($99).

[note: Flip4Mac doesn't support MSS2 files yet. That's why you'll have to go through the Windows Media Encoder steps. In the encoder you'll be saving your file out as a wmv3, which IS supported by Flip4Mac which enables you to complete the following two steps.)

7. Open your new wmv file in QuickTime.
8. Export your file as a mov file.
9. Import into Final Cut Pro and edit as needed.

I'm continuing my process by squeezing my final files into flv using Sorenson Squeeze.

It's a relatively painless process, but it does take some time to do.

Just you you know, I've also tried to convert the wmv3 files to mov using ffmpeg on my PC and ffmpegX on my Mac but keep getting a bunch of errors. If I find a fix to that I'll post it as well.

The Final Episode of Seinfeld

So... Microsoft clubbed Jerry Seinfeld.

That happened much faster than I thought. My friend Eric brought this up tonight at a party.

The initial focus group results must have been absolutely dismal for the Evil Empire to have dumped him that fast. I mean, they spent millions on production for these spots. And they dropped them faster than the stock market. (Quick tangent: About 20 years ago I learned about short selling and was amazed that this was even legal. Today we learn that this is one of the main reasons our financial institutions are crashing -- lousy short sellers. They come in like sharks smelling blood. They short a stock and when the price falls, they profit. Over the past few weeks these financial stocks have been easy targets for short sellers and they have driven the prices into the ground. End tangent.)

So, should Microsoft have kept Seinfeld on for a longer run? Despite my initial reaction that they should never have hired him, no. They did the right thing. If they're going to keep placing media buys, they should get a strategy that works for them. I understand they are now going to attack the Mac ads. Bad move. They need to fortify their strong holds and play them up. Don't go on the defense. Stay on offense. Aim their cannons in a different direction. (Perhaps they should aim them at the Vista product division and blow that up first.)

Matt's Recommendation to Microsoft (Bill, if you're reading, take note): If I were you I would first try and find out why your fans love Microsoft products so much and then blast that message loud and clear. This should at least stop the slide you're seeing from your brand to Mac. Then, once the bleeding is stopped, fire your product development team. Hire someone that can actually read the marketplace and do some research on trends. Find someone who will create products that are easy and enjoyable to use. Then, compensate them in a big way to create a trojan horse product that your users love and can't live without (ahem...like an ipod). Once your users are hooked on this gateway product, you can lure them into bigger and better stuff.

Or, you can sell all of your stock and by Apple (NASDQ: APPL). If there still is a stock market.