Time Management Hack: Fixed Schedule

I love Ramit's blog and what he finds. Here's the article that he found and track from studyhack: Time management: How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers — and finishes by 5:30pm

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I’m always on the lookout for “hidden gems,” or people who are doing remarkable work that the whole world hasn’t caught on to, yet.

Today, I asked my friend Cal Newport to illustrate how he completely dominates as a post-doc at MIT, author of multiple books, and popular blogger. How does he do it all?

Cal writes one of the best blogs on the Internet: Study Hacks. His guest post shows how you can take I Will Teach You To Be Rich principles — plus many others — and integrate them into a way to use your time effectively.

Below, you’ll learn:

• How to use fixed-schedule productivity — similar to the Think, Want, Do Technique — to consciously choose what you want to work on and ignore worthless busywork
• When to say no — and how to do it
• How a $60,000-a-speech professional manages his time
• Case study: How to use email for maximum time productivity

Read on.

* * *

From Cal:

I recently conducted a simple experiment: I recorded the timestamps of the last 50 e-mails in my sent messages folder. These timestamps covered one week of my e-mail behavior, starting on Thursday, October 22nd and ending Thursday, October 29th.

My interest was to measure when during the day I spent time on e-mail. Here’s what I found:

Notice that over this week-long period, I didn’t send any e-mail after 7:00 pm, and only one e-mail after 6:00 pm. There’s a good explanation for this discipline: I end all work around 5:30 every day. No Internet. No computer. No to-do lists. Once I shutdown my day, it’s time to relax.

I must emphasize that I’m not some laid-back lifestyle entrepreneur who monitors an automated business from a hammock in Aruba. I have a normal job (I’m a postdoc) and a lot on my plate.

This past summer, for example, I completed my PhD in computer science at MIT. Simultaneous with writing my dissertation I finished the manuscript for my third book, which was handed in a month after my PhD defense and will be published by Random House in the summer of 2010. During this past year, I also managed to maintain my blog, Study Hacks, which enjoys over 50,000 unique visitors a month, and publish over a half-dozen peer-reviewed academic papers.

Put another way: I’m no slacker. But with only a few exceptions, all of this work took place between 8:30 and 5:30, only on weekdays. (My exercise, which I do every day, is also included in this block, as is an hour of dog walking. I really like my post-5:30 free time to be completely free.)

I call this approach fixed-scheduled productivity, and it’s something I’ve been following and preaching since early 2008. The idea is simple:

• Fix your ideal schedule, then work backwards to make everything fit — ruthlessly culling obligations, turning people down, becoming hard to reach, and shedding marginally useful tasks along the way.

The beneficial effects of this strategy on your sense of control, stress levels, and amount of important work accomplished, is profound.

The notion is not new. Tim Ferriss famously recommend strict time constraints in The 4-Hour Work Week. He argued that much of the work we do is of questionable importance and conducted at low efficiency. (He made a popular — if not somewhat dubious — appeal to Parkinson’s Law to support the point that more time does not necessarily lead to more results.) If we instead identify only the most important tasks, he said, and tackle them under severe constraints, we’d be surprised by how little time we actually require.

In this article, I want to tell the stories of real people who successfully implemented this strategy – radically improving the quality of their lives without scuttling their professional success.

Jim Collins’ Whiteboard

(photo by Kevin Moloney for The New York Times)

Jim Collins has sold over seven million copies of his canonical business guides, Good to Great and Built to Last. He attributes the success of these books to his research discipline. As he revealed in a New York Times profile from last May, he leads teams of up to a dozen undergraduates in the process of information gathering. His books require, on average, a half-decade of time and a half-million dollars of expenses to get from their initial premise to the polished ideas. When he enters his “monk” mode to covert this research into a manuscript, he produces, at best, a page a day.

In other words, Collins is a hardworking guy. You would expect, therefore, that like many hard-charging business-world types he would be a blackberry-by-the-bedside workaholic.

But he’s not.

Scrawled on a whiteboard in the conference room of Collins’ Boulder, Colorado office is a simple formula:

Creative 53%
Teaching 28%
Other 19%

Collins decided years ago that a “big goal” in his life was to spend half of his working time on creative work — thinking, researching, and writing — a third of his time on teaching, and then cram everything else into the last 20%. The numbers on the whiteboard are a snapshot of his current distribution. (He tracks his time with a stop watch and monitors his progress in a spreadsheet.)

Collins is a pristine example of fixed-schedule productivity in action. An author with his level of success could easily fall into an overwork trap: long nights spent updating twitter, signing partnerships, building elaborate web sites and launching product lines, speaking at every possible venue. But he avoids this fate.

Even though Collins demands over $60,000 per speech, for example, he gives fewer than 18 per year, and a third of these are donated for free to non-profit groups. He doesn’t do book tours. His web site is mediocre. He keeps his living expenses in check so that he’s not dependent on drumming up income (he and his wife have lived in the same California bungalow for the past 14 years), and he keeps only a small staff, preferring to bring on volunteers as needed.

“Mr. Collins…is quite practiced at saying ‘no,’” is how The Times described him. (He once wrote an article for USA Today titled: “Best New Years Resolution? A ‘Stop-Doing’ list.”)

His fixed-schedule approach to life comes from his simple conviction “to produce a lasting and distinctive body of work,” and his “willingness…to focus on what not to do as much as what to do” has made that possible.

He’s not alone in reaping the benefits of the fixed-schedule approach…

Elizabeth’s Conversion

When Elizabeth Grace Saunders started her first business, a professional copy-writing service, her schedule has “hazardous.”

“I would answer e-mails after going out with friends,” she told me, “and stay up until 2 a.m. finishing projects.”

At some point, she snapped. “I’m not a secretary,” she declared. “I’m not required to jump to respond to everything that crosses my path.”

Saunders adopted a 40-hour a week schedule. This new structure had two immediate impacts. First, she found herself focusing only on the most important tasks. With only a few hours to spare on business development, for example, she couldn’t justify wasting time with the small, ineffectual website tweaks and exploratory e-mails that used to keep her up late into the night. Instead she focused on the core activities that produced results, such as sales calls or the development of new products. The focus generated by this constraint ended up generating more results than her previous schedule, which was more expansive, but also more scattered.

The second impact was her discovery that she could teach her clients how to treat her.

“I’ll answer your e-mail within 24 hours (not 24 minutes), I need notice before starting a project, I will say ‘no’ if my schedule for the near future is already full, and I might schedule meetings up to a month in advance.”

“Choosing how and when I respond to requests has had a dramatic impact,” Saunders notes.

Friends and clients were impressed enough with Saunders’ lifestyle that she eventually left copywriting to become a “time coach” that works with other women in business to achieve similar results. (Her flagship service is called a Schedule Makeover.)

Here’s a typical day in Saunders’ life:

• She’s up at 6 and by 8:30 she’s at the computer.
• The first 1 – 2 hours of her work day are spent doing what she calls “routine processing,” which includes checking calendars, clearing e-mail inboxes, and cementing a plan to follow for the rest of the day. As Saunders describes it, this morning routine prevents her from wasting time deciding how to start, and it frees her of the “compulsion” to be checking e-mail throughout the day.
• She continues with an hour of sales calls. This is often the most dreaded activity for the solo entrepreneur. But by having a regular place in her constrained schedule, she avoids pushing it aside.
• The rest of the day follows the schedule she fixed in the morning: usually a mix of client assignments and at least one business development activity.
• By 5:30 she’s done.

Most entrepreneurs work well past 5:30 (and claim that this is absolutely unavoidable), but Saunders’ business is thriving. The reason is clear: her fixed schedule forces her to do the work that produces results (sales calls, client assignments, major business development activities) and eliminates the hours of pseudowork that many use to fill their day in an effort to feel “busy” (tweaking websites, compulsive e-mail checking, chasing down small business development opportunities).

Saunders is not the only young entrepreneur I’ve met who was surprised to discover that doing less helped the bottom line…

The Baby Factor

Michael Simmons, a good friend of mine, reported a similar story. His company, the Extreme Entrepreneurship Education Corporation, expanded quickly in the years following college graduation. Around the time I was reading The 4-Hour Work Week, I started to discuss the possibility that Simmons tone down the hours. It was his company, I argued, so why not take advantage of this fact to craft an awesome life.

Among the specific topics we discussed, I remember suggesting that Simmons cut down the time spent on e-mail and social networks.

“This isn’t optional for me,” he explained. “Any of these contacts could turn into a important partner or sale.”

But then Simmons’ daughter, Halle, was born.

Simmons’ work schedule reduced from 10 to 12 hours days to 3 to 5 hour days. He took care of the baby in the morning, then worked in the afternoon while his wife, and company co-founder, took over the childcare responsibilities. Evenings were family together time.

Halle forced Simmons into the type of constrained schedule that he had previously declared impossible. And yet the business didn’t flounder.

“The baby turns ’shoulds’ into ‘musts’,” Simmons explained to me. “In the past I used to put off key decisions, or saying ‘no’, because I didn’t want to deal with the discomfort. Now I have no choice. I have to make the decisions because my time has been slashed in half.”

“Since out daughter was born about a year ago, our business has more than doubled.”

The Fixed-Schedule Effect

Collins, Saunders, and Simmons all share a similar discovery. When they constrained their schedule to the point where non-essential work was eliminated and colleagues and clients had to retrain their expectations, they discovered two surprising results.

First, the essentials — be it making sales calls, or focusing on the core research behind a book — are what really matter, and the non-essentials — be it random e-mail conversations, or managing an overhaul to your blog template — are more disposable than many believe.

Second, by focusing only the essentials, they’ll receive more attention than when your schedule was unbounded. The paradoxic effect, as with Collins’ bestsellers, or Saunders and Simmons’ fast-growing businesses, you achieve more results.

Living the Fixed-Scheduled Lifestyle

The steps to adopting fixed-schedule productivity are straightforward:

1. Choose a work schedule that you think provides the ideal balance of effort and relaxation.
2. Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule.

This sounds simple. But of course it’s not. Satisfying rule 2 is non-trivial. If you took your current projects, obligations, and work habits, you’d probably fall well short of satisfying your ideal schedule.

Here’s a simple truth that you must confront when considering fixed-schedule productivity: sticking to your ideal schedule will require drastic actions. For example, you may have to:

• Dramatically cut back on the number of projects you are working on.
• Ruthlessly cull inefficient habits from your daily schedule.
• Risk mildly annoying or upsetting some people in exchange for large gains in time freedom.
• Stop procrastinating.

In the abstract, these are all hard goals to accomplish. But when you’re focused on a specific goal — “I refuse to work past 5:30 on weekdays!” — you’d be surprised by how much easier it becomes to deploy these strategies in your daily life.

Let’s look at one more example…

Case Study: My Schedule

My schedule from my time as a grad student provides a good case study. To reach my relatively small work hour limit, I had to be careful about how I approached my day. I saw enough bleary-eyed insomniacs around here to know how easy it is to slip into a noon to 3 a.m. routine (the infamous “MIT cycle.”)

Here are some of the techniques I regularly used to remain within the confines of my fixed schedule:

• I’m ruthlessly results oriented. What’s the ultimate goal of a graduate student? To produce good research that answers important questions. Nothing else really matters. For some of my peers, however, their answer to this metaphysical prompt was: “work really long hours to prove that you belong.” It was as if some future arbiter of their future was going to look back at their time clock punch card and declare whether they sufficiently paid their dues. Nonsense! I wanted to produce a few good papers a year. Anything that got in the way of this goal was treated with suspicion. This results-oriented vision made it easy to keep the middling crap from crowding my schedule.
• I’m ultra-clear about when to expect results from me. And it’s not always soon. If someone slips something onto my queue, I make an honest evaluation of when it will percolate to the top. I communicate this date. Then I make it happen when the time comes. You can get away with telling people to expect a result a long time in the future, if — and this is a big if — you actually deliver when promised. Long lead times allow to you to side step the pile-ups (which will bust a fixed-schedule) that accrue when you insist on an immature, “do things only when the deadline looms” attitude.
• I refuse. If my queue is too crowded for a potential project to get done in time, I turn it down.
• I drop projects and quit. If a project gets out of control and starts to sap too much time from my schedule, or strays from my results-oriented vision: I drop it. If something demonstrably more important comes along, and it conflicts with something else in my queue, I drop the less important project. Here’s a secret: no one really cares what you do on the small scale, or what things you quit. In the end you’re judged on your results. If something is hindering your production of the important results in your field, you have to ask why you’re keeping it around.
• I’m not available. I often work in hidden nooks of the various libraries on campus, or from my apartment. I check and respond to work e-mail only a couple times a day, and never at night or on weekends. People have to wait for responses from me. It’s often hard to find me. Sometimes people get upset when they send me something urgent on Friday night that need done by Saturday morning. But eventually they get over it. Just as important, I’m not a jerk about it. I don’t have sanctimonious auto-responders about my e-mail habits. I just do what I do, and people adapt.
• I batch and habitatize. Any regularly occurring work gets turned into a habit — something I do at a fixed time on a fixed date. For example, I work on my blog in the afternoon after lunch. I write first thing in the morning. When I was taking classes, I had reoccuring blocks set aside during the week for tackling their assignments. Habit-based schedules for regular work makes it easier to tackle the non-regular projects. It also prevents schedule-busting pile-ups.
• I start early. Sometimes real early. On certain projects that I know are important, I don’t tolerate procrastination. It doesn’t interest me. If I need to start something 2 or 3 weeks in advance so that my queue proceeds as needed, I do so.
• I don’t ask permission. I think it’s wrong to assume that you automatically have the right to work whatever schedule you want. It’s a valuable prize that most be earned. And results are the currency you must spend to buy it. So long as I’m actually accomplishing the big picture goals I’m paid to accomplish, I feel comfortable to handle my schedule my own way. If I was producing mediocre crap, people would have a right to demand more access.

Conclusion

You could fill any arbitrary number of hours with what feels to be productive work. Between e-mail, and crucial web surfing, and to-do lists that, in the age of David Allen, grow to lengths that rival the bible, there is always something you could be doing. At some point, however, you have to put a stake in the ground and say: I know I have a never-ending stream of work, but this is when I’m going to face it. If you don’t, you’ll let this work push you around like a bully. It will force you into tiring, inefficient schedules, and you’ll end up more stressed and no more accomplished.

Fix the schedule you want. Then make everything else fit around your needs. Be flexible. Be efficient. If you can’t make it fit: change your work. But in the end, don’t compromise.

Cal Newport is an MIT postdoc, author, and founder of Study Hacks, the Internet’s most popular student advice blog.

Side job that can be done to make extra cash money

In this economic downturn it is hard to make extra cash to get by. Here's the list from lifehack.org that might save you from current environment.

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1. Selling collectibles — From antique books to teddy bears, there are plenty of opportunities to buy and sell collectibles. It’s important to familiarize yourself with the collectible of your choice but if you choose something that you’ve been collecting for a while, you’ve got a head start.
2. Locating apartments — It can take time to sort through apartment listings, but you can make some money by finding the perfect apartment for a renter.
3. Baby proofing — New parents often prefer to bring in an expert to make sure their home is safe for a new baby.
4. Calligraphic writing — If you’ve got elegant handwriting, you can pick up gigs writing or addressing wedding invitations, holiday cards and more.
5. Selling coupons — Search on eBay for coupons right now and you’ll see thousands of listings for coupons. It’s just a matter of clipping and listing what you find in your Sunday newspaper.
6. Pet training — A surprising number of people don’t know where to start in training a pet. Even teaching Rover simple commands like ‘Sit’ and ‘Stay’ can bring in a few dollars.
7. Running errands — A wide variety of people want to outsource their errands, from those folks who aren’t able to leave their homes easily to those who have a busy schedule.
8. Researching family trees — Amateur genealogists often call in experts, especially to handle research that has to be done in person in a far off place. If you’re willing to go to a local church and copy a few records, you can handle many family tree research requests.
9. Supplying firewood — The prerequisite for selling firewood is having a source of wood; if you’ve got some land where you can cut down a few trees, you’ve got a head start.
10. Hauling — As more people trade in their SUVs for compact cars, hauling is becoming more important: people have to rent a truck or hire a hauler for even small loads.
11. Image consulting — Image consultants provide a wide variety of services, ranging from offering advice on appearance to teaching etiquette.
12. Menu planning — For many people, the trip up in eating home-cooked or healthy meals is knowing what to prepare. Meal planners set a schedule to solve certain dietary problems.
13. Microfarming — Cultivating food and flowers on small plots of land allows you to sell produce easily.
14. Offering notary public services — Notary publics can witness and authenticate documents: a service needed for all sorts of official documents.
15. Teaching music — If you’re skilled with a musical instrument, you can earn money by offering lessons.
16. Mystery shopping — Mystery shoppers check the conditions and service at a store and report back to the store’s higher-ups.
17. Offering research services — Just by reading up on a topic and compiling a report on it can earn you money.
18. Personal shopping — Personal shoppers typically select gifts, apparel and other products for clients, helping them save time.
19. Pet breeding — Purebred pets can be quite value, especially if you can verify their pedigree.
20. Removing snow — During the winter months, shoveling walks can still be a reliable way to earn money. You might be asked to take care of the driveway too.
21. Utility auditing — As people become environmentally-concious, they want to know just how efficient their homes are. With some simple testing, you can tell them.
22. Offering web hosting services — Providing server space can be lucrative, particularly if you can provide tech support to your clients.
23. Cutting lawns — An old standby, cutting lawns and other landscaping services can provide a second income in the summer.
24. Auctioning items on eBay — Want to get rid of all your old stuff? Stick it up on eBay and auction it off.
25. Babysitting — Child care of all kinds, from babysitting to nannying, can offer constant opportunities.
26. Freelance writing — If you’ve got the skills to write clearly, you can sell your pen for everything from blogs to advertising copy.
27. Selling blog and website themes — Do a little designing on the side? Customers that don’t want to pay full price for a website will often pay for a template or theme.
28. Offering computer help — Particularly with people new to computers, you can earn money by providing in-home computer help.
29. Designing websites — It may require a little skilled effort, but designing websites remains a reliable source of income.
30. Selling stock photography — For shutterbugs, an easy way to put a photography collection to work is to post it to a stock photography site.
31. Freelance designing — Check with local businesses: you can provide brochures, business cards and other design work and get paid a good fee.
32. Tutoring — Math and languages reamin the easiest subjects to find tutoring gigs for, but there is demand for other fields as well.
33. Housesitting / petsitting — Stopping in to check on a house or pet can earn you some money, and maybe even a place to stay.
34. Building niche websites — If you can put together a site on a very specific topic, you can put targeted ads on it and make money quickly.
35. Translating — The variety of translating work available is huge: written word, on the spot and more is easy to find even on a part-time basis.
36. Creating custom crafts — No matter what kind of crafts you make, there’s likely a market for it. Etsy remains one of the easiest places to sell crafts.
37. Setting up a wi-fi hotspot — With a little bit of equipment, you can set up a wi-fi hotspot and charge your neighbors for the access they’ve been ‘borrowing.’
38. Selling an e-book — You can write an e-book about almost anything and put it up for sale online.
39. Affiliate marketing — If you’re willing to market other companies’ products, you can earn a cut of the sales.
40. Renting out your spare room — From looking for a long-term roommate to listing your guest room on couch surfing sites, that spare room can make you money.
41. Offering handy man services — Handling small household tasks can provide you with plenty of work, although you’ll probably be expected to have your own tools.
42. Teaching an online class — Share your expertise through a website, an online seminar or variety of other methods.
43. Building furniture — For those with the skill to create handmade furniture, selling their creations is often just a matter of advertising.
44. Providing personal chef services — Personal chefs prepare meals ahead of time for customers, leaving their customers with a full freezer and no mess.
45. Event planning — From planning corporate events to bar mitzvahs, an event planning business can require plenty of work and offer plenty of pay.
46. Installing home safety products — Particularly as Baby Boomers age, people able to install handrails and other home safety products are in demand.
47. Altering / tailoring — If your sewing skills are up to par, altering garments is coming back as people try to stretch more wear out of their clothing.
48. Offering in-home beauty services — Hair cuts, makeup and other beauty services that can be performed at home have a growing demand.
49. Business coaching — Helping others to establish and develop their businesses can provide many opportunities to earn money.
50. Writing resumes — Writing resumes can provide a reliable income, especially if you can put a polish on a client’s credentials.

So many lay offs going on in current economic downturn. It you want to see which companies are getting affected every day, BusinessPunit has a great list of sites which keep them tracked.

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1. It Died: Editor Glenn Fleishman describes this new hit as “keeping track of hosted services as they lay dying.” The blog does exactly that, potentially protecting people with precious goods in those services from rude discoveries. The commentary is also good.

2. F*ckedStartups: Reminiscent of the dot-com era’s fabled F*edCompany.com, this snarky blog covers rumors, insider tips, and companies MIA as well as standard layoffs.

3. The Wired.com Tech Layoff Tracker: Real-time headlines, plus a comprehensive tally make this one of the Web’s best go-to resources.

4. TechCrunch’s Deadpool : This oldie-but-goodie covers key tech demises as well as product deaths, such as Google’s Lively.

4. The Media is Dying (Twitter feed): A self-explanatory, handy feed.

5. Timely Demise: This blog covers retailers, parts suppliers, and other terminally ill companies that sell tangible stuff.

6. Layoff Blog: Useful, newsy, mainstream coverage.

7. Screwdd: Very readable media headline and blog coverage. Lots of quoted material, aggregated into a one-stop shop.

8. Gawker.com’s new Layoff Daily: Another media death tracker. Will there be any media left after the layoffs are done?

9. ClickZ’s Digital Marketing Layoff Tracker: This complete chart covers the digital ad-driven niche. Wait…isn’t that our niche?

10. Layoff News: This blog has been covering major layoff headlines since October of this year.

5 Timeless Management Law

The askmen site put down the baseline of management law which lays the most basics of what management really needs and what it follows being in a management in article Timeless Management Laws.

Quote from the site below:

timeless management laws

1- The manager assumes all responsibility

The biggest difference between being a manager and being an employee is that, as a manager, your performance isn’t determined by your personal accomplishments, but by those of your entire team. It would behoove you and your career to consider this among the most important timeless management laws. It’s important for you to take charge of your staff and establish a clear chain of command. Employees don’t typically look at the big picture, so it’s your job to think of the bottom line and make sure that your department’s objectives are met quickly and efficiently. By the same token, you should take responsibility if your team fails to meet its goals. Don’t try to shift the blame onto your subordinates, and remember that you’re also accountable for employee morale.

2- The manager is confident

Timeless management laws state that it’s important for you to project decisiveness and self-assurance in every situation if you want your employees to trust your leadership abilities. As the boss, you’re expected to make all the hard choices and your staff needs to feel like you know exactly what you’re doing. This is not to say that there’s no place for doubt in management. If and when you have insecurities, don’t defer to your subordinates or overcompensate by micromanaging every little task; keep in mind that you also have to show confidence in your team. Before making a difficult call, include your employees and consider their opinions, but make it clear that the final decision is yours and yours alone to make.

3- The manager knows the staff

The same way a sales person needs to be familiar with the product line in order to do the job right, it’s crucial for you to be aware of your employees’ respective strengths and weaknesses. Timeless management laws dictate that you, as your employees’ boss, take responsibility to ensure that everyone is doing what he or she does best. You should also find out about your subordinates’ career goals and expectations. You need to know if your most skilled worker is feeling restless and looking for new challenges or if the new hire is confused about the chain of command. Make sure to discuss these matters with your staff. Regardless of what you learn, your taking the time to ask is enough to motivate your employees and inspire their loyalty.

4- The manager provides regular feedback

Whether things are going well or taking a turn for the worse, keep your employees apprised of their progress within the company. Don’t be shy about giving praise in public and avoid the “no feedback is good feedback” approach; your subordinates need to know that their hard work isn’t going unnoticed. By the same token, when a worker is doing badly, don’t wait until the issue has gotten out of hand before addressing it. Discuss the problem with your employee as soon as possible and sandwich your criticism between two compliments to cushion the blow. Tact and discretion are paramount when coaching your staff. Chewing out your own team in public would only harm your reputation as manager, which is among the timeless management laws that you don’t want to experience.

5- The manager leads by example

Employees often emulate their superior’s behavior because they perceive it as a model of success within the company. As such, the way you approach your job usually sets the tone for the entire workplace. That’s why you should always practice what you preach. You can’t expect your workers to come in on time, stay organized and prioritize their tasks if you don’t do the same. As the manager, you should also be mindful of the attitude you project. Make sure you maintain a positive outlook at all times; when things go wrong, it’s especially important that you keep your cool and remain solution-minded because your staff will rely on you to figure out the next course of action.

laying down the law

No matter the size of your company or what industry you work in, you should follow these five timeless management laws if you’re in a position of authority. Never forget that, as a manager, your job is to deal with people -- not productivity charts. Employees sometimes have off days and personal issues that hinder their ability to focus on the job at hand. It’s important that you be patient and understanding with your staff. Keep in mind that cheering up a disgruntled worker is far less expensive than training a new one. Besides, unlike a chart, your personnel can reward your flexibility with initiative and creative ideas. Like most things in life, leadership is all about give and take.

OnStartup's tip for public PR without help from PR firm

I love the list the is put together from OnStartups, Startup PR: Tips For Getting Publicity Without A PR Firm

Take a look yourself below in the quote.

1. “My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.”

2. First time I’ve ever the heard of the term ceWebrities. clever. With regards to these ceWebrities, “these overnight successes are 10 years in the making.”.

3. “Be the brand…you must be in love with your brand and inspired by your brand’s mission to have any hope of getting press.”

4. “Be everywhere…every single night I would go out and meet folks in the internet industry…while other folks went home to their families, I went out and made a family.”

5. “Your job is to transfer the enthusiasm you feel for your brand to everyone you meet.”

6. “Always pick up the check — always…everyone remembers who picked up the check”.

7. “Set a goal of creating deep relationships with a small number of folks as opposed to running around trying to trade business cards with as many folks as possible.”

8. “Be a human being. The best way to get PR is not to sell someone on your company or product — it’s by being a human being. Journalists hate being pitched…journalists and bloggers are, in fact, humans.”

9. “Before meeting with a journalist, it is your job (as CEO) to read their last five articles in full…”

10. “Your job as the CEO/founder is to create direct, honest and personal relationships with journalists.”

11. “Attach your brand to a movement.”

12. “PR is, by definition a reflection of what you’ve done. When a startup hits, it’s not one thing that does it, it’s typically many things working in concer.”

I'd summarize the advice and change the 6 words of advice to: Be amazing, be passionate, be human.

THREE IN ONE POST: Office Jargon explained, Art of asking, Saying no

The cubicle warrior's guide to office jargon

Let's think out of the box: Really means, "Can you creatively anemic people please come up with something?" The person who says, "Let's think out of the box" is usually desperate for a new idea and surrounded by people who are not known for generating ideas. So the phrase is actually an announcement that says, "I'm in trouble."

I need someone who can hit the ground running: Really means, "I am screwed." Because no one can hit the ground running. You need to at least assess what race you're in and who else is running.

Do you have the bandwidth? Note that bandwidth is not time. It is something else. If you ask someone "Do you have time?" you mean, "Am I a priority?" If you ask someone "Do you have bandwidth" you mean, "You seem like your brain is fried. Can you pull yourself together to do this for me?"

Let's hit a home run: "I'm desperate to look good. Even though the odds of a home run are slim, I'm banking on one because it's the only thing that'll save me." Something for all your sports fans to remember: If you have a bunch of solid hitters you don't need a bunch of home runs.

You and I are not on the same page: "Get on my page. Your page is misguided." No one ever says, "We're not on the same page, so let me work really hard to understand your point of view. If you want to understand someone else, you say, "Can you tell me more about how you're thinking."

I'm calling to touch base: "I want something from you but I can't say it up front." Or "I am worried that you are lost and I'm sniffing around for signs to confirm my hunch." Or "I'm calling because you micromanage me."

Let's run the numbers and see how they look: "I know they look bad on first blush. But the true use of Excel is to keep changing the formulas until you find a format that makes the numbers look good."

My plate is full: "Help I'm drowning," or "I would kill myself before I'd work on your project."

Let's close the loop: "Let me make sure I'm not going to get into trouble for this one."

Let's touch base next week: "I don't want to talk to you now," or "You are on a short leash and you need to report back to me."

Keep this on your radar: "This will come back to bite you. or me."

Geek to Live: The art of asking

Be specific.

"I tried to use your script and it didn't work. What am I doing wrong?"

This type of question is impossible to answer because it's too vague. What didn't work? What was the output? Was there an error? What was it? What happened exactly? If you need help, help the askee help you. Don't ask unless you can make your question clear - it'll save both of you a lot of back and forth.
Do your research.

"Do you know how someone might keep a to do list in a plain text file, like todo.txt?"

If it's obvious that you haven't put any elbow grease into researching your question yourself, folks are a lot less likely to help you - especially on mailing lists. Make sure you do a good faith run through the user guide and search the web before you waste other people's bandwidth on an issue you can solve yourself.

There are times when web search won't help because you don't know the right terms that others have used to describe the concept. In those cases, say up front, "My Google skills failed me" or "I searched a few different combinations of foo and bar, with no success" or "I called customer service and they couldn't help either."

Show that you at least tried. Just remember that busy smart people will only volunteer their time if you show that you're not just trying to con others into doing free research work for you.
Ask the right person.

"When I tried to do X on example.com I get this error. How come?"

When you find a helpful resource, your natural inclination is to ask them questions about everything. But, asking anyone other than someone AT example.com about an error there just doesn't make sense.

Make sure you're asking the right folks for the information you need. This goes triple for departments at the office and friends. Develop your own personal "board of experts" - or join a Q&A community like the excellent Ask MetaFilter. Then, when you have a question, after you've done your research and come up short, consider who in your life is best equipped to answer it with ease. Spare everyone else.
Make it worth the askee's while.

"I can't get your program to work and it's driving me crazy!!! Help me ASAP I have a deadline!!!"

When you're tired and frustrated and wrapped up in your own needs, it can be hard to step outside yourself and think about others. But the best way to get someone to help you out of the goodness of their heart is to offer them something in return.

"Hi, I want to use your software because it looks really interesting, and I'd like to write it up on my web site. But I'm having this problem which doesn't seem to be documented. Can you help me work it out?"

In that case, the askee has two motivations: the first is free publicity, and the second is the chance to work with a cooperative, calm tester to debug a problem and complete the software's documentation.

A favorite childhood story of mine, Stone Soup, is an excellent example of motivating others to help in action. Wikipedia says one of the key takeaways of the tale is:

If you want to get people to do something, don't tell them how desperately they are needed. Don't try to appeal to their sympathy and kindness. Instead, create the impression that you are giving them the opportunity to be part of your success.

20 Ways To Say No

I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF SEVERAL PROJECTS
* let people know when you have accepted other responsibilities
* no need to make excuses if you don't have any free time
* no one will fault you for having already filled your plate
I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THAT
* you might be uncomfortable with any of a number of issues
* the people involved, the type of work, the morale implications, etc.
* this is a very respectful way to avoid a sticky situation
I AM NOT TAKING ON ANY NEW RESPONSIBILITIES
* you aren't saying that you will never help out again
* just that you feel your schedule is as full as you would like now
* understanding your limits is a talent to be expected
I AM NOT THE MOST QUALIFIED PERSON FOR THE JOB
* if you don't feel that you have adequate skills, that's okay
* it's better to admit your limitations up front
* the best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed down the road
I DO NOT ENJOY THAT KIND OF WORK
* life isn't about drudgery -- if you don't enjoy it, why do it?
* don't be afraid to let someone know you just don't want to
* someone else is bound to enjoy the work you don't
I DO NOT HAVE ANY MORE ROOM IN MY CALENDAR
* be honest if your schedule is filled
* "filled" doesn't have to mean really filled
* know when you are scheduled as much as you are willing and stop
I HATE TO SPLIT MY ATTENTION AMONG PROJECTS
* let people know that you want to do a good job for them
* but you can't when your focus is too divided or splintered
* you will be more effective if you focus on one project at a time
I HAVE ANOTHER COMMITMENT
* it doesn't matter what the commitment is
* it can even simply be time to yourself or with friends or family
* you don't have to justify -- you simply aren't available
I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE WITH THAT
* volunteering shouldn't mean learning an entirely new set of skills
* suggest that they find someone who has experience in that area
* offer to help out with something that you already know how to do
I KNOW YOU WILL DO A WONDERFUL JOB YOURSELF
* people often ask for help because they doubt their own abilities
* let them know that you have confidence they will succeed
* you are actually doing them a favor in the long run
I NEED TO FOCUS MORE ON MY PERSONAL LIFE
* don't be ashamed of wanting to spend time with your family
* having a strong family is an important priority in and of itself
* be willing to put your personal needs first
I NEED TO FOCUS ON MY CAREER RIGHT NOW
* often, you have to focus your energies on a work-related task
* you may have to give up some civic or community duties
* if you don't do it, someone else will take on the task
I NEED TO LEAVE SOME FREE TIME FOR MYSELF
* it's okay to be selfish -- in a good way!
* treat your personal time like any other appointment
* block off time in your calendar and guard it with your life
I WOULD RATHER DECLINE THAN DO A MEDIOCRE JOB
* know when you aren't going to be able to deliver a quality product
* the reason doesn't matter -- not enough time, wrong skills, etc.
* whatever the reason is enough for turning a request down
I WOULD RATHER HELP OUT WITH ANOTHER TASK
* saying no doesn't mean that you can't help at all
* if someone asks you to do something you really despise, refuse
* then offer to help with something you find more enjoyable
LET ME HOOK YOU UP WITH SOMEONE WHO CAN DO IT
* if you aren't available to help out, offer another qualified resource
* helping to connect people is a valuable service to offer
* make sure the person you refer will represent you well
NO
* sometimes it's okay to just say no!
* just say it in a way that expresses respect and courtesy
* leave the door open for good relations
NOT RIGHT NOW, BUT I CAN DO IT LATER
* if you really want to help but don't have time, say so
* offer to help at a later time or date
* if they can't wait for you, they'll find someone else
SOME THINGS HAVE COME UP THAT NEED MY ATTENTION
* unexpected things happen that throw your schedule off
* accept that you may need to make a few adjustments
* it is temporary and you will have more time when life stabilizes
THIS REALLY IS NOT MY STRONG SUIT
* it's okay to admit your limitations
* knowing what you can handle and what you can't is a skill
* your time will be more efficiently spent on something you do well

How to manager your conversation with others in office or social setting

This is why I love Lifehacker.com!

Here is
Top 10 Conversation Hacks to let you survive your every day office or social life!

10. Feign sincerity with eye contact and repetition.
When you're just not feelin' it but you've got to look like you are, the Wired How-to wiki suggests ways you can feign sincerity. In short, make eye contact, echo what the person is saying to you back to them, and nod in understanding (even if you're not).


9. End a conversation with body language.
crossedarms.pngWhen that chatty co-worker just won't go away, use some of manager Brendan Connelley's techniques. My favorite is simply standing up (or crossing your arms, or speeding up to a "fast walk") to indicate it's time for that person to go and you're busy. In more desperate situations, grab your cell phone and say, "oh sorry, I've got to take this." Photo by SiBorg.


8. Ask sensitive questions indirectly to skip awkwardness.
When the info you need from someone is somewhat sensitive, check out journalist advice site MBToolbox's suggestions for asking delicate questions indirectly. Use the bluff ("the breakup must've been hard, huh?") or blame others ("so has anyone asked about your prison time?") or the indirect inquiry ("what year did you get divorced?") to broach sensitive topics with tight-lipped folks with more ease and less awkward silence.


7. Use silence to win arguments and nail a negotiation.
Lawyers and price hagglers know that a little silence can go a long way. When the other party offers a price, opt for a long pause to indicate hesitation, which might prompt them to go lower. In the case of arguments, prolonged silence may frustrate the other person—but it'll also make you look like the winner. (The evil winner, but the winner nonetheless.)


6. Soften critiques with the sandwich method.
crithamburger.png When you need to critique someone—whether it's a co-worker's presentation or a spouse's choice of outfit—start with a compliment, then mention your critique, then end on a positive note. The "criticism hamburger" gets the message across but softens the blow.
5. Say "no" gently—or say "yes, but...."
When someone's asking you to do something you just don't want to—or don't have the time—there are ways to say "no" that are polite and respectful and won't burn any bridges. OnlineOrganizing.com offers 20 "scripts" for turning down a request, from "I'm in the middle of several projects right now" to "I'm not the right person for that job." (I've found that suggesting someone else or offering a tip on the best way to proceed also helps a whole lot.) Master of attention-firewalling Merlin Mann says you can partially commit by qualifying your "yes" with specific boundaries around what you'll do (that also imply what you won't).


asking.png
4. Ask questions well.
When you need information, the people that have it need some reason to help you. Whether you're posting a question on a tech support forum or asking a colleague for help, here are some ways you can master the art of asking to get the answers you need.


3. De-code office jargon.
officejargon.png Client want to "touch base"? Manager want to "get on the same page"? Corporate euphemisms translate into pretty strong words, and you'll navigate your career a whole lot better if you recognize the ones that mean "get off your ass." Career adviser Penelope Trunk offers a non-nonsense dictionary for parsing office-speak.


2. "Pace and lead" an irate person.
angryguy.pngWhen you're dealing with someone who is absolutely freaking out—like a parent flipping out at the playground—use school administrator Bert Webb's "pace and lead" technique. Instead of remaining calm, match the other party's emotional intensity to show you're empathetic, then lead the complainant to a calmer level of discourse.


1. Become a human lie detector.
When you suspect someone isn't telling the whole truth, tune into their voice, eyes, and body language. Monster.com's Marty Nemko lists a few indicators that should trip your BS detector, like a sudden change in voice pitch, rate of speech, or "ums" and "ahs," a change in eye contact, and body position. Similarly, project manager Scott Berkun weighs in on how to detect bullshit.


Perhaps the greatest human behavior and communication hack is an awareness of what makes people tick. If you can offer someone something they want, they'll give you what you want in return.

Building your team for your own startup

Mashable did it again. Check out Startup Hacks: Seven Ideas for Building Your Team

Seven ideas for building your startup team:


1. Hire like-DNA

Like DNA doesn’t necessarily mean like personalities. Hire people who get it, who see the world the same, but that have complementary skills. There’s an old saying that “it takes all kinds,” but don’t take that too literally. If you do, you’ll have analysis paralysis and you won’t accomplish anything in a timeframe that matters.

2. Too many chiefs

Don’t hire too many execs; being top heavy isn’t fun. It comes with egos, turf wars, high expense to your cash and cap table. A VP level role must be severely justified. Just because someone is the first employee, doesn’t mean they’re a VP. And just because someone’s a founder, doesn’t mean they’re a VP either. While we’re here, “founder” is not a job title, so avoid behaving as if it were.

3. Build a low fat company

People tend to over-hire so that they can scale to meet the demands of a hockey stick business that’s coming any day now. Don’t hire until it’s clear you have one of those hockey stick situations. You’ll burn less venture, social and emotional capital. The more bodies, the more drama and associated management. The fewer bodies, the less of that and likely the more you get done. You’ll be able to make decisions faster and implement them even faster. Understand, that in the early stages of a company, getting small wins is key. Momentum is like that: the sum of the small wins yields the bigger win, so on and so forth.

4. Be scrappy and hire scrappy

It’s the only way to fly in this era. Scrappy people find a way, they create momentum, they make things happen, they thrive on roadblocks, they don’t read the manual, they figure things out, they see the forest and the trees, they find openings in the field, they try fast and fail fast, but apply lessons learned quickly.

5. Can you feel it?

Chemistry is so, so, so important. You need to be able to WANT to have a drink or a meal with the people on your team. You need to be able to call B.S. at times, and for your teammates to not take things personally. You need to have personal and company alignment of interests. This level of engagement is only had with strong chemistry.

6. Hire in tribes

If you can find people that have enjoyed and had success working together in the past, keep them together. You can’t buy that. It’s like an instant catapult, and there’s no substitute.

7. Don’t hire (or partner with) your friends (for friendship sake)

Make sure there’s a major fit to the task or vision, otherwise you put a friendship on the line - and that can only go one of two ways. I have a friend that to this day is hurt because I didn’t ask him to join a company I started. Truth was, we had a good chemistry friendship, but that didn’t qualify for a good chemistry business venture. I’m just glad to still have the friendship.

Maverick's Startup Rules

Maverick put together his rules to be successful in the startup: A Couple of My Rules for Startups.

1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.

4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap

6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.

7. No offices. Open offices keeps everyone in tune with what is going on and keeps the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a start up. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who can not operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over their secretary, run away. If an exec wont go on salescalls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista... ask yourself why, then use it. Its a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.

9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.

10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, its ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money

11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.

12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out 100 dollar bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or 10 for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party :0

Great way to promote your business

Best of all, they are free!

10 Ways to Promote a Business Online for Free

Great post mortem story of failed web 2.0 company (Monitor110)

There are great lessons to be learned and followed if you want to success in web 2.0 company. Monitor110: A Post Mortem does not provide formula for success but it does provide great insight to what went wrong for Monitor110.

Full quote as follows:

Turning Failure into Learning

Writing a post mortem is hard, particularly when the result is failure: a failed deal; a failed investment; a failed concept. That said, without a post mortem, without deep reflection, honesty and introspection, how can we get better and do better the next time? Quite simply, we can't. My involvement with Monitor110, as an investor, Board member and leader, was one of the most interesting and informative experiences of my life. I learned about areas I never dreamed of. I worked with a terrific group of young, exceptionally bright people who believed in the vision. Ultimately, we failed. But why did we fail, and what could we have done differently? Some of the stuff is pure 20:20 hindsight. These observations aren't worth much. But the interpersonal dynamics, the issues of organizational structure, the need to change strategy in light of new information, the relationship with key investors, all of these are very instructive. I will endeavor to be as honest and candid as possible.

Let me say that I deeply respect everybody involved with Monitor110 from the original founder, Jeff Stewart, to our investors, employees and customers. Everyone tried very hard to make things work, and this post is not an indictment of anyone. There are no "bad actors" in this story. But a confluence of factors made success an uphill struggle.

The Seven Deadly Sins

While we certainly made more than seven mistakes during the nearly four-year life of Monitor110, I think these top the list.

1. The lack of a single, "the buck stops here" leader until too late in the game
2. No separation between the technology organization and the product organization
3. Too much PR, too early
4. Too much money
5. Not close enough to the customer
6. Slow to adapt to market reality
7. Disagreement on strategy both within the Company and with the Board

A Little Background

I was initially approached in early 2005 by Jeff Stewart, who had the original idea for Monitor110. It was a compelling idea. The thesis: more and better information is being put out on the Internet every day, information that can be valuable to Institutional investors who are constantly looking for an edge. And these investors were not very sophisticated about how to best access this information; Monitor110 would use technology to help them get that edge. Jeff and a few guys had hacked together a version 1.0 of the system, which was based on a boolean matching engine with rules corresponding to each company and investment theme. It was fast. It worked ok. We spent some time working with PubSub, who had built a scalable matching engine but was not focused on the financial services industry.

By mid-2005 the system worked, but spam was becoming more prevalent and caused the matching results to deteriorate, e.g., too much junk clogging the output. Around the same time we started to dig into natural language processing and the statistical processing of text, thinking that this might be a better way to address the spam issue and to get more targeted, relevant results. This prompted us to not push version 1.0, instead wanting to see if we could come up with a more powerful release using NLP to mark the kick-off. In retrospect, this was a big mistake. Mistake #5, to be precise. We should have gotten it out there, been kicked in the head by tough customers, and iterated like crazy to address their needs. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. Didn't.

An Unusual Leadership Structure

The idea was that Jeff was the technology guy and I was the business guy. Jeff focused on technology and product and I focused on fund raising, HR, controls and client access (given my Wall Street and hedge fund rolodex). On paper, made sense. Jeff was a successful three-time entrepreneur, I was an experienced senior Wall Street executive. The problem was, however, that when it came time to make hard decisions the two-headed structure really didn't work. It was a technology company working to solve a complex problem, and ultimately technology dominated the discussion. Ultimately, we ended up building something that the business side was not happy with, which made selling it difficult. An indication of Mistake #2. Neither Jeff nor I had the power, real or perceived, to simply change direction. The Board was supportive of this management structure. This was also a mistake. Mistake #1.

A Real Product versus a Science Project

We talked about "release early/release often," but were scared of looking like idiots in front of major Wall Street and hedge fund clients. Is it better to wait a bit before releasing to have a more compelling product or to begin getting feedback on a less impressive offering? We chose #1; in retrospect I think we should have chosen #2. By choosing to wait we lost our intimacy with the customer (Mistake #5 again), falling into the classic (as a "green" entrepreneur I didn't know this, but as a seasoned four-year venture investor I know this now) trap of pursuing a "science project," not building a commercially salable product. Dumb. Another problem: technology and product management were effectively bundled together, with the same decision-makers for both. This was another crucial error, #2 again. Instead of having product management as the advocate for the customer and the product evangelist, we had technology running the show in a vacuum. Huge mistake. This allowed us to perpetuate the science project for much, much longer than we should have. There were no checks-and-balances built into the system. This was a recipe for failure. I intuitively knew it then but as an inexperienced entrepreneur didn't feel empowered to act. Really, really stupid. After 20 years of making consistently good business decisions why didn't I throw a fit and and be more assertive in communicating my concerns? No good answer here.

And these bad behaviors were reinforced by an unplanned event that sharply impacted our psyche: being on the front page of the Financial Times. It is hard to call it a mistake since we didn't seek to get such exposure, but I put it down as Mistake #3. To be honest, this single fact was a very meaningful factor in our failure. It raised the level of expectations so high that it made us reluctant to release anything that wasn't earth-shattering. It was also catalyst for us raising our last and largest round of capital. So the net effect was that it enabled to raise all this money that kept us far from the customer. Truth be told, we were probably afraid of customers at this point because we didn't want to disappoint them or look bad. Oh, we'd build something they'd love. We just wouldn't show it to them until it was done. Ugh. Just so stupid.

Too Much Money

Too much money is like too much time; work expands to fill the time allotted, and ways to spend money multiply when abundant financial resources are available. By being simply too good at raising money, it enabled us to perpetuate poor organizational structure and suboptimal strategic decisions. Mistake #4. We weren't forced early on to be scrappy and revenue focused. We wanted to build something that was so good from the get-go that the market would simply eat it up. Problem was, with all that money we hid from the market while we were building, almost ensuring that we would come up with something that the market wouldn't accept. And then there were technology issues that came up along the way, very substantive issues, that because of so much money we simply didn't face into nearly fast enough. And this drove a wedge in the company between those that were more plugged into the market (and felt we weren't building the right thing or addressing the data issues the right way) and those who were building the product (and felt very convinced that what they were building was responsive to the market). I would almost argue that too much money enabled the other six mistakes to be made again and again and again. Seems counter-intuitive, right? It's not. And believe me, I am super sensitive to this issue now as an investor. If a company wants to raise significantly more money than I think they need to get to revenue, I push back. Hard.

Investor Expectations versus Market Reality

We raised money based on a vision of a scalable web portal, a tool that would eventually be the web-enabled side of Bloomberg. We never believed we'd replace Bloomberg, Reuters or Thomson for market data and mainstream news, but that we'd eventually become a necessary part of the Institutional investor research mosaic. We were positioned as a technology company, not as an alternative research provider or a services business. And it was the deep belief in Monitor110 as a pure technology company that created a rift between the business side of the company and powerful members of the Board. Mistakes #6 and #7, as you'll soon see.

We did an angel round in the latter part of 2005 followed by an institutional round early in 2006, enough money, we thought, to help us build the new version 1.0 of the product. We then did another institutional round in Q3 2006 to further execute against this vision, because the money was offered to us on a pre-emptive basis and around six months earlier than we were planning to do a raise. The new release would be whizzy, fast, comprehensive and use all that neat technology to analyze unstructured data in real time, and to score each data element by reputation and relevance. Easy to filter, discover and analyze. Super cool, right? Sure. Problem was, we started out trying to analyze most of the dynamic web (probably up to 100 million sources by now) in real-time, and using technology (NLP, pattern matching, etc.) to do the filtering, indexing and categorization. This was no mean engineering feat. We had a very, very large and complex back-end. And even with this, the quality of the data coming through to the end-user was just not that good. Too much spam, still. Duplicate posts. Sometimes mis-categorized. Difficulty applying our reputation algorithms. Not good.

Those closer to the customer wanted to effectively chuck this approach and to build up a high-value corpus of data from the bottom up, using our deep knowledge of the source universe to assemble a body of data from publishers of high reputation. Really more akin to a "Bloomberg for the Web" than the original product, as the sources would be of high-quality and indexed correctly. They also wanted to build a research capability, where a desk could generate customized reports for clients leveraging our technology and data. But making this fundamental change to our approach towards data and the business model resulted in a fight. Almost a jihad, where certain parts of the company were vehemently in favor of changing our approach while others said "improvement to the current system is right around the corner." This could only happen because of Mistakes #1 and #2, where nobody could pound the table and say "this is the way we're going to do it and here's why," nor could the business side simply say "this is what our clients want. This is why we should do it." We were one big, passionate, driven, dysfunctional family. This argument played out over months and months, and cost us an enormous amount of money. Eventually we did change our approach to data, but it was a fight that spiritually damaged the company and morale and had a financial impact that substantially depleted our coffers.

And in Conclusion

The good news for me personally is that I now invest in a way that actively seeks to avoid the seven deadly sins listed above, and the performance of my portfolio companies bears this out. But I simply wasn't smart enough or experienced enough to see all of these mistakes or to feel empowered to do something about them until it was too late. I would like to thank all of our investors for having the confidence in us to pursue the Monitor110 vision, and I'm sorry that we weren't financially successful. I'd also like to thank the people with whom I worked during my tenure at Monitor110. Not a bad apple in the lot. Smart, hard-working, highly motivated professionals. They will invariably do extremely well in their post-Monitor110 lives.

The market for alternative information and tools is very, very challenging, and the current market environment isn't making it any easier. But there are clear needs out there that should and will be addressed. I will write a post on the alternative information market at a later time. Thanks for listening.

The know how of hiring the best!

Small Business Trends puttogether article on How to Hire the Best (for the least expense)

Great article to follow through to maximize your dollar for the quality employees.

SET THE STAGE

• STEP 1: Clear, Precise, Thorough Job Description.

Make absolutely sure this is your first step. Appropriate levels of detail vary for each job. Include the need that’s solved with this person’s hire. It’s impossible to measure their success, and yours for their hire, without it. Include their incentives. Do not proceed to go before this is completed.

Your goal is clear now. The next step is made easier.

• STEP 2: Clear, Precise, Job Qualifications.

The details make the difference here, too. Your work environment, the setting, their workspace, personality of their colleagues…all must be included along with specific task-related skills necessary to perform the tasks of the job. You’ll hire the person that fits your needs, stated or not. The purpose here is to state them clearly, for everyone’s acceptance.

• STEP 3: TOE the line.

o Transparent. You’ll be rewarded with greater engagement, participation, input and…forgiveness as you make this recruiting process transparent for all. Tell everyone, tell them repeatedly and put it in writing. And demand the same of everyone else. Small companies usually are at an advantage here. But this is a double-edged sword.

o Openness. Keep all parties informed, all to all, on the progress of each step in this recruiting process. It’s time-consuming if your time horizon is very short. Otherwise, it’s obvious this is an investment whose immediate return comes in the form of …

o Engagement. The holy grail of small business success. Recruiting and hiring is a perfect opportunity to create another layer of engagement with the current members, with the future member.

Everyone now knows when and what you want to hire. And why.

And they know they’re engaged in the process.

Who and Where are the next questions. Who has the qualifications? Where do you find them?

PERFORM

• STEP 1: Look Within.

The first place, usually the best place, for all your company’s solutions rests internally. That’s everyone in your company: your employees, your colleagues. It’s their evangelism that’s brought your team together. Their evangelism brings your customers to you. Look to them. They know best how to solve your company’s needs. They’ll know best who will work best.

o Note: Some company circumstances allow customers and partners/vendors to be included at this stage. I’d label that step 1A. Do it only A. if your relationships make it possible; B. after you’ve asked, transparently, your closest confidantes: your employees.

• STEP 2: Evaluate Within.

Vet the potential candidates internally before contacting any directly. This is most important in any small, close-knit community, whether it’s geographical or professional. This step will save time, money and embarrassment for all involved.

• STEP 3: Create a single point of contact.

Identify one person to contact any potential candidates after being vetted internally first. This respects the confidentiality of the candidates, avoids conflicting messages and saves everyone time. Let this person manage the interactions (interview follow-up, additional interviews) with the candidates. It can be the hiring manager. You can also use this process to test the capabilities of a promising member of your company.

EXPANDING THE SEARCH.

You’ve been unable to hire your desired candidate. Maybe, you’ve even interviewed one or two with no success. But any possible candidates for further review have been eliminated.

Now, what? What are your options?

• Ads? Be prepared for an onslaught of unqualified emails, resumes and phone calls.

If you must use an ad, I’d encourage you to keep the name of your company confidential. Competitors don’t need to know. Idle and incorrect gossip is kept to a minimum.

• Recruiters?

Be careful. And I say that having been a recruiter for corporate bankers back in the day. A top-notch, professional, recruiter with high levels of integrity can bring added-value to your company with each search they handle. They can find better candidates, they can do a better job of screening candidates, they can focus your time on meeting only the best of the candidate pool.

Unfortunately, it’s a minority of recruiters who fit this bill. No offense. But the potential for conflicts of interest, the lack of any enforced standards, the lack of loyalty…all increase the risk of an expensive and unproductive experience.

IF…you choose a recruiter, make sure it comes recommended from a trusted source. And, follow these recommendations:

o Verify their universe of candidates? What companies, competitors, do they have an existing relationship? This is the list from which they cannot recruit candidates for your job. The bigger the list, the smaller pool of candidates to draw from.

o Testimonials. Do NOT move forward without 5-10-15 wonderful testimonials.

o Expenses. Don’t pay them…unless it’s a very high-level position that requires a high-level of personal, confidential handling and it’s a limited universe of candidates.

o Maximum fee. Most recruiters are compensated based on a percentage of the salary of the candidate you hire from their recommendation. That incentivizes them to encourage you to pay more. Fix a maximum fee, regardless of the candidate’s eventual salary.

o Timelines and deadlines. Get them in writing. Hold them accountable with penalties for non-performance.

• Two potential resources.

I’ve used neither. But if I’ve told you to NOT use a recruiter…and you’re out of candidates…I should offer a solution.

o New-Hire.

I chose this company in recent weeks as my Small Business Resource of the Week. I’ve met the CEO, Chuck Smith. He came recommended by Steve MacGill, CEO and founder of Peersight Online. The testimonials for New-Hire were plentiful and their responses were near immediate and universally enthusiastic. I had created a partnership with them while CEO at another company.

Their key is that not only will they work with you to craft the text of your and work to place your ads for maximum responses, but they have an online application that lets you create a screening questionnaire and filter the candidates based on their answers. This let spend time only with those candidates you want to meet.

Chuck’s had many years in the recruiting and hiring business. And if you really, really want a recruiter they offer that service also.

o Hire Insight.

If I didn’t know New-Hire, I’d talk with Chad Hayward at Hire Insight. We’ve exchanged emails. I like his approach:

In terms of fishing or farming, the key is treating the process like a marketing activity (see http://blog.hireinsightselect.com/?p=12 ). Basically, this means developing an employer brand and designing appealing materials, such as postings, around that brand (i.e., “why would someone want to work for you?”). Of course, then there is the need to find the right places to market that job (generic job boards are not the only option, and is often not best); maybe we could offer suggestions on where readers could post vacancies.

In summary, I hope some of this helps clarify some steps to take to insure you recruit the Best Talent for the least expense.

The Best …for the Least. (It should be every small company’s motto in every thing they, we, do. It’s an easy way to A. be a stand-out; B. keep the cash-flows positive.)

Best motivational article I have ever read!

7 Habits to Master the Art of Winning against the Odds is the best motivational article I have ever read. It give you the how the slump happens to how to overcome the problem you are facing.

Success in life is determined by your ability to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
~ Winston Churchill

I can help take someone from failure to success but I can’t take them from excuses to success because if you’re making excuses you haven’t yet realized where the real problem lies.
~ John Maxwell

The main idea behind it are following 7 habits:

1. Learn to accept responsibility for your actions.
2. Admit your mistakes.
3. Develop mental toughness.
4. One goal at a time.
5. Develop your inner self.
6. Focus on what you can control.
7. Never stop learning.

Browser Add-On Business?

Is it really plausible? It is hard to tell and it's in the gray area where it depends on many other factors. ReadWriteWeb have published interesting article Can Browser Add-ons Be Businesses?

Conclusion is as follows:

Browser add-ons are increasingly interesting ways to reach consumers. Since the browser is the most used application on the desktop and major browsers are platforms, businesses are looking for opportunities to reach consumers through this new channel. Better than desktop applications, browser add-ons are light and update automatically.

As with any vertical business, only a few add-ons can become real businesses. The competition is tough and the business models have not been mapped out that well. Yet if there's a shot at reaching users via a download, browser add-ons seem to be it.

Productivity TIP - Priority

Many times it is very hard to be productive and being able to achieve the goals that are set forth due to the fact that there are too many things that needs to be done.

Lifehacker published article that How Priorities Make Things Happen. Main theme idea is that by really thinking through what is the real priority that is either do or die can make it easier for people to give visibility of what needs to be done.

It also helps clamping down the meeting as well as achieve productive meetings as quoted from the article:

When there is uncertainty or disagreement, reframe the discussion around the priorities using questions like these.

* What problem are we trying to solve?
* Does this problem relate to our top goals or is it a distraction?
* Is this problem important enough to warrant changing our priorities?
* What is the simplest way to resolve this that will allow us to meet out goals?
* If we're struggling to meet our goals, which goal can we drop down to Priority 2?

Also, setting the proper priorities with good fundamental will involve saying no to many things as shown here.

One effect of having priorities is how often you have to say no. It's one of the smallest words in the English language, yet many people have trouble saying it. The problem is that if you can't say no, you can't have priorities. The universe is a large place, but your priority one list should be very small. That small list means there are thousands of good ideas that must be denied to focus your energy on the ones you've chosen to pursue. If you continually say yes to ideas that do not match your priorities, you are saying yes to failure. If you want to change your priorities, that's one thing, but if you are constantly changing them then they were never priorities at all. You did not think deeply enough about them if, emotionally, they are easy to change every few hours. So a fundamental law is this: if you can't say no, if you can't protect your priorities, you can't make things happen.

12 PR secrets that all startups should know

TechCrunch did it again. They gathered great PR Secrets for Startups as shown in the quote below. Enjoy.

Secret #1
Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town

Bloggers and reporters are some of the busiest people you could possibly hope to meet. They’re actively looking for the most interesting, relevant, and linkable stories out there, preferably before anyone else can run with it. But truthfully, they spend most of their time hacking through the weeds of generic or over-the-top inbound emails, press releases, Facebook messages, Skypes, SMSes, Tweets, and IMs. It’s almost a small miracle that anyone can ever get their story told.

At the end of the day, you’re not the only company with a great story. Just because your story is new doesn’t make it newsworthy.

Bloggers and journalists are interested in good stories and the more time you spend developing that story up front, for each person you’re trying to reach, the more you can help them help you.

Secret #2
Pick the Right Person or Team to Lead PR.

Your investors or advisors will tell you one of two things, usually starting with “you need PR.” From there, they’ll usually recommend that you either bring on an agency or consultant, one that they’ve worked with and can highly recommend. Or, they’ll suggest that you need to do it yourself (DIY) in order to build relationships with those who are highly respected in your target markets while conserving cash.

While DIY PR sounds good, you’ll quickly learn however, that it takes more time than you think to reach those people. Besides, you have other things to focus on and any good PR program will place you in a position to build relationships with the influencers that matter to your business.

Anyone can write a press release and blast it to a bunch of people. Remember, sometimes you get what you pay for and other times you just get ripped off. So, it’s important that you find the right solution that you can afford, but at the same time, offer your PR team the ability to deliver on the results that are realistic to what you need now.

When you do meet with PR people, evaluate them based on their ability to tell you succinctly who they have represented and pay attention to how well they summarize each company and what they do. Having existing relationships and the ability to show previous results is not optional.

Also quiz them on whether or not they understand the market, tech, benefits and the challenge as it relates to you specifically. If they can’t sell you on your product, how do you expect them to sell it to skeptical bloggers and journalists.

The two most important things to ask a potential PR consultant or agency are 1) do you have the bandwidth required to help us achieve these defined objectives and ? if it’s an agency ? 2) who’s going to work on my account and if it’s not you, can I meet the others on the team as well.

Secret #3
Participation is Marketing

You are equally important to the PR process. It doesn’t hurt to introduce yourself to bloggers or reporters offline and online to start building relationships with influencers who will help craft and guide your company across the market adoption bell curve.

Read and comment on their work. Send a brief intro email before you need anything. Attend one of the many tech networking events in your area to build your social capital, meet those who can help you, and those who you, in turn, can help as well.

Participation is marketing and by actively participating in both the online and real worlds, you forge relationships that will help your brand and social capital grow.

Keep in mind, how you participate, both online and in the real world, also contributes to your brand ? especially in the realm of social media. Comments, social network profiles, blog posts, pictures you share, etc., are all discoverable in traditional search engines and new media search tools.

Secret #4
Identify The Target Audience For Every Step Of Your Growth

Observe and document where you are in the state of the technology and market adoption and determine realistic goals and objectives that will help your business get to the next step. This is an especially important part as it will reveal who your customers are and where they go for information.

Now more than ever, it’s important to realize that there is no “one” audience for your story. Influence is usually a left-to-right process that picks up momentum and mass attention along the way. It fans out in the process.

This step allows you to identify which voices, blogs or media outlets reach your target audiences right now and at every step of your growth (you’ll see that your audience evolves along with your company).

Secret #5
Don’t Launch on Mondays

Pick a news or launch date, say Thursday at 11:30 a.m. PST, and build in a cushion to start talking to the right people under embargo before you roll out. Mondays and early mornings are usually the most congested. Releasing it later will most likely earn greater attention.

A quick note on embargoes and exclusives. Embargoes are a form of sharing news with media where they agree to not publish the news before an agreed upon date/time. Whereas exclusives require that you give your story to one person, and one person only. Choose carefully, as once someone runs with the story; chances are that other newsmakers will pass.

Embargoes and exclusives are not to be manipulated or taken advantage of. You should respect them and the people you’re working with.

Allowing journalists and bloggers adequate time to prepare is critical. They’re busy and they need more than an hour to digest and write a story. Once a press release or the news is made public, they no longer pay attention anyway. Their job (in an ideal world) is to break news, not to rewrite press releases.

Determine which reporters and bloggers should be part of the initial news discussions (under embargo). I’m a huge proponent of the “less is more” embargo strategy to try to 1) demonstrate appreciation for those you want to work with?it should be different with each type of announcement you feel is truly “newsworthy,” according to which audiences the news is best suited; and 2) to reduce or eliminate the chance that someone might break the embargo by running the story early (usually by mistake?sometimes you learn the hard way though.)

Secret #6
No Two Bloggers or Journalists are Created Equal

Do your homework. Once you’ve identified those whom you’d like to work with before and after the news date, make sure that the PR team researches individual preferences for contact before they reach out.

This is about relationships and creating a value cycle from PR to bloggers, journalists and ultimately to the people you want to reach with your news. This hopefully isn’t the last time you’ll reach out to these influeners, so work with them, their way, in order to earn the opportunity to collaborate again.

Relationships are cultivated and should be mutually beneficial as dictated by the extra time the PR team takes to personalize and package the story and align it with their workflow.

Perception is everything. Do the legwork and the outreach that contributes to the reputation you wish to earn and maintain. Anything less takes away from it.

Secret #7
Measure Success, Not Traffic

Establishing metrics at the beginning is important for setting expectations on both sides as well as establishing the bar for performance. Coverage is important but no one can ever predict or guarantee whether or not the blogs or news media you target will cover a particular story. However, establishing a quantity (based on quality) of coverage to shoot for is healthy, as long as you take into consideration an attrition factor.

PR can also be measured by conversations sparked online due to initial coverage, referring traffic as well as registrations and/or downloads. Analysis and measurement will reveal a path for prioritizing your targets now and in the future.

Be realistic in the number of visitors you establish as a metric. Also, make sure the site’s registration or download process is simple and that the messages around it are short and powerful. PR can bring traffic all day long, but if visitors aren’t reminded as to why they’re there or if the process is at all too cumbersome, the conversion ratio of visitors to users will quickly diminish.

Secret #8
Customize the News For Each Influencer to Make His Or Her Job Easier

I’ve been privy to an uncountable array of company pitches and it never ceases to amaze me just how few can actually summarize what they do and why it matters.

Focus on the elevator pitch and make it compelling, memorable, and relevant. Brevity is key.

Make sure to summarize each news announcement with a couple of statements and bullets to quickly showcase why anyone should care. Package the story differently for each person you’re hoping to reach, as each will have different needs. Take the time to pull relevant screen shots, create user accounts for each person if necessary, customize video demos and screencasts, and anything else someone may need to write a story instead of having to spend precious time doing your work for you.

Yes, it’s time consuming. But this is about building individual relationships and not about broadcasting spam.

Secret #9
Get a Spokesperson

This one breaks my heart each and every time. As I mentioned before, I’ve witnessed thousands of startup presentations and a majority are too painful to endure. Company founders are naturally enthusiastic and passionate about their product, but unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily make them the best spokesperson.

First impressions are everything, and publicly showcasing your company, on stage, online, in print, or via broadcast media, requires nothing less than a polished, personable, and contagious presentation.

As hard as it is to pass the torch, this is one of those times where you really don’t have much of a choice if you’re not absolutely, 100% the best voice of the company. All hope isn’t lost however. You can embrace media and presentation training, and when tied to a tight elevator pitch and convincing messaging platform, you may indeed emerge as the ideal spokesperson for your brand.

Secret #10
Your Company Blog is More Powerful Than You May Think

I’m sure you’ve all read that having a company blog is critical to maintaining communication with your community.

First, don’t under estimate it. Second, don’t over estimate it. A blog is the voice and the soapbox for thought leadership, vision, solutions, milestones, and advice. At the very least, it contributes to the personality of your corporate brand. The best blogs become a resource and a destination, which helps improve your bottom line. For example, Google’s official blog is number 16 in Technorati’s Top 100 list of popular blogs.

In a world of building relationships with bloggers, reporters, analysts, partners and customers, your strategy simply can’t rely on only contacting everyone when you have news. Relationships require cultivation and nurturing. The company blog can help.

Prior to and in between announcements, make sure you’re out there actively commenting on relevant blog posts. But don’t leave short, irrelevant, kiss-ass, or angry comments. Contribute to the value of the conversation and make sure it links back to your blog. Also host relevant conversations on your blog and link out to your most valuable contacts wherever possible. They do pay attention.

Maybe this goes without saying, but I’m going to mention it anyway. Don’t break your news on your own blog!

Like press releases crossing the wire, breaking news on your blog makes the news less valuable if others haven’t yet had an opportunity to break it for you first. It’s like the new car analogy. The value of the car drops the minute you drive it off the lot. Time your post for after when the news breaks and link to everyone who helped cover the story. (Unless, of course, you are Google, in which case you can do whatever you want)

Secret #11
Blogger Relations Extends from the “A-List” to the Magic Middle

Online conversations are distributed and it now requires PR to identify the relevant silos that reach valuable niche markets.

The best communications strategies will envelop not only authorities in new and traditional media, but also those voices in the “Magic Middle” of the attention curve. The Magic Middle, as David Sifry defined it, are the bloggers who have from 20-1000 other people linking to them. It is this group that enables PR people to reach The Long Tail and they help carry information and discussions among your customers directly in a true peer-to-peer approach. And, in many cases, these bloggers are your prospective customers. Their effects on the bottom line are constant and measurable over time.

Secret #12
Follow the Conversations and Join In

As much as media and blogger relations drive traffic and increase your user base, we can’t overlook the importance of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Diigo, FriendFeed, Ning, Mixx, Bebo, Get Satisfaction, Google and Yahoo Groups (among many, many others). When executed and managed correctly, and genuinely, the referring numbers can outperform the best articles and posts and the relationships that you create within these networks will prove incredibly valuable throughout the life of your company.

This isn’t about promotion or social network spam. This is about dialog driven by the insight you garner from listening to and reading the people who are talking about your company ? with or without your direct participation.

Try searching for your company, product, or competitor’s name in any of the above networks or any other social network, to see how they’re being discussed. By researching individual conversations, threads, and/or groups, you’ll find strategic points of entry across the board. This does take time, and may prove too overwhelming for you to run individually. Hiring a community manager or empowering your PR team to do so is a great place to start, that way they can point you to the conversations that require your attention or handle them directly.

Listening is as important as publishing. The best listeners make the best conversationalists. Make sure to keep a Google Alert for your company, spokespersons, and products. Reading and responding is critical to managing perceptions, sharing expertise, and building loyalty.

There’s no question, you have to compete for attention and in order to do so effectively and genuinely, you need someone who can help tell your story, the right way, through the people who reach your customers. It’s not an overnight process and it’s not something to “be gamed.” It’s a process of investing in, building and leveraging relationships now and in the long term. And yes, if you do things right, bloggers, reporters, and analysts will want to talk to you about your company and vision along the way.