Financial Storyteller

The changing nature of purchasing decisions

Over the last few years I've started using some form of mind mapping software. In keeping with my goal to move as much to the cloud as I could I started with  bubbl.us. I like bubbl.us - it's easy to use and free. However I found I wanted a little more functionality. After lots of research with the help of Chuck Frey's excellent Mind Mapping Software Blog, I tried the beta of Webspiration. For a web application I was impressed and for the better part of a year I used it to capture lots of corporate processes and models. Recently though cracks in my cloud have started to appear and I started looking at what else was out there.

After extensive (for me!) research I am now on day two of my trial with Novamind.  Aside from basic functionality and the user experience (which other offerings also have) I chose the Aussie company for the following reasons:

• They do have a Mac version.
• They do have an active online community they participate in.
• They did let me download the version of their software I wanted for 30 days.
• They have a new version coming out which they will upgrade new users to for free.
• The CEO, Gideon King is on twitter and followed me back.

I did write a detailed piece on each of the above. However, what I think is really important about the list is what it says about how I made my decision. A purchase is no longer about a simple exchange of money for product. It is also a fee for opening up a conversation. Novamind understands this (as do Batchblue for instance and even Apple to some degree) but you would be surprised how many companies do not.

Is this specific to software? or do other products / services need to pay attention?

Why you should be thinking about twitter part 2 of 2

Once I got past reading about what flavour muffin someone had for breakfast I started looking for different ways to make twitter interesting..

Firstly, I entered a competition. I had to respond to a specific tweet and if I was quick enough or at least selected by the other twitterer I would win a prize. It was simple fun and, surprise surprise, I didn't win - but that's ok because I got what I wanted from the experience.

Next I attended an offline event via twitter. I talked about this in my post "Using Twitter to be part of Howard Schultz Starbucks event" and I have also used it as a research tool as I described in "Comments, urls, twittering storytelling and the financial crisis."

Since then I attended a conference and followed in real-time a twitter feed of that conference. I mentioned this in my post on "Northern Voice 2009 reflections." It was almost impossible to keep up with it, but it did add a new and surprisingly exciting dimension to the conference.

Most recently I was watching the Oscars. On twitter, I only follow a couple of what you might call celebrities, neither of which were there so I missed the whole twittering experience from the actual event I've read about elsewhere. What I did see was adverts. One of these for the old favourite Moët et Chandon champagne. An old friend once used to have a bottle of Moët in the fridge most of the time. “On the off chance” he said. Invariably this meant on the off chance it was a Friday, but I suspect how often this actually happened was somewhat less than my reminiscences suggest – must be the bubbles (hic).  

For as long as I can remember, this product has been pronounced as 'Mo-aye' rather than 'Mo-wett'. I was somewhat surprised when the adverts during the Oscars  used the latter and not the former! So much so that I tweeted about it. Now I only have a hundred or so followers, but all my tweets are public. It turned out that someone from the Domaine Chandon Vineyard in Australia saw my tweet and was able to give me my answer.

It is indeed 'Mo-wett'. Apparently the product was named after a Dutchman, not a Frenchman as previously thought. Consequently I think the 'Mo-aye' pronunciation came about simply because it seemed more sophisticated to have a French-sounding name. You can read more about this vitally important topic here.

I didn't know there was a Chandon vineyard in Australia or anywhere for that matter. Now I will take a look next time I'm in the wine store and might even try the product!

This brings me to why I find all this twittering interesting. I also follow the tweets of a number of products I either already use or want to buy. I've found myself getting quick support questions answered and even getting a discount on a product because the company tweeted a discount code.

I've now counted up around half a dozen different ways you can use Twitter either as an individual or a business. I'm sure there are more. The subject is much discussed, even the New York Times is talking about it, so even if you are old school you should be taking an interest!

One final illustration, amongst other things twitter is becoming an immediate News Feed. I heard about the Hudson Plane Crash within a few minutes on Twitter, Steven Page leaving the Barenaked Ladies hours if not days before I saw it elsewhere! 

Is all this a fad? To borrow from the language of Venture Capitalists, it depends what you mean by a fad.

Why you should be thinking about twitter part 1 of 2

I've had a tempestuous relationship with Twitter. First I loved it, then it drove me crazy I followed lots (too many!) of people. Then as I explained in my post on LinkedIn a while back, I took a knife to it. I unfollowed a lot of people (hundreds!) and, interestingly, my own followers went down.

Effectively, I started the Twitter process again. Who did I really want to follow and why? 

I'm now in a more comfortable place where my Twitter feed remains interesting to me and not cluttered by tweets I have no desire to read. That said, the number of people I follow is increasing again, but at least this time it's not so indiscriminate!

I now see Twitter as another way you can open a conversation with your friends, family, customers, suppliers and even politicians. In part 2 of this post I will lay out some of the interesting things you can do with it, or at least I’ve tried. As a focus of people’s attention it has definitely taken over from flickr, and even blogging.

This last one is interesting, in the last year or two, the excitement of blogging has died down as it has become more accepted. However blogging is still going on, it might even be more erudite (current blogger excepted!) and more useful. Take a look at this post also on twitter for instance.

Twitter could end up going the same way. Stay tuned for part 2 of this article and in the meantime, tweet away my friends, tweet away!

Value from back office trauma with QCDocs.

One of the challenges all new businesses have as they grow is how they deal with all the back office stuff. I'm talking about the book-keeping, customer orders, proposals, expense tracking etc as well as a multitude of other documentation that seems to mushroom exponentially before you realise it! Keeping on top of all this is difficult, especially when you would rather spend the time getting the business in the first place!

Enter Sean Hodgins of QCDocs, who I met this week. Sean's little company takes this pain away. It targets the small business sector and provides a great tool which not only makes the back office easier but also harnesses the information that is buried there. It helps the small business leader not only keep on top of all aspects of his/her business, but have ALL the information he needs at his fingertips.

Sean is building a growing customer base for the business which validates it's value. He is very modest, a good thing as respecting confidentiality is a big deal at QCDocs as it is in all small businesses. That said I do happen to know that if you take a look at the recent Ready to Rocket list, you will find at least half a dozen QCDocs customers. Impressive stuff and I believe there's more to come.

In these troubled times Sean's business seems very well placed. I'm looking forward to learning more about it and I encourage you to check it out.

CaseIT 2009 Winners - The National University of Singapore

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of being a Judge at the 2009 CaseIT Competition. This is an international undergraduate business case competition. The format was pretty much the same as last year and as I described here on this blog last year.

This year's contest was won by the National University of Singapore. From my perspective all four teams who made the final deserve special merit. I have to remind myself that these are, in my advancing years, kids who are half of my age (I know, the term 'kids' isn't right but it does reflect how I feel!). Twenty or so years is a huge block of time and I only wish I'd been exposed to these kind of competitions twenty years ago!

I am not certain but I'm sure I saw one team whose team I saw last year - should the coach read this he will know who he is :-) If so, then I was very very impressed with the progress made in his team's preparation and execution in the last 12 months. Last year I'm not sure the team knew what had hit them, this year the team (different members of course) knew what to expect. Credit to the coach, who sadly I didn't get to speak to - I couldn't stay for the banquet this year.

Also due are congratulations to Ryerson University and our local Kwantlen Polytechnic University who placed second and third respectively. The case study this year centered around TripIt.com - "The best way to organise and share your travel plans". Unlike last year with Plenty of Fish, this is something I DO intend to try! As with last year, the presentations by the teams were very impressive, especially give the limited time they had.

The nice thing about this competition is that the Students at SFU organised the whole competition and surrounding events themselves. Credit to Steven Chia, his committee and also to Blaize Horner Reich who from the judging point of view masterfully herded the bag of screaming cats called judges into the a coherent and professional panel it was. Hopefully there's room in the bag for me next year!

Using Twitter to be part of Howard Schultz Starbucks event

For the second time this week, I followed an event on Twitter (no prizes for what I followed the first time!). However, this time I was able to interact and feel a part of the proceedings.

One of my favourite business stories is Starbucks. Almost 10 years ago I picked up a copy of Howard Schultz's book, "Pour Your Heart Into It" and have watched the story develop ever since. Back in January last year Schultz was back as CEO of the company and started to readdress connecting with his customers.

Back in December he started a series of Customer meet and greets at local Starbucks stores where he sat down with a bunch of customers and staff and had something quite revolutionary: a conversation. Tonight was another of these events, this time at the Lakewood Town Centre Store in Lakewood Washington.

Tonight I was able to join this event by following MSITour on twitter. I along with a bunch of other twitterites were able to ask questions, get updates on what Howard was saying and be a part of an 'extended' event! I realise, Starbucks, or even coffee may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I thought this was jolly interesting.

I learnt a few things along the way. Pike Place Roast is coming to Canada soon, Yay! Howard is also coming to Canada for a future event, Yay! But most important of all, I learnt that Starbucks are making an effort to connect with their customers, starting at the very top. Nothing seemed off limits and  there seemed to be a wide range of topics raised, from healthcare Benefits, to how you can give gratuities.

Personally I made a suggestion but was getting frustrated by the 140 chr limit on Twitter. I was directed in real time to the My Starbucks Idea website, where I could write in more detail. Other customers can then click a thumbs up to build interest for my idea. I'm not so much impressed by my own idea, as by the fact that Starbucks are giving me a route in to raise it.

Starbucks do need to do something to reconnect with their customers and this is one small example of their efforts. I'm hoping Howard will come to Vancouver, BC so I can attend in person next time!

Online financial storytelling on the Common Craft show

Personal Finance is not something I normally talk about, I normally leave that to say Nancy Zimmerman or Alan Yu. Tonight I'm making an exception. Over the last year or so I've been enjoying the numerous little videos by Lee LeFever explaining subjects in Plain English. Subjects such as Wikis, Social Networking and How to elect a US President and many others have all been covered in short, clear and thoroughly enjoyable videos.

The latest edition to this and a prelude I believe to a series on Financial Basics is "How to Save Money in Plain English"

Lee's business is centred around the Common Craft store where you can pay to licence these excellent tools for use in your organisation. Lee is building up a very impressive library and I can't wait to see the Financial Basics series. It is also an excellent example of great storytelling.

Going back to Nancy for a minute, I've started following a series on CBC where she is coaching a couple on how to improve their financial situation. There's also more about this on Nancy's own site of course. That also has the makings of a great story!

Comments, urls, twittering storytelling and the financial crisis

How's that for a subject line?

As I begin to increase my writing I am already learning lessons. One of these happened as I typed the previous sentence. In my head I said 'as I begin to try and increase my writing' then I stopped. 'try and increase' ?  This illustrates that I need to be far more vigilant as I write and probably as I speak as well!

One of the motivations for writing more is to increase the audience I share/discuss my ideas with. Of course writing also means commenting more on other blogs. In the process of doing exactly this I noticed a friend of mine did not allow a url to be recorded on a comment. I have it, via disqus as optional, as is the facility to leave a video comment (still waiting for one of those!). So I asked Alan what the story was. He was kind enough to share his reasoning via email and now, this very helpful blog post.

Interesting stuff I thought. Although I have been blogging since 2004 I am using the New Year to pretend it's new again, so I am looking at all aspects of the process.  This is also an approach I am trying with twitter. In this case I am starting to use it to research a specific subject. Storytelling. I am now following a couple of new interesting people (Gabriel Rossi and Kat Hansen) as well as finding a couple of people I am huge fans of (Stephen Fry and Steve Denning). I'm looking forward to discovering even more in the weeks ahead. By the way, given the second paragraph of this post, Stephen Fry's podcast is very apropos.

Of course one of the biggest stories around at the moment is the financial crisis. It is difficult in some ways to filter the various accounts of all the twists and turns. Yesterday I was thrilled to find that a writer I've been following since the early 1990s, Robert Cringely has a relevant blog. He has a couple actually, but this one is especially aimed at the hunt for a new mortgage on his home. I've already learnt a bunch of things I didn't know before reading it. Robert is US based and I would love to know if he has a twin up here in Canada who can add a Canadian twist to the blog?

Customer Engagement and Community with SixApart and Batchblue

I'd been meaning to write about a new online tool I've been using for a couple of months called BatchBook. The developer Batchblue Software describe it as Small Business CRM, specfically:

BatchBook is an easy-to-use, customizable CRM designed with small businesses in mind. It’s actually three products that work together:

• contact management software
• communications management software
• to-do list management software

I think I originally heard about them on A-List blogger Chris Brogan's website, if you can keep up with his prolific output it's well worth checking out as well

There is lots I could write about on the functionality that BatchBook gives me but what I actually want to talk about is the one thing which has kept me hooked. That is the online community Batchblue have created through their user forums and their willingness to engage with the customer, respond to feedback and solve problems quickly.

Batchblue Software may be a small company but they are doing lots of things right. I get really annoyed when I look at a company's website and can't find names, faces etc. With Batchblue I can. Short of making this a very long post all I will say is that if you connect with your customer, listen to your customer and respond to your customer, you are well on the way to building loyalty. Loyalty means being happy to wait for a new feature, loyalty means understanding you CAN contribute to the future development of something you use and you CAN get recognition for it from the company. Bravo Batchblue I say.

Typepad is another service I use and of all the blogging platforms seems to be the one I come back to. I've recently moved this blog to Typepad (from movable type - I'm not geeky enough for that really!) and more recently established a new blog for the Vancouver Chapter of the Society of Certified Management Accountants.

One thing I liked about Typepad was I could make changes and then hit a button to republish the site, indexes or design and see the results. In the last little while Typepad has moved to a new more 'dynamic' platform and the republish button is no longer there, or required. At least that's what I thought.

Today I made some minor changes and was distraught to see that these were not 'dynamically' reflected. I filed a support ticket (no user forum like batchblue!) and to my honest surprise got an answer. In fact I've had an ongoing exchange all day. I even tweeted whether anyone knew of a user forum. As it happens Ginevra Whalen, the Community Manager for Typepad at Sixapart picked it up and emailed me.

Ginerva answered my questions about why no forum, addressed my struggle with the new platform and offered to help solve the issue. In other words, she reached out and listened to me. As she did the support guys at Typepad went back and forth finally nailing down the problem.

At the end of the day, what started as a frustrating day with Typepad ended up as a very positive experience. Typepad is of course a lot bigger than Batchblue, but I was thrilled to see a consistent response from two key services I use.

My loyalty is assured for both products and I wonder in these difficult times, if an increased focus on customers OUTSIDE the company will help those companies with struggles inside and help ride out the financial storm we are all living through?

Bootup Labs ... Vancouver ... World renowned Technology Centre

When I moved to Vancouver almost three years ago the city was described to me as a 'branch' town. What this meant then and still does today is that there are not too many big Corporate Head Offices based in Vancouver. Numbers from 2005 suggest that BC is home to a tenth of the Top 500 Canadian Companies [source]. Although I can't lay my hands on the source I was reading that office space vacancy rates are low in the City with the amount of new office space being planned in the next few years minimal. Not exactly easy for a big corporate to relocate to Vancouver, even if it wanted to. So who is here?

In 2006 a staggering 98% of all businesses in the Province of BC were classified as small businesses [source ], i.e. up to 50 employees. Of these 83% were 'micro' businesses with no more than 5 employees! BC and especially Vancouver is the land of the entrepreneur. If we turn to the technology sector, 95% of technology based businesses are small businesses. Which for me instantly raises the question of funding. Much as the big corporates are not here, neither are the big heavy weights in terms of venture funding. So how does a business grow beyond the early stage?

From my perspective I see lots of bits and pieces. Various small business support groups, government schemes, University sponsored programmes, competitions and events, but what is the small business community doing itself to help itself? (see Resources for Founders below!) I've long thought that Vancouver has some of brightest people, especially in technology but the experience or access to resources needed to help them make it big is limited. This is a generalisation of course (there have been successes), but I think the community has been crying out for some kind of leadership. Enter Bootup Labs.

This is a new venture led by Boris Mann and Danny Robinson which aims to take "founders from zero to fundable." I had the pleasure of lunch with Danny last week and shared his excitement about what Bootup is trying to do.  Reading the Bootup labs blog is already a wealth of information, for instance this post of Resources for Founders in Vancouver. What caught my eye though was the post called "Venture Capital is Broken, lets Fix It!" where Danny was responding to a post by Jevon Macdonald on the StartupNorth blog. I won't repeat here but encourage you to click through.

When you do, check out the comments to Danny's post. The post itself is well worth reading, but almost as a demonstration of both the power of blogs to create two way conversations AND a demonstration of how key people in the City are supporting what Bootup are trying to do, it's not only well worth reading, it should be MANDATORY.

As a Vancouverite I am proud of what has fast become my city. What Bootup is doing is an important part of making Vancouver into a world renowned Technology Centre, stay tuned! I'm sure there's much more to come.

Projected iPhone costs can be misleading

I was reading some of the great coverage by the CBC of the iPhone launch and found myself raising an eyebrow. Down near the bottom of the article is a section headed "Only Italy more expensive than Canada." I've seen this in many stories where the cost of the iPhone is presented at Voice Plan + Data Plan + System Access Fee multiplied by 36 months.

The reason I raised my eyebrow was that I already have a Voice Plan, I already pay the System Access Fee, but I don't have a Data Plan. So for me the 'cost' of going to an iPhone is the incremental cost of adding the Data Plan + the handset itself.

From most of the coverage I've seen the people buying the iPhone already have a cellphone. So they are already paying something every month. I would also wager than it's highly unlikely these people will do away with a cellphone completely in the next three years.  So whilst I think the 3 year contract is appalling , I think you have to be carefull when doing the price comparison that you don't base your analysis on a false premis.

Personally, if you want to knock the whole idea of an iPhone, doing these cost comparisons is not the best approach. The cost of the handset itself is not significant, $300 is a couple of meals out, it's really the extra $30 per month plus taxes. If I was a completely new customer, i.e. not only new to the Network, but never had a cellphone before, then maybe there's some value in these cost comparisons.

I've not taken the plunge yet on buying an iPhone - I'm still doing the math. One cost which hasn't been mentioned is that many people took over 8 hours (and a horrible experience it was) to get their iPhone and get it activated. Normally the only time I wait that long is at an Airport, where I have no control over the device! Here though, if I was self employed and charged my time out at $100 per hour, getting my hands on an iPhone yesterday just cost me $800 of billable time!

I'll keep working on my math, find answers to questions like "I already pay extra for caller display on my existing plan, will that work for the iPhone?' and watch the stories which will come over the next few weeks.

FinancialStoryteller.com moves to MT 4

You should notice today the blog looks a little different. That's because it is now hosted on Movable Type Version 4, which Zach at Cazinc helped me set up. It's also given me the opportunity to review my existing strategy/design/ approach etc.

The biggest change is that I have integrated all the content from my two previous blogs, this one and Moosehat.com into one place. I wanted a simpler life and have been thinking about having a single blog for a long time.

The design is still a work in progress but for today it is good enough to get working on. I still have a few things to do on the 'infrastructure', such as reinstall Disqus, then I'll work on the whole look and feel.

You will notice the Current Activity and Find Me Elsewhere blocks to the right. These are courtesy of Action Streams, although I did try friendfeed (the widget was not very flexible) and Zach just pointed me at Swurl, which I'll take a look at.

UPDATE: Action Streams is killing the servers in the background for this blog, so has been discontinued. Still looking at different options for this.

One request I do have of my loyal readers, is that if you subscribe through a feed please delete and resubscribe so you are picking up the updated version! Of course any comments and feedback would be welcome.

Redefining my use of LinkedIn

I've been on LinkedIn since early 2004, when I started using it to connect with people in Vancouver. At that time I was planning a reconnaissance trip to the city, ahead of emigrating from the UK. LinkedIn put me in touch with lots of good people and I went on to meet a bunch of them during my visit. The contacts I made were very very helpful and a number have become the closest of my Canadian Friends, since we arrived as permanent residents in the summer of 2005.

My use of LinkedIn was for the longest time unchanged. I believed that it was a numbers game and the more connections you had the more likely you were to get a few that were of value. Of course that statement 'of value' is the interesting point. What does it mean? My general approach to networking has always been to look for what I can offer my network, rather than what I can take from it. What is 'of value' changes over time and although LinkedIn was helpful in the building stages of my network, especially in Vancouver - I had for a few months been rethinking my approach.

My 'policy' so to speak was to be generous in who I connected with, i.e. I didn't really mind if I knew them or not. Some I had brief email discussions with, but generally I didn't. Apart from a mass invite activity I did in 2004/2005 I've only actually invited people recently that I'd met, so change was on the cards. As LinkedIn added to their offering I started following a feed of my network's activity. Increasingly this has become frustrating.

Most of the updates etc I was reading came from people that quite honestly, I didn't really know. Consequently they were of little interest. What would be of interest would be a feed from people I did really know. That feed I would like to read.

So without pretending I have some highly intellectual plan I decided to reduce my LinkedIn network to what I thought of as connections which I have some kind of connection with. LinkedIn of course is a bit clunky when it comes to removing contacts, but I've finally finished my first pass. Below are the Before/After numbers:

Measure                              Before               After     Reduction

Connections                         1,615                 362            78%

2 Degrees away               489,100            126,800          74%

3 Degrees away            8,230,600         5,150,500         37%

Total contactable         8,721,300         5,277,700         29%

It's interesting to note that the more extended the network, the less impact this has had.  Is this the right strategy going forward? Time will tell, but for now it feels better and just maybe I can start looking at my connections and taking more of interest in what they are all up to.

Note: Due to the number of connections I removed, it's entirely possible I deleted some that I meant to keep. If you are reading this and think you are one of them, let me know!

 

Making time for fans

The other day my wife and I were discussing the idea that as people become more famous/successful they have less time for the people who made them famous/successful in the first place.  A couple of days later I had reason to question this.

For years I've been reading Robert X Cringely's column. These days of course I follow the rss. When I first read it, about the same time as the Triumph of the Nerds aired in the UK, Mr. Cringely had a really nice feature. Years later, i.e. now I appreciate it more as I think of my Toastmasters speeches and storytelling more widely.

The column would start with something that his wife said/did then go off into the core topic (rumours of a takeover, new product or whatever), then at the end conclude by circling back to whatever it was his wife mentioned/did. For me, sometimes the column was not in my field of interest, but I read on anticipating the conclusion.

Being a wired world we live in I decided the other day to buzz an email off to him. As usual, with these things I did not expect a reply. To my delight 'Bob' - I feel I can call him that based on how he signed the email - reminding me that this was 1987-95 when he did that. Wow! Over 10 years ago it stopped! Bob also mentioned he didn't think it was really appropriate for his current column, which is a shame.

Bob's done some very cool things, which I've read or followed over the years and doubtless more I will discover in future. His email to me probably took less than 10 secs, nothing to him I'm sure. But this simple act sets him apart from many others and gives me another good reason to continue to reading his column.

It's also another reason I should listen to my wife a little more. In our discussion she told me I was being overly cynical and on this occasion (only!) I have to agree with her.

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Strategic and Holistic Leadership in the 21st Century

Tonight I attended a CMABC Lower Mainland Chapter 'Speaker's Series' Presentation intoduced by Michael Brown, CMA at the offices of Visible Strategies. Speaking on the subject above was CEO, Colin Grant a tall Scotsman who moved to Vancouver a few months before 9/11 in 2001.

Colin started off with a very entertaining 3 min summary of the rise and fall of traditional business models. As I undertstand it, the whole idea of $$$ as the goal is long gone. Business has to take a holistic approach to how it manages it's affairs. Naturally this leads into a discussion around climate change, environmental drivers and how these will dictate the way companies will have to act in future.

It used to be that it cost money to go green, one of Colin's assertions is that companies will HAVE to go green as it will cost money NOT to. Of course forward thinking companies have already worked this out. Enter Novex Couriers, a local same day courier company whose CEO Robert Safrata was next up.

Novex are very interesting, a courier company that last week won an award for ecoFreight Transportation from the Globe Foundation of Canada.  It was amazing to hear how environmentally aware this company is. In fact you can see it for yourself on their website by taking a look at how Novex is managed through see-it™; a product/service provided by Visible Strategies. 

I thought this was fascinating and a refreshingly different way to manage a business. Grant explained how when showing this to a potential new client, they can very quickly get something up into see-it™ in a couple of hours. Impressive stuff and judging by their client list something that is growing.

According to Grant the first thing to do is workout where you want your company to be, then work out how you can get there. According to Safrata, one major step in this is an Environmental Audit. Just make sure you don't end up with another glossy brochure style lump of paper that nobody reads and gets filed in a drawer! Some of the challenges of this are difficult, but according Safrata that is exciting! That is why we are managers - we have to work out how to solve these things! Personally having watched Al Gore's most recent presentation over on Ted, this stuff is critical, but we do have a great opportunity.

We can be the generation that really does save the planet, or more accurately, save the human race. The planet will continue come what may.      

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Tags: AlGore, Climate Change, Colin Grant, Public Speaking, Speaker's Series, Visible Strategies, CEO, CMA, cmabc, environment, holistic, man, portrait, presentation, see-it, strategic, strategy, Rob Safrata, Novex, Novex Couriers, Michael Brown CMA

CaseIT 2008 - SFU take 1st Prize

Today I had the great pleasure of being a judge at the CaseIT 2008 Competition. This is an undergraduate business case competition which has been running since 2004. This year the competition took on a truly global dimension, with teams from South Africa, Singapore, Denmark, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Canada and the US.

The day started with a Judges briefing. The case study which we had been sent earlier in the week centred on the dating site called Plenty of Fish. This site was setup, and is run, by one individual: Markus Frind and seems to have achieved notable success, with $10M of Revenue p.a. with practically no cost. The question is/was whether or not this is sustainable and what Markus should do next.

The competitors were given 24 hours to prepare their presentations and locked away for that time. They did have a laptop and internet access which was very carefully monitored with all sorts of restrictions on what they could and could not look at. This was a very interesting case, addressing topics which are very much in vogue, social networking, online dating and of course, sustainability.

The structure of the day was that first of all the teams were divided in to four rooms, with 4 teams presenting in each room. The timing was strict, 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes of questions. The Judges had a few minutes to ponder before the next team came in. One team from each then went through to the second round where they presented again, this time to all the judges.

As an additional step, following the second round was a lightning round, where four questions were asked and the teams given 60 seconds to prepare a response and 2 mins to answer. All in a big room, with all the judges and all the teams together.

After all this the judges got together and decided who was 1st / 2nd and 3rd. The subject line gives the game away of course, but in all seriousness all the competitors today deserve a lot credit. I know there is a whole circuit of these case competitions and some of the teams were very well practiced, but I have to admire all the participants who stood up there today. Without exception it was clear that they had put a lot of work into this, and standing in front of folk like myself must have been very daunting for them.

In terms of the presentations themselves, it was interesting to see the mix of time spent on presenting the situation and then the recommended actions. Too much on the former, too little on the latter. The standard of presenting was surprisingly good with a good deal less umms and ahhs than you might expect, the majority of the presentations also had a good structure. Generally I think there were too many words on too many slides and not enough pictures, but maybe I'm splitting hairs.

The discipline of having to prepare at short notice for an important presentation is a good discipline to learn. Being able to successfully analyse and interpret data, come up with a strategy and then communicate it are all key skills the students will benefit from in later years. Add to this that many of them had travelled half way round the world and still had to go back and make all their normal term/course deadlines made the whole thing even more impressive.

These students are the future CEOs, CTOs, leaders, Prime Ministers or Presidents. They will be running the world when I'm old and grey (which is probably far sooner than I was planning!). I came away greatly encouraged by this and more so inspired. As one of the speakers mentioned at the Awards Dinner, when I was an undergraduate the most I could organise was an anxiety attack, let alone the job these teams did in the competition.

So congratulations to SFU, who came away with 1st prize. As a judge I had no idea which team was which, until after the placings had been settled. For the record Singapore came second, Calgary third. I also enjoyed the Awards Dinner which had a great buzz. A very enjoyable end to a very enjoyable day - I hope I get invited back next year!

Celebrity Apprentice - Kodak

It's not very often I write about my employer. I have a little rule I follow which precludes this most of the time. Tonight is an exception though.

Earlier this week I received an email from Antonio Perez, the CEO of Kodak. I should say I wasn't alone as all employees received it I believe. Attached was a voicemail message that Donald Trump had left encouraging us to watch tonight's episode of Celebrity Apprentice.

I was greatly interested by this for a number of reasons. I remember watching the Apprentice back in the UK when Sir Alan Sugar was Donald Trump and really enjoyed the show. In the past I did watch one of Donald Trump series mainly I might add, so I could actually see something of who this Mr. Trump was. Again I enjoyed the show. However, I'm probably done with this now and the idea of a celebrity version did not really jump at me. I was a fan of the very first Celebrity Fame Academy back in 2003 - mainly driven by the participation of Ulrika Johnson at that time, but to use a phrase I've heard a lot recently, this idea has probably jumped the shark.

Add to this the fact that fellow Vancouver blogger Alan Yu has been doing a write up of the show this time, as he's done before and also read one of Mr. Trump's books which he reviewed chapter by chapter. Throw in the Kodak connection and you have a reasonable case for me to watch. Luckily the Canucks game was on the East coast so there was no clash!

The concept of the show followed the traditional approach. The products came from Kodak's Consumer Products division, which is making some excellent products. Case in point is this review of Kodak cameras from the recent CES in Las Vegas.

Back to the show ... for $150 bucks the printer featured is a really competitive deal, especially when you combine this with cost of the Ink which works out 50% less than it's competitors.

I'll leave Alan to let you know what happened at the end but for me I enjoyed the Kodak connection. Good job guys!

As for the programme itself, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Donald Trump seemed to be enjoying himself. Maybe it's the nature of this show - i.e. celebrity/charity etc but he did, if I can say this out loud, come across a lot more human than I've seen him previously. So the show was good, my problem was with the ad breaks. These make it really hard to watch anything - just when you think you are getting into something you suddenly realise that what you are getting into is women's sanitary products and/or a 20 secs snippet of a completely different show - very frustrating!

I can't say I will watch the Apprentice again, but I will re-aquaint myself with the Consumer Products division. I understand over at Kodak HQ in Rochester the employees were organising Apprentice watching parties for tonight - I hope they had as much fun as I did watching the show ....

Canadian Financing Forum West

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending the closing panel of the Canadian Financing Forum West. The event was put on by Dave Thomas of Rocket Builders. Credit to Dave for what was a cracking event. As the Forum's website says:

"The Canadian Financing Forum matches North American Corporate and VC investors with serious entrepreneurs looking to build world-class technology companies."

Basically a bunch of people looking for money able to present to a bunch of people with money. I was invited through New Ventures BC and the company I co-mentored last year, Teampages was presenting. Alas I arrived too late to see the presentation, but I did catch up with Mike Tan and was pleased to hear his business continues to do very well.

The highlight of the afternoon/evening for me was the Panel who discussed Web 2.0 type questions posed to them by a sad (and sick I understand) Paul Kedrosky. Lot's of healthy stuff here which I must blog about at some point including whether Facebook was done? Reading the press today I see that my favourite application on Facebook, Scrabulous may be under threat! That leaves the status updates as the other main reason I go to the site and made me think I should maybe concentrate on Twitter instead!

The reception to round the event off allowed me the opportunity to reconnect with some faces I'd not seen for a while and meet some new folk. Amongst them folk from Contigo, Chrysalix, Eqo.

This was a good opener for me to 2008, good networking, interesting people and presentations. Next week sees the Vancouver Enterprise Forum kick off, the CMA Breakfast Networking I host for the CMA Members and then Launch Party, which Danny Robinson of Strutta mentioned today.

Vancouver is an interesting place right now and at this time of year there is no shortage of things to take our minds away from the somewhat indifferent weather. Enjoy everyone!

Welcome to Digital TV, Welcome to Chicago!

Last week I purchased a Digital Box and shifted my TV watching, such as it is, away from an analogue experience. For a whole month I get all the digital channels and exciting as that may be, it's all a bit too predictable. I will not be too worried when my package reverts to 'normal' after all, the only reason for going Digital was to get a better picture for hockey :-)

Actually, the on screen guide was a draw, although my set-up makes using it a bit of a tedious affair. Zap2it, the online web based tv listing has started to get really irritating. I mean, adverts on TV right in the middle of a sentence I can cope with. Adverts when I'm trying to work out what's on is different.

One of the bizarre things is the extra channels. Chicago, Atlanta channels are readily available here in Vancouver, BC. What surprised me is that we get the Chicago or Atlanta adverts as well! Given many of them are local ads, this is rather pointless. The amusing part is wearing off as well - MacD burgers, two for $3 is what is very unsettling (up to now!) example. It would seem that the TV on offer in the US is closely correlated to the quality of the food being sold in the adverts.

I also feel privileged to see those dateline, chatline ads, with the enticing girls asking me to call whatever the number is. I thought it was late at night, but it seems any idea of a watershed for such things works in whatever the local time is in Chicago / Atlanta etc, i.e. too early in Vancouver! At least for me.

So I feel that my ongoing experience with television will continue to be digital. i.e ON for Hockey and OFF for anything else.

Technorati Tags: digitalTV, Television

A conversation about blogging ... for CMAs

Tonight I had the pleasure of presenting to CMA members "A conversation about blogging." The intention was to give an overview of the subject and give some examples about why a Certified Management Accountant should even care about blogging.

My presentation is below and can be downloaded as a pdf here. When you look at the example slides, double clicking should launch your browser and take you to that page. Of course it may look slightly different as there may be new posts on the blog!

There was a good and attentive audience and my feeling is that the presentation was well received. I am not the world's most experienced presenter so I'm looking forward to receiving feedback from the people in the room.

To get things going my own impression was that the presentation was too long and that I could spend more time making some of the slides with screen shots more interesting. The balance of course if that an internet is not always available and being skilled in 'showing' websites live can be more difficult that it looks!

The presentation was followed by a very enjoyable dinner at a local restaurant. For me it was a very rewarding evening, sharing one of my passions with a new audience. If you are reading this and came to the event I would really value your comments to this post!

Technorati Tags: blogging, CMA, storytelling, technology

Teampages makes New Ventures BC Competition Top 10

I am pleased to report that Mike Tan and the team at Teampages.com have made the final 10 in this years New Ventures BC competition. As I type Mike is in the throws of making a final presentation to the judging panel with the winners being announced at a Gala evening at the end of September.

As with last year I teamed up with Jim Brosseau at Clarrus (who has a new book btw!) to act as mentors for Mike in the competition. I am thrilled that they have made it to the final 10 with a chance at winning the Top Prize Package of more than $60K. To be honest these guys were fairly advanced in their thinking when Jim and I started talking to them. Hopefully we added the odd suggestion, bit of feedback that helped them on their way to achieving Top 10 status.

Personally I think they are in with a great chance of picking up a prize. Here's how they describe what they are doing:

TeamPages is an online social network and utility for amateur sports that makes it easier for coaches, team managers and players to:

* manage their teams, schedule games, and keep track of stats
* communicate with one another and share memories
* build an online community and presence

TeamPages provides teams, athletes, and fans with a central location to post and find their schedules, check out the latest team news and photos, receive email reminders about game and practice times and locations, collect donations and showcase sponsors, and keep track of their team and personal statistics.

TeamPages also allows coaches and players to connect and network with other coaches and players locally and from across the continent to share tips and drills, share memories, arrange exhibition games and tournaments, and keep their relationships going after they have left the field.

TeamPages is a private company located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and was founded by Mike, Jon and Adam

Well Done Chaps! and Good Luck! See you at the Awards Ceremony!

Technorati Tags: BC, MikeTan, NewVenturesBC, JimBrosseau, puppy, TeamPages, Vancouver

A conversation about blogs

This week I will be giving a talk about blogging to members of the Society of Certified Management Accountants in Vancouver. My self-written publicity looks like this:

Stewart Marshall, a UK designated Chartered Management Accountant, financial storyteller and blogger introduces ...

A conversation about blogs.

What they are, who used them, who writes them, how you find them and why, as a CMA you should care. Stewart will answer these questions and introduce you to one of the most important communication tools available today. By translating the buzzwords and the geekery, he will illustrate the potential of this worldwide resource to you and your business. Stewart will explain how as a CMA, you can maximise the opportunity blogging presents, capitalize on the knowledge it can give you and even how you can participate yourself!

It should be a fun evening, I just need to finalise the slides ....

More information at the CMA BC website.

Technorati Tags: blogging, CMA, event, storytelling, Vancouver

Online life, twittering, pownce, facebook to facebook, GTD, email and sentenc.es!

I was reading Shel Israel's blog this morning and saw that he posted about 'Facebook Friend' policy. I commented on his post:

I agree this is a tough one. Over the years I've used various online networking sites and generally been very open about connecting. I joined Facebook recently and decided to try something new. This time I only connect with genuine friends, or people I understand the connection with.

Actually, my logic is very similar to yours and I think I will link to your post when I get similar requests.

I like the new strategy, I love being 'connected' to my friends and reading via their status, what's on their minds, without ever having to bother them. If I don't know someone, connect with me on LinkedIn - that way I stay 'availble' but still a little more in control.

I think I will start pointing requests at Shel's post when they come in! This also reminded me that I'd seen a couple of excellent posts about Twitter, another new tool to hit the Internet in recent months. I'm still struggling with this one and it's yet to become part of daily online life. However, Nancy White posts present some very interesting food for thought on it's use and illustrate, for me at least, that such things should not be dismissed too easily. (Nancy's posts are Part 1 and Part 2)

Take Facebook for instance, I recently blogged about finding my first facebook application that I though was really useful. It took me a while, but once again it told me that some things take time. Have no expectations is often the best approach. I get enough out of playing around with new things online that it's relatively painless to get to the point where I believe something HAS to give me something. It's a lot like networking, which I find is far more about what I put into it than what I take out.

The real struggle with Twitter is the current status aspect. I have a Twitter status, an Instant Messaging status (frequently more than one), a Skype status, a Facebook status, a Pownce status and so on. It's really tedious to go through an update them individually. Pownce has suffered because of this as so far I've barely used it. I did find the odd tool(moodswing) to update some of these statuses at once, but found that it wasn't secure for one of them (facebook), but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Wrapping up on online life, I was pleased to see D'Arcy Norman write about the joys of Inbox Zero and pointing to an excellent video about the subject featuring Merlin Mann of 43 folders fame. I did a couple of posts last year about my Strategy to deal with Email on the PC and the Mac. Truth be told I'm still a gmail user and continue to wait for the new version of Apple Mail.

Merlin's video was a good reminder for me and I immediately spent some time getting my email inboxes (personal on Gmail and work - PC based) back to zero. I also found sentenc.es a very interesting idea (as you will have noted if you subscribe to my rss feed which embeds my del.icio.us links) Soon my work email is moving to Lotus Notes from Outlook which should give me an excellent opportunity to apply my No Expectations approach to technology!

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Mail, D'Arcy Norman, del.icio.us, email, Facebook, Gmail, GTD, Inbox Zero, Lotus Notes, Merline Mann, nakedconversations, Nancy White, Pownce, Sentenc.es, shelisrael, technology, Twitter

iPhone, iGreed, iStupidity and iLaughed

Over on Alan Yu's blog he writes about the iPhone. Nothing remarkable there perhaps, but I like the story. I encourage you to check out the video he has included in his post. For those who want to know what happened here is the summary.

Lots of queues outside AT&T stores for the new iPhone. Guy at the front has been there for hours and hours. Women rolls up 15 mins before opening and 'buys' his spot for $800. Turns out she had $100,000 to buy all the iPhones in the store with a view to reselling them on eBay.

Here's the fun part. When she gets to the counter she finds that AT&T will only sell 1 iPhone to 1 customer. So she can't buy all the iPhones in the store, but only 1. The cost of here iPhone being $800 more than everybody else's.

Everybody else bar one. The guy she paid $800 to. Turns out he was with a couple of buddies and as luck would have it, they only wanted two iPhones between the three of them. So he took the place of one of his buddies, got into the store second and purchased his iPhone with the $800 the woman in front of him had just given him!

Having written this out it is probably quicker to watch the video on Alan's site! When I saw it I could not help but laugh!

BarcampVancouver2007 - Blogging and Beancounters

I've just registered to attend Barcamp Vancouver 2007. What is Barcamp Vancouver 2007? According to the website it is:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

All attendees are encouraged to give a demo, a session, a presentation, or help with one. All attendees are expected to be participants. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall.

Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present.

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

So I'm going to talk about bloggers and beancounters, i.e. accountants and whether or not these are just two different types of geek! Seriously, I've been exploring the blogging experience from the point of view of an accountant and asking the same questions I suspect are asked by other groups of people.

WHAT is blogging anyway ? WHAT is the fuss about? WHO is doing it? WHY should I do it ? and maybe then HOW do I do it? Actually the last bit is not likely on this occasion as the audience will doubtless be more aware than I on that matter.

I have to prepare in advance of course and so far have only initial thoughts, but it has always struck me that the technology geeks I meet who wax on about things like Drupal, Ajax and countless other seemingly bazarre forms of techno-babble are very much like accountants.

Accountants talk about auditing, governance, double-entry, accruals and even more forms of accounting-babble. My question would be is the babble of one subject much the same as the babble from another? If as I suspect it is, then why can't one group choose to get involved in the other? My only floor in this arguement, so far that is, is that I can see plenty of accountants becoming bloggers, but how many bloggers will want to become accountants?

I'll write more about this as I firm up my thoughts, if you would like to contribute, please comment below. In the meantime I'm attendee 103, the event is filling up fast!