Data Geekery and Strategy

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New York City Data Illustration by QuickHoney

The NY Times posted this interesting article recently about Mayor Bloomberg’s Geek Squad, centering on the city’s “Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, a geek squad of civic-minded number-crunchers working from a pair of cluttered cubicles across from City Hall in the Municipal Building.”

Over the past 8 years I’ve worked closely with various NYC governmental offices, so I’ve been a witness to the slow change to more effective functioning.  From a wide perspective, there is a long way to go – and a LOT of bureaucracies remain.  However, from an operational and strategic standpoint, this article points out that data-driven geekery can shape your strategy.  This can – and should – be adapted for a company of any size.

What is data geekery?  It’s more than data collection and packaging statistics.  Operationally, It starts with a solid understanding of a problem and what data is needed.  Numbers without context and analysis can be misleading.  As the simplest of examples, looking at the change in revenue from year to year neglects the change in the costs associated with generating that revenue.  

Rather than start with a strategy in mind and then seek supporting data for that strategy, it’s important to gather and analyze data that will shape the strategy – especially when looking at growing your business outside of your core marketplace.  Some points to consider, when attempting to grow into a new market:

1) Retroactive data mining – what data do you already have?  As brought up in the article, looking at data retroactively attributes accountability – including realizing that you’re not tracking data you SHOULD be tracking (example: referral sources, cost itemization, etc.)

2) Using data prescriptively to determine coming trends.

In particular to growth-stage strategies:

1) Who’s already in that market space, and how do they price?  I have seen many businesses try to copy & paste an old strategy in a new market, oblivious to the current players and price-points.

2) What are the competitors NOT doing?  Surveys are too often ignored by thinking you already know the answer. Go and gather this data – you might be surprised.

3) What do you best – and is it better than others already in the market?  If so, you can build on this as your reason to charge a premium.

As a final note – who in your organization is the data geek – and do they have the analytical ability to tie the data with the strategy, or use the strategy to drive data collection?

Repost: TOOLS

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Five Free Tools that improve my Productivity and Performance Everyday – Happy in the Now

From Suchitra Mishra

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“One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more – said Washington Irving.  And doing more with less of everything (time and resources) just makes this journey more interesting. Delve into the online world for any area – be it collaboration, time management, social media – and there are so amazing tools available that can help improve your business productivity as an organization or as an individual.”

http://blogbysuchitra.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/five-free-tools-that-improve-my-productivity-and-performance-everyday-happy-in-the-now/

Pondering the future of Capitalism

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Just noted this new book. From the first chapter (available on its FB page – Capitalism “is a system with extraordinary power, and we should all be interested in where it’s heading.”

How to harness capitalism’s dynamism to create an economy that promotes wellbeing and rewards creation.
The recent economic crisis was a dramatic reminder that capitalism can both produce and destroy. It’s a system that by its very nature encourages predators and creators, locusts and bees. But, as Geoff Mulgan argues in this compelling, imaginative, and important book, the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose a radically different future for capitalism, one that maximizes its creative power and minimizes its destructive force.

Genius of the Beast

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I had the pleasure of meeting Howard Bloom recently to talk about Essent Consulting.   He is a visionary, scientist, PR genius, gifted writer, as well as a champion of one of my favorite topics – finding and using your passion as fuel to succeed.  His latest book recently came out last week, but I took some time to review his ‘The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism’, from 2009.

In ‘The Genius of the Beast’, Bloom lays out the evolutionary cycles of ‘boom and bust’ that are present not only in the cosmos and biological life-forms, but also underlie our society and our economic systems.   He has intriguing ideas as to capitalism as a whole, and the entrepreneur’s role within it, framed in his ideas of a boom and bust evolution.   This evolution is not a purely cyclical nature but rather: “The modern western cycle of soar and crash has been a wheel that’s rolled forward – a wheel of creation.  A wheel of expansion, exploration, pruning, and new form generation.”   The idea propelling Essent Consulting is consistent with this model:  as an entrepreneur, we must constantly be expanding, exploring, pruning, and generating our companies into a new form.

During a ‘boom’ swing, it is time for exploration, searching, indulging.  Eventually, the pendulum swings back and we ‘crash’.  These crashes, or busts, are typically misunderstood to have some cause, whether it’s some villain, a mistake in policy, or an over-enthusiasm for some new technology.  But if they are part of the natural course of things, and Howard goes a long way to convincing you – Crashes are a time to prune away what doesn’t work, to consolidate our power, rally around what does work, and build structures to be able to handle the next ‘crash’.   Those that have the resources to ride through a bust, or find opportunities to repurpose themselves, have the ‘evolutionary’ advantage.

Bloom refers often to repurposing – what happens to those elements of a system (bees in a hive, or people in a society) during times of bust.   We have 3 choices if we don’t come out on top: be absorbed by an existing organization, scrimp and save and try to make it through, or die.

An entrepreneur ‘following their passion’ is going to be at greater risk during a bust if they cannot quickly repurpose themselves.  During a boom period, the trick is finding a way to align your passion with the economy and using all the tools to make a successful business.  During a bust period, when the economy is in upheaval, the entrepreneur faces another layer of stress and uncertainty:  he or she must now step back and monitor the movement of the system (the economy) to glean information on what new opportunities and obstacles might crop up.  If busts truly are a time of consolidation, how can you shift gears to take advantage of the swing of the pendulum?

Right now we are possibly coming out of a bust and moving into a boom, yet, the shape of that boom is going to lie squarely in the hands of those who’ve repurposed themselves the best over the past 4 years.  One example is the huge success of micro-funding and crowd-funding sites. The owners of these ventures have monitored the path of consolidation during the stressful recession:  if no money is available from the bank, than the only choice is to bootstrap, consolidate, and run to family and friends for funding.   These sites have done 2 things: they’ve assisted the economy, and they’ve assisted entrepreneurs.  Hopefully, they’ve done it wisely and (financially) successfully enough to monitor the coming boom to leverage their initial success into the next iteration.

~

Essent – a Manifesto

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Essent Consulting helps entrepreneurs uncover their passion and use it as a tool to inform their business growth.   It is common for entrepreneurs to become easily frustrated by the current capitalistic notions of ‘nothing matters but the bottom line growth’ and a focus on exit strategy.   Entrepreneurs start up with a passion and quickly lose sight of it, if they mishandle financial and operational stressors.   The company’s bottom line can quickly become a task-master rather than an impetus to grow in the ‘right’ direction.  As such, entrepreneurs are constantly at risk of becoming enslaved to the business, rather than leading the business.

Multi-national corporations are an example of the ultimate manifestation of ‘business for business’s sake’.  Effectively, they have become artificial intelligences: super-organisms that we created, that have taken on a life of their own, which were ‘innocently’ constructed with the goal of making more, and more money, regardless of social or ethical considerations.   People often want to hang an MNC for its lack of ethics or horrendous business practices, yet, they are just ‘being’ the monster that we built them to be.  Though on a smaller level, entrepreneurs quickly experience the same negative pressures.  The goal of the company becomes the goal of the current capitalistic system, their backers and VC’s, rather than the goal of the flame that sparked the company and its mission.

There are a few ideas out there that battle this: First, as an example, Bo Burlingham’s ‘Small Giants’ idea – of companies refocusing on being great, not big.  The second is the BCorp, which is a new type of corporation that squarely puts a social benefit element as a key cornerstone of the company.  As it stands now, without either sentiment, or the sentiment of Essent, there is NO pathway for a company to remain a beacon of the entrepreneur’s original or evolving mission.  Ever-increasing profit takes over and squashes such a mission or at best, wrings it dry.

We want to help entrepreneurs take back their passion; wield it, to use it as a touchstone.  How?  As operational strategists, we reexamine opportunities and repurpose the entrepreneurial drive to be propelled by passion rather than fear.   We bring entrepreneurs back to their passion.  This leads to a retooling of their company: When faced with new opportunities, a company can require a complete overhaul of strategy and new goals that better suit the organization’s core strength: their vision; or, an influx of new opportunities may chart a completely new evolution for the company.

Entrepreneurial companies have a unique essence at their core.  That essence can – and should – develop over time as the company grows.  There will be opportunities that drive a company further from its essence, overwhelm it, or kill it completely.  But for those entrepreneurs who pour their life and soul into their company, the opportunity to develop and grow is a chance to do greater and more influential work, and transform not only yourself and your stakeholders, but the world in which you live.  Essent is the pathway to this hand-in-hand transformation.

Social Entrepreneurship

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Social Entrepreneurship – How do you change the world?  A little or a lot? 

All of the entrepreneurs that I love and am excited about have 2 things in common:

  • They love what they do
  • They believe what they do will change the world

I happened across an article the other day posted on Forbes.com by the Ashoka Marketing Team: ‘Be More Than Your Job’, which touched on both of these sentiments as important and integral to social entrepreneurship.  Yet, to hold the title of ‘social entrepreneur’, one must change the world in a great scope – change thousands of lives, solve the most pressing social problems, tackling major social issues.

I’ll have a few blogs coming up soon on the issue of social entrepreneurship, B-Corps (socially beneficial corporations) and why all of this is important, but I wanted to begin with the idea of the grandiosity of the current title of social entrepreneurship, which I feel is limiting.  Many entrepreneurs who ‘love what they do’ and ‘believe that they will change the world’ are NOT working to cure disease, feed millions, or save the planet – they are working to bring the joy of play into children’s lives; develop a better/more philosophical role playing option to game players, or helping to expand people’s minds in some way or another.  I believe these ventures have social consideration as well, and while not distinctly ‘social entrepreneurism’ – they are important ventures and should receive the same kudos, attention, and benefits (as they come into being!) as the more dramatic social entrepreneurship ventures.

Take a look at the idea of ‘creation’.  There is a similar rift in the belief of what makes an achievement an actual creation:  Some definitions dictate that true creation must have vast historical (social) significance; others hold a more generous perspective.

In writing on the History of Technology, Peter Marsh for the Financial Times recently (2012) noted that “scientists and technologists rarely discover anything completely new; they generally build on what is already known.” He goes on to identify three general types of creations: Product (ex: Railway), Process (ex: Writing), or Organization (ex: Factory System).  In this tight view, creation is rare and must achieve massive historical significance.

The US Patent system is a bit more generous, providing protection for “new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.”[1]  Copyright, on the other hand, protects creations that are unique in form (rather than unique in idea), regardless of historical merit.[2]  Thus a copyright protects the idea of creation as something having a personal benefit.

Using these guidelines of legal definitions of creation, and conferring with mainstream definitions, it is not irresponsible to conclude that something created must hold value for either oneself or others.  There are 2 intriguing points here, first: that creation of ‘something’ is necessarily the fruit of creativity.  One can not be truly creative unless they produce something.  Secondly, that the product of creativity is a contribution – to ourselves or humanity as a whole.

I pose that a discussion of social entrepreneurship is quite similar to a discussion of creation – that if an entrepreneurial venture transforms any part of society – including the self or one or two people – then it is validly a social entrepreneurial venture.  And that’s an important sentiment as the face of entrepreneurship changes to benefit those who are contributing to society and moving it forward.  B-Corps and start-up organizations that seek out and support ventures that benefit society are becoming more prominent – the way of the future – and as such they are helping to shape the future of our world by supporting which ventures succeed.  Money and profit is always the bottom line, but by these supportive ventures pouring money into socially responsible ventures over other endeavors, it is important to define social benefit.

Is it possible for a contribution or creation to benefit our self or just a few others, and would that really transfer to a social entrepreneurship venture? To benefit just one person, it must impact us, change, or transform us – for the better.  Perhaps such betterment of that person must transform the world a bit in kind.

I’m intrigued by the idea of the historical benefit (from creation) or social benefit (from social entrepreneurship): who decides if one’s work is historically or socially relevant? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of ‘Flow’ and ‘Creativity’, has written extensively on the subject in describing ‘flow’ as designing, discovering, or creating something new, in a manner enjoyable to the person in ‘flow’, but also, with a historical impact.   I believe this sentiment can also transfer to a look at social relevance.

Are there commonalities among creators and socially responsible entrepreneurs, then? Csikszentmihalyi proffers a succinct answer in The Flow of Creativity: creative persons are unanimous in one respect: “they all love what they do”. And what people like most about what they love to do is to design, discover, or create something new.   It’s a feedback loop.  I love what I do, which is to create something new, and that causes me to love what I do.  (Yet, loving what you do may not necessitate that you create, or create something socially relevant.)

Csikszentmihalyi notes the major elements of enjoyable experiences which feed this process of creation: notably, there is no worry of failure, and self-consciousness disappears — basically, we do not care what others think of our output. Or, to put it another way, we can’t create anything good unless we’re not thinking about creating something good. We have to love the process. We have to love and enjoy the transformation. Not the output, not the product.

We might view social entrepreneurs as world builders, so the connection with creation is paramount.  Creators have to focus on what they love and build a process that they are in love with; they cannot worry about the output or the reception, or the impact, be it quarterly revenues or some quantification of social impact.  They have to trust their gut that what they’re doing will help, eventually, but to muddle them with defining just how they’ll do that is handicapping them.

Venture capitalists and BCorps and all sorts of social-responsibility mavens must give the entrepreneur breathing room and trust that even the little guy with a little idea might change the world just a little bit, whether they’re opening minds, helping people play, discover their strengths, or learning how to help others.  That’s important too.

[2] World Intellectual Property Organisation. “Understanding Copyright and Related Rights”, WIPO Publication 909(E). 2005, pp. 6–7.

Team Building

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Team Building is a critical part of accomplishing any goal, personal or professional.  People tend to suck at this, preferring to surround themselves with yes-men or those like themselves.  It takes a discerning eye and a developed skill to realize WHAT you bring to the table to meet your goals, and from there you can determine what you need.

The first step is to figure out what you do, and do not, bring to the table yourself, and quantify it.   To be most efficient, everyone in your circle or team should be spending as much time as possible doing what only THEY can do.  From an operations stand-point, I look at what each person is doing and often people overlap, or spend way too much time doing things they should be outsourcing to people that are cheaper or have a more concentrated skill set.   It is a useful exercise to tally your own personal hourly rate and use that as a benchmark when making operational decisions.

How do you find good people to work with?  The best way is usually personal reference.  It’s important to network and continually refresh your circle of acquaintances.

But if you’ve tapped out your network, then you’ve got to do some hiring.

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On Hiring

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On Hiring:  I’ve done my fair share of hiring over the years, and a recent bout with helping a company do some team building (including hiring (& firing)) brings about this post on hiring.

I’ve used a lot of resources in the past; a corporate Monster Account for searching resumes, Ads on various sites such as The Ladders, Monster, Indeed, Craigslist, Linked In; project bidding sites; google searches for Consultants; use of head-hunters and temp agencies; referred-by-a-friend.

My all-time favorite for entry-mid-level jobs, even technical or project-based consultants, hands-down, is craigslist.  Why?  2 reasons:

1)      Responders are looking for work RIGHT NOW.   This is one of my main complaints with resume sites – many times the resumes posted are from people who are desultory about a job search or actually already took a job.  Waste of time.

2)      Responders want YOUR JOB.  They’ve read your detailed post and made a decision, that yes, they would be interested in your job and at that salary range.  Great!  The first hurdle is over.  With head-hunters, temp agencies, resume searches, and referrals by friends – you have to have this discussion about the job, salary range, and more times than not you don’t have a fit.

So I’m a fan of detailed Job Postings.  It’s my recommendation if you do an ad, you should list in a salary range.  Also, think about education, skills, and job experience levels as requirements – and stick with them.  It will make screening quicker.   Once you have resumes…

Resume Screening

1)      Do they live close enough to come to work every day, really? If not – do they make some comment about their current location in their cover letter?  Or show that they’ve handled a long/crazy commute in the past?  I have learned the hard way that someone living 1.5 hours away generally never works.  They may be desperate for work, or maybe they haven’t realized you’re 1.5 hrs away.

2)      Do they have the education level, skills, and job experience you required?

3)      Do they have mistakes in grammar, punctuation, or basic formatting in their resume or cover letter?

4)      Did they include a cover letter?  (FYI, I’ve given up on this mostly since about 50% of entry/mid level people do not submit one.  I have found good people who neglected to submit a cover letter even though one was requested).

5)      If it’s a technical or graphic position, or other skilled position, did they provide samples (if you requested?)

Interviewing

1)      Have them fill out an application with references and salary history and reasons they left their past jobs.  Did they omit this information?  Usually it indicates there’s a problem or they can’t follow directions or they are the type that will skip steps.

2)      Do the basic interview questions – people should be prepared for these.  They can really only eliminate themselves on these questions.

  1. ‘Why did you leave your last job?’ – At least you will always get some interesting responses..
  2. ‘Tell me about your last job’ –  Though it’s probably clear on their resume, it’s good to hear how they prioritize what they did.  And if it doesn’t match the resume, red flag.
  3. ‘What is your strength/weakness?’ –  I continue to be amazed that people ‘fail’ this question, by coming up with the lamest strength ever, or giving a weakness that is some certifiable / fire-able offense.
  4. ‘Since you graduated from college with xx degree, tell me about your career path and where you want to go next?’ –  Their answer will illustrate if your company fits in with their vision for themselves or not.  I find that people get caught up in their own story arc and occasionally they will end up revealing some truths that make you realize they’re never going to work out because their heart is set completely elsewhere.

3)      Ask open-ended questions to see their personality emerge.

4)      Give them some kind of administrative test (analytical skills, checking, filing, basic math, proofreading) – again, they can only knock themselves out of the running by failing to read directions or answer correctly.  I like doing this because it either confirms someone’s got basic intelligence, or shows that someone puts on a good impression but is really not quite bright at all (if they ‘fail’).

5)      Ask the receptionist his/her impressions.

Networking

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The best way to find members of your team is by personal reference.  It’s important to network and continually refresh your circle of acquaintances because of this.  There are pitfalls as well (see acquaintances blog), but on the whole it can be your most powerful tool in growing your business or meeting your goals.

Figuring out your network strategy goes hand in hand with figuring out who you are as a person.   There are a few types of networks:

1)      Natural Networks:  Malcolm Gladwell has noted that natural networks are one of the key reasons successful people succeed: they have a natural support system of new resources, new business opportunities, and new customers – and, to boot, it’s a constantly replenishing pool.  So what is your natural network?  For many it is their family, community, or their religious or spiritual group.  The bonds of these networks are pre-established from early on in your life (usually) and are inherent – you do not have to work to forge them.

2)      Forged Networks: These are a kind of natural network you paid good money to establish such as your college.  Keep them alive by using social media to link to your old friends and acquaintances – synergies can come from these links in surprising ways, and you have to do little effort but keep an eye on them.  Also – go to your college’s dinners and annual meet ups. Also, make friends with YOUR friends’ networks – half the work is already done!

3)      Professional Interest Networks:  Based on the work you do, you will have access to certain professional communities based on your industry.   You’ll need a discerning eye to find the most useful networks within your profession.   Some will be trying to make you pay for the network they provide – are they worth it?

4)      Geographical Networks:   You’re land-locked into a geographical network, you might as well use it for what it has to offer.  Spend some time signing up for websites that feature local events and talks; visit every area of your city, see the tourist spots and know them, learn about your town’s history, it’s shop owners.  There’s an energy in your town and if you live there, you are part of that fabric.

Now to my favorite topic,

5)      Personal Interest Networks:   From your gym membership, the restaurants and clubs you visit, the museum talks you go to, the concerts you attend, the clubs you wish you had time to be more active in, your hobbies (from star-gazing to gardening..) and the tv shows you watch, the video games you play, the books you read:  each one of these interests has a large group of people interested in the same thing.   The things you like and enjoy are part of you, and if you are lucky and smart, they can feed into your goals and your ventures.  I am fascinated by entrepreneurs who figure out how to merge their interests with their entrepreneurial work, or personal goals.    In later posts I will case study some of these fascinating individuals and companies!