10,000 (maniacal) hours

I've had a long hiatus from this blog, which I feel bad about. But I think I've got somewhat of a valid excuse...an international relocation back to the Bay Area from London and a newborn, both of which have just slightly distracted me. As I know all too well lately, finding time to focus on interests, passions, and hobbies (not to mention sleep) is a huge challenge. But what if it wasn't? What if you stopped everything (well, maybe not including childcare) to focus on something that you were truly passionate about? And you did so for the next 10 years.

Malcolm Gladwell concludes in his most recent book, Outliers, that leaders of pretty much any field (science, competitive athletics, software, music, etc.) need to spend approximately 10,000 hours over the course of approximately 10 years to develop the expertise that (in conjunction with the timing, location, and context of their upbringing) lays the foundation for their success. So here's the million dollar question. If you could focus on a single subject for 10 years, at the end of which you'd be an expert in that field, what would it be? Hmmm.

Outliers reminded me of one of my father's friends who left his job fairly late in his career to go back to Medical School. He was the oldest student in his class by far, but was completely committed to seeing through his dream of becoming a doctor. He finished his education (again) in his mid 40's...his theory was that he still had a 20+ year medical career to look forward to. Last I heard, he was loving it. 

Gladwell's got me thinking. Perhaps I should attempt to brew the perfect beer, or focus on taking beautiful photographs, or maybe even write a book.

The big red surfboard

Check out the guy in the photo. Doesn't he look like the coolest thing on two feet? Well...he actually is (no, that is not me)...and one of his deepest passions is surfing. Not too long ago, he dragged me and one of our mutual friends down to San Diego for a weekend of surfing and relaxing. I had only surfed once before, and although I couldn't even paddle past the break, I really enjoyed myself.  Seeing how deeply he loved the sport, and that he had converted one of my best friends to the religion of the surf, I figured I should give it another go.

San Diego was a blast...but not because of the surfing. It turns out we were there (oh so conveniently) for the biggest storm they've seen in 100 years - think Point Break. I did manage to "get up" on the board eventually, and I did love the experience. Sitting on your board waiting for the right wave to come in is an incredible and introspective occasion, and the apres-surf culture is second only (in my opinion) to skiing. It would seem that this sport would be perfect for my personality. And maybe it would have been if I had found it 10 years ago.

Now that the New Year has come and gone, I've been thinking a lot about the big red surfboard. How much time and commitment can I afford to put into surfing in order to get what I would want out of it? Sadly, not enough. As I look at my 4 1/2 month old, holder her in front of a mirror, I can only hope that she'll be able to do everything that she wants to do. Unfortunately, I'm staring at myself in the same mirror...aging. I do have a few  newer interests that I'll be exploring this year...unfortunately, the big red surfboard won't be one of them. Maybe 2013?

The content divide (or is it the viewership divide)?

Every couple of weeks or so, I'll deliberately go to YouTube (vs. the mid-day popover to watch a TED video or an EPL highlight) to check out the most viewed videos from this week and this month. I'm trying to keep up with "the kids" to understand what their interests are. But I have to say, I don't. Today's most popular video comes from BlueXephos, and as I viewed it (the first 12 seconds of it, actually) it had already received 393,580 views (it was posted 2 days ago). BlueXephos has 2 of the top 4 most viewed videos so far today, the fifth most viewed video of the week (with 760,243 views), and 4 of the top 30 most viewed videos this month (each with ~1 Million views). They also have ~1.4 Million subscribers to their YouTube channel. Their videos are consistently getting some of the most views out there. 

So who is BlueXephos? 

They are a group of gamers who record their game play while overlaying commentary of their exploits. 

Unless there are "viewership farms" in China building up their rankings, I just don't get it.

The value of content is, of course, subjective. Some folks may find BlueXephos' video content entertaining, amusing, or thought provoking. I find it flat out annoying. Especially since it blocks my discovery of other interesting content (like @CGPGrey's Informational YouTube videos). And even more frustratingly, there are a trove of other folks posting videos of similarly useless content. With 1.5 Billion pieces of Facebook content, 140 Million Tweets, and 1.6 Million blog posts published DAILY,  and folks "voting" for BlueXephos as the most important content out there...Houston, we have a problem. 

Everything can be redesigned.

​There is no such thing as a perfectly designed item. There are those that are well-designed and should be admired for their aesthetic beauty, functional aptitude, and/or general improvement of a specific experience,  but every item (products, websites, content, processes, ...) can be improved in some way or another.  Every one of them. What was your initial reaction when you first interacted with a first generation iPhone? It was likely that you were stunned by an incredibly beautiful and wonderfully intuitive device. But the iPhone 4 is undoubtedly an improved (yet still imperfect) product.

And "well-designed" doesn't mean that the item has to be particularly beautiful to look at. Take fonts for instance. The choice of font can make a huge impact on everything from brand recognition to content readability. I recently ran across an article that described a font designed specifically for individuals that suffer from dyslexia. Use of the font has been proven to dramatically decrease the number of reading and comprehension errors a dyslexic individual makes.  Well-designed indeed. Kudos to StudioStudio for taking this project on.

And what about other, more mundane items? One of the original designers of the iPod, Tony Fadell, created a company called Nest that has redesigned the thermostat. There's no question that his product is beautiful. And if it is easier to use than the archaic blocks that most of us have in our homes, Tony will make a serious business out of it.

Lastly, here's a different sort of redesign to tickle your brain with...the revamping of the supermarket experience. Tesco's "virtual supermarket" in the subway of South Korea is nothing short of genius. 

Are Consulting firms really some of the best places to work at?

A recent survey from glassdoor.com, indicates that the answer is yes, as 3 out of the top 10 companies listed (including the top 2) are Consulting organizations. Having previously worked for both big and small firms, I know that the Consulting industry can be at times amazing and at other times quite cruel.

First, a shout out to Slalom Consulting. How you managed to breach the top 10, besting cosmically cool brands such as Apple and Nike, I will never know. What I do know is that your model of providing local homes for (ahem) aging "big time" consultants is a good one. Kudos. 

Good consulting firms do a few things extraordinarily well. Most importantly, they have mastered the recruiting of their pre-defined target profiles. The mostly young and consistently intelligent, attractive, and motivated individuals that they hire end up working and playing together extremely well. Their clients are also usually left satisfied as they benefit from a temporary (although expensive) workforce, the quality of which they likely would not have been able to attract on their own. The best firms have used this point to help fuel an elitist culture, the spirit of which is woven deep into each employee's mind-set.

Those facts, paired with short-lived project assignments and a well defined (although increasingly prolonged and decreasingly lucrative) career path, keep many Consultants very motivated. On the flip side, there's no denying that Consulting is a difficult industry to stick with. Years of out-of-town assignments, outlandishly aggressive project timelines, and difficult client personalities make it a challenging place to be long term. Congrats to Slalom, along with Bain and McKinsey, for addressing some of these most difficult of issues and making their employees feel great about where they work. 

"Achieving" small failures. 2012 is a green field for them.

I've been following Seth Godin for many a moon now, and he publishes at least 2-3 posts per month about  failure. I usually interpret his writings on this topic in relation to large and significant initiatives...big risks (like starting your own business) and big efforts (like taking responsibility for a critical and highly visible work project). The lessons from large-scale failures are certainly valid, but they are also interesting to consider at a much smaller scale. Over the course of 2011, I've initiated several small projects. All of them have been failures. And all of them have been more than worthwhile.

Early in the year, I purchased a new camera to explore a subject that I've connected with for a long time, photography. With a baby on the way, I had even more incentive to take it up. Since I've started, I've taken a total of 2 shots that I'm pleased with. Would you call that a success? Maybe. But what about the other 5k bad photos that I've taken? 

And then there's this blog...my third such effort. My commitment level has been relatively high, which I am pleased about. But a success? Nope. I had a vision for the project, the aesthetic and implementation of which I haven't been able to get right.

But with failure comes insight and understanding. The lessons are immense, even from the most minute of exercises like taking a terrible photograph. Which is why I stick with them. I will continue to take bad photographs in 2012. And I will continue to tweak, evolve, and likely completely redo my blog in 2012. I'll surely fail again. I've even got a new project, learning how to draw, on the cards for the coming year. Is that even possible as I stare age 40 in the face? Probably not. 2012 is a green field for achieving these and other failures. And I can't wait for them. What failures will you achieve?

Marketing budgets - industry metrics for more nickels and dimes

It's that time of year again. One of optimism and anxiety. If you work for a modern, aggressively-minded, technologically-savvy company, it's a time to dream. Visions of the new Marketing programs, software, and gizmos that can be put together over the course of the next year to generate interest and buzz in your company's offerings are surely sailing through your mind, along with the most advanced mechanisms for tracking and measuring the success of each of them. If you're like the rest of us, especially in an uncertain economic climate, budgeting can be a scary time indeed. 

Of course Marketing budgets are not one-size-fits-all, and your proposal needs to be right for your company's goals, maturity, etc. However, getting budget approval is undeniably tricky business, and you'll need all of the ammunition that you can get your hands on to convince (ahem... beg & plead) "the powers that be" that you should have X number of dollars to achieve Y set of objectives. Published industry metrics have always helped in this cause as most CEOs don't want to be left behind what others are doing. Here are a few recent data points that I've come across that might help:

1. IDC's 2011 Marketing Investment Planner (thanks to Microsoft for making this publicly available)

2. Marketing Sherpa's 2011 B2B Marketing BenchMark Report. You can download a very useful excerpt and buy the report for ~$400.

3.  Ad Age Insights Whitepaper: What SBO's Need to Know about Marketing 

4. Schonfeld & Associates (SAI) Business Research Report of 2011 Advertising To Sales Ratios by Industry Sector

If anyone has any, I would love to see additional data points for my own "convincing" efforts!!!

"Concisisizing" - the art of creating effective PowerPoint presentations

​I have been having an ongoing dialog with a close friend of mine regarding PowerPoint presentation styles for quite a long time now. He is a straightforward content presentation sort of guy and aims for the one thought per slide approach. One of his favorite presenters is famed Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig. An example of Lessig's presentation style can be found here. Effective indeed. The "rub" with this technique is that the presenter has to be quite a talented storyteller to be able to pull it off. I've seen folks try to emulate it and fail miserably. 

Speaking of presentation failures, a company called Speechworks conducted a survey that had some not unexpected results. The #1 pet peeve from the survey is not surprising at all..."The speaker read the slides to us". Can you imagine if Lessig read every one of his slides word for word with no other commentary? I've seen it happen. I'm sure you have too. 

On the flip side, Fast Company ran an article not too long ago with a few guidelines from Guy Kawaski and presentation coach Jerry Weisman. There are some really interesting suggestions in there to think about. Test them out.

I try not to get too bogged down with rules and guidelines (the reason why many a golf swing fail), but I do aim for the following: 1. Design each deck for a particular audience, 2. Tell a story with a well thought through sequence of slides, 3. Use photos and "simple" infographics to get points across effectively, 4. after you've written your deck..."concisisize it" by cutting out all extraneous thoughts & slides. You probably can remove half of your deck. Every Time. Do it. I'll close with a link to a recent Zynga presentation, which I think is successful for its intended audience, messaging, and aesthetic.

Do we all have to look the same?

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I've initiated a global identity rebranding effort for my company, and as a starting point, my team has completed some industry and competitive research. We found some interesting, although not unexpected, results, which I thought would be good to share. As we pretty much knew before we set out on this initiative, there are really two main color ranges that are used in Enterprise Software and Consulting brands...the "blue" (think IBM) and the "red" (think Oracle). The background graphic, which was a great visual tool for our CEO & Board, was developed to prove this point.

Pretty much everyone else in these categories have used slight variations...sometimes going as "bold" as adding a highlight color like Cognizant did with the green shadow of their "C" or WiPro's rainbow effect. A standardized industry look is expected, though. Can you imagine SAP marketing themselves like a "bling bling" consumer brand would? For us, the main objective is to be perceived as "Enterprise scale" and "Mature" so that we can more easily assure our prospects that our solutions are as well.

Walk around London's Covent Garden, however, and you'll immediately see how effective bold brands work in the Retail industry...the yellow Selfridges bags, the purple Liberty bags, and the turquoise Tiffany's bags. Bag envy everywhere.

Is Enterprise Software and Consulting ready for similar boldness? With "nontraditional" branding from companies like Salesforce.com ("No Software") and with Web2.0 companies like 37Signals shaking things up, I'd say we're moving the needle a bit. The question is how far are we willing to go?