This blog is officially retired

This blog is officially retired. You can now visit my new blog at www.gpeters.ca

All the post and comments from this blog have been transferred to the new one. 

The new RSS feed is http://www.gpeters.ca/feed/

Thank you for reading my blog! 

Incredible Things That Happen

Some interesting figures
http://www.businessinsider.com/incredible-things-that-happen-every-60-seconds-on-the-internet-2011-12?utm_source=twbutton&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sai

Knowledge the Scarcest Resource

Knowledge is one of the scarcest of all resources in any economy, and the insight distilled from knowledge is scarcer still. An economy based on price, profits, and losses gives decisive advantages to those with greater knowledge and insight ~Thomas Sowell

Talent and Knowledge workers

Came across this article Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent by Eric Jackson which is also true for small businesses.

No 1 is Big Company Bureaucracy which also could say Small Company Bureaucracy. I don't have experience working in a large corporation but do know what bureaucracy looks like in small tech firms, my background.

In the article I don't agree on No 3, Poor Annual Performance Reviews. Why not daily reviews or weekly reviews? Are official reviews really necessary? Should they be called reviews altogether? What could potentially replace them?

I want to read a book on this called Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing--and Focus on What Really Matters by Samuel A. Culbert

Here is an excellent review on the book by Ron Baker

According to Ron's review, Culbert says that annual performance reviews is what creates bureaucracy.

After I read the book I will write a review here.

How to handle email volume

Jim Estill, a vivid blogger and business mentor of mine has these 10 tips on handling email volume.

1 - Deal with it once. If I can deal with an email start to finish in less than a couple of minutes, I just do it. Leaving it to read again then respond just takes more time.

2 - Train people you interact with on the email ettiquette you want. EG - I only want the person who takes the action in the to line - everyone else in the cc list. I also coach on unneccesary email - let people know when I do not need to be included.

3 - I generally leave my highest energy and creative times to NOT do email. The better I know when these are - the more effective I can be.

4 - Get off lists.

5 - I have a great folder system and many of the lists that I am on get automatically filtered to these folders. For example, all the email newsletters and publications go to folders when I can read at my leasure.

6 - Of course I love my Blackberry. It greatly reduces my time required to do email and allows me to use any idle minutes I might happen to have.

7 - Delete, delete, delete. You can always find it if you need it. I also keep slush files. Simply move emails to a July08 folder. Then find them there.

8 - Avoid email clutter in what you send. EG - use descriptive Subjects. Sending email creates more email. Don't cc everyone. No reply to all.

9 - If a message goes back and forth more than 4 or 5 times - just pick up the phone.

10 - Just do it. I find my stress level is lower if my email is clear. I end every day with no messages in my in box. (I might have a few in my to do subfolder).

Here is the link to the blog: http://www.jimestill.com/2008/07/managing-email-volume-great-american.html

No more email at work at French tech firm

For the most part I find email a productivity tool but it has it shortcomings too. One of them, as I have learned the hard way, is misunderstanding. But then again as long we will have interactions with human beings misunderstandings will abound, be it emails or face to face conversations. It is just human nature not to listen well and therefore misunderstand and make assumptions.

Found this interesting article where a French tech company is doing away with internal emails at work.

Here is a quote from the article and the link:

"We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” he said in a statement when first announcing the policy in Feburary. “At [Atos] we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution"

http://www.geekosystem.com/atos-email-ban/

Happy emailing and that is all for today!

Occupy Greed not Wall Street

I tend to stay away from commentating on Politics in public (e.g. this blog). With the latest development of the occupy movement I decided that I would make a few comments here.

One of the most predominate things that stands out is that the cause is to fight corporate greed. I do not believe that greed dominates the corporate world. Does it exist in corporations? Sure and I'm not in denial of it but what is forgotten or never considered is that greed is universal. Much could be said about this from a theological perspective but that's not my expertise.

Recently I purchased and watch The Call of the Entrepreneur documentary done by Acton Institute, co-founded by Robert A. Sirico. In the video it is made very clear that corporate America is much more than a collective body of greed.

I highly recommend the documentary. That is all for now....happy reading!