Disqus - Latest Comments for ameyer32

Re: Part 2: Do The Numbers Work? The $100/day Business

ameyer32 — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:11:47 -0000

Actually, your numbers on living in NYC don't make sense. The $100/day number is probably reasonable, having lived in NYC for 5 years, I can attest to that. However, a $35K/year salary won't cover it. With city/state/federal/sales/etc taxes, in NYC you probably pay around 50% of your income in taxes. That makes the math easy, to afford $100/day, you need to make $70K.

Of course, that's just basic living expenses. You don't live in NY to sit in an apartment and look at 2 square inches of sky every day. There's $50 binges at the bar, Hampton's or Jersey Shore weekends or skiing holidays. Additionally, New Yorkers are pretty social and sexual, so there's going to be plenty of dates. Keeping a date under $100 is a battle.

That is one of the real downsides of living in NYC, it almost doesn't matter how much money you make, you're being sucked into bankruptcy.

Re: Another thing on customer service vs. network at wireless companies

ameyer32 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:35:06 -0000

Wireless companies actually face a significantly larger threat from Google, Facebook and probably Skype.

Google with Android and the soon to be released Wave offer a huge challenge along with Facebook with their payment platform.

The wireless companies may still be a part of the equation, but their profits will be gutted.

http://bit.ly/4fIuEs

Re: Customers are talking: companies are investing in customer satisfaction, and it shows

ameyer32 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:35:46 -0000

Normally I look forward to your posts, but I have to say that here, I don't understand where you're coming from. Sprint is the most abysmally horrible telco among a group of abysmally horrible firms. If they saw the number of calls with complaints decrease, it's only because their customer gave up complaining voted with their feet and left.

Normally I don't comment when I disagree, but in yesterday's Sprint conference call, their own chief executive said: "Sprint’s marketing continues to be dragged down by public perception of poor service quality, the chief executive, Daniel R. Hesse, told investors in a conference call." http://www.nytimes.com/2009...

It is just about impossible to imagine a company with a worse public reputation for quality and customer service, but if I had to pick one, it would be The Cheesecake Factory.

Now, I'll admit, I'm biased here. I think their food is disgusting, their service is horrible and their restaurants are filthy and loud. There is not a kind thing I have to say about Cheesecake Factory. This situation is made worse because one of the key people at a key customer loves name brand places and consequently drags me there ever month of so. Every single time my opinion gets worse, I despise the place more and I think their quality, service and cleanliness get worse. If a place is going to be pretentious, it should not be disgusting.

You didn't write the WSJ piece, but it just does not jive with reality. Restaurants and businesses are closing left and right. Sprint, which is one of the great stories of American reinvention. (SPRINT stands for Southern Pacific Railroad Interstate Telegraph - or something close to that) They are over 100 years old and have survived changes and reinvented themselves many times, but now they are clueless and deserve to be destroyed - creatively or otherwise. Likewise, if Cheesecake Factory is hearing pleasant stories, I don't know who they're talking to.

If you're pitching telling stories, don't pick these examples. There's a serious disconnect between ACSI and reality. Maybe they're taking a lesson from J. D. Powers. J. D. Powers keeps giving General Motors awards for quality. I hope they're getting well paid.

Re: Customers are talking: “Why Customers Really Buy”

ameyer32 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:02:04 -0000

John,

how much do they differientiate between people (business people) spending their own money vs spending other people's money?

Let me give an example. If I'm the owner of a $20M per annum business, I am taking money out of my pocket to buy your product or service.

How different is that from the middle manager at a 10K person company who is spending money that has been budgeted for a project?

What are the triggers/drivers for those two individuals? Does the book go into that?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Andy

Re: McKinsey On State Capitalism

ameyer32 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:44:41 -0000

McKinsey has a long history of slanting the truth, but this is just ridiculous. They make it out that the 13 largest oil companies are controlled by governments. Then they go on to list Petrobras, Petronas, and Petróleos de Venezuela. Now call me crazy, but Exxon earned somewhere between $40 and $50B last year. Petrobras was in the $20B range and Petronas further behind. Saudi Aramco's dominant, but the rest is highly slanted.

Re: 9 Hidden Benefits of Blogging

ameyer32 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:35:57 -0000

Excellent list and I'd extend one of your comments. It may not be as true for you as it is for other small business leaders, but your suggestion that blogging allows you to "test out ideas" is critical. When you run a small business, it's very hard to get honest feedback. People around you are often dependent upon you for their job or they are vendors or customers or friends. The realities of those relationships are going to color what they say to you.

When you test an idea out in a blog, most readers and commenters' have no relationship to you, they just react to what you wrote and how effectively you articulated your idea.

I would extend "test out ideas" to get honest and objective feedback... and I'm not saying that just cause I like what you write.

Re: To learn better, keep & review a mistake log

ameyer32 — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:09:50 -0000

John,

that is a really good idea. Especially if you're trying to learn a new area. For example: developing and negotiating contracts. It's very easy to have someone whose more experienced take advantage of you. You may not even realize it at the time, but if you can acknowledge that is was an "unplanned event", maybe you can begin to recognize the pattern and prevent it from occurring the future.

There is also a certain therapeutic value in confessing, doing your repentance and moving on.

thanks,

Andy

Re: Kindle helps illuminate the skim-pricing strategy in tech

ameyer32 — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:57:57 -0000

John,

I agree with you, Amazon is going for skim pricing, but to me, there is a second phase which will play out in the fall. What if the DX is really aimed at the University Text Book market? Just as MSFT sells an expensive version to the general public and has student discounts at universities, don't you think Amazon will offer the DX to the general public at a premium price to skim the market and with a "student discount" to attract the market, students and text books, that they're really aiming for?

It is a fascinating strategy playing out before our eyes.

Andy

Re: You Decide How You Communicate: Rules Of Engagement

ameyer32 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:29:15 -0000

Bas,

I love where you're going with this and I agree with you. Applying some of the ideas to projects can be difficult, but thinking about different approaches is invaluable.

Have you looked at what Dee Hock did? He founded and organized Visa. If you've missed it, its one of the most brilliant organizational approaches ever devised. Did you know that at it's core? Bee communication.

After he retired, he set up the Chaordic Alliance to advance the ideas. It's great stuff and worth thinking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Love your stuff,

Andy

Re: Managing The Gray Areas With Jerry Manas

ameyer32 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:54:59 -0000

Bas,

interesting session, I always look forward to your posts. You're doing a great job putting these together. I give anyone great credit who is trying to implement Ricardo Semler's ideas on a defined project inside of a hierarchical corporation, but I compliment Jerry on spreading the approach. It certainly is food for thought.

Keep up the good work and I like that you look more professional,

Andy

Re: For review & comment: a method for gathering-using customer intelligence from your front-line staff (part 2)

ameyer32 — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:08:49 -0000

John,

we wouldn't have a huge group of people (my company isn't that large). But as we grow, it would be an interesting way to capture corporate experience and review it. That is more what interest me.

When I was studying Industrial Engineering, we spent quite a bit of time talking about Peter Senge's "The Learning Organization". One of the real challenges was, how do you capture corporate learning? This offers a way to do that.

I'm probably going to experiment doing this myself first. I like your idea of answering "What's interesting?" Maybe I'll also pretend I'm Jean Luc Picard entering my Captains Log.

If I were hit by a bus and a co-worker had to take over, what would I want them to know?

Have you talked to Rich Maltzman (the Scope Crepe blogger) about this? He's done quite a bit to encourage more blogging of what different people are doing. He might well be interested. I'll send him with links to your posts.

Re: For review & comment: a method for gathering-using customer intelligence from your front-line staff (part 2)

ameyer32 — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:00:08 -0000

John,

a very interesting idea that actually addresses something I've been thinking about. We have a highly distributed consulting company. How can one easily share ideas and updates between people in different geographic sites? I've thought about creating a blogging policy where everyone would post a max of 150 word update on what happened that is interesting that day, but your suggestion is even better. Have people call in and give an 5 to 10 minute update on things that were interesting or important at their site that day. Put that autotranscribed into a blog and then distributed to everyone else via an RSS feed. That way everyone would have an awareness of what's happening at different sites and if you're going to visit a site, there is a history that can be read so one is savvy with what is happening with that site. Comments made to the post would also allow junior consultants to get feedback from consultants who have been around longer.

Much more efficient and easily accessible than email.

Have you tried doing this or are you thinking of trying? If you do, let me know, it would be an interesting experiment and it would be helpful to compare notes with someone else.

Andy

Re: PDF-to-Word Conversion: Why It’s So Hard to Do

ameyer32 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:23:42 -0000

Interesting. Sort of like my note taking in college. The words were captured but the meaning and structure totally lost...

Re: Customers are talking

ameyer32 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:06:50 -0000

John,

I think you're hitting on one of the key points that will separate successful companies from unsuccessful companies in the next 10 years. Do the people leading the company know what value their customers are willing to pay for? Do they know why they're willing to pay for it? Do they know whether their customers can find similar value somewhere else for he same or less?

The companies that will succeed understand this and will offer their customers more value than they can find elsewhere. The last 20 years have offered such an explosion of new products and services along with so much liquidity through leverage that companies just bought and figured it out afterwards.

The world is changing. If I have $100 per person to eat dinner, I don't really have to consider trade offs. If I have $50 per person to eat for the week, I'm going to think long and hard about trade offs.

If my company has a virtually unlimited budget, I'll listen to every salesman's fantasy and consider the possibilities. If I have a constrained budget, I'm going to think about my "needs" and not be too concerned about possibilities.

McDonalds blew their numbers out of the water offering two big Macs for $3, Subway is growing their business offering $5 foot longs. Starbucks is in steep decline trying to sell $4 coffee.

I have full confidence that Nordstroms will survive, though as a smaller company to service their true customer base. I'm also pretty sure Saks and Barney's will not survive. Which one focuses around their customer?

I think you're onto something very worthwhile where there's a lot of opportunity. I hope you do well and I look forward to your insightful writing.

Re: Help Needed On Study on Virtual Teams

ameyer32 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:06:08 -0000

I completed their survey. I'll be interested to see what they come back and say. From some of the questions they asked, I suspect they may sell services around social media (Twitter, FaceBook, SecondLife etc.) Internally we have very strong opinions that these tools may have a place in marketing, but they have no place in internal development. Social media is social, not business.

I'll be interested if other people share our perspective. If this information is being spread through blogs, I suspect it may slant toward people who favor more use of social media. It'll be interesting to see.

Re: When Greed Is Good

ameyer32 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 10:08:50 -0000

Adding onto what Krassen Dimitrov said, I would like to add two points.

1. During the S&L crisis, mortgages had not been securitized into the mind numbingly complex CDOs and CMOs that have to be dealt with now.

2. Revaluing these assets has an unfortunate side effect. It throws contract law out the window. The people who purchased the CDOs, did so in good faith that the contracts would be honored. If home owners default, that is handled under the contracts. If the government comes in and "reprices" the assets, the government has broken the contracts.

3. Guess who the government wants to have buy these "repriced assets"? Hedge funds, pension plans, private equity, financial advisors and other investors. Guess who bought the original CDOs and CMOs? Hedge funds, pension plans, private equity, financial advisors and other investors.

The government may well attempt to "reprice" these assets to save the banks. If they do, they should call the plan "cutting off your nose to spit in your face." Because that's what they will be doing.

Re: Alignment Of Individual And Organizational Objectives With Andrew Meyer

ameyer32 — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:34:37 -0000

John,

thanks for a great question. In most organizations, OCB is used to strengthen the PM. The organization wants the PM and the project to succeed and they use OCB as a communications tool to help the PM. With this in mind, predictions and discussions are all focused around deliverables.

Please contact me (ameyer@go2incent.com) if you would like more information or check out our demo at:
http://companyalign.com/atm...

I would love to know your thoughts,

Andy

Re: One of the world’s most dangerous jobs: change agent

ameyer32 — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:00:05 -0000

I'm not sure this should come as a great surprise. In about 1500 Machiavelli pointed out that:

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm (indifferent, uninterested) defenders in those who may do well under the new. "

If you don't like secular examples, consider the fact that his own people voted to hang Christ on the cross and God didn't even let Moses into the promised land.

If you think you're going to be a change agent and be popular, you're fooling yourself.

Re: Self-Organization In Teams With Esther Derby

ameyer32 — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:10:14 -0000

Very good video chat. I had never thought about the mental models company's hold and use to think about their employees. Ester is absolutely right, understanding that mental model really determines how you organize things within a company. Great insight.

Re: You can learn a lot about market psychology at the craps table

ameyer32 — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:44:55 -0000

Interesting comparison. I agree that some people don't short because they don't want to go against the tide but the main reason most people/companies don't short is that its a terrible difficult way to make money. Not only does one have to identify when companies are very over valued, that parts not so hard; one has to identify when the market is also going to realize that those companies are over valued. Market timing is unbelievably hard.

If you ever go to financial conferences, short sellers are easy to spot. They will quote numbers endlessly and they will be numbers they calculated themselves.

If you've never been, think about the difference between how someone talks about next weekends playoff game if they are a gambler compared to if they the curl up with a beer to watch the game on Sunday afternoon.

Good luck to your Steelers and unless you want an exquisite form of self torture, stay away from shorting stocks. It's a little like being a Packers fan.

Re: Project Shrink 2008: Oh No Not Again

ameyer32 — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:41:39 -0000

Bas,

thanks.

Does Dutch have the term "Gatvol"? Or does it really only exist in Afrikaans.

If you know the term, you know the situation it describes on projects.

Andy

Re: Project Shrink 2008: Oh No Not Again

ameyer32 — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:16:42 -0000

Bas,

I like your idea of three levels interacting. If you'll forgive me, there's one other I think is important to resiliency. Resiliency's a great concept to explore.

One other area to consider is Business Environment. The Albert Einstein of project management couldn't affect what's happening in certain business environments. Auto companies, financial services, newspapers etc. are going through huge structural changes. Anyone working at any level in those businesses better understand if they are going to be effective and resilient.

Another area to consider is that of responsibility. The 90s and 2000s have been about the business fad of "Win-Win". The idea that everybody's ideas must be included also means that no one is fully responsible. People need to be heard, but in the end, someone (the project sponsor) has their approach selected and they are personally responsible to make it work.

Like resiliency, responsibility needs to be accounted for in business environment, panarchy, middle focal area and personal development.

Let me know if there is anything I can do.

Re: Having It All: Cheaper Projects And A Sustainable Society

ameyer32 — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:18:59 -0000

Bas,

take care and I hope you had great holidays. I made it home (Wisconsin) for Christmas. Very white and snowy.

You are right, our outlooks are not mutually exclusive. The way projects will be executed over the next few years will change. Being able to articulate what we're seeing and take advantage of other's perspectives will be important in making everyone better.

I love your insights and look forward to the journey.

Re: Having It All: Cheaper Projects And A Sustainable Society

ameyer32 — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 08:58:56 -0000

Bas,

I like a lot of your writing, but this time, I think you missed the boat. Maybe it's because it's Christmas and I'm sitting in a crappie airport hoping my oversold airplane will actually take off, but I'm feeling very crochity right now, forgive me.

I like you're first question, "Wouldn't it be great if software projects are done cheaper?", but my answer would be different. 2/3rds of projects shouldn't be done at all. I'm not suggesting sending people into a ROI justification exercise, which normally resembles nothing more than a dog eating scrambled eggs. Rather, projects should have two requirements prior to starting.

1. There should be a 1 page (less than 300 words) description of why the project is being done, how people will know if it succeeds and how it will pay all of it's costs in less than eighteen months.

2. Everyone on the project should be able to describe in less than thirty seconds what the project will achieve and how we will know if it succeeded. (and the descriptions better all be the same...)

The project sponsor should be responsible for the project. If the project succeeds, they succeed and get the credit. If the project fails, i.e. doesn't meet the criteria laid out in number 1 in less than eighteen months from the project start date, the project sponsor should have their salary cut 10% and return 50% of any bonus money they received. They shouldn't be fired, but they should learn from their mistakes and personally feel some of the cost of the value destruction they inflicted on the company.

This rule would have a stunningly clarifying effect.

The project scapegoat, I mean manager - position should be renamed so it represents the role it should be playing - journalist. The project journalist should provide the sponsor with an accurate picture of what is happening on the project, so they can make the appropriate decisions, including killing the project if it's heading into the tar pits.

Offshoring, methodological approaches and virtual teams do not address the real underlying problem of value destruction, which is what 2/3rds of corporate projects are.

Make the project sponsors responsible for their fantasies, sorry I mean projects, and make sure those projects are aligned with the goals of the business.

I realize all this is about as likely to happen as Santa giving me a 57 Chevy convertible with a cute brunette in the passenger seat, but hey, it's Christmas and I feel much better now.

Have a great holiday season and may all your projects succeed in 2009. And keep up the writing, I really do love your stuff.

Andy

Re: Top Project Management Postings: August 2008

ameyer32 — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 10:36:59 -0000

Thanks for the call out, I appreciate it. I also subscribed to your recommendations.

All my best,

Andy