If You’re Not Making Mistakes, How Are You Learning?

The stakes in the high tech sector are high. When you screw up on the Internet your mistakes hang around and haunt you forever.

The Regional SVP of Facebook Mike Haines spoke last Wednesday in Orlando to members of the American Marketing Association of Central Florida (AMA-CFL). Did you know that 1 million people a day join Facebook? But I’m not going to talk about Facebook…Mike said something that resonated with me and it was a great term that I have not heard in a while…and it was like hearing from an old friend. He said “Fail Forward”.

People are afraid of failure. I say bring it on! Failure is often seen as a step backward but failing teaches us to be resilient. We have all heard the expression “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Usually when you hear that it is at a point when you don’t want to be reminded. Right? Later you know you are made of steel. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb he tried over 2,000 times to get it to work. He said, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process!” It’s about attitude. It’s about learning being a process.

And, when you work in the online space every day you know it is moving at the speed of light and you have to innovate or you WILL die online. The way that we differentiate our business is by innovating and creating new ideas, products, and ways of engaging people in real time. Mike at Facebook said that they make mistakes…their members even set up groups to tell them about their mistakes. How many of you have joined a Facebook group to protest Facebook? However, they are glad to hear it so they can learn. The thing about failure and being willing to fail is it will make you stop and think. You think about the process and you “Fail Forward.” It’s more like one step back…two steps forward when you are in the virtual world.

Remember, the sooner we find out this idea doesn’t work; the sooner we can get onto one that might. And if this idea does work, hallelujah, we may have a new light bulb on our hands.

BTW, as Mario Andretti said, “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”

Taking Care of People, Taking Care of Business, Taking Care of the Planet

I recently attended a conference for female entrepreneurs, and I talked about the conference offered by Count Me In (CMI) in my last blog. Office Depot volunteered their corporate Headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida for the 3 day conference. I didn’t think much about Office Depot before this…other than it’s a place to pick up printing paper and ink when I run out. The title of the blog “Taking Care of People, Taking Care of Business, Taking Care of the Planet” is their motto. So big deal; lots of corporations have mottos, but do they all live by them? Well here is what I didn’t know: Office Depot does. Read on because I’m going to talk about a really cool program and some FREE (ya FREE) business tools (and lots of them) that are available to you!

Taking Care of People:
Office Depot has donated over $20 million dollars to help people, but I am not going to talk about all of that…I am going to talk about one program that I thought was unique and insightful. The National Backpack Program, now in its seventh year, places new backpacks into the hands of children who might not otherwise have the proper tools for success. Office Depot has donated nearly 1.8 million backpacks full of school suppliers since 2001.

Why is this so important?

Let me use a real-life example. As many of you already know, I’m from Montana, (and you are probably sick of hearing about fishing), and during a recent trip home I had the opportunity to visit with a woman whose experience with this program was more personal. Ok, so she’s my Mom, and she is the current Executive Director of The Boys and Girls Clubs Endowment Foundation in Billings, Montana and the former Development Director of Family Service, Inc., a nonprofit organization there, and she said the community involvement of Office Depot made a difference in the lives of many in a Montana community of just over 100,000.

She told me the people, who use the services of Family Service, are truly the most at-risk and vulnerable in their community. Any extra expense puts these families in crisis. Back to school expenses were one of the financial stressors of the low to very low income families served. I was told each year the wonderful associates at the local Office Depot came forward to make certain hundreds of young people had backpacks and the needed school supplies to fill them. She would watch as the families, parents and children, stood in line for hours waiting their turn to receive these generous gifts. She could see the excitement of the kids and the relief of their parents, who now had one less thing to worry about! Without the involvement of Office Depot, many children would have returned to school without the tools their peers took for granted. She assured me that having the right tools set the tone for the entire school year and that the first couple of days at school are critical.

Taking Care of Business:
Did you know that there are a lot of FREE business resources on the Office Depot’s website? It makes sense – business people are their customers! They offered WebCafe’ (their version of webinars before webinars were even heard of!) WebCafe’ was launched in 2002 as part of the Company's online Business Resource Center. These free web-based seminars provide small business owners and other professionals with the opportunity to learn from industry experts on a variety of topics ranging from marketing and sales tools to finance and technology trends.

The workshops, which are held on select Tuesdays at 4PM EST, consist of a 40-minute presentation followed by an interactive question-and-answer session.
They have what seems like hundreds of business form templates (from sample equipment leases to IRS tax forms), and provide a small business handbook that tells you everything you need to know to run your business from equity to employees. It’s amazing and I wish I had known about it a few years ago!

I know about them now because they stand behind women in business and are committed to identifying the growing global needs of today's businesswoman. I am posting a picture of me with Monica Luechtefeld, who is the EVP of E-Commerce and Direct Marketing for Office Depot. Since I own a business (www.mindspotinc.com) that utilizes the online space – I feel qualified enough to say that her team is doing a great job and I learned a few things from them while I was there! Monica is also tasked by the organization to leverage her relationships with women’s business organizations to expand their marketing efforts towards business owners. I can’t speak for all of the women who attended the conference last month, but I can say thank you to Monica and her organization for supporting us. And, Monica-I think you are awesome! This is why I had to have my picture taken with her (photo attached to blog)! Hey…we all need role models.

Taking Care of the Planet:
Office Depot thinks green. They try and buy and supply green products. Okay, there are a few companies on that band wagon. But Office Depot seems to be not only talking the talk but walking the walk. Their environmental strategy can be summed up in a simple statement; they are committed to increasingly buy green, be green and sell green. It’s pretty simple.

Yep, seems like good business to me.

Need a Job? I Have One.

I spent the last couple of days in Boca Raton, Florida with some of the most amazing people that I have ever met. I am not one to go to a conference for women or women business owners but I needed to get inspired. I know the economy is bad. We hear it ever day and that sucks. But, you know what, our business is growing and we are grateful. A trip to South Florida was fine with me and I got more inspiration than I expected.

Count Me In is an organization whose mission is to promote economic independence and the growth of women owned businesses. You know how I found out about them? I was going through a stack of catalogs deciding which ones to read and which ones to recycle and I saw the Costco Connection. Now I love Costco. I just do. I saw Theresa Alfaro Daytner, owner of Daytner Construction Group on the cover. I read the article and you can read it too http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/200909/#pg1 . I signed up for the 3 day event. What the heck.

I had the privilege of meeting Nell Merlino, the creator of Take our Daughters to Work Day, author of “Stepping Out of Line”, and the leader of The Count me In Women’s organization http://www.countmein.org/. (That's her in the picture with me)

I want to focus on one of the many outstanding things that Nell said. And, I am taking liberty in paraphrasing. The biggest issue in the United States today is the unemployment rate. What is wrong with the country is that people are not working. Fear is stalling the growth.

Even the female business owners in this conference were hesitant to hire employees, which means as the leaders of our companies we are taking on more and more work. I looked this up and it’s real according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics released September 23, 2009: The national unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in August 2009, seasonally ad-justed, up from 9.4 per-cent the prior month and up from 6.2 percent a year earlier. Yep, that means 1 out of ten people in the United States is out of work.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/mmls.nr0.htm

She went on to talk about this being a very tough year. And, I agree, and it does seem like everyone is waiting for someone to fix this or the government will throw enough of our money at it to make an impact. Then she said something amazing. I wrote it down. “What if we could?” And, I thought what if we could what, Nell? Are you actually suggesting that the 100 female small business owners in this room fix the economy? Really.

She told a story about women and war. No, not about a cultural icon, Rosie the Riveter – we have all heard it; she talked about how during World War I, even though very few women worked outside the home they took the place of the men who had gone off to war and worked in factories and on the farms. Teddy Roosevelt even provided uniforms with pants (very few women wore pants back then) and women ended the food riots by harvesting the crops and planting Victory Gardens. Women in the U.S. and Britain brought in the crops (see Farmettes and Land Girls).

Women get it done when the chips are down.

Back to “What if we could?” She said, “What if everyone in this room hired one person when they got back to their business?” It’s about personal responsibility and accountability and the belief that the show goes on (according to me) and again, I think she is right. That would put 100 people to work and the family, community, and economic impact of that does matter. There is a ripple effect. However, is it significant? Well, there are millions of female and minority owned businesses and if everyone hired one person we would put millions of people back to work. Yes, it is significant.

· 10.5 million businesses are owned by women in the United States*
· Women-owned businesses employ approximately 27 million people
· Women own 48% of all businesses in the United States
· Women business owners contribute more than $3.6 trillion to the marketplace each year
· Women account for more than 70% of consumer spending
· 55% of women provide half or more of their household's income, yet 48 million women -- that is 80% of all women in the workforce -- earn less than $25,000 a year**

*”Stepping out of Line” and **Facts from "The National Foundation for Women Business Owners"

What if every corporation or business regardless of the gender of the owner (who cares!) added one employee this month or next month? Why wait for our government to get it right? Why not do what we do and get down to business. Every woman that I met this past week was a woman that meant business. And, many of these women run multi-million dollar businesses.

One of my favorite comments of the day was from one of the few men in attendance. An executive from Office Depot (a sponsor of Count Me In and the wonderful folks at Office Depot are the topic of my next Blog) had supported, attended and listened to the comments from women for 3 days. And, he said, “If the women in this room are representative of other businesses run by women then I feel comfortable in saying we’re good. The U.S. is good.” Everyone applauded because he is right. We are good. We are an amazing country with people that have a can-do attitude. Turn off CNN (Constant Negative News) before you spiral into a depression and think about what you can do to chip in.

I am proud that Mindspot Inc, is a state of Florida certified Female/Minority owned business enterprise and I am proud to belong to Count Me In, an outstanding organization that helps women build their lives and their business.

So in closing, what are you going to do? I would love to hear your feedback. Post a comment because I know you have something to say. I have a job opening. Email us for the job description at info@mindspotinc.com.

How Many Friends Are Too Many Friends?

Ever wonder how many users are on Facebook? The answer, today, is more than 250 million active users. Facebook started on a college campus (Harvard) in February 2004 and then expanded to other colleges and then high schools. Today two-thirds of FB members are outside of college and the fastest growing demographic is 35+.

The average FB user has 120 friends. How many do you have? Today I have 274 tomorrow maybe more…maybe less. Here’s the thing: Corporate management theory, the military and psychology gurus support the optimum group size of 150.

It is often referred to as “The Dunbar Number” because Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist researched this and determined the optimum number to maintain social interaction was 150. His research was based on personal communication involving speech. So what does that mean for a social networking site like Facebook? Does it mean that we as humans using technology –that we are expanding our “tribe”? Is it an evolutionary shift?

Or will what typically happens in corporate, organizations, and government evolve here as well? Will we have more bureaucracy and social stratification to ultimately keep the core group smaller and more manageable? Can we keep up with a growing number of friends?

I recently had a FB request from someone who wanted to know where he knew me from? Well he doesn’t know me. However, he sent me the friend request a while back because I am a friend of his friend’s sister. That was when he was new to Facebook and adding friends. Now, he wants to decrease the size of his group to people that he knew or that he communicated with on a regular basis. I made the cut, but likely only because I responded that I enjoy his posts. I am reasonably sure if you didn’t respond to his post that you were “de-friended”.

There is an application where you can designate your “Top 25 friends” or you can be someone’s “Top Girl” to let people know who your top people are at any point in time. Or maybe it’s to let you know. Based on user demand FB has added Friend Privacy in March of 2008.

Dunbar’s research also supports that in small groups there are diminishing returns on Group Satisfaction after the group exceeds 150. For smaller groups this occurs between 12 and 15 people. Ah ha that is were the optimum focus group size of 8-12 comes from! Yes, it’s based on research!

So getting back to the point; are we evolving with the help of technology or are we providing diluted communication to some group members once they exceed the personal limits of our time and attention? My guess is that the effective number is still 150. It takes a long time for evolution to happen even with the Internet!
However, we will keep adding friends and the average number will grow exponentially like Facebook itself has grown. A number of segments within our groups will evolve with varying degrees of communication and interest and we will pay more attention to some friends than others. And, if we want to keep in touch with everyone and let them know we think about them…we write a blog.

There’s a Personal Cost to Living Virtually

I make my living using cyber tools to better understand the “real” world. So, I’m the last person to bash the Internet or the emerging social media. But because I spend so much time online I invest a significant amount of time and energy examining what is done well online and what isn’t.

There’s an old axiom that everything comes around again. You know, the old becomes new. Well, one of society’s lamentations has been that as TV became more widely available families stopped sitting down around the table for dinner together. TV trays were invented and people brought their food into the living room and all sat around watching the Boob Tube and no longer talked with one another.

As time has progressed people bought more than one TV per household and that availability of multiple screens coupled with 100s of channels led to even greater isolation as people weren’t even sitting in proximity to each other. Everyone grabs their own micro waved dinner or snack and retreats to their own space to watch whatever interests them and they no longer have to be inconvenienced by their siblings’, parent’s or children’s request to change the channel. And now, the internet provides us with even more thinly sliced niches to explore.

Social media has arisen in response to people’s sense of isolation. The irony is social media tools far from bringing us together are further isolating us. Personal websites, Facebook pages and Twitter are very useful for disseminating information to large groups of people. We post once and “broadcast” to our audience. But the question becomes just because you can do something, should you?

I’m sure sometime in your life you’ve heard the expression, “Think before you speak.” The same holds true with the Internet. Think before you post. Ask yourself why are you posting? Would you say what you’re writing to someone’s face? To paraphrase Dr. Phil, “How’s that work for you?”

A lot of people feel that without social media they wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with their friends because their too busy. I’d like to encourage you to rethink this. We all know long-distance relationships are difficult to sustain. Social media creates artificial distance between us and our friends. It can also sustain the illusion that a true relationship actually exists. Text messaging, email, Twitter and Facebook are all substitutes for being there in the flesh.

At least when you call, people can hear your voice. You can hear the inflections, hesitations and enthusiasm that are so very difficult to convey in writing. However, it does require more time and commitment to the relationship than a broadcast message.

I have no intention of stopping using social media, nor am I suggesting that you do. I just want you to stop and ask yourself what price you’re paying for the efficiency and “convenience”.

Sometimes nurturing your relationship with one or two friends over a cup of coffee can provide more nourishment for your soul and theirs than broadcasting spontaneous, empty, cotton candy updates to all of your friends.

Fishing Is Good for the Soul

In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote a book called, Future Shock. He wrote of how things were changing so fast that people were becoming overwhelmed. Well here we are pretty close to 40 years later and the rate of change as increased exponentially. If people were in shock in 1970, the poor souls must be comatose today.

That’s where fishing comes in. Fishing allows you time to think. It’s my perception that people who don’t fish, think that fishing is about catching. I can understand this. After all pretty much everything we do in life is about the results. Now, don’t let me fool ya. I enjoy catching fish, as much as the next person. But the secret to fishing is engaging in the process. Being in the moment, focusing on the doing, allowing yourself to relax and be present to what’s happening here and now.

Running a business is a lot like fishing...I volunteer to send proposals out all the time or provide my solution to a problem. That’s like casting my lure. I don’t always get the business right away but I do hear from a lot of clients 6 or 12 months down the road on the same or a similar project. I sometimes have to cast that fly numerous times before a fish bites. Sometimes I have to change flies. But sooner or later my efforts draw the attention of the fish. Now, I’m not calling my clients and prospects fish, but all living creatures respond to incentives. (The science of economics is founded on the principal that people respond to incentives.) People remember when you do a little extra or provide a solution and they often call you back even if it is for another project.

One of my clients credits a fishing trip as the pivotal time in his business. It gave him time to think and determine the course of action for his business. He is incredibly successful. I will be working with him next week. I might be able to get a quote or the story from him as a follow up for a later blog.

I’m going to be headed back to Florida soon. I know I’m going to reap the benefits of my time fishing here in Montana. It’s given me time to reflect on my team, my customers and how our business brings value to everyone we encounter.

Let me encourage you to go fishing. Take a break and use the time to reflect. Aristotle said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” My experience has been that when I take the time to step back and reflect, I tend to be more productive moving forward.

How about you? Have you been fishing lately?

Being the Boss

How do leaders assure their teams deliver as promised?




In a previous blog, I wrote of how the people who work with me understand what's to be done, what success looks like and how I'm going to evaluate the work. I also wrote that I trust my judgement as to their ability to do the work I assign and their commitment to fulfill the assignments they accept.


Every now and then things don't always work out the way envisioned and it's necessary to correct course. Sometimes the situation has changed. At these times, it's purely a matter of communicating the changes as quickly as possible amongst ourselves, so we can get back on course.


When a change in circumstances is not the resaon for an individual's performance not living up to my expectation the cause always falls into one or both of two areas: attitude or ability.


Let's start with ability; if I and/or the person to whom I've assigned a task have misjudged that person's ability to do the work in the time allotted within the resources provided then my job as the leader aka the boss is to uncover and correct the diconnect. This can be a very awkward situation. Because both the person who's falling short thought they could do the job and so did I; both of our judgements have been proven wrong. Depending on how you handle the situation, fellings can be hurt and then the folks involved are not thinking about how to fix the situation, but how to avoid blame.


So, creating an environment where the person reporting to me feels respected is crucial. The moment the person I'm "correcting" feels disrespected, the relationship and the trust that holds it together begins to erode. Relationships, particularly between people who are charged with thinking for a living, are held together by trust.


Hence, when I identify the issue as one where the person was not capable of doing the work; we both have to accept responsibility and do our best to either provide the person with the knowledge they need or reaasign the work. No harm, no foul; we thought we could, we made a mistake; let's fix the situation and move on.


That's enough for today.


I'll write about handling the situation when it's one of attitude at another time.



How do you handle situations like this?

Please, write me, I'm always open to hearing how other leaders help their people succeed.