blog.RedRockResearch.com

Do you like designing on whiteboards?  I do.   Colorful markers against a clean, white surface inspire all kinds of creativity and fun.

Recently David Crossett of Ready Receipts gave me a great tip.  He told me that instead of going to your local OfficeBOX superstore and paying $200 for a 4×8 whiteboard, just hit HomeDepot instead and get a $12 piece of showerboard.  It works just as good and if you need a smaller size they will cut it for you on site for no additional charge!  At that price, you can line your walls with thinking space.  Power to the Consumer–thanks David!

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

I’ve heard people make references to Geoffrey A. Moore’s Crossing the CHASM book for several years now but had’t read it until this past week. 

Moore’s book is a must-read for any IT company trying to launch a new product.  Although the concepts in the book are not novel (so admit’s Moore) the book brings a vocabulary and metaphoric dictionary to the readers allowing marketing groups, investors, and techies alike to communicate about the playing field in a proactive manner.

Moore discusses the importance of delivering continuous innovation, instead if discontinuous innovation.  Our new innovations need to help people do what they are already doing better, and not force them to abruptly change something that kinda works for something that they are not sure about that may possibly work better.

Moore introduces the Technology Adoption LifeCycle, complete with five categories of market segments.  He discusses how to market in succession to each group:

1. Innovators
2. Early Adopters
3. Early Majority
4. Late Majority
5. Laggards 

Finally, Moore introduces some business concepts you may have heard of by now, like the bowling alley, the tornado, and the fault line.

If you haven’t heard of these, then you need to get reading!

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

I’m publishing my first book next month.  It’s about software quality management.

Quality management, that is, in the sense of improving software processes and production support methods, not about ‘how to test software.’

I include overviews of the four formal quality models: CMMI, Six Sigma, and ISO 90003, and ITIL.  I outline how to create a quality system within an organization and I discuss common fixtures it should have.

I talk about checklists, measurements, purpose, accountability, and continuous improvement.

So now I want your help.  Tell me what else I should include in a book about managing quality in an IT/Software Development/Production Support environment.

Also, suggest some titles.  Thanks in advance!

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com
 

Recently, while attending the ‘09 Agile Roots conference in Salt Lake City, UT, Alistair Cockburn–the keynote speaker–referenced Miyamoto Musashi’s 16th-century book called The Book of Five Rings. 

I like Asian philosophy (and swords and such) so I picked up the book and read it.  The book was written in 1643 by an undefeated Japanese samurai master who was so effective he was rumoured to have spent the latter part of his career entering sword-fights purposely without a weapon.  Although meant as a battlefield manual, the book has gained popularity as a handbook for conducting business in the 21st century.

The book was translated into English by Thomas Cleary at some point and the edition I read was published in 2005.   Improperly named “The Book of Five Rings,” the book is actually a compilation of five scrolls.

The Earth Scroll: Musashi talks about how a straight path levels the contours of the Earth and how various occupations provide life-improving principles.  He talks about observing patterns and learning from them.  Certainly a great primer for any business trying to get across the chasm.

The Water Scroll: Here Musashi talks about how water conforms to the shape of its container.  He suggests a separation of one’s inward mind against it’s outward posture, maintaining that one’s control over one’s mind must not be relinquished to outward circumstances.  He translates these philosophies into about 80 pages of sword fighting techniques.  An interesting modern parallel is found in Jim Collins book, Good to Great, where he talks about how the most successful companies are able to say ‘No’ and not be influenced by immediate but non-strategic opportunities.

The Fire Scroll: As with any book written by a 16th century samurai master, you’d expect a core discussion on combat strategy.   The fire scroll is full of combat strategies, positioning, and pre-emptive theory.  Very interesting.  Did anyone notice how Apple’s announcement of the latest iPhone came about 1 day after the Palm Pre phone was officially launched–killing it’s market blitz?  No coincidence there.

The Wind Scroll: The wind scroll contains a directive to study and be aware of your opponents techniques.  Translated into business speak, this means one should always study ones competitors.  Be aware of new offerings, partnerships, markets, etc. that they persue.  Emphasis is placed on observing rhythms and strategically harmonizing, or dis-harmonizing with them as appropriate.

Finally, The Emptiness Scroll:  This scroll discusses the value of escaping personal biases.  Emphasis is placed on not lingering on past situations and being able to adjust quickly to new scenarios. 

Overall I found this book ‘enlightening’ to read.  If you like metaphors and inferences, or sword-fighting, then you will enjoy this book. 

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

Want to visit ground-zero for data security?  Experts from SANS, MITRE, SAFECode, EMC, Juniper, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Symantec, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Division last week presented a listing of The Top 25 Most Dangerous (Information Security) Programming Errors.  Expect to see future government and big-money RFP’s mandate these items be addressed.

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

NewsCHIME.com, the ‘News from everywhere, every 10 minutes’ website has officially passed the 100+ repeat visitor mark!  This site was launched in May of ‘08 with no advertising at all, and now enjoys more than 100 repeat visitors, and over 1000 unique visits per month. 

I classify a ‘repeat visitor’ as somebody who has come back four or more times.   The number four is kind of arbitrary, but I think somebody who comes back only once or twice is not really a captive audience participant.  They are more link a potential customer peering into the store window.

NewsCHIME.com was created to bring headline news to people who, like me, love to read the news.   We love it so much, in fact, that that’s all we want to see on the site–news headlines and nothing else. 

Have a BlackBerry and a few spare minutes between (or during) your meetings?  Go to NewsCHIME.com and check out what’s happing across the world!

Need to do research for education, work, or personal interest?  You can search for headlines topics from the past 18 months or so on the search page.  

This works great if you are expected to know about something newsworthy in a short amount of time.

For example, a search for ‘Obama’ or ‘McCain’ and a quick headline perusal will give you a one-sentence summary of everything noteworthy these candidates have done for the past 18 months.  10 minutes on NewsCHIME and you be more infomed about the upcoming presidential election than more than 300 million other people.

Need research project material on the mortgage meltdown, type ‘mortgage’ and you’ll see the unfortunate play-by-play.

Be sure to take note of what you will NOT see at NewsCHIME.com.  You will not see lots of useless links to various websites that have nothing to do with your topic.  You will not see pictures of dancing people,  and you will not see ads from GM, Chevy or eHarmony. 

I almost forgot to mention, NewsCHIME has free news alerts!  That’s right, Free!  Sign up and select which search criteria you want, and as those terms are named in news events you’ll be the first one to know about them. 

So, impress your friends, impress your boss, impress you teacher.  The faster you can get at information, the more beneficial your decisions will become.  Enjoy.

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

I was sitting in a KFC eating lunch, reading the slogans muraled on the wall.  This particular KFC is supposedly the first KFC in America.  Yes, it’s in Utah.  Along with some chicken legs and a drink, you can enjoy a small exhibit showing Colonel Sander’s original briefcase, white suite, shoes, etc.

 One mural read, “Somehow we’ll do it, by the principles of thrift, honor, integrity, and charity.”

I thought for a moment.  Some of the financial service companies I’ve worked with would fail if they valued charity.  Then I thought about how trust is a wonderful interpersonal dynamic, but the companies I’ve worked with in the medical field allow no latitude for trust.  Everything must be written down and authorized by a credentialed physician.  Walk into a pharmacy and you’ll need a signature on piece of paper to get a prescription filled.

Hmmm, just like charity is an anti-value in the financial services industry, trust is an anti-value in the medical industry.

I spent the day thinking about this new concept.  I owe the title of ‘Anti-Value’ to the Discovery-Channel documentary about Anti-Matter I was watching the night before.  I  guess I’m coining the phrase here, but it makes a lot of sense to me.  Normally, a value is something our society charish’s, yet in a particular situation, or line of business–it becomes the wrong thing to do.

I started seeing how this concept can be applied all over to help clarify the decision making process.

I remembered taking third place instead of second in a Maryland school-district programming competition in high school because I let the guy from our rival high school cut in line in front of me to turn in his test.  When the results were announced we had both scored the same grade, but because he handed his paper in first, he won second place and I won third. (I beat him in the State programming competition the following month.) 

I’ve never forgotten this experience, and actually now that I think about it, offering your competitor any leeway is an anti-value. 

Some business meetings I’ve been involved in are a collage of participants cutting other participants off mid-sentence to make their point known.  Rude? Yes.  But, in fact, politeness may be considered an anti-value in these types of situations.

I think the concept is fascinating.  Just as a good value system should be in place to help an organization, department, team, or individual govern their decisions, an anti-value system can compliment a value-system by providing additional clarity for the decision making process.

One example of this is the U.S. government’s policy on dealing with terrorists.  The government values having a “no negotiating with terrorists” policy.  As a disincentive to future terrorism, they have an additional policy to provide or produce exactly the opposite of what the terrorists are demanding.  The notion–to give them what they want–really becomes an anti-value, and is an additional input to the decision-making process.  So, in fact, their policy is set by values, and anti-values.

I hope you find this concept as fascinating as I do.  It was the best $7.79 I’ve spent on lunch in a while.

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

Jack Welch, in his book, Winning, talks about how to create great mission statements.

He says most mission statements are dull, uninspired, and even unhelpful.  Most groups write their mission statement to describe only what they are in business to do.  While this is not wrong, it creates a whole bunch of mission statements that all look the same among competitors, and are not really valuable.

Welch suggests that a good mission statement not only describes what the company is in business to do, but how they are going to succeed at it. 

For example, “We are going to sell lots of chickens,” is not as effective as “we are going to sell lots of chickens by growing the largest free-range chickens and advertising their value to the industry.”

Following his logic, I did some research and found some interesting comparisons:

Ford Motor Company in Europe’s mission statement (couldn’t find the U.S. mission statement anywhere online) is:

“Our Mission: we are a global, diverse family with a proud heritage, passionately committed to providing outstanding products and services.”

OK, so Ford’s mission is noble, but there is no explanation as to how they will succeed at their mission.  Compare this to Toyota’s mission statement:

“To sustain profitable growth by providing the best customer experience and dealer support.”

Toyota’s mission statement expresses their intention to make money by providing the best customer experience and dealer support. 

Indeed, their mission statement tells what they are doing and how they will succeed.  This is an example of an effective mission statement.

There is a business principle at hand here:  Ambiguity is the enemy to progress.  It’s nice Ford wants to provide outstanding products and services, but there is no formula or direction given in their mission statement as to how they plan to do this.

Toyota states it will succeed by providing the best customer experience and dealer support.   Are they succeeding at this?  

In 2007, Toyota became the largest seller of cars in America.  As customers, we vote with our money.  It seems then,  that they are providing the best customer experience, and are fulfilling their mission statement.

On a lighter note, Enron’s mission statement is/was:  

“Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence.”

Mike J Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

I just finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, by Timothy Ferriss.  Timothy Ferriss is a 29-year old self-made millionaire, TV actor in China, athletic advisor to more than 30 world record holders, Chinese Kickboxing Champion, first American to hold Guinness world record in Tango, speaker of four languages, and a four-world champion cage fighter.   This book now makes him an author.

Ferriss’s book is about beating Corporate America, and becoming content and happy using the newer technologies available to us today. 

He provides a formula for successful entrepreneurship.  One important point he makes is the need to find a market, before investing in building the product.  He suggests this successful pattern:

1. Pick an industry you understand.
2. Target a product you can Create, License, or Resell.
3. Look at competition to see how you need to differentiate your product.  Examples:
   1. More credibility indicators
   2. Offer a better guarantee
   3. Offer a better selection
   4. Offer free, or faster shipping
4. Micro-test your product (before you put any money into it), by using eBay, or Google Ad’s.  Microtesting is “probing” customers to see if they would buy the product.  Some examples:
   1. Put an add on eBay, then cancel the add minutes before the auction ends, to see how much people are willing to pay.
   2. Build a dummy website, with item, description, pictures, and pricing.  After the user pressed ‘purchase now,’ display a “Thank you but this item is temporarily unavailable.”  This enables you to test your conversion rate up front, without needing to invest in manufacturing, etc.

This way, you can determine up front if there is a market for your product.  He suggests putting the price on a separate webpage altogether so you can measure the effects that changing the price alone will have on your conversion rate.

Ferris goes on to explain how to transform managing a business into automating the business.  He suggests time management is a thing of the past.  The key to living better today is to remove distracting inputs from our lives. 

He talks about outsourcing every part of you business and empowering the outsourcers.  He talks about only answering email one day a week, and having your cell phone message redirect people to you email. 

The final part of Ferriss’s book talks about what to do after you have successfully started and automated you business.  He talks about getting out of your comfort zone, travelling, learning new skills, and new languages. 

I think this book is an excellent read, and surprisingly cutting-edge.  It’s nice to read a business book about PPC, Google AdWords, and eBay microtesting.   Makes me feel understood.

Mike J Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell, is an insightful book that discusses factors that cause market surge.

Gladwell points out the two phenomenons that seem to primarily be market catalyst factors:

1. One high-profile, highly-connected individual’s public endorsement
2. A critical-mass buildup of interest

Gladwell suggests people like Oprah Winfrey can have great power in markets, and sites her single negative market-shaking comment about the U.S. beef industry back in the 80’s as an example of such dynamics.

I found the Tipping Point to be an inspiring read and highly recommend it, especially to the marketing types.

Mike J Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com