Posts Tagged ‘Productivity’

Last Thursday, when the National Weather Service was calling for a blizzard in the DC area, I had a choice to make:  open on Friday but probably close early, close the office OR keep the office open but let everyone work from home.  On Sunday night, with roads still largely impassable, federal and local governments announcing closures and public transportation down for the count, I faced a similar choice: declare the office closed on Monday and give everyone a snow day OR keep the office open and let everyone work from home.

While I’m sure most of my staff would have loved a snow day or two, as a small business owner, I know that when my staff isn’t working, we’re not generating billable time, which means a bad month in revenues, or worse.  So, since Friday, I’ve kept the Matrix Group office officially open but let everyone work from home. Here’s why:

• Most staff appreciated not having to battle the bad roads to keep working and avoid taking vacation days.
• Although most of our clients are in the DC area, we have clients all over the country; the latter expect us to be open.
• It’s precisely when our clients are not able to serve their customers and members physically that they rely on their Web sites to be open for business virtually.
• Letting staff work from home let us put our pandemic/DR plans to the test.

The results have been mostly good. With the exception of staff who lost power at home, everyone scheduled to work has been able to work.  Here’s what helped: Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: Matrix Group, Productivity, project management

This afternoon, the MatrixMaxx team at Matrix Group held a Town Hall meeting with clients to get feedback on about a half dozen features slated to go into the 10.1 version (scheduled for release in early February).  We could have surveyed clients via e-mail or a Web survey; we could have conducted a focus group; we could have called a select group of clients and consultants; or we could have gone with our gut and made decisions about credit card processing, meeting wait lists, individual relationships, etc.

Instead, we decided to crowdsource the specifications.  Crowdsource?  What does this mean?  Wikipedia defines “crowdsourcing” as the “act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group of people or community, through an “open call” to a large group of people (a crowd) and asking for contributions.”  Wikipedia also uses this definition: “the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals.”

In the past, Tanya (the Director of MatrixMaxx) and I would sit down, discuss requirements, maybe make a few calls, and then decide on the specifications for each release.  This time around, we decided to get immediate feedback from as big a group of clients as possible to validate our ideas and generate new ones.

The Mechanics of the Town Hall Meeting

• We sent an e-mail invitation to all MatrixMaxx clients, inviting them to an hour-long, online Town Hall meeting.  The e-mail provided details on the half dozen topics under consideration, with a general discussion of the options available.
• Clients were invited to provide feedback in real-time during the meeting, before the meeting via phone and email, and after the meeting via phone and e-mail.
• About 60% of the clients registered at least one person to the Town Hall meeting, which was conducted via conference call and Webex.
• Tanya ran the meeting, leading the discussion and taking notes, which were shared out via Webex to all participants.

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• Tags: association management, Productivity, project management, software development

I was at Union Station a few weeks ago and on my way out, I validated my parking ticket, which would have given me a dollar or two off the total charge.  As instructed by all the signage, I paid for my ticket at the automated station, then hopped into my car and exited the garage.  Later that evening, I realized that the discount had NOT been taken off the charge.  Annoyed, I called Union Station and was told that in order to get the discount, I had to pay at the ticket booth to a live person.

Okay, so this does not make any sense:  discounted parking costs Union Station more money because a real person is needed to process the transaction. (Besides that, it’s just not right to advertise a discount and then not tell consumers how to actually get the discount.)

So it turns out that a lot of companies spend a lot more time processing charges from people who pay less.  Here are more examples:

• The meeting registration system that can’t process discounts properly so you have to call the organization to get the discount.
• The discount code that you can’t use on the Web, only by phone.
• The publication that gives you a quantity discount, but you have to call. Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: Productivity

Multitasking is everywhere. People are texting while driving, e-mailing during meetings, talking on the phone while walking their kids, tweeting while watching TV and IMing while working. Many people even brag about their multitasking prowess.

But can we really do two, even three, things at once?  Research shows that we can’t really multitask.  Not well at least.

Way back in 2001, researchers at the American Psychological Association set out to find out if multitaskers are more efficient.  Their findings: multitasking isn’t more efficient; shifting mental gears wastes time. More recently, a group of researchers at Stanford University found that “(p)eople who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.”

While I’m tempted to multitask on a regular basis, I’m trying really, really hard to break myself of the habit. For example, I don’t check e-mail on my phone anymore.  It turns out that when I’m away from the office, I’m usually in my car or in a meeting.  I know I shouldnt’ check e-mail from the car, so I don’t.  And clients typically pay me to pay attention during their meetings, so I don’t check e-mail then, either.  I will take detailed notes on my laptop during a meeting but the note taking helps me process and organize the discussions and information. Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: Productivity

We’ve been kicking around ideas for making the Matrix Group intranet better.  During a recent meeting, the Director of Software Engineering wondered if we should switch from our intranet calendar to the Google calendar. Whoa, I thought. Put my company calendar and personal schedule on Google? My mission-critical data that I would die without?  No way.

But then I got to thinking. Gmail is a seriously good e-mail service.  Google Analytics is so ridiculously good that yes, I would pay for it; in fact, I would pay lots of money for it (don’t get any ideas, Google.)  And before Google bought Postini, it was already a best of breed, commercial anti-spam service.

So I did a little more research on Google apps.  It turns out that the Google apps, terms and conditions I’m familiar with are for personal use.  But Google also markets its services to companies and schools.  Google offers the same services (Gmail, calendar, docs, Web site hosting, and Postini) to companies for a really low price ($50 per user, per year).  So why is the corporate version of Google Apps not free?  For the money, you get a 99.9% uptime reliability guarantee (for Premier Edition users), mobile device support, 25 GIG of storage, and the Google promise of security and compliance.  Phone support is supposedly also available, but I can’t find reference anywhere in the Terms of Service to back-up and retention of data. Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: Google, Productivity

Office moves are never fun. Our move was months in the planning, but we were still scrambling last Friday night, the day before the movers arrived.  The plan was to complete the physical move on Saturday, then have all staff come in on Sunday to set-up their own work areas, test the network and phones, and help unpack the common areas. There were a million tasks to be done? How was it all going to get done? Then we had a great idea: let’s use SCRUM, do a one-day sprint and complete as much of the move as possible. Here’s what we did, with amazing results.

Here is our Office Move To Do List at the start of the day on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: Matrix Group, Productivity, project management

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve met with clients about their social networking (SN) strategy. A common refrain is this: “Social networking takes too much time. I don’t have extra time in the day. And I don’t want my staff wasting huge amounts of time on social networking.”

There’s no question that we can fritter away hours reading Twitter posts, watching random videos on YouTube, updating our Facebook status, yada, yada.

But for organizations that have made the decision to incorporate social networking into their communication, conversation or marketing strategies, how can we be sure that social networking sites aren’t just a sinkhole of time?

As someone who is fairly active on different SN platforms (I tweet and update my profile on Facebook regularly, I browse sites on StumbleUpon, and I certainly watch my share of YouTube videos), here are my top time management tips:

• I set aside time during the day to read blogs, tweets, Facebook status updates, etc.  Typically, I set aside a half hour in the morning and a half hour at night.

• I may update my status on Twitter and Facebook during the day, but I don’t do a lot of reading.

• I don’t read everything.  I’m really good at skimming.

• I use Tweetdeck to manage the tweets from people I follow.  I set up groups for the people whose tweets I really want to see:  family, friends, clients, CEOs, thought leaders, research orgs. Love Tweetdeck!

• If I find something I like, I either read it right then, or I save it to my Delicious account (social bookmarking) site for later consumption.

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• Tags: Facebook, Productivity, social networking, Twitter

I got a call from my insurance agent today. He wanted to be sure that I knew about the new COBRA provisions in the stimulus package that went into effect a few weeks ago. The stimulus plan provides subsidized COBRA benefits to workers (and their families) who lose health care coverage because of involuntary termination of employment (read: if they got fired or laid off). This sounds like a wonderful benefit and one that many families will find valuable. But did anyone consider the impact on small businesses?

Under the law, 65% of COBRA premiums will be subsidized by the federal government, with the remaining 35% paid for the former employee.  After receiving the reduced premium from the former employee, the employer or health plan offsets its payroll tax liability by the other 65 percent. If the offset amount does not cover the subsidy, the employer files paperwork with the government to get a refund.

Lots of employee benefits companies are covering this issue, including The Segal Group.  Everyone is talking about the requirements, but did anyone consider the true impact on businesses, especially small businesses? And just think about this: small businesses will be responsible for new paperwork and fronting the COBRA premiums for former employees until they get reimbursed by the government. Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: Economy, Productivity

Happy New Year to all!  We all know it’s customary to make resolutions for the New Year. I checked around and here are some resolutions from around the world.

• Here’s my favorite: 10 New Year’s resolutions for geeks from Wired, including keeping an open mind about the new Star Trek movie.
• Jenny Cruise resolves not to do a bunch of stuff.
• About.com’s Albrecht Powell has compiled a list of the most common resolutions.  Yeah, yeah, we all know that we need to get in better shape, do more for others, learn something new, yada, yada.
• Veronika from Prague wants to brush her teeth every night even when she’s tired.
• Here are a college student’s resolutions, written from a professor’s point of view.  Number 1?  Attend all classes!
• Beliefnet has a list of suggested resolutions for celebrities.  Dear Britney: please assess if you and K-Fed are right for each other.
• Here are some resolutions for the gaming industry.  No more holiday avalanches, please!
• American Spectator has resolutions for other people.  For President-Elect Obama: Don’t alienate the many independent and moderate-to-conservative Democrats.  For Governor Palin: Re-introduce yourself  re-introduce yourself to independents and moderate Democrats.  Is there a theme here?
• Okay, every list has to have a green New Year resolution list.  This one is by SEO by the Sea.  Yeah, we already know we should use less energy and water, but it’s always good to get a reminder.

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• Tags: Productivity

My laptop is being rebuilt, my cell phone has stopped ringing — but all my equipment is new! I’m in technology hell, and if it weren’t for Maki and my senior network administrator, I would lose my mind.

When I ordered a new laptop three months ago, I asked for Vista as my operating system.  I figured it was time to get Vista; it’s been out for ages and resistance is futile, it was time to upgrade.  Alas, my brand new Sony VAIO laptop with 2 GIG of RAM was slooooow to boot up and slow to shut down, it took 5-10 minutes to recognize an ethernet or wireless connection, it crashed a lot, and hibernating almost never worked.

Maki finally got sick of my whining and asked me to hand over my laptop one day so that the network admins could downgrade my OS to XP. Wow,my laptop is now super speedy and I’m online within seconds after plugging in.  I’m still in hell because you know how it goes with a new system: you have to re-install all your favorite plug-ins, you need to set-up your Word templates, you have to re-synch your phone with your Palm desktop, yada, yada. Read the rest of this entry

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• Tags: customer service, Productivity