Black Belt redux
June 22, 2005Almost there! As part of my Black Belt assessment I had to break boards last night — and passed with flying colors. Wohoo! The requirement is to break four 19mm thick pine boards, each with a different type of kick, which I managed to do. I’m happy to come out of it unscathed — no bruising or scratches to speak of, which is a relief coz I was not looking forward to completing Sunday’s grading carrying an injury. I’ve already completed and passed the theory side of it, which included an edited version of my blog entry. One final step to go on Sunday.
The Sex & Cash Theory
June 17, 2005I’ve just been reading Hugh McLeod’s “How To Be Creative” manifesto over at ChangeThis and came across this nugget …
Keep your day job. I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e., because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol’ creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict.THE SEX & CASH THEORY: The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs. One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
Sage (and timely) advice … thanks Hugh!
Tip of the Iceburg
June 15, 2005I just stumbled across this site. Check it out …
Podato is a dating site which delivers personal adverts direct to your MP3 Player …Podato offers Irish singles podcast personal ads.
I guess we’re going to see more and more innovative/interesting uses of Podcasting to come … this is just the tip of the iceburg!
Value
June 13, 2005I’ve been working with a client over the past couple of weeks helping them to develop and present a business case for an online application. During this time, I’ve had cause to think about exactly what “value” means.
According to Wikipedia, the meaning of value is:
1. often expressed as the equation: Value = Benefits/Price
2. Describe how much value a person places on various ideas, objects, or beliefs.
These values can be grouped into four categories:
* Ethics (good, bad, moral, right, wrong)
* Aesthetics (beautiful, ugly, unbalanced, pleasing)
* Doctrine (political, ideological, religious or social beliefs)
* Inborn (inborn values such as reproduction and survival)
I’ve worked in a number of roles during my career, and they all seem to have a common thread — identifying value (or proving it). In Business Development and consulting you are developing value propositions, as a Product Manager you’re developing business cases for new product functionality and proving the value of your product to the market. As a strategist you are looking at how a company delivers value — to its shareholders and to customers. So are the tools we use to do this the correct ones?
Conventional wisdom is that Business Cases are crucial to organisations to predict the results of business decisions. This is because a Business Case helps to predict the likely financial results and other business consequences of an action. A good business case uses evidence and reasoning to reach a conclusion and involves financial techniques that are well know and long establised - NPV, IRR etc.
However, all is not as simple as it sounds. Cost-Benefit Analysis itself is not easy. Classifying what costs to include and where the benefit figures come from in the first place are difficult enough to resolve alone. And how do you account for the business impacts that cannot be weighed in monetary terms? Things such as the customer relationship, customer service, brand value and market perception? These issues are beyond the scope of traditional financial practice.
For some time, I have thought that was needed is an approach that works with the whole picture — seeing value not only as profits and capital as the measures of success. Then recently I came across the concept of Value Network Analysis. Whilst I’m nowhere near an authority on the subject, it appears to resolve my particular dilemma in an eloquent way. The methodology’s handling of the intangible benefits is an extremely perceptive take on what adds value to a company. The Author has written a paper here explaining it much better than I can hope to!
On Achievements
June 13, 2005To stand out from the crowd these days … somehow you have to be extremely proud of what you’ve done and what you’re doing. And you have to give that impression every day.
Because of the person I am, I’m not natually inclined to do this. Okay, yes, I am proud of my achievements, like what I did in achieving my MBA but also in a way, I have already forgotten them. So over the weekend, I retrieved both of my testamurs from the back of the wardrobe, dusted them off and hung them above my computer desk, along with a picture of wifeandkids.com as a permanent reminder to self, not only of my personal achievements to date but to “THINK BRAGGABLES!”.
