When it’s not a digital camera, it’s just a camera…

When it’s not a cell phone, it’s just a phone…

And when you don’t call them your “Facebook/Twitter/Banktastic friends”, they’re just your friends…

What kind of company do you want to build?

Our company is expanding in both services and people. We are getting into software development now and want to provide the same high level of software services as consulting services do today. If we look at everything we do (technology audits, risk assessments, security testing, community platforms) all of these services common denominator is rooted in education. Our services provide more of a coaching experience than the judging people or organizations. So our vision/mantra/belief is all tied together in the phrase,

“Service through education.”

It’s short and sweet but with meaning. Everything we do ties back to this mantra.

What are our shared goals that everyone in the company exudes?

Next step is establishing through every single person in our company what we belief in. I see this as a ’sales-side’ of the company. Not from the getting deals standpoint but from the ‘this is how we’re built’ standpoint. To say it in another way, it’s our Commandments.

• Quality service regardless of client - We treat everyone, regardless of size of organization, the same way.
• ‘Our word’ should mean something - Many people today don’t let a handshake or a verbal promise be a commitment to something, we do.
• Honest but realistic - We want to shoot people straight but also temper it with realistic expectations due to their situation.
• Give openly - We want to better this world so giving openly will always open more doors than close them.
• It’s not what ‘I’ accomplish, it what ‘we’ accomplish - We know this isn’t all about us, this is about the success of our clients and their customers.
• Success is defined by happiness, not $$$ - I’m most proud of this one. We define success based off of our clients and employees happiness, not by the size of the paychecks. This is why ROWE thinking excites me so!

I’m in the middle of this exercise and have started at the company level and I’m now working on the business levels and then down to the product level (then lastly, people level). Each level down gets easier due to the foundation the previous level left before it. I’d would LOVE to hear your feedback to this and how you are helping your company become a world class organization.

A couple sources are indicating that although the voting was higher than the 2004 election, it is only barely so. The 2004 election brought in 60.6% of those eligible whereas the 2008 election was between 60.7 and 61.7%. Still an increase from previous elections but not the massive numbers some predicted and it still wasn’t enough to beat the two highest election turnouts which occurred in 1960 (Nixon/Kennedy) and 1964 (Johnson/Goldwater).

Here is a graph of the voter turnouts since 1948:

In regards to 2008, when you drill down into the demographics you notice that there was definitely a large youth contingent, that swayed Democratic, this election. The initial consensus is that Republicans chose not to show up this year. This could have been due to people believing this election was the Democratics to lose or a belief that a change was indeed needed (but I speculate at this point).

If you look at this chart you can definitely see the more Republican states have lower turnout ratings than years before. I still haven’t seen a good breakdown from an age standpoint but it seems those numbers won’t truly come out until the new census is conducted next year.

The first point is strictly investment driven and CEO aligning with the equity investors but it’s the second and third points that I see better translated into the small or startup business.

CEO’s salary puts a cap on the level everyone else gets paid

This is pretty easy yet interesting assessment but isn’t always apparent to the small business. If we fall into the traditional business mindset of the ‘CEO should make the most money’ than everyone else’s salary is directly proportional to that. I translate that this into thinking the CEO compensation as more of a sales role by which its looked at as ‘commission’ based or more realistically ’stock’ based instead of hierarchically based. Examples of this are Google founders Sergei Brynn and Larry Page’s $1 dollar salaries. I can appreciate this model as the focus turns more on what is best for the company rather than the person at the top of the organization.

Building something people believe in

Like Thiel mentioned, this is the more important point. I am going through a recurring process for me of questioning the vision, the shared values of the team, and goals for our company. I do this about once a year (assuming no major shifts to strategy) to ensure we are heading in the right direction. I think it’s an important process to go through as I break it down at the company level, business level, and product levels. I want, as I think many small business owners, to ensure our people have an understand of where we’re going and that the entire organization is marching to the same drum. Does your company do this? Is there something that is missing?

With that being said, I have recently been looking around for a board to be on for either a bank or a credit union. I didn’t care which as long as it was a place I could make a difference and the institution wanted my feedback (for better or worse).

To my surprise, I was offered that opportunity a month ago by a credit union that was small but growing and wanting to take a chance on me. I’m humbled by that. Needless to say, I was excited and to ensure proper consideration was done my last hurdle was my clients. I didn’t want to do anything that hurt our relationship so I sent out this email to my top 10 clients asking them for their opinions:

Hi XXXXX,

I wanted to take a couple minutes of your time to ask an important question for you as a client of The Garland Group. I have been positioning lately to get on a Board of Directors (for either a bank or credit union) to help an institution grow its member base by helping them understanding the strategies of Web usage and the affinity the Gen X/Y’s of the world have for it and expect from the bank or CU. Boards are inherently older and out of touch with a lot of these issues and I want to be that ‘fresh blood’ for them.

With that said, I’m curious if you would have any problems with me being on a bank or credit union board at all? I would put a line in the sand and not offer our compliance services to them but I wanted to see if you, as a client of ours, had any issue with it? I wanted to approach you open and honestly and would hope for the same candor in return. Thanks for your opinion in regards to this, let me know when you can!

Some responded by saying things like “That’s your business, go for it!” but the majority had an issue with it. And I can understand their viewpoint. Their concern was that I would no longer have an unbiased, objective opinion and that it could hindered what services we currently offer them and they could no longer be a client of ours. Again, I understand their viewpoint so I, unfortunately, had to turn the position down.

I hope to find some other boards, in other areas, that I could be of use as I believe we still have the same problem no matter the industry. So as I continue my search if you are looking to put your mark on a Board, holler at me, I’d love to be able to help you.

These are the comments from a recent presentation I did on Generation Y in August:

Nice slide handout format! They’re readable!

Excellent speaker - bring back next year!

Brad is real good at explaining this issue/concept to board directors (older). He can talk to all generations.

The information is completely outside the reality of our work environment. If Gen Y as presented in this session comes to pass, the world is in real trouble. No Gen Y’er as represented in this presentation would ever survive in our work environment much less have a practical chance to be hired. Example: Look at the speaker info sheet - ther are at least 7 basic grammatical errors on the sheet. Unsatisfactory!

Did not involve the audience.

Wonderful!

Now I understand that I’m the type to diminish the good and amplify the bad but, that’s a me thing. My point here is that there is no grey in these comments. Some love what you do, some don’t. Some don’t mind you but hate the topic or content. So all you can do is take their comments in stride, learn from them, and move on. I really appreciate anyone that is willing to comment, both good and bad on my talks, it can make me and you better as speakers.

I’m going to go check my speaker info sheet now.

• I was following CNN, Fox, and MSNBC most of the time. I think CNN had the best coverage for me as far as the technologies they were leveraging to provide insight to the county-by-county breakdown between this race and the 2004 election. They also did some hologram stuff which was cool but some considered a bit creepy too. I also watched some of the live joint Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert ‘Indecision 08′ and despite me loving that program, it didn’t do much for me last night.
• I thought McCain’s final speech was wonderfully done and handled with respect, dignity, and grace. Many wished he would’ve done more of that in his campaign and might’ve have had another result.
• When I saw McCain and Palin embrace at the end of his speech, I got this feeling of we will never see them in the same room again together.
• The crowds at Grant Park in Chicago looked more like it was for a rock band than an election. People dancing, cheering, having a good time (even before the final bell).
• I appreciate Obama for already reaching out to those that “didn’t vote” for him and making the whole speech about ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ or ‘me’. Our country must stand united.
• I’m still interested to see the final numbers in regards to the overall % of Americans that voted, the generational breakdowns, and how that affected the election.
• Lastly, with Obama’s campaign having a surplus of cash, what happens to that extra cash? Would love to see a charity or even the national debt get it. Heh.

I’ll leave with this image I got off of Twitter today. Even without a line of policy in place from Obama, this country has changed and I think for the better. Go America go.

Photo by: chrisandbecca

I think these two (Seth Godin & Tom Peters) discuss the reasons for blogging better and more succinctly than I could and please note, these are Boomers!!!

Here they all are:

They definitely made some pretty big assumptions here but I think the overall theme works. I wanted to add a bit to the conversation however.

1) Give the Boomers some credit. On the Boomers picture there is no existance of email or even a cell phone on it? Come on…this pic might’ve have been better suited for the ‘Traditionalists‘. Boomers definitely bridge the gap between this Boomer pic and the Gen X pic as most are comfortable with email and cell phones.
I do appreciate the subtle AOL mail icon & beeper on Gen X pic though. Hehe!

2) Communication reply differences. I’m always intrigued on how people interact with one another so I always ask people, of varying ages, why they do the things they do. Something that I’ve come to realize is Boomers are more likely to expect a response from the place the message was originated. If they called you, they expect a phone call back. If they emailed, email them back! This has shifted for future generations. Gen X & Y can flow in and out of the communications mechanisms and as long as the end result is met, it doesn’t matter how they get there.

3) Face to face always wins but… I say it often but face to face still wins but I’m surprised in the Gen Y area there isn’t a video chat mark between phone calls and face to face. That mechanism works well today (Hell, Oprah is using Skype on her show now) and can really add to an internal meeting or a quick 5 minute interchange between co-workers.

I’m always looking for ways to be a better communicator and we all have our preferences so trying to understand why people do what they do is always an interested topic to me. Do you agree with these pictures? What’s missing?