You still need a web strategy and you still need to work at it!

Seth Godin’s post earlier today about the dangers behind aspirations to  ‘overnight success’ on the web really struck a chord.  In the bad old days, it used to be about going to a VC, asking for a pile of money and promising to make everyone rich in under 12 months.  Now it seems to be people saying ‘get me on the first page of a Google search and tell me how much money I need to invest in a pay per click campaign and I will take of things from then on.’

Seth says: ‘The irony of the web is that the tactics work really quickly.  You friend someone on Facebook and two minutes later, they friend you back. Bang.  But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics’.

1. You always need a plan.  It doesn’t need to be expensive, ornate or devised by exernals.  You can even find a free template online and get started with that.  But you do need to focus on how your web project is going to a) increase your sales b) reduce your costs or c) make your current or new customers happy.  Preferably all of those.

2.  It’s about real-life business models, not the web! In all cases, that means delivering meaningful value to your visitors, customers, users.  If ‘web strategy’ sounds ‘esoteric’ - think differentiation, ROI, cashflow, competitor analysis, survival - dealing with plain old-fashioned business concerns.  Guess what?  They never go away, even after you’ve become a hit on Facebook.

3.  If you’re doing web, you cannot ignore content.  Content is expensive to produce, and requires discipline, creativity and energy.  If you cannot produce content yourself, you need to be hiring or outsourcing it to someone who understands your business model enough to do that for you.

4.  You just cannot get into anything new and expect it to work in the short term.  Most people who want a sustainable businesses know that it is unlikely to make a profit before year 4.

5.  Strategy is not something that you do once, at the start of a new project or business.  Or every three years, when someone remembers to dust off the strategic plan.  You are going to have to be making small changes all along the way.  In The 8th Habit, Stephen R. Covey talks about the ‘trim-tab’ approach.  The trim-tab is the small rudder that turns the big rudder that turns the entire ship.  Good business leaders know that you are constantly having to make small changes to navigate your business to better waters.  You always need to know where you want to go.  But you need to be aware that you are going to be in a constant phase of deconstruction and reconstruction.

6.  The temptation to give up is always there.  Seth’s little nugget The Dip is an uncomfortable reminder, on my book shelf, of what it takes to make a business sustainable.  Especially online.  There are always brick walls to be faced.  Your web strategy has to be good enough to make you see round the walls.

7.  If you hire externals to devise your web strategy, see if they are prepared to wade in with you and get things to happen.  Ask about the timeframe they envisage for the return on your investment.  Your investment in their fees, and the new web solutions being contemplated. The best external strategists I know do not stop with the plan, or the launch of the web solution.  They will roll up their sleeves and work alongside you and your people until there is enough momentum built within the organisation.  And until you are making the small, corrective changes intuitively, for your long term success.

Solving the work-life balance in Palm City, Tripoli

I’ve just returned from a whistle-stop 48 hours in Tripoli, Libya.  Not your average tourist destination, granted, and only mad dogs and Englishwomen would venture in late July to a country that’s 90 per cent desert.  But, I had a mission: to find out what living in Libya was like for expats.  My main aim was to suss out what kind of accommodation is there to greet them when they sign those three-year contracts and head to the Sahara.

 

Flying in from Malta, a mere hour away, proved hassle free and required little climate adjustment, luckily.  But I did pause to wonder how a British or French family might feel arriving with treasured belongings in suitcases, having left home behind.   As you drive the highway into central Tripoli, there seems to be little housing in evidence that’s suited to expat living. 

 

There are a lot of international firms moving into North Africa, if the Economist survey ‘Club Med’ (12^th -18^th July) is anything to go by.   In time, expat employment in Libya will veer away from being solely reliant on the extraction industries and edge towards second-tier economic interests in retail, services, tourism and so on.  Judging by the busy lobby of Tripoli’s one five-star business hotel, the Corinthia Bab Africa, foreign businessmen are scouting around in Libya in droves. 

 

Soon, it won’t be just the roustabouts, rednecks and drillers who will be seeking accommodation to rent in Tripoli, but executives with suits, briefcases and, the chances are too, families in tow.  Which brings us to the question of where these people will live?  The business hotels are going up, but much regular housing of international standard for expats on more than a business trip isn’t. 

 

An exception is Palm City, 15 kilometers from central Tripoli, on the coast at Janzour.  Palm City, due to be completed by early 2009, offers ‘a total housing solution’.  You can just move in with the bare essentials like toothbrush, clothes and towels.  Palm City is international, contemporary (even designer-style) living in some 400 or so residential units ranging from superior villas to luxury maisonettes, within a secure, village-like compound.  You won’t be spending weekends on DIY in Palm City.  From what I could see, you’ll likely be in the health club, enjoying Wi-Fi access on your sea view roof terrace or with the kids in the pool. 

 

This comes as peace of mind to those who are moving to Libya and who don’t have an iota of understanding of the place.  You’ll need to persuade your new employer to locate you there as it’s on corporate leaseholds.  But, since you’ll be pioneering and it’s an employees’ market when it comes to locating smart people to Libya, you’ll be in a good position to push for a place in Palm City. 

 

The Palm City concept is so good that you wonder why it takes an enterprising firm to think of this in Libya.  It should be on offer in other countries.  The time-poor, cash-rich of today don’t want to be bogged down by hassles of repairmen, gardening and service outages anywhere.  Who would have thought that a place in Libya could have found an answer to the work-life balance? 

Working home

With the exception of a 15-month break, I have worked from home for the past 8 years.  It may not be the norm in Malta, but actually it’s how many people work worldwide.  Whether it’s people fed up with commuting, professionals working for multinationals to minimise office overheads or women juggling working from home with looking after a young family, there are a lot of us out here.

I never quite planned my working life this way – it’s the way things panned out.  And, of course, there is a significant difference between running your own business from home, and ‘being employed to work from home’.  But the whole experience is not as dysfunctional as it may seem.

The Upsides…

There’s the potential to work for whom you want, when you want, in any country in the world.  All you need is an internet connection, a computer and a client – or an inspired employer who trusts you.

Most days, you avoid traffic jams.  I drive contra-traffic when I drive my son to school in the morning.  I drive my son to school and talk – get it?   You get to see your child’s face when he rushes in from school.  You get to see your child’s face, period. 

Most of the time, you can set external meetings after rush hour.  It also helps clients – they’ve had time for their morning coffees, briefings, and rants at subordinates. 

There are fewer distractions than in an office.  You only have to manage yourself. 

If you do the kind of work I do, management consultancy – you are also more effective as an informed outsider.  You have no hidden agenda, and you’re not climbing some greasy, career ladder. 

You get freedom from superiors and company reporting lines.  There’s no office politics.  Sure, you’re still serving somebody, but the relationship with a client is inevitably different to one with someone who thinks they own your life.  There is a chance to work with some dignity.

You don’t have to wait for some prescribed timeframe or adjust to some pay structure in order to be eligible for a pay raise. The quality of your work will determine your income.  By working hard and smart, you have unlimited earnings potential.   (Note:   it’s ‘potential’.  Earnings do not just get delivered to you on a plate).

You get to listen to Women’s Hour on BBC Radio 4.  Trust me, women are more knowledgeable and articulate than men.  Including on what’s wrong with men.

 

…and Downsides

Inevitably you can get lonely and isolated.  Silence cannot be filled by chats by the coffee machine.  No more conversations with fellow staff round the water-cooler.    

You never stop working.  Weekends morph into workdays.  A day’s work is as long as it takes.

No more club class flights, perks, company pensions and insurance, robbing of the company stationery cupboard, company team bonding or working for the common cause. 

No office parties.  No status.

No corporate, capitalist, money-making machine to help you.  You have to provide value and quality, otherwise you’re toast.  You are your own brand.  You cannot hide behind somebody else’s badge.  You are as good as your last piece of work.

In a trade off between creativity (pleasing yourself) and pleasing your clients, it’s a no-brainer as to what wins.  You know which one pays the bills.

There is a way of flourishing, on your own, at home

A routine is essential.  Make one.  I’m always at my desk by 9am.  I try and get to bed by 1am.  My Saturday mornings are for my son.

Have a list of things to get done for the day.  I use an online tool called ‘Remember the Milk’.

Locate the office in a different part of the house.  It has to be your territory, and nobody else’s.  It has to be a ‘no-go’ zone for others.  Get a decent office chair.

Don’t stay unshaved; do have a shower, have a proper breakfast, and ‘get dressed’ for work. 

Walk round the room, and take breaks during the day.  I sometimes go to a coffee shop with my laptop for an hour and can still work uninterrupted.  Stretch.

Read blogs.  Join forums of like-minded people.  Reading feeds is “research”.  Facebook is “networking”.  StumbleUpon is for “inspiration”.  Just network.

Switch to herbal tea.  Resist the temptation to go down to the Pavoni for another cappuccino.   Watch the snacking.

Do the routine stuff when uninspired and the creative stuff on the tide of creativity.  I work better at nights.  I try and have a meeting with someone on Monday morning.

Occasionally, remember to clear the heaps in the room.  If you have a TV in your office, like I do, only switch it on when you want to watch something.

Have an ‘email-free’ couple of hours during the day to get some work done.  Go ‘invisible’ on Skype.

Find a mentor.  Yes, you rise or fall by your own decisions, but don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion from someone you trust. 

Plan your vacations.  And take them.  Don’t spend or invest more than you can afford.

No matter what your business is, you will still need to sell.  Most times, you’re selling yourself.  True “selling” means helping people meet their needs.  Focus on meeting your clients’ needs and you will sell a lot.

Try it before giving up the day job.  The way I work would drive many people up the wall.  Ask yourself if you like your own company.  How self reliant are you? If a job goes pear shaped, there’s no-one else to turn to. 

Live with someone who understands.

Have blind faith in your own capabilities.  You will have good times and bad times.  The work will come.  You are stronger than you think.   

 

Facebook Chatter

I was curious about the surge in uptake of Facebook in Malta – which as a small island, might point towards people being less inclined to use social networks than others living in big cities. So I asked some Facebook friends to talk about Facebook. I spread the mix, to make sure there was nothing much in common (except that I knew them all). This is some of the chatter which winged its way back.  An article I wrote for the Times is here.

Joining Facebook tends to be a collective of curiosity, professional obligation and boredom.

Wesley, 27, Radio Presenter

I joined because of peer pressure. Then it was to keep in contact with my friends abroad. Then it turned into networking. Now I have no clue. I open it a minimum of once a day, but i usually open it after I receive some email about some zombie that wants to slay my vampire, or about someone superpoking me in the eye.

Julian, 33, Web Designer

It started off with curiosity and because online communities are part of my work. There are times when I will login in several times a day - but too much of it triggers a touch of agoraphobia, and then I stop using it for weeks.

Shaun, 31, Student

I joined because of boredom and because I’ve finally given in to the latest technological fad that in reality does nothing to enhance the quality of life. I’m only checking it out when someone sends a message, which occasionally is from a lost friend. Even in this case, it is a useless message from someone who is just as bored as I am, telling me crap about his / her life I am not remotely interested in anyway.

Gege, 29, Director of Technology Company

It is an informal (and colourful) way of keeping in touch with networks from different spheres - from old school friends to current business colleagues. I feel it lacks the more organized business approach allowing you to source potential partners: for this I prefer Linkedin. Generally I spend most of my time selecting to ‘ignore’ FunWall Posts and Movie-Compatibility tests.

Darren, 33, Technologist & Blogger

I do marketing for technology companies, and Facebook has become a gathering place for geeks (and everybody else). Subsequently I’ve found it useful for organizing events and creating and joining affinity groups (around politics, sports, hobbies and so forth). I also like the Scrabble app, even though I constantly lose.

Immanuel, 40, Writer

I limit myself to using it as rarely as possible. Some subscribers have hundreds of ‘friends’. I’m sure they don’t communicate with all of them. It’s practically impossible because no one can really have that number of friends. It intrigues me how people on your list are called friends when they are simply contacts. This is one facet of the internet: trying to personalise, I would say even embody, contacts that could well be anonymous.

Voyeurism and exhibitionism are key drivers

Julian, 33, Web Designer

People use it in the same way they use SMSs and don’t call. It’s quick, giving unprecedented access to your entire social group. It’s relatively non-committal: you can be part of a group without contributing much. It’s also voyeurism and gossip on tap.

Louiselle, 35, Media Manager

If I have to be honest, I think there an element of voyeurism in the whole “ritual” that is Facebook. You know, peeping into other people’s lives.

Giselle, 25, Administrator

It’s a way of seeing what people have been up to… it’s quite nosy in a sense. Some people milk it for all it’s worth and add every little detail about their days. The line between personal and private is very thin and I think there has to be an amount of discretion when writing certain things or uploading certain photos. Exposing your life on the Internet can have a negative side; for example, it’s been suggested that employers search for their employees on Facebook to find out more about them. Who’s to stop them? It’s a public field.

Melissa, 28, Sales & Marketing

It seems Maltese photographers are making a mint with everyone flocking to have photo shoots done!

Coryse, 30- something, Drama Teacher

I suppose there is an element of exhibitionism to a certain extent. But hey, I’m an actress and I love it!

John, 45, Director of Innovation Institute

The Maltese love gossiping and seeing what people are doing. You can see friends whenever you want in theory - does this happen in practice?

Wesley, 27, Radio Presenter

What I haven’t got is the concept of telling people what you’re doing online… and updating it. I mean this in the nicest way, but If i really cared… I’d ask!

Teodor, 22, Student

I think exhibitionism is a big part of it, though I don’t know if I’d actually be so polemical about it. I think there’s something exciting about being able to play with your identity like that and I look forward to seeing where it’s gonna go, for better or worse.

Shaun, 31, Student

What’s there to publish in a life lived and sat in front of a computer really?

Gege, 29, Director of Technology Company

Every person (and his dog) now has a blog, a travel-pod an MSN-spot and Facebook corner. Younger users compete at gathering the largest amount of online friends and connections or the highest traffic to their blog. The Internet is the channel for your ego to shine through and Facebook certainly offers the tools to broadcast this to a potential global captive audience.

Immanuel, 40, Writer

Exhibitionism is a major characteristic of contemporary life. I think we are compelled to exhibit ourselves, and most of us seem to be enjoying it. This trait encompasses all aspects of our lives. We are seduced to exhibit our bodies, and we are enticed to do the same with our souls. I marvel at the huge amount of material being published in which our bodies are exhibited, which is the true reason behind this craze with losing weight and looking nice. I recently came across an article published in some local Sunday magazine where the writer gave a graphic account of her latest visit to the gynaecologist. I wonder who made her think we were interested in that. She literally bared it all. But, on the other hand, it is what many people are doing: unfolding the wraps of privacy so that all can have a look, or should I say so that all can gaze. And it is not just our bodies that we are putting up for show. All those words uploaded on the net are a means of exhibiting the soul. There is so much talking going on the net and other media; I am not so sure about how much listening there is though. And I am even less sure about how interested we are in being heard and listened to. The important thing is to speak out, because by speaking out we form a virtual self which may make up for other things which we find lacking in our lives. So, yes, there is an element of exhibitionism which, again, is another infantile characteristic.

Wesley, 27, Radio Presenter

I think it’s because we like to feel connected with other people in an age when everyone feels disconnected. People today call the people who live next door to them neighbours, yet they’ve never spoken to them for more then 10 minutes, and may have never been in their house. People are becoming more private, and in a way Facebook offers this little lifeline to the world and helps us feel part of a community.

Shaun, 31, Student

I guess fads and fashions have been there forever irrespective of their usefulness. We are a herd of sheep anyway - we flocked to the latest wine bar in the 1990s, and we flock towards the mass aggregation to the invisible and indiscriminate world of numbers on the web seeking ‘virtual’ friendship and for others a ‘virtual shag’. Future generations will be devoid of any social skills – social networks are changing the dynamics of human contact. The mobile phone was the gadget of the 90s…even the staunchest of resistant hippies owns one today….it is part of the globalising jungle. Where before exclusion largely depended on human variables, technology is now creating a new strand of ‘technologically poor’ in the global South, and relatively poor in technological terms- parents will be working to fuel their own and their children’s technology addictions. People will soon forget what a phone looked like, what meeting up for a chat was like in the distant 90s, and the act of going out to physically buy a CD.

Gege, 29, Director of Technology Company

The reality of this connected world is that you don’t see your friends in Malta whenever you want! Firstly most friends work overseas; secondly those who live on the isle are generally tied up, as I am, to their laptops making it the most expedient communication tool. Above all, the ingenuity of Facebook is that it allows you to rekindle connections which you would have otherwise been lost: travel acquaintances, primary school bench mates and the like.

Darren, 33, Technologist & Blogger

It’s an incredibly powerful virus which motivates people to, uh, infect their friends and colleagues. Two illustrative nicknames for Facebook are FaceBorg and CrackBook.

Immanuel, 40, Writer

I think we have found ourselves trapped to communicate. We check our email continuously, we get mad if we forget our phone behind, and now there’s Facebook … yet another trap. What makes Facebook different from other communication devices is that it is extremely childish, so I think there is also an element of nostalgia in it: you get invited to have a pet (electronic one of course), your ‘friends’ are invited to ‘pet’ it and feed it so that they win points with which they can ‘raise’ their own electronic pets, you are sent (electronic) drinks and ice creams and cakes and what have you. It’s all so very very childish. Not having a pet, or not having one of the million add-ons makes your Facebook page look boring, because as kids we need to have all the new things, all the new toys around.

 

Despite its success, nobody is quite sure if Facebook is here to stay.

Giselle, 25, Administrator

I think it will last for quite a while because it’s a very good social networking site and has a lot of elements that take it beyond just that title. 99% of the friends that I had in my Hi5 list moved over to Facebook anyway.

Melissa, 28, Sales & Marketing

I’m not quite sure - a couple of months ago, with the Gozitans, Hi5 was the big thing on the island. Facebook has a more international appeal. If it doesn’t last then this will only be attributed by it being replaced by a better alternative.

Julian, 33, Web Designer

The concept is not a passing fad but it depends on the crowd. If the crowd moves on to the next big then it’s pointless hanging around Facebook.

James, 41, Photo Journalist

It’s a fad, and there’ll be more like it, but it will last, as long as it doesn’t go the way MySpace is going, with all the spam and garbage and auto requests it has.

Coryse, 30- something, Drama Teacher

Well, other similar sites such as H1 5 for example started out big and then kind of fizzled out. But I think (or rather, hope) that this one is here to stay.

Wesley, 27, Radio Presenter

Well history (what little there is of it) tells us that it is a passing fad, unless it reaches the 2 year point of high usage. I might move on to something else, depends on what the concept is… and I would if it included performing midgets.

Juan, 45, Director Technology Institute

I think the next big thing will take over unless Facebook is able to reinvent itself.

Shaun, 31, Student

I think Facebook is a glorified Hi5 for adults. It will be superseded by something else, with more gadgets and in the grand scheme of things, just as useless in the bettering of human kind. Like everyone else I will be swallowed into the next big thing of irrelevance.

Gege, 29, Director of Technology Company

Facebook is the next big thing. It is the single most successful social networking tool and I am surprised how business organizations in Malta as well as NGOs have not invested in the medium so as to harvest the potential of its networks. Like most technologies, Facebook’s main challenge lies in its ability to re-invent itself every few months. As the online community becomes more demanding Facebook must offer more interactive, better-connected applications.

Darren, 33, Technologist & Blogger

Like all technologies, Facebook will get surpassed. It’s the latest in a long line of social networks, starting from Friendster and, most recently, MySpace. Like all trends, the ‘cool kids’ will move on to the next big thing, and the masses will follow.

Immanuel, 40, Writer

I think it is a passing fad. Again that is very much internet-ish. There are always new things coming up, and we are always getting lured to subscribe and use this and that. For a time blogging was the thing. I get the impression that, at least locally, the use of blogs has diminished. I haven’t used mine for ages, because at one point I realised it was all a nice little game of talking out. But to what effect? Of course I may be missing the point about all this. Granted, that is very possible.

And as a Coda…

Giselle, 25, Administrator

Facebook is definitely part of my daily routine

Melissa, 28, Sales & Marketing

I like to look through friends’ lists and see why some people are friends or how people have met … it must be the romantic in me!

Julian, 33, Web Designer

I think it’s just the thin end of publishing yourself online. The frequency of updates will grow as mobile device manufacturers become more attuned to self publishing. Want to see what your friends are doing right this second? Just log on (to the device in your hand) and watch/listen to their personal Facebook stream. Any of your friends with 500m of you? Just log on.

John, 45, Director of Innovation Institute

You can get lonely on this as well!

Wesley, 27, Radio Presenter

What I would like to know – how many Maltese employee hours were wasted on Facebook over the past 12 months?

Juan, 45, Director Technology Institute

I get to play online Risk once a week at home which is a favourite game of mine.

Teodor, 22, Student

Have a Zombie hug

Shaun, 31, Student

Soon, we will forget it even existed in the first place.

Gege, 29, Director of Technology Company

I think there is room for many improvements actually – I’ll mention the three which I feel strongly about:

Privacy: Facebook has already paid a high price for making a basic Web 2.0 mistake that sites like MySpace, Flickr and YouTube avoid. It has grown so fast (47 million users) that it disregarded privacy issues to the extent that safeguards to protect children from sexual predators, obscene content and harassment only occurred after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a formal protest earlier on this year.

Interface: Facebook has lagged in interface design. Its GUI is bland, occupies too little horizontal screen-space and too much vertical real estate. Its menus are oddly grouped and pages feel cluttered. I’d love to see a total revamp.

Wider media integration: Facebook recently launched basic SMS integration allowing a user to update his status while away from a connected PC. This is the first step at widening the platform but there’s a long way to go. As media devices converge I think it’s just a matter of time before we see Facebook software running on digital-television systems popping up interactive on-screen status updates. The technology leap is large but the business benefits for Mark Zuckerberg (or the then owners of Facebook) will be enormous.

Darren, 33, Technologist & Blogger

These are some of my posts on Facebook:
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/index.php?tag=facebook

In particular, I think this one is well thought out:
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2007/05/satco-and-how-facebook-folds-time.html

Smart City Video

Smart City was officially announced

 I drove round Ricasoli last week. You can sense change is in the air. This video gives you a flavour of what’s round the corner. 

Why Smart City will work

A post on the BBC’s website yesterday was aptly titled ‘Malta woos technology wanderers’. 

I was once told by a consultant to the mobile industry that what Malta needs for the 21st century is the Princess Grace factor.  Someone who understands the potential of the island, brings some glamour, invests some money and puts it on the world map.

TECOM Investments may not be Princess Grace.  But a US$ 330m investment in Smart City in Malta is as close as it gets.   Smarty city is the first European outpost for Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City, and is positioned to become a Strategic Regional Centre of Excellence of ICT for Southern Europe & North Africa.  With its focus on ICT & Media clusters, SmartCity@Malta is projected to be the country’s largest ever ICT private sector project and foreign direct investment as well as the largest ever new source of knowledge-based jobs to be secured by Malta.  The project will also be accompanied by new state-of-the-art use of the environment of the site with the development of a hotel and other activities to help attract knowledge-based operations to the site.

For the time being, Smart City is just a collection of architects’ drawings and the target for new specialist ventures, including Muovo.  There are many who, like me, believe that this project will have a significant impact for generations to come in Malta:
•

1. •Smart City levers on Malta’s unique blend of critical success factors:  technology; human capital; fiscal and regulatory incentives; English-speaking; European; safe; quality of life.
2. It puts Malta on the map, for reasons other than sun, sea, diving, cultural heritage or MTV festivals.
3. Ricasoli, an area long abandoned as an artefact of Malta’s manufacturing past, will be regenerated.  There is some poignancy in replacing experiments of the past that have long failed because of globalisation, with new ones levering on what Malta can now deliver, thanks to investments in technology.
4. Malta will attract an influx of professionals in technology and knowledge management sectors.  Many of these will come from Europe and Asia.  There is a great need for this island to look outwards again, to go multi-cultural.
5. It creates 5,600 new jobs in Smart City alone - the multiplier effect in several unrelated employment sectors will be much higher. 
6. It clearly separates the responsibilities of Government from those of the private sector investment.  There appear to be the right checks and balances to make sure that TECOM honour their responsibilities in terms of mix of industry and creation of employment. 
7. Government is committed to cutting through the red tape to facilitate movement of capital and labour.  There is cross-party support for the project.
8. Smart City is part of an overall national strategy focusing on specific ICT niches where Malta can make a significant impact.  Being small, we can focus on what we can do best.  A small slice of a big cake can make a major impact to the economy. 
9. It provides Malta with a chance to again become a strategic location.  This time, instead of being strategic for military purposes, it puts Malta on the technology global map.  We’re one hour away from Rome, three from London, 45 minutes from North Africa. 

We are again connected.

Getting organised to get things done

I’m trying to get organised, to get more out of my day without having to resort to three hours’ sleep, as one of my partners does.  There’s a lot of material about time management and plenty of sensible advice on Web Worker.    David Allen even coined his own phrase for getting things done. 

I’m suggesting the following approach for time-poor, web workers who mainly work on their own:

 1.  Get on top of your email.  Watch Merlin Mann’s semantic video.  I love the idea of checking my email only once an hour.  I am putting this into practice as from tomorrow. 

2.  Make Lists.  If possible, have daily ones.  If not, a weekly one will do.  I find Who / What / When Lists really work.  Park actions some place special.  Either online, using any variety of online tools like Backpack, Basecamp, Twitter or the hybrid Remember the Milk.  Or do what I do - use paper.  Just cross things off as you’re done.

3.  Delegate when you can.  Even if you work on your own, like I do sometimes, you still need to get your lists done and identify whom you need to interface with.  You will be surprised by how many of your actions are dependent on those of others.

4.  Get selective with whom to talk to.  Turn off MSN and Google Talk for a period of time.  Go invisible on skype.  Turn your mobile on vibrate.  Sometimes, just turn it off.  People can text messages to you more efficiently than spending 10 minutes yabbing about it.

5.  Unclutter.  If like me, sometimes you have problems walking round your office, it’s time to file things or dispose of them.  It helps to occasionally empty the waste paper basket and shred paper.

6.  Walk around your room.  This is especially useful for people with a bad back and puts you in the frame of mind to get things done.  If you know some Pilates, this is invaluable for a five-minute break from your laptop. 

7.  Decide whether you’re a morning or night person and allocate your work load accordingly.  We cannot be productive for the whole 24 hours.   I try and get meetings done in the morning and I prefer to do the brain work at night, when I know I am most alert.   If you still need to decide what kind of person you are, read this book.

8. Decide whether you need background noise or not.  Some people need total silence to focus.  Others need a hum.  I tend to use Groove Salad Radio from SomaFM.  I make sure it’s on if I’m writing.

9.  Sometimes, remember to get some quality time to recharge your batteries.  Watch a movie, talk to your loved ones, exercise, read a book instead of Wilfing.

10.  On those days when everything seems to get on top of you, and you risk ‘panic paralysis’, it helps to stop.  You’re not alone.  There are millions of others like you, right now, battling with hundreds of things, trying to prioritise, and make a living.  It also helps to read this occasionally to improve your confidence and get a sense of perspective.  On focusing on what is really important in life. 

The Stelios Soundbites

London in the sunshine, 230 exhibitors, 160 seminars and 20,000 people with some aspiration to starting up a business. I dropped into Business Startup 2007 at ExCel with no particular agenda other than to listen into conversations. Real ones, as opposed to the online ones we all tune into.  In the brash, cattle market atmosphere of ExCel, full of multimedia presentations, Darth Vaders and kids with loud microphones, you just cannot go to all the presentations, visit all the stands, or network with people you need to connect with. I knew I definitely wanted to listen to Stelios.

So I queued, with the aspiring chef, nutritionist, private investigator, life coach, the small motor-mouth Jewish fifty year-old who used to run a cemetery somewhere up north and was now ‘looking for new opportunities’, and the granny from Liverpool who was setting up a company to help people with a phobia of flying. And Stelios was queuing too. At first glance, he looks a bit like an encyclopaedia salesman who has done plenty of long lunches. White trousers that hang too long over loafers, an over-sized blazer that hangs awkwardly on a rugby player’s frame. He looks slightly nervous. You have to blink hard to think that this guy is seriously rich, powerful, a captain of industry.

Then he starts to talk, in his Anglo-Greek, and you know you are in the company of a master communicator. Stelios confessed to not having prepared anything - except for one slide with the 17 Easy brands he stands for and a plug for the new EasyOffice space for start-ups.

So here are the sound bites I picked up, between a fair bit of laughter and the occasional discomfort when people referred to his wealth, especially with one young guy who tried to put him on the spot about ‘investing in young people’.

1.   You really must want to be your own boss if you are going to start up your business. I know it sounds obvious. Either that, or you get a rich Dad, like I had. Sure, Dad’s money helped. But the over-riding desire to be your own boss has to prevail. In my family, I knew there were too many bosses. I knew I had to do my own thing. I called my first business StelMar to make a point. I was the brand. Nobody else. Even if my first foray was in shipping, which is where my family had made its money.

2. You have to be a risk taker to be in business. Don’t expect to get superior returns without risks. You have to be prepared to risk your own capital.

3. You have to take calculated risks. Don’t bet the farm. Yes, sometimes you have to mortgage the house. But if it gets to that, you really need to stop and take a good hard look around you.

4. I’ve taken my share of knocks, like everyone in business. Especially after September 11^th. But I have always believed that I can see things through. Even in the bad times.

5. The best culture for entrepreneurship is one that celebrates success and tolerates failure. That’s not always the case in the UK – unlike the Chapter 11 cushion you have across the pond.

6. You have to learn from your mistakes. You have to survive them, learn not to make the same ones, and move rapidly on.

7. If you have a product to market, decide from the outset who is your target audience. Are you marketing to the many, or to the few? I’m a B2C mass marketing guy – I serve the many. It’s OK to do B2B – though I still think that you cannot lose sight of who the end customer is, whichever sector you’re in.

8. Offer value for money. You cannot take the cheese out of a pizza! Or if you do, call it something else. Call it bread, just don’t call it a pizza. We all know that Ryan Air does not care about their passengers or their crew. Michael Ryan makes no secret of that. We do things differently. And that’s a good plug, no?

9. Startup entrepreneurs have to behave like consumers from day one.

10. There is no stigma to going the franchising way. We do that, in many places. We partner our brands with the entrepreneurial activities and energies of individuals. Franchising works – and so does outsourcing. EasyBus in entirely built around the outsourcing concept.

11. I got to ExCel by Tube. A driver would have taken the same amount of time. The Tube gives me a great opportunity to see what my customers are seeing, on their daily journeys to and from work. I run a consumer-facing business. I have to stay in touch with what they face.

12. I’m a Blackberry addict. I am a total believer in technology productivity. I travel a lot. Technology means I am always available, to the people who need to reach me.

13. A Brand is a promise. Before we had a quid’s worth of revenues, we had to spend all the money we had on marketing the product we had. A million’s worth of it.

14. You should, on average, allow three to five years for a business to become profitable.

15. An entrepreneur is not always likely to be the best operator. The character traits are totally different.

16. You cannot delegate entrepreneurship.

17. You inevitably have to delegate a lot when you go to the stock market. I have always insisted that the roles of Chairman, CEO and largest shareholder vest in different persons at Easy Jet.

18. My biggest mistake was believing my own bullshit during the dotcom bust. We believed that the Internet Cafe’s could become like McDonalds – and we proceeded with investing considerable sums of money to grow the numbers. Everyone knows that in situations like this, costs spiral out of control. I was advised, at one stage, to let the Cafes go under. I decided that I had to do what was right – pay off the debts, restructure, take the hit. I also had to limit damaging our brand. Nowadays, Internet Cafes are primarily used by tourists, as everyone else seems to have a laptop and wireless. And yet, in every city I go to, there is always the ubiquitous Internet Cafe. So some sense of legacy we do have.

19. Work hard! There is no free lunch, on quick win, despite the occasional rich Dad. Entrepreneurs are passionate about what they do. EasyMoney is a cool name, but not a promise that money can be made easily.

20. Doing business in other countries is very different to doing business in your own. Be careful of cross-border deals – be aware of differences in culture, labour practices, mind-sets. Sometimes, it pays to franchise!

21. People are more likely to trust a person than a company they have never heard of. Do not be scared of using your own past successful track record as a PR vehicle. Personalisation is key – I have always preferred to use PR rather than plain vanilla marketing.

22. Make a difference in people’s lives!

Why Wilfing is good for you

The recent survey commissioned by Britain’s YouGov for moneysupermarkets.com  about wilfing was widely reported and threw a lot of people into soul-searching about what appears to be a national pastime.   More than two-thirds of the 33.7 million internet users in the UK admit to at least the occasional “wilf” while browsing the internet.  Thousands of valuable working days are being lost as a direct result.

For the uninitiated - ‘Wilfing’ is short for ‘What Was I Looking For’ - synonymous with ’surfing the web without any real purpose’.

Here’s the anecdotal checklist of Wilfing symptoms:

• You’re easily distracted when you’re online.
• You hop from the site you intended to look at, to a link in an article, to an unrelated site, to a YouTube video, to a Google search, to a blog, to a comment that triggers a visit to another site with a flashing advert in a pop-up window - by which time you’ve forgotten what you were supposed to be looking for in the first place
• You spend 30% or more of your Internet time wilfing - that’s the equivalent of an entire working day every fortnight pointlessly jumping between random pages.
• You’re hooked on shopping sites, but you’re also likely to regularly browse aimlessly through news, music and travel websites.  And the ubiquitous ‘adult entertainment’ site which means that your marriage may well be in ‘danger’
• You’re likely to be ‘reasonably young’ - people aged 55 or over are three times less likely to browse absent-mindedly than those under 25.
• You’re probably male 
• You’re not as ‘productive’ as you should be - at work, or at home, or wherever it is you get your wilfing fix.

In Britain the Priory Clinic said that increasing numbers were suffering addictions to eBay.   Some spent thousands on the auction website and said that they would rather be bidding than dating.    A 12-step recovery programme, mimicking that set up by Alcoholics Anonymous, has been drawn up for e-mail addicts.

It’s not just a British phenomenon.  Up to 10 million people are addicted to the internet in China.   The Government has banned under 18’s from internet cafés and no new ones may open this year.  Internet addicts in China face drug therapy, acupuncture and mild electric shocks when treated at a military-style boot camp clinic that costs about £650 a month.

I would like to offer an alternative interpretation to wilfing:

• If you weren’t wifling, you’d be switching TV channels, arguing over the kids, browsing in a book store.  The medium has changed, the symptom has changed, the attention disorder was always there.
• Wilfing means you are likely to learn something new every day.  You now have access to an unparalleled database of knowledge.   Wilfing is inevitably linked to informal learning.  Our subconscious yearning to stay in touch, keep informed on our pet areas of interest. 
• Wilfing is good for business.  Why has eBay acquired StumbleUpon, and why does the Google toolbar now include a dice icon, which you click to be taken to a ‘new website that Google thinks you will find interesting based on your previous search queries?’ 
• Think social networks - think LinkedIn, Ecademy, Xing.  Is this wilfing?
• We are naturally curious creatures.  The Internet gives us a channel for that curiosity. 
• Wilfing is the anthedote to our restlessness. 
• Many of the meaningful things in life happen while you were planning to do something else.   Wilfing is no different.

Far from being tantamount to abnormal behaviour, I think that wilfing is about the joy of the web, where we are free to explore links, ideas, and our own untapped creativity - where five minutes can often take us on a journey of discovery of new things, mundane and sublime.

Wilfing is just another way of us being who we are.

Human. 

The Cringe Factor

Things are a bit chaotic.  I have gone from managing a team to managing myself and there has not been much time for the transition.  Muovo, the new startup, is at drawing board stage (more on that some other time).  Whatever it is.. it’s that time of the year, when things change overnight (in Malta,  we literally go from winter to summer seemingly overnight).  Or maybe I am still in a state of shock to find that one of my heroes, Hugh MacLeod, is working for (gulp) Microsoft.   

But no sooner was I into my five minutes of Jungian self-analysis that my perspective of the world - of the map of who’s who - the heroes, the good guys, bad guys.. and the guys who just don’t get it - was mercifully reaffirmed courtsey of the Ernst & Young video.

Somewhere, I keep thinking that this might have been an April Fool’s joke.  Or that some bright guy in a suit thought that it was wonderfuly viral and get people to talk about E&Y (yes, they are!)

But like many others.. I just cringed.  It would be really hilarious.. if it weren’t so sad.

And yes.. I admit, I used to be an accountant, once.  I was just never that happy about it.