Take One Asus EEE and get 7 Inches of Pleasure

There is a new breed of laptop moving in and it is small and cheap and its name is the Asus EEE PC. Strange name to be sure but Asus has proven with this device that there is a very large market for very small and cheap laptops. To backstop this new device is a user community that has sprung up and wrapped their arms around this product.

Staying connected to the office in the early days meant having a pager, a two way radio and when at home I dialed in to the office server via modem. Since then I've carried a PDA and a cell phone and now a PDA/phone and a laptop. The PDA phone is great but it lacks the functionality of a laptop and the software and Internet experience leaves much to be desired.
My laptop is now getting old and unreliable for travel so I've been looking for a replacement. Something small, light with great battery life so I'm not tethered to a cable when at home or away. unfortunately the kind of laptop that would interest me seemed always to be the most expensive and considering the life expectancy and reliability of a laptop, I really didn't want to spend top dollar. Also, I wanted to run Linux and Linux based laptops are few are far between especially for the consumer market and getting my favorite Linux distro to work on my laptop and even my desktop has posed challenges but that's another story. So herein lies the dilemma. I want small and light at an entry level price. Eventually I resolved myself to the fact that I'd be spending more than $1700 for a new laptop.

Over the last 3 years or so I've been following the One Laptop Per Child project. The OLPC computer seemed like it would be a great product being small and cheap but it has been a pipe dream for many years and in my opinion still continues to be even though they are now finally shipping. Hopefully they work out the bugs and I can feel good about buying one for a 3rd world child as well as for my own. Also, the potential of mesh wireless networks is very compelling.

So it was while I was reading up on the just released OLPC computers in January that I came across a post that referred to a capable alternative by the name of Asus EEE PC. Now I was getting somewhere. Could this be my next laptop. I have been using Asus motherboards in my computers for over 10 years and I have found them to be of good quality and I know hey have been making laptops for a while now, so I felt comfortable with the manufacturer which made the decision a simple one.
I researched by reading reviews written by early adopters and weighed the pros and con's against my own needs.
The EEE laptop is described as small, light, with good battery life, has a SSD instead of a hard drive (more on that later) and runs on a Linux based operating system. The hardware is an open x86 platform that will run Windows XP as well as potentially other x86 OS. There are even rumblings of it being able to run a MAC OS.
I figured that at $400 it was worth the risk and to give one a try. At that price I could always just give it to my young daughter if it didn't do the trick and I'd still have enough in the budget to buy a mainstream laptop.
So I took the leap and bought the 4Gig model (only about 1.3GB of which is actually free) that comes with a larger battery and a video camera. I figured that the extra $50 for the longer battery life was worth it. The unit comes with 512 of DDR2 Ram, 7" LCD screen (800X480), speakers, microphone, touchpad, Wireless b/g, 3 USB ports, VGA port, a Asus simplified version of Xandross operating system (Linux) which includes video and music player, OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets etc, the FireFox browser, Skype, Pidgin messenger which is capable of working with MSN and Yahoo messenger services as well as others.

Out of the box the EEE is small and light at just over 2 lbs but doesn't feel cheap or flimsy. As I open the lid the hinges feel tight and strong revealing the 7" screen bordered by two black side panels about an inch and a half wide where the speakers hide. After plugging the unit in and letting it fully charge for an hour or so I placed it on my desk and hit the power button. In about 20 seconds the desktop interface appears which is populated with large icons and 6 tabs at the top that reveal basic applications for productivity, media, administration and some games.
The reason this system boots to the desktop so quickly is partly because of the simplification of the OS and the fact that a SSD is approximately 100 times faster than a standard hard disk. It's more reliable, produces less heat and consumes far less power so you can get more uptime with a smaller battery.
The interface is pleasing and functional.
I click on the Network Icon and am presented with a simple application to create my wireless network connection. After a few clicks and entering my security details and clicking on connect I'm on my home network. The wireless network icon on the taskbar on the bottom of the screen tells me I have an 86% connection. Both my Averatec and IBM laptop barely got as high as 40% and we've suffered continual network drop outs from this same location in my house so already I'm impressed. After almost a month of use this baby has never dropped a connection with my Dlink router.
I click once on the web icon and FireFox 2 greets me with it's usual prowess. I quickly configure it to my liking and start browsing. The first thing that you're aware of is that the resolution of the laptop screen is small and I have to shrink the text size so I can see most of the web page I'm looking at. Most web pages will fit nicely onto the screen but pages like my.yahoo portal and other wider web pages will force you to scroll to the right to see the whole page. This, I find, is a minor inconvenience even though I'm on my yahoo portal page quite a bit. I also use Google Docs every day and that service poses no issues whatsoever.

This brings me to typing on the EEE's very small keyboard. For me, it didn't take long for me to efficiently touch type on the keyboard but I could definitely see how some would find this keyboard too daunting due to the small size of the keys. The shift key is also in a strange place but again there is a workaround to move it to a more usable spot. In respect to the touchpad, it is smaller than you would find on a regular laptop but I hate touchpads anyway and this one seems to be worse than others. No matter to me though as I always use an external mouse. To my thinking a track point should be standard on every laptop but I guess I'm in the minority. The touchpad will scroll in both directions and you can get it to circular scroll which is quite convenient on a small screen but you'll need to do some tweaking to get that functionality. Again the community of users is quite robust so from basic tweaks to all out hardware and OS reconfigurations help is just a click away.

Can I do real work on this thing? I can!
Browse, email, write and connect to and run anything on my Windows desktop computer with remote desktop. I write a lot and use Google docs for documents which is assessable with a browser and an Internet connection. If you haven't ever used Google Docs or any of the other Google applications you should check this out as they just keep getting better. I can see myself moving completely to Google services at some point in the future but for right now Google Apps and Yahoo's portal are the on-line services what I use mostly.
On the personal side my wife's family is 3000 miles away so we have been using Skype with video so the grandparents can see and talk to their grand-kids. This little device has Skype, a mic and a video camera so now we can be anywhere in the house or anywhere we have an Internet connection and connect with the extended family. This feature alone has proved more valuable than gold to my family. We don't have to be tethered to my wife's desktop any longer. Also, being able to play a movie or listen to music wherever we are is a nice feature. The sound and picture are quite good playing music and Video and it is capable of playing almost anything you can throw at it although it doesn't have a DVD player built in so you'll have to use an SD card or a USB device. I haven't been on a plane with this device yet but I am looking forward to it. I can place 4 compressed movies and hundreds of songs on a 4G SD card and I'm ready to travel.

What I am looking for ultimately is a replacement for my wireless PDA, something with WiFi, a high resolution screen and a standard operating system capable of serving up desktop applications including a fully functional FireFox. And something that doesn't tie me into any wireless service provider. The EEE is a more than capable PDA out of the box but is too large to be a wireless phone so I'm still waiting for that convergence to materialize.

If you are looking for an cheap ultra portable this may be the perfect stop gap measure at least until other low cost ultra portable products prove themselves worthy in the marketplace or wireless phones can provide laptop functionality. So far, from what I have read, products that are soon to be or already in the cheap ultra portable space will be much more expensive. It will be hard to justify a purchase of $600 or more for an ultra portable when I can buy a mainstream laptop for around the same price with much more power and many more features. Competitive products that are currently in the market now are the Intel Classmate, Everex CloudBook, OLPC XO and the just freshly released HP 2133 Mini-Note PC.
Now that Asus has proved that their is a market for cheap ultra mobile computers I expect we'll see many new competitors very soon. Asus itself has announced a new version with a 9" screen and Windows XP and there are rumors it will include a touchscreen. We'll likely have to wait until summer to see one in action.

This thing may not be for everyone but it has won me over and I love it. I haven't used my old laptop since.

In part two I will list all the the tweaks and updates I've added to suit my needs. So until then I'll pass along one of the best on-line resources for this product. http://www.eeeuser.com/

Mission and Vision and Mantra, Oh My!

There is some buzz in the business community about having a Mantra. Those of us who have lived through Missions and Visions, I trust, don't see a Mantra as being any different so I'll cut right to the chase. Mission, Vision and Mantra statements fail because people forget that these statements are starting points and not the end. Some will spend endless hours and engage endless consultants to finally come up with the right Mantra and when finally done, breathe a collective sigh of relief and then, move on. Does a Mantra alone really have any value internally with employees and externally with clients? I think we all know the answer to that one.

In order for one of these statements to be of any true value, you would have to put the statement into practice. And by practice I mean practice as in 'practice makes perfect'. Perception is the key here. Your Mantra would have to be tied to a set of values and standards that every decision and action is accountable to from the board room to the front office.

One of the things that I try to impress upon my clients over and again is that "an idea without a buyer is of little value". So if you actually believe that someone would be willing to join your organization or buy from you based on a Mantra then I suggest you start testing different Mantras on your potential clients and potential employees and see which one works best. Once you have found the perfect Mantra that engages clients and employees you would need to change the entire organization to successfully live up to that Mantra. The other option is to create a Mantra from the values and standards that endear and engage your organization to your existing clients and employees. Hopefully your organization will have some of those qualities and you can encapsulate them into a 3 to 4 word statement. You may discover that the most appropriate Mantra based on existing values and standards is 'We are Evil' but don't fret as you won't have to change anything to live up to it. And just think, with a Mantra like that you could be opening up a whole new untapped market segment.

For those of you who believe that a Mantra is 'old school', I have just coined the next corporate image term and it is "Chant". It is based on the premise that if you say something enough times , something being a 3-4 word statement, people will start to believe it. This ensures the desired effect and doesn't require any organizational change other than making itmandatory to memorize and recite the statement at every opportunity.

What The Job Requirements REALLY Mean

It's amazing that in this day and age hiring managers and HR staff still use generic terms when advertising their internal positions. Some of the terms used are really just fluff, and purely subjective, meaning that if you asked 10 people what they meant you would undoubtedly receive 10 different answers.
If you really think about it you'd have to wonder why anyone would want to work for a company that required their employees to be self-motivated, flexible, creative and able to multi-task in a fast passed and dynamic environment. The picture that is painted in my mind is that you'll be air lifted onto an ocean tanker with a belly full of oil in the middle of the North Atlantic just after it ran into an iceberg and you are responsible for saving the oil as well as your corporate bosses from legal/environmental liability. As you watch the helicopter that dropped you melt into the horizon the first mate reports that most power systems and all external communication systems are lost. I guess if you are the kind of person who likes to be in a continual state of emergency without any lifelines this seemingly would be the perfect position.
In stark contrast, the following description would be far more enticing. "We provide a work environment that offers you the time, training, freedom and flexibility to create something extraordinary for our clients, coworkers and most importantly, yourself."
A job posting is an advertisement for the company and should be written with at least as much care and attention as any other client facing document. The posting should engage anyone who reads it so they would feel motivated to respond and, if not selected, would feel obligated to tell others how great your company is. Of course, in order to really pull this off and have prospective employees clamoring at your door you would have to use the standard defined in the latter job description and create that environment.

What message do these common job posting terms really convey to prospective employees?

Multi Task - We aren't able to do any one thing well (Sure! I can drive while reading, shaving, eating and calling you as long as auto insurance is not a requirement)
Flexible - Your time is our time. We need you to be able to drop what you are doing and do something different most of the time.
Self-motivated - Motivate yourself! We don't like what we are doing either!
Creative - We haven't yet developed systems, processes and resources for this position - you're on your own.
Passionate - We can't seem to convince anyone to believe in what WE do
Fast paced - We are running in many different directions all at the same time
Dynamic environment - No sooner than the team starts to gel and deliver results we'll mix things up again.

What do these job description terms mean to you? Or feel free to add your own.

Solve Global Warming and Other Problems

The evaluation grid acts as an effective tool to solve problems. Check out this interesting example Here.

How Do You Define Good Business Partners

Finding good business partners is critical to the success of growing businesses. Businesses, especially small businesses, can live or die based on the success of their partnerships. And as with any kind of partnership you may be judged by the company you keep. So how do we define a good partner?

Whether you are looking for a direct partnership, someone who owns shares in your business, or indirect through an independent product or service provider partners can be found for any aspect of your business. These partnerships can based on loose verbal arrangements or formal agreements with penalties for failures.

My first business, many years ago, was a two person partnership. Early on my partner and I decided to base our business on a single vendors product. The product was innovative and used current technologies all of which excited us as well as our customers. We were fortunate not to sell a lot of those products in our first year as we spent our second year of business replacing the products we sold in that first year of business. This was a hard lesson to learn and it nearly killed our young business. What we did learn from that mistake was to consider all the products available and sell the one that best served the clients needs, always research and test products prior to selling to customers and to always seek out better products. We did have other product failures over the 14 years I was a part of that business but nothing that threatened the life of our business. What we learned from following failures was that the real product cost also included the cost of support and to ask for customer feedback. After all if you don't include the after sale costs you don't really know what something is costing you and that can create a serious cash flow issue going forward. And if it is difficult for your customers to use your products or services or their is a lot of after sale support then they aren't likely to recommend you. What we also found was that typically the least and the most expensive products ended up being the most costly to our bottom line and our brand. The lesson here is that product cost was not a factor of reliability or profit.
So if we were to translate my experience into a set of partnership rules they would be:

1. Consider more than one potential partner
2. Research the partners capabilities
   
3. Quantify those capabilities through referral and testing
   
4. Calculate the real costs over time of using this partner
5. Assess the partners value not only monetarily but through customer feedback
   
6. Keep you eyes out for better partners
   
7. High cost does not always mean high quality

These rules only really scratch the surface though because if you aren't riding your partners product, service or brand then then what are the differentiating factors in choosing the right partner(s) to do business with.
About 5 years into that first business my partner and I decided to partner with a company in a vertical industry. We felt that this would be a good strategic partnership because we could cross sell each other products and drive new business without hiring more sales staff. In a further effort to save costs we also decided to move into, and share, new office space with this company. It wasn't long before cracks started appearing in this relationship. My partner had created a compensation model for this partner to resell our products and services. The compensation model included a fee structure for them to refer a client to us as well as a commission structure if they sold the product or service directly acting as our agent. Because the direct sales commission model was more lucrative they opted to do this every time. This satisfied us as it would be less sales calls for us and more sales.
Unfortunately their people would and did say anything to the customer to close a sale. A customer to them was someone to extract money from any way possible. They had no concern for referrals or repeat business and referrals was how we had grown the business up until that point. When we showed up to deliver our product or service we would always have to talk the customer down and do a complete redesign on-site. There were also situations where we had to just walk away from the project because what they sold could not be delivered to the customers satisfaction. This always cost us hours of productivity and future referral business from these clients.

This brings us to the meat of great partnerships. Just like personal relationships successful business relationships are based on what the partners share in common. They may share common goals, values, objectives, visions, standards, interests and the more of these things they share the stronger the bond.

These rules should also be added to the list:

8. Discuss Vision - how big, where and for how long
9. Discuss Objectives - short and long term
10. Discuss Values & Standards
11. Formalize your agreement in writing
    

For example vision is very important because you need to know how your partner envisions their business. The partner may want to maintain the same size and scope or may envision something much bigger for the future. An important part of their vision will be their exit strategy. Will they still be around in five years or will they exit when a financial or personal milestone is met. You need to know if your relationship is just a stop gap or something that is strategic to their organization long term. They could be considering a shift to a new business model, a move to a another partner, a different product or service or they may even be planning on doing what you do themselves.
Vision is one of the most critical aspects of a partnership and it is a discussion that you should have with your partners at least annually so that you are not surprised by, and can prepare for, change. If your partner doesn't know where you are going then they won't be able to help you get there.

Once the vision thing is out of the way you can get to the heart of your relationship which will be the Objectives.
The objectives, or goals, of each partner will be what is used to create the basis for the relationship for it is the shared interests that will determine the near term success of the partnership. Knowing what each partner wants will not only help align and justify the partnership but will also help facilitate efficient communication. If your partner doesn't know what you want they they won't be able to help you achieve it. Without understanding objectives or aligning objectives it will be difficult to really quantify the success of the partnership. If your partner does not deliver on time or does not deliver new business or makes you unproductive they would not likely be meeting your objectives and the partnership would be a failure. The objective should be use to determine the value of the relationship and the most important thing to remember when setting objectives is to make sure the objectives are quantifiable. This means that their should be numbers attached to the objectives so that you can keep score. For example you may have partners that resell your product or service and you may decide to sign up as many of these types of partner as you can. This is a great way to build a sales force but what is the real cost to support all of these resellers and are all of the partnerships returning enough new business to meet your objectives. Setting objectives like the number of sales and size of sales will help you quantify your partnership. An example would be to pay commission on a sliding scale rising with the number of sales or with the total amount of sales over a specific period of time. Also don't forget that when rating your partners always, always, always include customer experience or feedback in your rating.

And finally we come to the one area that will create most of the conflicts and place most of the stress on any kind of partnership, Values and Standards.
It seems obvious that shared values and standards would be the cornerstone of any partnership but it is the area most ignored by people entertaining and entering into partnerships. I think that most of the time we are so blinded by the short term opportunity that we forget about the risks. Probably the biggest risk is not getting paid or paying for something that isn't delivered but it could be even worse if the product or service is of poor quality and places you at the wrong end of a multi-million dollar suit. You will want your partner to be open and honest and uphold the highest standard or a least agree to uphold your values and standards prior to you entering into a partnership agreement.

Which brings us to the final act. Get it in writing. The purpose of the written agreement is not so you can sue your partner over perceived failures but to document the terms and quantifiable objectives. You may have conversations with your partner over time and you don't want to rely on verbal communication when it comes to responsibilities and accountability.

Partnerships are a great way to stimulate growth and improve efficiencies. Great partnerships create a dynamic that is far greater than all the individuals involved.

Dave Soteros is President of Alrym Consulting. He believes that great companies have great partnerships and return value to not only customers but to the greater community.
http://www.alrym.com

The Art of the Start

If you are still in start-up mode or a young company or even just considering starting your own business then I recommend you view this video featuring venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki here.

Why Don't They Do What I Want?!

Do you find it stressful or awkward to deal with someone who is not performing?

Do you have recurring employee productivity or performance issues?

Do you have high employee turnover? (Replace employees every 2 years or less)

Do you have to fire employees?

Did you know that all of the above issues are really symptoms?

Would you like to remove these symptoms from your work and improve your life?

The solution

Apply the “Systems” approach to solving personnel problems!

Many years ago I took on the challenge of opening a 24 hour call center. This was not just a 24 hour call center, it was a 365 day a year call center. It wasn’t just the continuous 365 day operation that was a challenge, it was also dealing with the fact that any mistake made by the staff could lead to client property loss or damage. The call center monitored our clients security, fire and environmental systems so I'd have to say they were very sensitive to failures in our systems.

As the person responsible for all operations I also supported, designed and implemented all the computer software and hardware for the company. Needless to say I carried a pager and rarely went on vacation.
Before we opened the call center I documented the processes or actions to be taken by our staff for all activity in our operation (the Operations Manual). Processes like, what to do if we received a Fire signal from our monitoring equipment at a client site etc…
Getting my staff up to speed was a challenge but since I had documented the processes I could ask them to review it many times over until they knew it by heart or review the manual before taking action. We asked them to commit to and be accountable to this Operations Manual and all of it’s defined processes. I also made it quite clear that failure in meeting this commitment resulted in disciplinary action and/or termination.
Of course, any time my staff was unclear as to the action required in a given situation they would call me, whether it was 3 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning. And this they did, wreaking havoc on my personal life.
As new questions arose I would ask the employee involved to update the process and to communicate the revised process to the next shift. The next day I would review the new process and then update the Operations Manual as well as make the rest of the staff aware of the changes. If someone asked a question that was covered in our operations manual I would not always be polite when pointing out that fact especially if I was woken up to answer it. This did not ingratiate me with my staff but it did create a basis for my staff to defend themselves against a superior. How many of us have been in a position where, due to lack of documentation, we have no basis to defend ourselves against a wrathful superior. The lack of documentation or poor documentation and communication are the symptoms of poor systems and consequently, management.

If questioned, my staff could always refer to our Operations Manual and know that it protected them at all times in any scenario. This was very reassuring to my staff and removed the ambiguity from their work. They always knew that if they followed the processes they were secure in their job and did not need to be concerned with office politics to keep their jobs or to move ahead within the organization. The procedures kept everyone focused on what was truly important. The outcome for our business was low staff turnover and a stable long term work force. Our procedures also allowed us to more easily quantify our individual productivity and effectiveness. In productivity reviews it was more likely that the staff member brought up their deficiencies for discussion. I also rarely had to fire someone because it did not take long for staff to figure out if their role was something they could be successful at and was worth committing to for the long term.
Also, I was always excited to bring on new staff as it gave me a chance to test our systems and to make them better. New staff always seemed to find a new take on a given situation creating gaps in our systems that needed to be filled. The documentation really shortened the training cycle and we saved money by having new employees review the operations manual at home on their own time. Along with that accountability I did not assume that the processes were perfect. All the staff knew that they could improve our processes and many took up the challenge themselves which breathed life into the operation manual. The processes were reviewed and updated as opposed to collecting dust in binders on a shelf somewhere.

Our documentation created a baseline of a standard accepted behavior that could easily be communicated and duplicated.
This documentation made organizing and communicating with my staff effortless and created a positive and relaxed work environment.
Our staff, armed with effective documented processes, were more easily able to deal with the security industries highly sensitive clients. This approach to people management removed the pain and stress typically associated in managing our employees.

So, what is the “Systems” approach to solving personnel problems?

When you adopt a systematic or “systems” approach to problem solving you effectively separate the personality (the person) from the problem.
Anything else is simply managing personalities in which very few succeed. Without systems most managers end up in an endless cycle of “Fighting Fires”.

It’s not the person who is causing the problem or failing to perform, it is the system that has failed. The system was not designed to incorporate the problem or that person’s personality hence you did not get the results you desire.

The focus shifts from the person, with all the inherent stress and emotion, to a System which can be applied despite the personalities concerned. Including your own!

Think about what this means? Your thought process changes from, “Why can’t he do this?” to, “What did he fail to learn and why, and what can I do so that anyone can learn this”.

The System is “How we do it here”

So what is a system and what are the benefits?

What is a System?

A system is a process or series of processes that are designed to effect an objective or result. E.g. The human arm muscle and it’s movements are processes of a system called the arm. Imagine if the muscles were not co-coordinated in movement, or without objective. It is a condition of harmonious, orderly interaction.

Systems are documented procedures or processes that are designed to achieve a specific result.
In other words it is a set of written procedures which defines what someone is expected to do or accomplish every day, week, month and year. It can be very detailed or very loose (a framework) depending on the job responsibilities and accountability.

Why a system?

People just feel more comfortable and are more productive when they truly understand what is expected of them. It removes the unknowns, the ambiguity from their job. It is a reference tool that teaches. It reduces or removes unnecessary communication which lowers support calls and more importantly returns time for you to do more productive things.
It is a tool used to organize any business operation which is the primary role of management.

What will a System do for me?

A good System will accomplish all of the following objectives:

• Improve staff and client interaction and relationships
• Introduce staff/management accountability
• Ensure quality – repeatable products & services
  
• Effectively delegate responsibility
  
• Measure productivity
  
• Facilitate growth
• Facilitate change management
• Reduce employee turnover by building trust and loyalty
• Ensure corporate strategy, standards and values
• Can be used as training material for new hires freeing up your time

With systems in place the communication with your staff becomes about how the processes they are accountable for are working, and how you both are working towards improving them. This is in stark contrast to the typical communications where business improvement issues are rarely expressed.
This takes the pressure off you and your staff when it comes to productivity and activity discussions. You staff will be able to use the documentation to justify their daily activity and you will be able to use it to quantify their productivity. When you include a process to change the system the system becomes dynamic in that it can be changed by anyone to meet internal or external clients needs. This guarantees innovation. Your staff starts thinking about how they can serve the client better and how they now need to build a business case to prove that there is a better way. This will stop all those meetings around ideas that never result in action.

The creative types, the ones that like change, will have an opportunity to make their jobs better and will feel like they have a vested interest in the success of the organization. The steadfast types who feel more comfortable with standards and processes will be eased into change and the goal oriented types will know how and by what standards their goals must be achieved.

A simple form of a change management system is the "suggestion box". It is what you do with the suggestions that makes the difference between ordinary and extraordinary.

If your employees are trained on each others processes (cross training) they will have a deeper understanding and appreciation of each others roles and responsibilities. An added benefit is that, with good systems (documentation), anyone should be able to learn a new position with much shorter training cycles. Even your own!

But I want things to be fluid, dynamic?

Systems can be intrusive, constraining or even debilitating if not designed properly. Systems can also impose restraints that ensure repeated failures.

So how do you avoid system failure?

• Include accountability – Someone owns the system
• Include a change management process – How do we change it to meet client needs
• Include your corporate strategies, standards and values in every system
• Audit your systems – at least quarterly

Systems as Sales tools?

There are a number of ways you can use your systems as sales tools. If your client facing systems are effective your clients will appreciate them and will prefer to use you over others because they know what to expect no matter who they interact with. You can also sell the fact that your systems guarantee that the first product or service will be the same as the next and so on building in quality assurance. Another option would be to promote your system as a methodology or best practice and offer to teach it to others within your industry.
Imagine that! Your systems themselves could be a center for revenue generation.
This is a great way to differentiate your company in the marketplace.

Where do I start?

Start by defining strategic objectives, standards and values for the organization. “If you don’t know where you are going, anywhere is fine”. Communicate the benefits of documentation and systems to your employees. Provide them with a template and ask them to start filling it out, documenting what they do as they do it. Meet with them weekly initially to go over their accountabilities and talk about how they accomplish tasks and why. Ask "what if" types of questions to make sure they are thinking about improving the system. This is a proactive approach to problem solving.
When an employee comes to you with a question don’t answer it directly. Think about what system is involved and how they could change the system to solve the problem. You’ll find that your staff will stop asking questions and start offering solutions. This is guaranteed to boost your own productivity. (more rounds of golf!)
Your success as a manager or business leader depends on your management and leadership skills. You are accountable and responsible for the effectiveness of everyone you manage and lead. The buck stops with you!
Start blaming failures on that dang operations manual and not that person you hired or inherited. And then change the manual to fix the problem.

Dave Soteros is President of Alrym Consulting. He will teach you how to create systems that deliver your corporate strategic objectives as well as coach you on how to communicate those systems to your staff, your customers and your affiliates. We provide executive coaching, business coaching, management consulting and HR consulting.

“This is how we do it”

http://alrym.blogspot.com