- Facing Reality by David Brock on Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog — Making A Difference
Quote: Facing reality is tough. We may discover things we don’t want to confront. We may not be as strong as we had hoped we were. We may discover we need new skills to improve our ability to compete. It may tell us we’re spending our time with the wrong customers–that we may have to find new customers.
- Scars by Jason Cohen on A Smart Bear
Quote: So even if you know your scars, embrace them, and have perfectly tight rationalization of why every decision is the correct one for you, it still might be wrong.
- An endless series of difficult but achievable hills by Seth Godin
Quote: The craft of your career comes in picking the right hills. Hills just challenging enough that you can barely make it over. A series of hills becomes a mountain, and a series of mountains is a career.
- Report Shows Marketers Less Confident in Measurement of Efforts by Frank Reed on Marketing Pilgrim
Quote: Marketers struggle with proving what they feel in their gut and this will likely be a growing problem rather than a shrinking one. Why? It’s because the marketing rules change constantly while the tools used to measure success often can’t keep pace. Even worse these tools can’t measure some of the more important areas of any marketers’ efforts. Marketers get stuck in between the proverbial rock and a hard place. No wonder most CMO’s last less than two years in a position.
- Death by RFP: Don’t let it happen to you by Jeff Cram on The CMS Myth
Quote: … don’t hide behind a procurement office. I realize this is a policy at many organizations, but it’s one that will almost ensure that you get a poorly scoped proposal from vendors who aren’t the best fit. Make the key stakeholders available for conversations
- Technology is 90% Psychology by Holly on NTEN
Quote: If you want people to own their jobs, you have to give them the freedom to do it. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s the best thing to do. When staff don’t have to run an email through four supervisors to answer a public inquiry, you’re more responsive. And being responsive is extremely important nowadays.
- On the Utility of Thinking in Terms of Jobs-to-Be-Done By Hutch Carpenter on CloudAve
Quote: The jobs-to-be-done approach is incredibly useful for generating ideas that are relevant and actually have potential. You’re plumbing the depths of what people really feel and what they actually want to accomplish. A powerful head start on innovating.
- Listen to Your Community, But Don’t Let Them Tell You What to Do by Jeff Atwood on Coding Horror
Quote: Community feedback is great, but it should never be used as a crutch, a substitute for thinking deeply about what you’re building and why. Always try to identify what the underlying needs are, and come up with a sensible roadmap.
- Strategy for Nonstrategic Leaders by John Bell on LeaderLab
Quote: Accept the fact that Strategy takes Courage. Without courage you will always “fold” when the going gets tough.
- Synchronicity by Sameer Patel. on Pretzel Logic – Social and Collaborative Business
Quote: To be clear, I’m not advocating that you throw these process systems out. They are your systems of record. I’m saying you need to cut through them with people engagement layers.
Links for February 5 2012
