November 2005 – Stephen Shu, PhD

November 30, 2005

Double Teaming Non-Profits Into Blogging

Michael Stein recently shared some of his thoughts on resistance to blogging in not-for-profit environments (source in comments section here):

I have met a lot of resistance when I encourage my not-for-profit
clients to blog. I think one aspect of that resistance is that a
relatively small number of people enjoy writing and do it easily. I
think that "blogging evangelism" needs to include a component that
demystifies writing as a skill and provides resources to make new
bloggers feel competent about their writing.

I thinks Michael’s right on here. He also has a lot of good information on non-profit stuff at his site. One post that caught my eye was a post here that addresses non-profit bloggers and creating content.

I also resonate with Michael’s comment about the need for "blogging evangelism" within a non-profit organization. For example, even though 21Publish is deeply rooted in the core blogging platforms for Amnesty International US and Amnesty International Germany, significant ongoing evangelism is needed. Stefan recently posted a presentation he gave to a broader audience of Amnesty International webmasters here. This presentation is an example of the ongoing evangelism that is required to get the various Amnesty organizations blogging successfully.

So I encourage folks interested in the non-profit space to continue to double team on getting those non-profits to blog. That goes for you too, Future MBA Girl (a blogger for two years now making a move to go to a management consulting firm focusing on the non-profit sector). People with your background can add value to non-profit endeavors while also increasing the number of management consultant bloggers out there.

Disclosure: I am a gun for 21Publish, a turnkey provider of group blogs and blog communities.

November 28, 2005

Small Businesses And Lawyers

Anita Campbell has an interesting post that covers small business owners’ net satisfaction with lawyers. She writes:

Don’t just take my word for it that business owners have confidence in
their attorneys. A recent survey by the National Federation of
Independent Businesses (NFIB) found that small business owners in the
United States rely on their lawyers for help — and generally seem
satisfied with the help they get.

Having worked with (and negotiated against) numerous lawyers, I have to say that good lawyers are precious.

That said, and while I have not dissected the study, there are some additional considerations that I see as applicable to startup businesses because legal bills may not be cheap (just as the lawyers chant out, "an ounce of prevention is worth …"):

Try to get smart on when you really need a lawyer ("do you know a real business/personal risk when you see one?") – Easier said than done, but I have seen some early organizations rack up tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees before coming out of the gates with anything but a stack of legal documents (not even the sales pipeline, marketing pitch documents, or product concept). Keep your eyes open for warning signs. Sometimes it takes time to coach your lawyer to help you maximize entrepreneurial opportunity while mitigating risks appropriate for where you are at companywise. Lawyers are about minimizing risks. Entrepreneurs are about maximizing opportunity. Work on getting the balance right very quickly.
Try orienting your lawyer around deal flow – All businesses have risks. Small businesses cannot afford Fortune 50 company-style legal protection. At least they can’t afford this up-front. Consider orienting your lawyer around a staggered plan. For example, for your first big deal, you may want extra review of certain areas of deal documents. Once things are rolling, you can come back and put in more complete deal document review and legal document portfolio creation. The total nominal cost out may be more in the long run, but the cash out flow will better match the cash in flow.
Entrepreneurs that do not manage their lawyers closely in the early stages of a relationship may be setting themselves up for a shock – Anecdotally, I have seen "first bill from a lawyer" shock many entrepreneurs and kill the trust relationship on both sides. Given the professional services relationship, one would think that this would work itself out and get structured right from the beginning. That said, I think entrepreneurs get too comfortable letting lawyers worry about all the risks. In the end, entrepreneurs end up failing to watch the relationship closely up-front, and bridges can get burned.

November 27, 2005

Vintage Matters

1991 was not a great year for engineering graduates. During 1991, many engineering graduates were lucky to have any job offer in hand upon graduation. Things got better though as the years passed. 1999 was a great year for graduating b-school students that went into mangement consulting, where many got hefty signing bonuses and/or full tuition paid for. That same year, however, was a pretty bad year for associates entering the venture capital space. With the bubble, many of those vintage 1999 venture capital folks got toasted a few years later – some left the space not having closed a single deal. Some watched their firms implode after having long histories in the business. 2001 to 2002 was also a bad year for startups drawing venture capital – many venture lawyers were reporting 2x to 4x ratchets on deal terms, not to mention the bankruptcies.

In business, the "business cycle" matters quite a bit. One needs to be very sensitive to it and try to work with the trend. I feel fortunate for taking leave from the telecom space in 1999 and shifting to the software sector. I’ve been shifting back my focus as of recent, but the telecom and software markets are converging. While those in telecom and media may refer to Web 2.0 as broadband and Web 3.0 as 10 gigabits a second whereas by contrast those in the software industry may characterize Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 as a collaborative and interactive eras of the Internet, deals like Cisco acquiring Scientific Atlanta will likely affect how people both communicate and use the Internet. Vintage 2005 and 2006 software & communications mergers will be memorable.

Changing gears a bit, only in the past year have I started to better appreciate how important year/vintage affects wine. In retrospect, this almost seems obvious as weather affects grapes which affects wine quality. Nevertheless, in the past I have often selected wine primarily based on grape type, geography, or past experience with a wine maker and largely ignored vintage.

Well, my wife found this very cool 2-page chart for selecting wines based on vintage and region (and ignoring wine maker). This may be an easier task for some as compared to trying to remember individual wine makers, doing a lot of guessing on wine quality based on bottle art, etc. I have not verified the accuracy of the chart, but its gives a snapshot view why more knowledgeable wine enthusiasts like 2003 Rhone wines, 2000 Bordeaux wines, etc. and avoid 2002 Rhone wines (my wife and I became a bunch of winos over the Thanksgiving holiday) …

November 22, 2005

Sharing Web Information On Structuring Business Strategy Projects

I am currently working on a business strategy project in the wireless space. In solving a client’s problem, hypothesis formulation plays a key role in putting structure around one’s work. I’ve mentioned the (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) MECE framework before, as a somewhat lower-level philosophy for structuring the hypothesis.

At a higher-level, however, I think the following site does a good job of highlighting from a project management and client engagement perspective the importance of up-front hypothesis generation work. One snip that is very key is the following:

In an effort to bring an assignment in on budget, project managers often fail to structure the problem-solving process up front. Instead of framing hypotheses for the team to test, they launch the team straight into analysis. Junior consultants and researchers, armed with laptops and presentation software, industriously produce charts that display findings. And then, during the week before a presentation, the project manager struggles to pull together the communication, develop the messages, and order the data and insights into a compelling, coherent, fact-based argument that will move the client to action, or fully inform him of the progress to date.

Paradoxically, the manager often finds he has both too much and too little information. Too much in that large amounts of the data and analysis do not support the essential story line. Too little in that support for key arguments is missing.

Do folks have other good public sources of information on the Internet that they’ve seen with respect to hypothesis formulation, presentation, best practices, etc. that they’d like to share? If so, please feel free to do so here.

November 21, 2005

Random Thoughts On What Is OK To Post, What Is Not, And When To Disguise Posts

Comments from a recent reader have made me think a little bit more about how I post as a management consultant. I suppose that these are some of the factors that I consider (a bit of a work in progress although some things are just plain legal requirements without flexibility):

Confidentiality agreements – As do many other employed people, I have to abide by these as signed with former employers and clients. It is not unusual for the survivability of confidentiality clauses to last more than five years or even indefinitely.
Client name confidentiality – For some management consulting firms, confidentiality is strict enough that you cannot even mention the names of client companies you work for, let alone what type of work you are doing from them. Many consulting firms also have prohibited trading lists for its management consultants (i.e., you cannot trade in the stocks of client companies because you often have inside information as a management consultant).
Sensitive current project – Cases where client may be aware of consultant’s blog and may contrue everything on blog to be about them when I don’t want them to ("you’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you …"). May stay away from certain subjects, disguise people, places, and company, plus delay from blogging for many months or even years.
Casual conversations with people not familiar with either blogs or me – This is to respect people’s privacy. I don’t think all bloggers follow this process, but I try to get someone’s permission to use information in a blog before using it. Even after getting permission, I may use references (like people’s titles) as a shortcut to set the business context (e.g., GM’s have profit and loss responsibility, VP’s don’t generally have profit and loss but have oversight over functional area). Using titles to guesstimate/gauge span of control, purchase authority, etc. is a bit of a black art though as someone may need to take additional context from the size of company (e.g., start-up versus Fortune 100), industry company is in, and geography (e.g., I frequently have to clarify titles when working with my German contacts).
Information embargoed at request of provider until a specific date – I try to honor these even if I am not required to.
If none of the above items govern the situation, then when in doubt as to whether one should be specific or less-specific in a business context – either don’t blog about or disguise it very well using some of the things I’ve mentioned above.

November 19, 2005

Accenture’s Blog “Podium” And Other Thoughts On Non-Blogging In Management Consulting

Bartłomiej Owczarek points me to Accenture Netherland’s blogging space for employees. Very nice (and rare) discovery of a blog community that is very informal yet connected to a well-known corporate brand. Bartłomiej also shares his hypotheses on why there aren’t more management consultant bloggers out there:

because of time constraints
because they want it to be perfect from the start
because they live in a world full of policies.

I hadn’t really thought about Bartłomiej’s second bullet point before, but I could see how that might play a role in areas of a consultancy.

Bartłomiej, thanks also for the mention. Best!

Update (11/30/05): Stephan starts a naked conversation and shares his thoughts on blogging under the Accenture umbrella.

November 17, 2005

Boogie Medien and 21Publish Partner To Launch Blog Community For Leading Low-Cost Provider Airline HLX

Boogie Medien has partnered with 21Publish to launch and manage an blog community for HLX, one of the leading, low-cost provider airlines in Germany (likened to JetBlue as I understand things – Stefan, why not Southwest?). Travelers can now share their experiences on transit, destinations, etc. Stefan posts more about it here. Congrats to HLX!

Blog communities are definitely something that companies with inherent, sizeable bases of customers should consider (can also be considered for small communities too, but ones with large communities may simply be missing the boat if they don’t give any consideration). Consider the MBA blog community 21Publish launched for BusinessWeek, which draws from BusinessWeek’s large online reader base. While an older Scoble post has got me thinking about whether we should be calling communities like these end-user generated content, participant-generated content, etc. communities (I had to think twice about this ’cause I don’t want to be in the slave business!), in my mind companies are trying to use these online presences to make things work both for the company and for ~~end users~~ people. A loose analogy can be drawn to the sitting areas in Starbucks – it is a nice way for companies to facilitate a conversation in a loosely-defined but themed atmosphere.

Technorati Tags: blogcommunity, blog, blogging

Disclosure: I am a hired gun for 21Publish.

November 15, 2005

Series Of Posts On Entrepreneurial Mistakes When Raising Capital

Carlos Velez has put together a series of posts on the mistakes that entrepreneurs make when seeking capital. Here they are:

Mistake #1 – Not writing a check
Mistake #2 – VC is the only path
Mistake #3 – Taking your time
Mistake #4 – Learn how to swim before jumping into the pool
Mistake #5 – Not seeking professional help

People should contact Carlos (per his post here) if they want to get a PDF of the article. Also if you resonate with #2 at all (which you should), you should also see the post at the Entrepreneurial Mind, "There Is Life Beyond Venture Capital".

Update (11/17/05): Carlos has a very nice follow-up post here that sheds more light on #5 with some specific examples in the drug discovery space.

Update (11/17/05): Texas Venture Capital Blog has a post here where some entrepreneurs come clean and admit to making some the exact mistakes that Carlos mentions.