Marc Freedman, publisher of DallasBlue and CEO of RazorPop, has just launched using the 21Publish group blogging service a new service called Blue Blogs for its business network members. DallasBlue was formed 4 years ago as a newsletter created for and by the Dallas Fort-Worth
technology, media, and entertainment community. There are 2,400 DallasBlue Executive members. 1,300 are now part of the LinkedIn DallasBlue
Executives group. Spurred by DallasBlue’s seminar last week
on Internet Publishing, they are now taking the next step to make a community publishing service available to members. This is a great opportunity for members of the Dallas community. Thanks, Marc!
Best Video On Acoustic Drums, Electronic Drums, and Drum Sound Sets On The Net
It’s rare that I post anything like this, but in my 20 years of drumming (and 10 years or so of playing electronic drums now), I’ve never seen a good video that shows an example of all three side-by-side. This SONIC LAB drumkit shoot-out provides an excellent example of how far technology has come in the drumming market.
Reflecting On The Dunbar Number
The post has been reproduced from my blog at 21Publish.
As I’ve started to put myself in the shoes of customers and prospective
customers of 21Publish, I not only try to absorb the technology
environment people are
facing but also try to consider the culture and organizational
processes
that they follow and/or want to implement. To be frank, sometimes it can be overwhelming to talk with people of all walks of life from fishing to K-12 education to
Southeast Asian Health initiatives, but I find the discussions
fascinating and humbling too.
One aspect that I have been trying to keep in the back of my mind
during these discussions is this. For those that have read Malcolm Gladwell’s
book, "The
Tipping Point", you may recall loose references to optimum community
sizes of 150. Now as you may recall, 21Publish launched a free
pricing
plan configuration that covers 100 users. Is that the right number? Who
knows? But I will say that registrations have ramped up fast since we
introduced this. I hope that we are adding value.
I have found it interesting to revisit some of the theories behind the
Dunbar Number. Christopher Allen has an incredible (but older) post about the
Dunbar Number. Here’s a select snip from Christopher’s post (but you should really read the whole thing if you can):
However, Dunbar’s work itself suggests that a community size of 150
will not be a mean for a community unless it is highly incentivized to
remain together. We can see hints of this in Dunbar’s description of
the number and what it means: …
Dunbar’s theory is that this 42% number would be true for humans if
humans had not invented language, a "cheap" form of social grooming.
However, it does show that for a group to sustain itself at the size of
150, significantly more effort must be spent on the core socialization
which is necessary to keep the group functioning. Some organizations
will have sufficient incentive to maintain this high level of required
socialization. In fact the traditional villages and historical military
troop sizes that Dunbar analyzed are probably the best examples of such
an incentive, since they were built upon the raw need for survival.
However, this is a tremendous amount of effort for a group if it’s
trying not just to maintain cohesion, but also to get something done.
will not be a mean for a community unless it is highly incentivized to
remain together. We can see hints of this in Dunbar’s description of
the number and what it means: …
Dunbar’s theory is that this 42% number would be true for humans if
humans had not invented language, a "cheap" form of social grooming.
However, it does show that for a group to sustain itself at the size of
150, significantly more effort must be spent on the core socialization
which is necessary to keep the group functioning. Some organizations
will have sufficient incentive to maintain this high level of required
socialization. In fact the traditional villages and historical military
troop sizes that Dunbar analyzed are probably the best examples of such
an incentive, since they were built upon the raw need for survival.
However, this is a tremendous amount of effort for a group if it’s
trying not just to maintain cohesion, but also to get something done.
I also like the matrix of mean group size vs. neocortex ratio done by
the Boston Consulting Group. Little did I know that they had monkey
frameworks to complement the infamous farm animal-growth share matrix
of the stars, cash cow, dog, and problem child or (?) …
A 21Publish Blog In Process
Biren Saraiya, MD, a good friend of mine from back in the days in New Jersey, has just started to develop a 21Publish blog around the South Asian Health Research Institute. I have some personal goals of tuning my life a little bit more into non-profit-related stuff with entrepreneurial bents to them. Thus, you will likely see more non-profit-related posts here and at my 21Publish user-level blog. The center of posts around here will continue to be entrepreneurial and management consulting as I still perform fractional management services for other companies & engage in a limited number of traditional consulting assignments (like one I am doing in the industrial operations and energy space … a bit outside of my sweetspot, but the project leverages concepts from Little’s Law and a book I referred to in the past here). Even though he’s still working through the dust, congrats to Biren for starting his site!
My New User Blog On 21Publish
Out-of-the-Box Sales CRM Tool Shortcomings
Today at The CIO Weblog I posted about shortcomings in some of the popular, new generation Sales CRM tools. My post is from the perspective of a practitioner and someone who has spent time using and implementing these systems (from various angles such as data definition, configuration, process flow, and requirements). I highlight this not necessarily for the Sales CRM product vendors themselves but because managers need to make up for such shortcomings manually. Perhaps you can see why I chose a picture of short putting (a golf term) as my gripe of the day.
On Getting Grounded In A New Management Role
On June 1, I started a new endeavor as COO of 21Publish, a leading cooperative publishing and hosted multi-user blogging service. Being clear so as to not divulge any confidential information, I thought it would be useful to share some general thoughts on getting grounded in any general management role.
Early on stuff:
- The first few days are like drinking from the firehose – Learning more about the subtleties of operations overwhelms one in the first few days. In general management roles, one covers lots of ground including sales, systems, pricing, unknowns, competitors, psuedo-competitors, different uses of terminology, what’s working, what’s not, conversion rates, buzz in the blogosphere, PR outlets, international resources, etc. After the deep dive, step back and figure out the high leverage points.
- Figure out how to position oneself in the company – People’s roles shift about when new people get introduced. Have to be diligent to make sure that tacit knowledge gathered by people in the organization is harnessed.
- Get talking to customers, prospects, and employees – Figure out how the product really gets sold and the decision-making process people use to buy. See what roadblocks and concerns people have. As an example at 21Publish, perhaps people aren’t getting a clear understanding of how to integrate existing individual blogs into a community. Or perhaps people have a hard time understanding how the 21Publish system enforces greater aspects of community interaction (say with non-profit memberships, university alumni groups, classrooms, or church communities) as compared to blogging platforms targeted at individuals (like TypePad). Or maybe people don’t understand the concept of a hosted service/no software/no hassle model. In any case, get way down in the trenches to see what is happening in customer service, lead generation, etc. Figure out how to resolve these issues for marketing and sales operations.
- You should have no delusions about the company having a right to fire you if you do not perform – Perhaps I’m a little harder on myself than most people, but having been a traditional management consultant, I’ve always believed that if I do not perform as a manager within a firm, the company has every right to put me out on the street. In the case of 21Publish, I have sales, marketing, and operating goals. For me to meet these expectations, I need to deliver and add value to customers prospects first (which may in turn, "turn strangers into friends and then strangers into customers", in the wise words of Seth Godin). The company one works for needs to get indicators from customers and the market that one is doing a good job. Otherwise, why are you a senior manager there?
- Eat your own dogfood – A classic example is development of one of the operating systems at one of the Big Corporations. The development team had to develop the new operating system using applications on the prior version of the operating system. This structural arrangement clearly got bugs out of the system faster and put company employees in the shoes of the customer. In the case of 21Publish, I need to become a user of the product in blog community settings. As such, I will be starting some new blogs to give me an appreciation for 21Publish’s unique offering at different levels. 21Publish has sometimes been referred to as "the TypePad of group blogging and multi-user blogging services (i.e., turnkey blogging communities)". Although I’m stumbling over the words a bit still, I’ve got to learn how customers (like Amnesty International, 20six, Mercury, Whittier Elementary School ) and customer prospects define the product in their own minds. This will help me to refine what 21Publish means to me, and this will in turn help 21Publish to better adapt it’s message.
In closing, general managers need to create tension to perform and to get grounded in reality very quickly. I always ask myself, where can I add value and make my mark?
Steve Shu
Subscribe to Steve Shu’s blog feed
now (click icon) using a free newsreader where you can consolidate your
other reading information from the Internet as well. Business and
technology information for everyone!
The Value of Defending Stupid Ideas
I forget how I ran into this excellent essay by Scott Berkun on "Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas" (probably through del.icio.us), but I like it on many levels because it touches on things like business, logic, organizational behavior, and personalities.
I think two of Scott’s sentences capture an angle that I wanted to post about. Scott writes in two places:
- "… How can smart people take up positions that defy any
reasonable logic? …" and - "… I’m
not proud to admit that I have a degree in Logic and Computation from Carnegie Mellon
University …"
Although I’m not for defending stupid ideas unto death, I have to say that there’s a lot of value in my book in being trained to defend stupid ideas unto death. More precisely, I think there’s tremendous value in the business world in being able to take either side of an argument and to defend that position whether you like it or not. In the business world, it’s a courageous/West Point type of training that I’ve always associated with Harvard MBAs (based on those that I used to work with in the field at management consulting firm PRTM).
I’m not prescribing being irrational or two-faced in either business or personal settings. What I am prescribing is to open one’s mind, to be able to develop courage, and to develop a leadership style. By being able to defend and argue two sides of a coin, your creativity stretches and you learn to reveal weak spots in your own reasoning. That latter part may be the most important thing to me as it leads to a path of self-improvement.
I am somewhat envious of Scott’s background in logic and computation. After taking what I consider to be one of the more unusual GMAT tests on critical reasoning many years ago, I developed a deep appreciation for honing skills in weakening and strengthening arguments. Many people visit my blog seeking information out about the value of an MBA. Studying for GMAT, and in particular the critical reasoning section of the test, is unlike studying for any GRE or SAT exam I know of. You can learn a valuable life lesson before your MBA by studying for that section of the GMAT. Stupid is(n’t) as stupid does (always).