Category Archives: mba

Is the MBA worth it?

October 9, 2011 By in mba, Motivation, QuakeAware Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I received an e-mail from the Dean of the Business school after our convocation ceremony yesterday. Here was the introduction….

“Congratulations on your graduation from the Beedie School of Business. This is a significant achievement and a major milestone for you in your life and career. You have succeeded in a program that combines academic rigor with practical application, has notably high standards, and most importantly, provided you with opportunities to meet new people and confront challenging ideas.” That is certainly what I hoped for when I joined the program. This was not quite my experience though but more on that later.

It seems to me that the benefits of an MBA depend a great deal on who you talk to. Many successful entrepreneurs consider the program a waste of time. They believe you are far better off to actually do\create a business or a product rather than learn from academics. Many professors are incredibly intelligent but lack real world commercial experience and\or have successfully run a business. From a corporate perspective an MBA can be an important “enabler” for more senior positions later in your career. Completing the program shows a drive to gain valuable experience and acquire new skills needed in executive life. I think there are merits to both points of view.

The MBA “gravy train” for major academic institutions is being disrupted by innovators like the University of Phoenix who are offering similar content delivered online for a fraction of the cost. I think business schools obsessed with their brand in light of this very stiff competition are misguided and have lost focus on their core mission. I thought Tony Hsieh of Zappos had a very profound insight when he said that brand is a lagging indicator of culture. His point was that organizations need to align their employee and customer experience to achieve outstanding results. Established universities need to deliver world-class education, foster an entrepreneurial culture and supportive ecosystem to truly differentiate their products and services from their online competition.

A couple of thoughts in terms of my personal experience as an MBA candidate:

1. If students choose not attend most lectures and rarely participate in group assignments how valuable can the MBA credential be?  This suggests to me that as long as you pay the “substantial fees” you earn the credential\brand. This is not rigorous or high standards. I think this is one of the reasons why MBA’s are not as held in as high regard as they used to because of perceived grade inflation. Obviously there are a lot more people with the credential now as well.

2. To charge higher prices established universities need to deliver premium instruction, preferably original research or at least the latest research from talented and engaged professors. The problem from a prospective student is you only find out how good the instruction is after you sign up for the program. My experience was that lecture quality was very inconsistent. It’s fine to tell me about the world-class academics on staff but if I am not taught by many of them frankly who cares? Some professors had little grasp of technology even though it was an MBA with a technology specialization!  One course had content was quite dated with examples that were relevant about 1o years ago. Fortunately many courses were excellent, taught by dynamic professors or incredibly experienced veterans with compelling stories and connections to boot! I would have paid a lot more for some courses and not at all for others had I known what I know now.

3. I was really impressed with the efforts the Beedie Business School make to provide a supportive eco-system for students to develop business ideas. They offer a variety of incubator programs for new ventures and provided free passes to the excellent BC New Venture Competition lecture series. I was fortunate to work with a great group of students that developed an iPhone app called QuakeAware as part of the program. A great way to make your MBA count is to apply the learnings to an endeavour as part of the program. Without a doubt working with this team on our pet project was the highlight of the program for me. I regret not making more of the incubator resources the University offered.

4. Burnout becomes a real issue the further you progress in the program. I became a father towards the end of the fourth semester which made a tough schedule occasionally unbearable. While my wife rapidly lost weight after the birth I continued to expand because I was eating junk food and drinking coffee late into the night on a regular basis. Needless to say this was bad for my health and not sustainable in the long run. Fortunately I was not alone. :) Many other members of my cohort joined me in the “pleasantly plump” brigade. My patience for “light lectures” of questionable value wore thin towards the end as the personal sacrifices I needed to make and the price I paid was not certainly not worth it far too often.

5. I really enjoyed the safe environment for students to share their perspectives on their professional challenges. Most lecturers made a point of encouraging discussion which was often insightful and thought-provoking. I learned that the challenges in my organization were not unique by any means and that in many instances Sage was ahead of the curve in our industry. I highly doubt I could have had these type of conversations over an e-learning or online course as it takes sometime for students to get comfortable with each other to share what they really think.

Was it worth it? All in all I think so. I have a broader perspective on business. I have a solid platform to move from the technical to the business side of my organization. The program has already proven beneficial to at least half the cohort. Many have moved up in their organizations or moved on to new employers already. The MBA is as much a test of endurance as it is a test of intelligence. I promised myself I would do this and now I have. I am pretty proud of myself actually!

My son won’t lick a glass door because he’s hungry

October 2, 2011 By in mba, Personal, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I went out for a drink with a friend I worked with around eight years ago during the week. We have exchanged a few e-mails over the years but had not spoken since then. Our worlds have changed quite a bit in that time. We are both fathers now. Our outlook on life and career is quite different than we first met. We spoke about life in the US and Southern California in the good old days before the conversation turned to the challenges in today’s environment. He is on the road a lot now which is tough on his family. I know what it is like to make sacrifices having recently completed my MBA which had proven tough on my young family as well.

Although we live over a 1,000 miles away from each other our work environment is remarkably similar. Many people are working very hard. Many are not working very hard. Those that work more typically have very little to show for it in terms of the pay they bring back to their families for their extra effort. Keeping your job is an achievement in these tough economic conditions. It’s a lamentable state of affairs with little hope for improvement in the short run. As bad as it is in North America it is not nearly as painful as the situation back home in Ireland. My personal view is that the economic environment is going to get a lot worse fairly quickly. My friend complained that many of his colleagues were “checked out“, doing the minimum to get by and were miserable in their jobs. When the economy improves he predicts a mass exodus of employees from his employer.

I am not so sure. Here is the catch 22 for many people who feel this way. If they do not work hard how do they really improve their résumé to take advantage of new opportunities that open up at a later date? Will they be able to perform at higher levels when they move to an organization that demands more from their employees? Are they undermining their future employment prospects by not investing in new skills now? Perhaps people need to find a way to reconnect with their jobs and their employers? If they just hurt their career that would be bad. Many don’t realize they risk severely impacting their personal lives and loved one’s also.  I read an interesting book called “We” which highlighted the spillover and crossover effects of a bad job. Basically your emotions at work, good or bad, spillover to your personal life and cross over to those around you.

I know all these things are true but that does not stop me from becoming discouraged occasionally with my career as regular readers of my blog will know. {I actually have a few I promise! :) } If you work hard and get good results you hope your contribution is recognized or why bother? It’s hard to be upbeat if your colleagues are miserable as my friend pointed out earlier in the week. That said, I heard a sad story during the week that changed my perspective on my current situation. We have decided that Min Chi will stay at home to take care of Liam until he goes to school. It is a big financial hit to a young family. We believe it is worth it though. A young mother whose daughter plays with Liam a lot was telling her that has to leave her 9 month old daughter at an unofficial\illegal daycare so she can go back to work. Apparently the daycare centre takes care of 15 babies. The centre has 5 high chairs and 3 care takers. 10 babies get to watch the other 5 eat through a glass door until it is their turn to eat. She saw a young baby that looked really hungry start “licking” the glass door but still had to leave. Can you imagine how heartbreaking this must have been for the poor mother?

My initial reaction was rage, then despair as I thought about the young children in this daycare centre. Then I thought about how fortunate I am to have a great partner who is willing to stay at home and take care of our little terror. Then I thought work is tough but if I get to provide for my family my extra efforts are not in vain. Recognition and rewards for my hard work from my employer are nice. Providing a good life for my family is much more important even if my “tyrant” costs me a fortune and won’t say thank you until it’s his turn to be tormented!

The ethics of job obsolescence & overtime

May 7, 2011 By in Employees, Leadership, Management, mba, Motivation Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I aspire to bring out the best of the people I serve as a manager. I try to be supportive but I definitely want the teams that I work with to be the best they can be. Most team meetings I begin by celebrating the very real accomplishments made since our last meeting, identify any opportunities for improvement I see and then ask the team to aim even higher. For me to justify my salary as a non technical manager the team needs to demonstrate improved performance. My view is that if they don’t, the company should hire another developer or a manager that can help the team achieve their potential.

I was very unpleasantly surprised when a developer I work with advised me that I was the most demanding boss he has ever worked for earlier this week. I quickly conquered my initial reaction to justify my management style and realized this employee was doing exactly what I challenged the team to do, share feedback constructively! He had two points. The first was that he was grateful that I pushed the team and the team regularly received recognition for their accomplishments at various levels of the organization. By starting with the positive I was better able to receive the second piece of feedback. He then went on to say that the only way the team could possibly meet the request for even higher performance was to work extended amounts of overtime! In a nutshell, “Donal, your words come across as very reasonable but your requests suggest you are not. Which is right?”  (My language not the employee’s)

As we discussed the matter further to clarify his perspective I came to two conclusions. The first, was that if he had this concern the other developers probably did as well. I had not communicated my expectations clearly despite my best efforts. The second was that there was a key truth in their insight. Although I don’t necessarily expect employees to work more overtime to get the project completed faster I do believe they have a vested interest in spending time outside of their core work hours to upgrade their skills. Why? This segues nicely to the title of this post. I have attended an ethics course this weekend with Dr Mark Wexler. He suggests that employers of knowledge workers are only required to provide fair compensation, benefits and decent working conditions from an ethic‘s perspective. The onus is on employees entirely to ensure their skills remain relevant in the market place.

In the old days a manual laborer or factory worker received their pay and were rehired the next day. Although modern knowledge workers enjoy better employment conditions the reality is that we must continue to invest in our skills outside of work hours to continue to earn salaries comparable to those we earn today. Technological innovation demands we master new technologies faster than ever before. Although employers may not be ethically required to invest in their knowledge workers skills I explained in my previous post they have a powerful interest in doing so. Core capabilities become core rigidities in organizations with legacy skills which limits their ability to compete.

I decided to speak with the rest of the developers on the team after a very productive 1 on 1 with the employee. I wanted to communicate my perspective differently armed with the new insights from my previous conversation. Here is what I tried to say. At times in a software project there may be times when we need to do overtime to meet project deadlines. This should be the exception not the rule. Work-life balance is important and typically leads to better performance in the long run. My focus is not for the team to work harder on the project per se. I do ask everyone to foster a supportive, collaborative environment and to provide constructive feedback to colleagues. I truly believe building this higher level of trust is a powerful enabler of high performance. Our ability to improve is directly proportional to our ability to solicit and improve based on this feedback. People don’t like doing this because giving feedback that can be perceived as negative is incredibly hard. This is why (from my perspective) I originally thought I was not asking employees not to work harder.

The developers were right too though. I am requesting they take the time to upgrade their skills mostly on their own time. This is additional work. To me this is about employment security though. The best workers with the skills in the latest technologies in demand will continue to earn high salaries and have their pick of employers.  The reality is that development work for mature products that are increasingly becoming commodities will continue to face compelling cost pressures from outsourced development centers.

I believe I have no right to ask employees to work overtime to acquire new skills. I sincerely believe I am responsible though to identify the future technical trajectory of our products and the market. This gives employees the opportunity to align with them to maximize their professional success. Take control of your career. Why worry endlessly about outsourcing? Take the chance to become more valuable in the market. Then it’s up to employees. (It really is) We make a choice every day how we spend our time. Upgrade or obsolescence, the real choice for the knowledge worker with all the possibilities or consequences that comes with whatever choice we make eventually…….

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New CEO pays a visit

January 16, 2011 By in Employees, mba, Meetings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I often avoid writing about my work at Sage to ensure I have the freedom to speak my mind on this blog. Serendipity invites me to try a different approach this week. Pascal Houllion from France; our recently appointed CEO of Sage North America came to visit our office in Richmond. His visit coincided with my first cultural intelligence class in my MBA program. I was fascinated that almost everyone I spoke to who met him used the words “different culture” when sharing their perceptions of Pascal’s comments and interactions with him.

For example,  he appears to have strong views on the work environment. I have seen pictures of the Sage offices in Dublin and Paris. It seems to me the offices are designed to foster collaboration and an egalitarian environment. Both are very open, with low cube walls while very few managers have offices. Introducing similar changes in North America would definitely shake things up if implemented. Office size and location are considered by many as a sign of greater rank and influence in the company while employees typically prefer higher cube walls for privacy to work uninterrupted.

In meetings I was told Pascal was  a “straight shooter”, willing to share his first instincts on the issue at hand with whatever information was available to him. I find this approach refreshing.  This style has its risks though from a cultural perspective. Last year I blogged that the perception of what our CTO had requested often appeared different from what he intended when I had the opportunity to ask him questions directly. It took me several years to adjust to the communication style in North America. My experience is that open dialogue is typically reserved for smaller group meetings and that hierarchy is taken much more seriously in North America than Ireland. Discussions with, or opinions expressed by senior executives are sometimes interpreted as decisions by employees. This can have significant consequences in terms of morale and productivity if a decision is questionable. (Even though many times a decision was not made!)

One other very positive perception that emerged was  that management experience and qualitative feedback will play an increasing role in decisions going forward. This works well for me! Data is important, a key tool in a manager’s toolbox for sure. An excellent book “Made to stick” makes the point that we need much more than data to deliver a message that resonates and inspires a team to action though. We need a compelling message that is easily understood to make the idea sticky with the target audience.

Many who met Pascal got the sense that big changes are in store for our business over the next few years. I sincerely hope so. This comment could easily be interpreted as a criticism of the local leadership. It is not. Sage North America has made huge progress in the past few years. Finally, some tough decisions have been taken from a portfolio perspective in the mid-market business division.  Indeed at the 2010 Sage Insights conference the executive team themselves acknowledged that our investment in R&D had probably been spread across too many products in key-note presentations. I once read our plethora of product offerings described as similar to a ransom note by a former leader in the company to an industry analyst!  My point is simply that many times it takes someone outside of the organization to highlight dysfunctional aspects of a culture or emotional attachments to a product line and position to do something about them. Laurie Schultz, our General Manager has proven she had the courage to make the tough decisions in Sage’s mid-market portfolio. We need a similar approach and new growth strategy for our entire business that customers, employees, partners and shareholders can buy into.

I read an interesting post from Wayne Schultz recently about our latest re-org in Sage North America. Wayne made a good point that it typically takes a year or so for a new leader to ramp up on the business. He wrote “Maybe Pascal will jump right in and begin leading without any need to study the North America operations – but I wouldn’t bet on it.” I will go out on a limb and place a different bet. He will! Everyone I spoke to in Richmond is very impressed with our new CEO’s knowledge of the SMB market. I am confident Pascal will exceed Wayne’s expectations!

I would be delighted if Pascal can exceed employee’s expectations as well. Sage’s ability to deliver an Extraordinary Customer Experience requires a highly motivated and engaged workforce. An interesting article in Business Week discussed a study of 61,000 employees by the Corporate Leadership Council. The data showed that one out of four employees was disengaged.  One of the main causes of this disengagement is directly linked to the massive change employees have experienced when it comes to their Employment Value Proposition (EVP)—or the value that employees gain by working for a particular organization. EVP has trended downwards across the western world due to reasons such as layoffs, organizational restructurings, and shifts in managers. An interesting and scary thought from the article was “the reality is that the anticipation of future organizational change is more detrimental to EVP than the change they have already gone through“. Sacré bleu!  Here we go again but change we must! Our future depends on it.

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Is there a market in the gap?

August 23, 2010 By in Entrepreneurship, mba, QuakeAware, self-employed Tags: , , 2 Comments

I was flattered to be asked to review a business plan for a potential online venture back in Ireland recently. It’s rewarding to know that some people are interested in what I write. Without going into details the guys core idea is to leverage crowd sourcing much like Innocentive in the US. Their mission is to connect bright people with businesses that need creative solutions to their problems. They identified a niche in the Irish market and created a business plan. Now it’s time to execute. Good for them! I wish I was that smart and ambitious when I was in my twenties.

I suggested they consider the following points as they move their venture forward. The text in italics is my direct response to them. The comments later are some general thoughts and personal experience on the topic.

1.       It sounds like your biggest “threat” is non-consumption. How is your target market surviving so far without your product? The QuakeAware team is taking a well deserved break to avoid burnout. We are faced with a similar challenge. Most agree our smart phone app is a cool idea. The fact is everyone has survived so far without it though. What is the “hook” you have to really capture the attention and imagination of non-consumers?

2.       It’s not clear to me how you plan to monetize your product (Online advertising, subscription etc ) Similar to point 1 it’s one thing to have a good idea. It’s quite another to persuade others to pay for it. Music is a great example. While many people are willing to pay for great music online through iTunes I believe far more people will download music illegally for free. Many of us love good music.  Why pay for something you don’t have to though? (I am not making a moral judgment. My intent is to highlight a business reality that is severely impacting profits in the music industry)

3.       How do you protect yourself against imitation? Branding is one way of course but new entrants typically lack the money or time to build a brand quickly. If your product is  manufactured your costs will need to be negligible to compete effectively with the Chinese. If your product or service is in software and you are successful it won’t be long before many “me too” products are competing against you. If you were your competitor trying to steal market share, what strategies would you consider?

4.       If you prove the market and gain a sizeable user base how will you compete when a larger competitor enters? They will have deeper pockets, more resources and a better brand. Many larger firms will let newer entrants prove a market before deciding to enter. Some will try to acquire their competitors. Others will simply engage in nasty price wars to drive out the small competition. It will be even worse if they don’t come. That means there really is no market in the gap after all.

5.      What barriers to entry are there? If none, how long can you generate a decent profit? In short, no barriers to entry means the chance to make high margins is not very long.

6.       Do you have a target niche you plan to go after first? Govt, industry and research is quite broad. What does your perfect customer look like? I read a fantastic book called “Crossing the chasm” by Geoffrey Moore. A key point in his research is that entrepreneurs need to be very selective and pick a niche they can dominate before attempting to compete in other markets. Attempting to please everybody may bring in more revenue in the short run but really hurts your ability to develop a sustainable competitive advantage over time. It takes a lot of discipline to research and then limit your enterprise to a narrow niche in the short run. 

In my next post I’ll share some key learning’s from New Venture’s BC seminar series I attended earlier this year. The series was dedicated to start-ups from the investor perspective.

Are you a good colleague?

May 22, 2010 By in Leadership, Management, mba, Motivation, Personal development Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

I attended a three and a half day self-management course last weekend as part of my MBA program. It was by far the most intensive course I have ever experienced. Gervaise Bushe has designed a simulation that helps identify your strengths and weaknesses in meeting the challenges and possibilities of working and managing in ambiguous, fast paced organizational environments. I highly recommend this course for organizations that are struggling to manage change. If you would like to learn more about it you can check out this link.  A few weeks ago I discussed Kolb’s learning style inventory assessment. I learn primarily by doing. Simulations are an optimal learning environment for people like me. I loved it!

The cohort was given a brief overview of the principles of the simulation and some key barriers that get in the way of our learning. One of the key points Gervaise made was that there is a difference between what we know and what we do, particularly when levels of stress increase. We often know the correct principles to handle a situation but all types of external and internal factors limit our ability to execute successfully. Our challenge over the course was to evaluate our performance against the six characteristics of a great co-worker identified by Gervaise (I think).

1. Makes A Contribution

  • Sees what needs to be done and does it
  • Notices when you need a helping hand
  • Hard working, good work ethic
  • Competent and organized
  • Good time management
  • Committed to the team’s success
  • Goes above and beyond the call of duty

2. Dependable and Takes Accountability

  • Makes and keeps agreements
  • Meets deadlines
  • Able to own problems and accept responsibility
  • Able to prioritize
  • Makes and owns tough decisions
  • Coordinates with others
  • Ensures what they do integrates with the big picture

3. Straight-talking and Fair

  • Objective and fair
  • Tells you the whole truth
  • Means what they say and lives by their values
  • Won’t lie just to make it easier for themselves
  • Brings up hard issues that need to be discussed

4. Finds Creative and Innovative Solutions

  • Comes up with new ideas
  • Doesn’t get caught in assumptions
  • Is open to trying out new ideas
  • Encourages experimentation
  • Thinks out of the box
  • Looks for ways around problems
  • Doesn’t accept limitations

5. Self Aware and Continuously Learning

  • Open to learning
  • Accepts criticism
  • Gets curious when something doesn’t make sense
  • Asks for feedback and suggestions
  • Is willing to learn from their failures and move on
  • Can describe what is going on in them
  • Sees and acknowledges their part in problems
  • Challenges self and others to grow in difficult situations

6. Creates a Positive, Motivating Atmosphere

  • Encourages and motivates others
  • Stays cool under pressure
  • Enthusiastic
  • Takes a hit and stays focused
  • Doesn’t gossip or bad mouth others
  • Relieves tension
  • Sees the best in people
  • Sees the opportunities in challenges

For my sins, I have a fifteen page paper to write about what I learned from the course this weekend. I won’t bore you with all the details but there are some nuggets that are worth sharing.

  1. We each create our own experience. Our experience is not what happens to us but what we do with what happens to us. This is a very powerful idea. If we are mad, we choose to be mad. There is an alternative to how we currently view our situation. If we are checked out, there are options to re-connect and opportunities to make a difference if we so choose. I think this is very relevant given the malaise in employee morale across so many organizations after the distress of last year.
  2. In order to learn from experience we need to pay attention to our results(not our intentions). The most powerful stance for learning when I don’t like my results is: I created that result, probably because of thoughts, feelings and/or wants I’m not aware of. What’s in it for me to create that result? I experience this challenge at work occasionally. I take a course of action with what I perceive to be noble intentions yet others experience this a very different way.  A big part of my challenge is that I am too focused on solving the problem rather than gaining consensus that a problem in fact exists. I attended an R&D management excellence program recently at work with a useful framework to tackle problems from a problem vs solution approach. I’ll keep readers posted on my progress with this.
  3. Perhaps the most interesting insight was the idea of “competence compulsion”.  At work, we are all compelled to act and to make sense of every situation in a way that ensures we appear competent to ourselves and we appear competent to others. Unfortunately, when we are learning, we can appear less than competent. I spoke with a peer only on Friday who was opposed to managing employees outside of her core area of expertise for this reason. Here is the challenge though. Our environment is changing so fast now that we MUST continue to upgrade our skills or face obsolescence. How do we create a working environment where people feel safe to “fail forward” to improve their professional capabilities?

I will wrap up for now. As always, if you have feedback I would love to hear it. It’s time to get started on that paper I was telling you about.

Thanks,

Donal

Managing the media

April 18, 2010 By in mba, Personal, QuakeAware Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Attention readers! This post is longer than usual. As some of you may know, a product I have developed with class mates has featured prominently in the local media here over the past two weeks. I was interviewed by Global TV last weekend. I am going to share my perspective and our team’s experience of working with the media  over these past few weeks.  All in all, it was  enjoyable, nerve-wracking, time intensive but ultimately rewarding experience.  

But first some background. As part of our MBA program I was part of a team tasked with developing a product that would serve the local community. We were inspired by the tragic events in Haiti. Team QuakeAware decided to leverage our technical and new-found product management skills to build an iPhone app. (We aim to deliver versions for the Android & Blackberry platforms shortly) Our app helps residents prepare and react to earthquakes if they ever hit our local city in Richmond, BC. 

The media first heard about our product through the director of Public Relations at Segal Graduate School of Business. He attended two presentations we had given. He seemed to immediately grasp the potential of the product and made contact with the media. You can check out our first interview with the TV media here if you like. The entire clip lasted a full five minutes. As we gained more experience with the media we would come to realize we were even luckier to feature for so long on prime time TV.

What made this interview particularly challenging was how little time we had to prepare. Ryan appeared on national TV after only three hours sleep, kept awake by those awful energy drinks. He had no idea what the questions would be and answered in real-time. Thankfully everything went well. Ryan did a fine job in the circumstances. You can tell he was nervous but who wouldn’t be! His phone seemed to ring non stop for four days fielding calls from radio and TV stations requesting interviews after his success. It was incredible!  

As Ryan spent more time on the air you could tell he gained in confidence. The media was friendly. He was more polished in his answers. It was great! Other team members were eager to feature on TV. It made sense to give everyone a chance. The problem was that Ryan was often the only one who could appear on the TV in the time frame required during the day (he works nights). When the media call, they have a tight deadline to manage to. Are you available or not? For example, in the last round of TV appearances we needed to be available within forty-five minutes. If you are not available, events quickly move on and you are less likely to feature again. Fortunately another opportunity came up where another group member Dylan (AKA Jesus in our group) was able to appear. Dylan works from home and was able to respond to another last-minute request. You can check out the clip here.

 

CBC did an amazing job of presenting the power of our app for us. It also helped that Dylan was excellent. A key difference was that this TV interview was recorded. If mistakes happen, no problem, you can just shoot the clip again. I am sure Dylan must have felt a little  pressure. I doubt it is as daunting as being interviewed live though. Ryan was very confident that the interview had gone well and so it proved. He was a now a bit of a pro advising us on various aspects of the process having done this several times. In my opinion Dylan’s interview gave the most favorable impression of our work.  This clip lasted two minutes.

The second last of the interviews to date took place last weekend. You can see the 60 second clip that featured on the Sunday evening Vancouver news below.

As you can tell from the chronology the interviews on the TV at least were becoming shorter. I wsa selected to represent the team for this interview. There was twenty-five minutes of footage taken. Only sixty seconds made the final cut. If you check out our Facebook Fan page you can see the photos we took of the first part of the interview. The camera man spent around ten minutes taking close up shots of Kelvin (our finance guru) using the app connected to large monitors. Unfortunately, none of this material made the final news. Then it came to my turn. I thought a reporter was going to show up for the actual interview. This never happened. Instead I was talking to the wall (literally) pretending I was being interviewed. It was surreal! That said, because we were recorded there was less pressure. That didn’t stop me from forgetting most of the features of our product to my chagrin. Apart from that this minor detail the interview went  well. One could say, this was the easiest of the three interviews to date in the sense that it was not a really an interview at all. In fact, I could probably have prepared the questions and answers had I liked. That evening when I first watched the clip I was very disappointed. There was no footage of the app at all. There was a brief intro and then a thirty-second ”elevator pitch” from me. I had no idea that this was all that would feature. In hindsight, we were very lucky. If there was any thirty seconds that should have featured, this was it! The feedback over the next few days was overwhelmingly positive though.

Incredibly then another massive earthquake struck in China. Another request for interviews came from CTV. This time we featured for approximately fifteen seconds at the end of a segment dedicated to earthquake preparedness for BC schools. I don’t have a clip to share with you at this time. I’ll upload it later when I have access to it.

All in all QuakeAware has featured on prime TV for five or six days over the last two weeks. This has created incredible mind share for us. For example, several colleagues at work had heard of our application. On Tuesday a random attendee at an innovation event  I went to advised us that he had heard about us on the local radio. We have requests coming from people all over the lower mainland, including Vancouver island and as far away as  Seattle, Southern California & Taiwan to deliver an app to them. What an opportunity! I will tell you how we progress in future posts.

For now, I will close with some key takeaways from the past few weeks.

  1. You have to be ready at any time for an interview. Simply put, without Ryan’s availability at a moment’s notice we would never have received the publicity we did. Our policy has been to do whatever it takes to respond to the media’s request for an interview. We are more likely to feature as a result.
  2. Be prepared. Know the format of your interview if possible. If open-ended questions are asked be sure to make them count. This is your big opportunity to get your message out!
  3. Have an elevator pitch. Know it inside out. It would have been nice to be armed with a FAQ and a product pitch before the media momentum took off.
  4. Realize you have little control over what appears on TV. Footage is edited back at HQ. I had unrealistic expectations of what footage would appear. For example, I made a request to get volunteer assistance during the interview. This was never going to make it into a sixty-second slot.
  5. Media momentum is hard to manage. Once it begins, you just have to roll with events as they unfold.
  6. Like everything in life, you get better with practise. Don’t be scared. Just do it if you get the chance. We were fortunate because we have a great story to tell. The media were eager to help get some good news out.
  7. Don’t peddle fear. We have made a conscious decision not to try to scare people unnecessarily. I think this helped us. People react to fear but it breeds cynicism and contempt as well.

Thanks again for checking out my blog. I will try to get back to my weekly schedule of posts. This has been hard to do given recent events.

Competitive Advantage – Do or die?

November 8, 2009 By in Leadership, mba Tags: , , , 1 Comment

I am currently taking a class in Strategic Management of Technology in my MBA program.  A key concept in the class is “competitive advantage”. The basic idea is that there are two key strategies company’s can leverage to sustain competitive advantage and ensure their survival. (1) Cost leadership; compete on price, the lower the better. (2) Differentiation; deliver a unique product or service and try to sustain this advantage over time. The best companies do both and earn the superior rewards that go with that. (Think Amazon.com)

Is this theory relevant to us in our professional lives? Very actually! Most businesses have spent 2009 restructuring their organizations and slashing costs. Competition does not always come from our rivals in the market. (Think outsourcing) You need to determine if your team competes on price or differentiation? Executives must ask does the service provided by your team provide a core capability that enhances the business’s competitive position or should the resources be allocated elsewhere to generate superior returns? It is difficult to be dispassionate about a topic that has such a huge impact on our lives.

As a professional in the software industry I know that our QA team cannot compete on price. If we try, we will be outsourced to locations like India that enjoy cost advantages of at least 50%. We must differentiate the service we provide our employers enough so that off-shoring is not a viable alternative. Many QA engineers I work with are concerned about the threat of outsourcing. Our challenge as a team is to ensure that we provide a higher level of testing at a lower cost than if the operation was outsourced entirely to India. Take all the emotion of it and the issue is that simple from a purely commercial perspective.

We need to be world-class providers of QA to thrive. Total Quality management (Think Toyota) has exploded the myth that there is a trade-off between high quality and low-cost. The testers in Accpac QA have a deep and broad understanding of a reasonably complex mid-market ERP solution and how our customers use the software that is hard to replicate.  The team has a broad mix of talented testers with different styles that “challenge” the system before we deliver the product to market. Our strategy in QA management MUST focus on strengthening this competitive advantage.

How do we do this?

  1. Automation is vital.  We need to build out our capabilities to automate as many routine tasks as possible to maximize the time available for our top talent to test the complex areas of the product.
  2. “Agile” development accelerates our QA team’s ability to identify and troubleshoot bugs in tandem with developers to deliver higher quality software faster. Industry studies have shown that co-located agile teams typically produce better results. Effectively executing “Agile” raises a barrier to exporting QA jobs overseas.
  3. We need to develop our professional skills consistently, work smarter and bring new value to the table to raise the cost of moving jobs overseas. We need to invest in ourselves!
  4. We must embrace outsourcing to acquire the vital additional capacity we need to remain competitive against the giants in our market such as SAP & Microsoft. This seems counter-intuitive but I believe this to be true.  We can leverage our top talent to work with the local User Design, Product Analyst, Developer and User assistance teams and delegate the critical but less complex maintenance work to our outsourcing partners. Outsourcing has the important added advantage of reducing our average cost per employee.

In conclusion, the future is uncertain. As leaders we need to tell our staff a compelling story, a story with promise, a story that there is a way out of this current mess we find ourselves in. I truly believe that our Sage Accpac QA team has a bright future. I like the idea that the best way to predict the future is to create it. Are you an agent of change with influence over your destiny or a number on spreadsheet whose employment is at the whim of a senior executive who will never know your name? Quite possibly, you are both! Even so, you remain the master of your destiny. I believe the key to success or survival in these challenging times is to know what your team’s advantage is and employ strategies that the team can believe in to sustain and improve it.

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