I Wrote a Book!

For years, many of my clients, founders I’ve advised, and mentees have asked me to write a book; it took one of them to push me to do it*.   So, I wrote a book, Value Proposition: Positioning for Success, on continually creating, testing, and building compelling value propositions that meet or exceed real customers’ real needs. You’ll learn about some famous and not-so-famous successes and flops, highlighting obvious and not-so-obvious causes and solutions. Since I can’t ignore my “professor” tendencies, there are a lot of questions for you to reflect on, ask yourself and your team, and use to guide the development of your product or service. 

I hope you enjoy the book.  I hope it helps you build things that matter, make a difference, and improve the lives of your customers and those around them…and you.  Please let me know!

*Thank you, Charlene Wang, for nudging me and mentoring me.

What is Time Really Worth & Is it Worth Your Time?

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Do you measure your, and your team’s, Return on Time (ROT)? Yes, it can be hard to measure. Who wants to be recording every second they’re spending on something? How long should a non-mechanized, white collar type task really take? So, I suggest starting simply - and meaningfully. Since much of our time is spent in meetings, start there. Let’s say you have a meeting with 5 of your top performers for 1 hour. There must be a great reason for having that meeting, right? Figure out the hourly salary for each of you in the meeting and add that up. Did you accomplish something at that meeting that’s worth that amount?

I have a few meeting policies:

• No agenda = Deb doesn’t go (ideally I like agendas 1 week before);

• Clearly state the reason for the meeting and expected outcomes;

• Don’t leave the meeting without specific tasks, owned by specific people, with specific due dates and definition of what ‘done’ means and how you will follow up;

• Recap to the attendees within 24hrs with the tasks, etc.

There are a few more - like I like making the agenda items into questions instead of statements (e.g., “What are the issues and successes of X to date?” vs. “Status of X”) because it focuses the discussion on action versus theory. Anyway, this week, start thinking about your personal, and your team’s, ROT, quantitatively and qualitatively. See what happens! Let me know!

Net Neutrality & Failing Business Models

The current fight over Net Neutrality is critical to the openness of the Internet, long supported by some of us that helped make the Internet an every-day utility.  It is also the dying gasps of a very old business model - one between networks and end points/content providers. 

Quick History Lesson: 

• Circa 1990s - a fight was breaking out between the networks (e.g, AT&T) and end-points (e.g, Microsoft) over control of information and intelligence.  AT&T wanted intelligence embedded in the network, in distribution.  Microsoft wanted intelligence embedded in their devices at the end of the "dumb pipes" (the network).  A few of us felt that if both sides kept an Either/Or mentality, the networks would lose, commoditizing themselves through price wars racing to the bottom.  If we took an And/Both approach, the user would have more choices and more capabilities over time.  We know how it turned out - dumb pipes and smart ends. That was 25+ years ago! (Think T-Mobile + Netflix as a way to gain T-Mobile users);
• December 1997 ~ I had an 8 month old son and a paper for the Harvard Kennedy School's Information Infrastructure Project entitled "Internet Settlements Pricing Model and Implications."  Fun reading!  I was part of a team at AT&T, working with other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), to self-govern the Internet - including requiring all of us to move data between ourselves at the speed specified by the packet header (e.g., latency requirements).  If you were making a phone call (yes, we had VOIP in 1997) that crossed networks, it had to be delivered without delay.  This meant that if an AT&T user wanted to connect to cool content on, say, MCI's network, AT&T had to send it through at the required speed; AT&T couldn't throttle down the packets because it was going to MCI.

Fast forward 20 years and deja vu! The challenge in 2017 is the same as in 1997 -  how does a network provide value if it's a 'dumb pipe' - if what adds value is what's at the end? if it's the destination not the journey? If the only way you add value to users and your bottom line (hence shareholders) is to throttle speed based on who owns the content, you have no value proposition and no business model.  In 20+ years, the networks haven't figured out a way to add value (for themselves) without putting gates around their content and only allowing in members.  If they haven't yet, kinda makes you wonder when, or if, they ever will.