Business musings

Many people in the UK struggle with sub-standard broadband connections and when trying to resolve issues with their internet service provider (ISP),  the ISP can sometimes be guilty of fobbing its customers off and starting a blame game with BT. However, help may be at hand.

I was reading an article today by Chris Dannen of Fast Company about a sophisticated broadband diagnosis website launched by Google and two non-profit organisations. The new website is called Measurement Lab. Apparently it still needs some work but check it out anyway – it may give you a slightly stronger hand when dealing with difficult ISPs.

Today is a very exciting day as it is Matt Stocker Ltd’s first birthday!

However, it is also a very special day for another reason: the Apple iSlate (or iPad, Magic Slate, iTablet, or whatever it will be called) is due to be announced!

Trawling the web for the Apple iSlate reveals much rumour and speculation as to the expected design form, price, positioning, connectivity and interface. The key area of agreement seems to settle around the idea of a 10-inch touchscreen based device with 3G connectivity. iSlate.org has catalogued many of the rumours and expectations from the marketplace, as have many other technology sites such as engadget.com, pocket-lint.com, gizmodo.com and macrumors.com.

From a product design and development perspective, the speculative design mock-ups and graphics are hugely interesting. People seem to have taken three different starting points from Apple’s existing product portfolio – the Macbook Pro, the iPhone and the iMac.

• The Macbook Pro angle suggests a dual screen design with touchscreen keyboard running OS X (very unlikely).
• The iPhone angle suggests what amounts to an iPhone on steroids, with enough room to display many more app icons on screen and potentially resolution independent apps (likely).
• The iMac angle suggests a miniaturised iMac design also running a touchscreen version of OS X with either a slide out keyboard, touchscreen keyboard or an additional plugin keyboard and stand (touchscreen keyboard – very likely, additional keyboard – likely, slide out keyboard – very, very unlikely).

Whilst the speculative designs are good, the actual Apple product is likely to innovate across the whole gamut of product purpose, design, interface, application delivery and implementation.

Whatever the iSlate/iPad/Magic Slate/iTablet turns out to be, I expect it to be a product that takes elements of the above and mixes these with entirely new concepts to create a new genre/niche in the same way that the iPhone has. I for one am waiting with baited breath to find out!

As an assessor for the Midlands Excellence Awards, one of the perks I received was a complimentary ticket to the Awards ceremony, which I attended last Thursday. It was a great evening, which around 1200 people attended, representing many companies from across the region and beyond.

Awards

A variety of awards were given out, ranging from the specialist awards to the main Midlands Excellence Award (which was won by the Hanley Economic Building Society). Congratulations to the Hanley Economic Building Society and to the other companies that were highly commended, re-accredited and also to those organisations that were recognised as Ambassadors of Excellence. The awards represent a huge amount of hard work and resulting improvement by both the companies that won and by all the other companies that entered.

Keynote Speech

James Cracknell was an interesting and amusing keynote speaker as he gave an account of his Olympic experience and his subsequent adventures with Ben Fogle (which you may have seen on television).

The thing that struck me most in James’ speech was his honesty about both his strengths and his weaknesses. He was modest of his own achievements and very self-aware with respect to both himself and his own performance.

One of the observations he made that particularly stayed with me was his admission that his main failure during the Amundsen Omega3 South Pole Race was his inability to admit to the team that he was struggling as they were nearing the end of the race. Within a short race, such as James’ Olympic successes, he observed that it was possible just to push through the pain, whereas in a race the length of the South Pole Race, this just wasn’t physically possible.

Together, the team had agreed to help each other out if they were struggling; whilst this increased the load on the other teammates, it was actually the team that won or lost, not the individual. They were only as strong as their weakest member. James explained that by trying to be strong he had actually weakened the team (and potentially lost the team first place).

I respected his honesty, and also wondered what model of ‘performance’ we use within organisations. Is organisational performance about a sprint to the finish or does organisational performance actually have more in common with competitive team endurance races? I wonder if we have much to learn from these experiences.

Overall, a great night and one that I hope to be able to attend again next year.

This marketing email from Tom Tom amused me, primarily because of the choice of image of a skier teetering on the edge of cliff.

Whilst this email is in fact advertising speed camera alerts, if you compare the image of the skier with the image from The Telegraph showing the BMW of a driver who was facing a dangerous driving charge having blindly followed his sat nav to the edge of a cliff in West Yorkshire until it was teetering on the edge, I’m sure you will be able to spot the unfortunate similarities.

The joys of image selection! Always something to bear in mind.

Have you ever had that frustrating experience with your mobile phone?  You’re in the middle of a call to somebody and the next thing you know, without warning, you’ve lost the connection.  Well, I came across this little piece of technology from Vodafone the other day: the Sure Signal box. If you struggle with getting phone signal in your home or office, take a look. It creates your own mini Vodafone network and connects to their network via broadband; so no more taking calls in the corner of one particular room or sounding like you’re on the train, when in fact you are in your office!

The main disadvantage is that it only works for Vodafone; however, it looks likely that other operators will join in by providing their own ‘Femtocells‘ in due course.

In the meantime, alternative solutions are available if you are really ‘signal-less’. Mobile signal boosters, otherwise known as cell repeaters, use an ariel (possibly external to your office/house), boost the signal and create an upgraded signal within a certain radius of the transmitter. Signal boosters are also available for vehicles, so if you travel a lot and/or regularly travel to remote locations with poor signals, it could provide you with the extra range you need.

I’ve been pondering my blog for a little while now. Whilst I have blogged a lot about business improvement and excellence, I haven’t blogged about many of the other interesting things I discover and learn on a daily basis. As I’m a maven at heart and love learning and sharing new stuff, I wanted to reflect this in my blog and hopefully be of benefit to you, my reader.

So, really as a note to you, and a challenge to myself, please welcome the Matt Stocker Ltd blog 2.0!

Businesses tend to go through periods of change and periods of stability as they grow and develop. Many businesses will be inclined to gravitate around a position of stability once they find what works best, whether this be what works best for their strategy, their products and services, or any other part of the business.

However, the challenge remains that, even if the strategies or solutions a business has employed have been effective, they operate in a world of constant change. As a result, something that used to work won’t necessarily carry on working. Something that works well at the moment will reach a point of needing new strategies and new solutions.

Whilst it can be hard to face the fact that something might not be working as well as it once did, the sooner the reality is faced, the sooner changes can be made to improve the situation and restore your business to its position of excellence.

At the beginning of 2010, could you challenge yourself to take an honest look at your business or department? Is it the best it could be? What could work better? And how can you make your business even better for your staff, your customers and yourself?

I recently went to the Baltics on behalf of a client, exploring the potential of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian markets. The trip was very well organised by UKTI; the visits were hugely useful both in understanding the market dynamics and also in finding out the level of potential opportunity in each country.

Having enjoyed the trip immensely, I just thought I’d give you a taster of it here, starting with the stats!

The numbers…

• 6 day trip
• 4 countries (if you include a transfer in Frankfurt airport!)
• 2 days of traveling
• 6 flights
• 3 hotels
• -1° Celsius average temperature
• 2 days of snow
• 4 days of meetings
• 3 Embassies
• 3 UKTI local teams
• 2 evening events
• 2 ambassadors met
• 2 government ministers spoken with
• 15 one-to-one meetings with interested parties
• 21 companies met with in total

The commercial opportunity…

Well now, that would be commercially sensitive information! Sorry to disappoint.

And a few pictures…

Click on the images to enlarge them

I am really pleased to have been appointed to the Warwick Business School Alumni Board.

As a graduate of WBS, I’ve felt great affinity to the university, and the opportunity to contribute to the success of both the business school and the diverse alumni network is a great privilege.  I look forward to the next three years of my term on the Board with excitement and anticipation; I’m sure future updates will follow.

The process I used to keep track of my sales pipeline used to be a bit complicated. Accurate: yes. But simple? No.

As a result, it was hard to update. The more complex something is, the more commitment it takes to use it.

So, following a conversation with my business coach (who supports my own personal development and keeps me on my toes!), I’ve radically simplified the number and type of stages in my sales pipeline. Now it is much easier to gauge my pipeline at a glance and to see gaps in the flow.

The result? I’ll use it much more.

In your business, is there anything that is more complicated than it needs to be?

Why not challenge your team and your customers to see what they think could be simplified in your business. You might be surprised at the results.