Why scoreboards matter

Humans are compelled to count. We count everything. Days, weeks, months, years, birthdays, money in the bank, salary levels, years of experience. It’s part of the human condition, maybe it helped us evolve to a civilised existence .

As startup entrepreneurs we need to let our people count something. Whether it’s the savings they made or they friends they have, there needs to be a way for them to keep track. So our people know they have made progress. Commerce is an anthropological game of football. So we must keep score. But it must go beyond the corporate scoreboard of profit, share price, turnover, number of employees… it has to be an audience focused score. Like followers on twitter. It has to be about them, not us, it’s how humans roll.

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Quote about design: Steve Jobs

In preparation for teaching a Brand Management Class today at Melbourne University when I came across an important quote from Steve Jobs about the industrial design of the iPod. When the first generation iPod was finally complete and ready to be unveiled to the public Jobs looked back on the process of how the iPod was designed:

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s the veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it feels like and looks like. Design is how it works.”

Startup blog says: When it comes to design – it should facilitate function before fashion. After which time the human instinct takes over…. the function becomes the fashion.

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The white collar underclass

Before the Industrial Revolution the average number of hours worked in the western world was less than 6 hours per day. Some say we worked less than two and a half days a week.

I won’t quote what the average number of hours are today, but it’s more for everyone I know personally. I’m certain many people reading this would work in excess of 12 hours on certain days.

So what happened?

We got stooged. The  industrial revolution made it possible for a larger segment of the population to work year-round, since this labor was not tied to the season and artificial lighting made it possible to work longer each day. Peasants and farm laborers moved from rural areas to the factories and work times during a year has been significantly higher since then the important  innovation of piece labour. That is, the ability to earn income based on output. Think bolts in car doors.

Over time longer hours lead to greater amount of industrial accidents and workplace injuries. Unions formed and laws changed on the factory floor. But, the office was a different place altogether.

Office workers – salary based workers who where historically in management worked for salaries. A fixed wage for a fixed number of hours. My father constantly reminds me that in his day office workers only worked from 9am until 4.30pm. That tradesman and factory workers were the only people who did extra hours. And they did this to make up for the pay discrepancy which was favour of salary workers.

Clearly times have changed. If you are working in a large corporate, cubicle farm, in front of a screen or any place where you don’t get your hands dirty then chances are your are part of the ever growing white collar underclass. Here’s the some of stuff that defines members of the White Collar Underclass:

  1. A fixed salary with no overtime (factory workers, tradesman, retail staff all have overtime)
  2. Regularly working beyond the ‘official hours’ including weekends.
  3. It is expected that you arrive before and leave after your official hours.
  4. No representation in your industry to protect employment conditions.
  5. No tax benefits or uniform allowances, because your work clothing doesn’t have a logo on it. Even though it is in real terms a ‘uniform’ and costs you 10 times what hands on workers wear to work.
  6. Your annual performance review is based on the subjective assessments of your direct manager who may or may not like you.
  7. You work in a large building full of people who look and act like you do, and no one really knows what anyone else does.
  8. In an economic downturn, you panic, because you know what you do is essentially expendable.
  9. Large parts of your day are dealing with procedure, invented by other workers to justify their own existence.
  10. You look at a screen for large parts of your day, but have restrictions on what information you can bring onto the screen from the outside world.
  11. You feel as though your rarely use the skills acquired in the formal education you needed to get that job.
  12. You can work for days, weeks and months without any physical evidence of tangible outputs of what you have done. You don’t make or fix anything real.

If some of the above apply to you, chances are you are part of the white collar underclass. A group of people who have been victimized by efficiency. A group of people who don’t do anything real. Which is why there will be a significant value shift and higher pay going to people (like tradesman) who make stuff. Simple supply and demand. In the past 50 years companies have became so good at what they do, that very few people really do anything, including you. But you are giving so much of your time… you know it, and it eats at your soul.

Startup blog advice: Earn your living. Do something that adds value, not takes up space. Even if it must be done at nights and on weekends. Even if it provides no income. The human soul feeds on real activity, not simple economic existence. Feed your soul in 2010.

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You’re in good company

This blog is an example of compound effort. Yes, just like interest, effort compounds too. In the 4 years I’ve been writing it every month the readership has increased. With no real marketing of the blog. Just good solid writing, be open and honest, sharing insights, and letting the wondrous SEO of wordpress do the rest on Google for me. A few things worth considering if you’re into blogging and want to build an audience.

  • I have written 1 blog entry for every day this blog has been live. Consistency and frequency matter.
  • Every entry is on the same topic. Startups and Entrepreneurship. I stay focused by having one of these two words in every entry.
  • I love the topic my blog is about. I find it fascinating and would still write it if nobody was reading.
  • 70% of my traffic is Long Tail, which means that every entry increases my total traffic flow.
  • It taught me more about digital media and the internet that anything else I have done.

Of all things I have done in my career writing this blog has generated the most value. It has documented my thoughts, improved my thinking, built discipline, created a reputation, generated media coverage for rentoid, launched me as a business journalist in other business magazines, it places me number 1 in Google searches for the term startup blog in every country in the world and has built friendships and helped others.

If you read this blog regularly you are among 70,000 other people every month. So you’re in good company. Thanks for reading.

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Best in the world (How to be)

You are reading the number 1 startup blog in the world! Pretty cool huh. Just Google the words ‘Start up blog’ anywhere in the English speaking world.

It wasn’t always that way – when I started I was over 100 pages deep in Google. Now I have more than 30,000 readers.

Number 1

Fast forward nearly 4 years, a blog entry every single day, on the same general topic (Startups & entrepreneurship), sharing knowledge and practicing what I preach I’ve made it to number 1. There were no tricks, no SEO, no overt social media promotion, not even the .com domain. It came down to 2 things:

1. Consistent output – high frequency of delivery

2. Useful content.

That’s it.

If you want to win, to be the best, then work towards it every day.

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the power of doing

Tonight I went to see Christan Lander the super funny author of popular blog, now book ‘stuff white people like’ talk at local bookstore Readings in Melbourne. Firstly, he is a such a perceptive and funny guy, he deserves all the success his meteoric rise has given. Secondly, I was a little like a teenage school girl when I met him after the show (this will make sense when you watch the video below)

The power of doing

Tonight Christian spoke about how the whole thing happened. You may not know but the blog was launched in January 2008 and was a book only 6 months later, with a reported advance of $300,000 from publisher random house.

Luck?

No – doing.

He had the idea, and didn’t stew on it, tell friends and think about it. He did. He wrote and couldn’t stop putting all his ideas down for days on end. He said he wrote 24 entries in the first sitting and published them straight away. No editing, no moderating. Just doing.  After that he shared it with all his friends (granted this thing was bound to go viral because it was remarkably funny and observant). Christian’s success happened because he did it. He seized the opportunity to make it happen. He went beyond idea.

Now for the star struck teenager (aka Steve Sammartino)

After the official stuff I had a chat with Christian and was so excited didn’t really let him speak. Instead I just went about proving how white I was…. sorry, I was very star struck and was feeling some ‘Bromance’ for him (I wonder if that is a blog entry yet on Stuff white people like?)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B07hqN6t6c]

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