At one of our team meetings recently, we read through a list of wierd and wonderful error messages created by programmers (we try to have something fun in each meaning).  One could get very philosophical about the deeper meaning of each of these and what they say about life, but they can also be read just for fun and a little light relief

(sadly, I don’t know the origin of these or I would happily attribute them back…)

• I once tried to post-date a piece for publication and was given the error message, “The future has not happened yet.” Wow, really? Thanks for that news flash.
• I have a system that will occasionally throw out one word… PANIC. Oookay… I have many places that could be in a panic state, can you throw me a clue as to the location, at the very least?
• Back in the day, my Cadnetix workstation once put up: “We should never get here.” That’s high on my list of informative and reassuring messages.
• The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. OK,Hal. This message implies that there is a problem with a rogue server with an attitude problem.
• “A internal error broke out” – it was exactly this spelling etc.  I often wondered what kind of internal error it was, and where it broke out from!
• I was creating a HOBS payment back in the 90’s. The create instruction dialogue box popped up to let me the world as we know isn’t real…”the state of the atom is invalid – [OKAY]” Damn. That’s not “OKAY” at all.
• IF-YOU-ARE-HERE-SOMETHING-IS-TERRIBLY-WRONG. STOP.
• Many years ago I tried to install a modem program on a Mac. It didn’t work and the error message was: “Installation failed. Something is wrong. Find out what it is, fix it, and try again“.

I’m very proud to tell you that in our company we do not write error messages like these, but we sure had a good laugh over them

Communication, Fun, Technology

Communication seems so simple – I say something, you hear it, message received.

Unfortunately, as we all know, the message often isn’t received, or is received wrong.

There’s a model that explains very simply what can go wrong and what the components of communication are.

1. You have the sender of the message (the communicator).
2. You have the intended meaning (what I think I think I’m communicating).
3. You have the medium (how I communicate, whether by words, verbally, by body language).
4. You have the message itself (the actual words I say or write)
5. You have the received meaning (what the recipient hears as the message)
6. You have the recipient (the person on the other end, who is the target of the communication.

If only the intended meaning and the received meaning always matched, life would be simple.  But all too often they don’t.

Many things interfere and mean that the message you receive (or decode) may be extremely different from the message I sent (or encoded).

Picture this scenario:

Person A: “I’m getting better at prioritization” (thinking “I plan my day, I know my top three priorities each day and get them done, I have my urgent/import items organized, and I even led the team meeting last week on the topic of how to prioritize effectively”)

Person B: responds “I’ve found it’s useful to keep of list of what needs to be done so I don’t forget – would you like me to send you an example of the template I use?  And you might find it helpful if we talked about how it’s going from time to time instead of you trying to figure it out all on your own.” (thinking ‘oh, poor A – I know how hard I’m finding it to keep the list up to date and not get discoured, s/he must also find it hard & I can help out because I’ve been doing this for a good month now!’).

This type of misunderstanding is the source of a huge amount of comedy – when it’s harmless as in the above scenario (unless Person A now thinks Person B is a total twit!).

But it can also have much more serious consequences.

Imagine Person A is applying for a job where s/he needs to be a expert in a particular field.  But Person A is modest & says ‘I’m not bad at x, but I still have a lot to learn’ (meaning in comparison to the absolute stars of that particular field) and the interviewer hears that Person A is just at the intermediate level and so does not hire Person A.  Now both the interviewer suffers (not getting the use of Person A’s skills) and Person A also suffers (not getting offered the job).  All because of the difference between the intended message and the received message (and note that neither has much to do with the actual words said!).

Equally in marketing or sales materials, the message we think we are conveying is often not the message actually being received (and I know this from personal painful experience!).

So what is the solution to getting the message across that we intend to send?

The answer is fourfold:

1. Recognize and understand the difficulty (understanding the model is a solid first step)
2. Get feedback (opening a feedback loop is the single most effective way to learn what message the recipient thinks you meant to send; this may be asking customers or prospects for feedback, or asking the person you are talking to what they just heard, or asking someone like the person you are creating a message for to tell you what they think it says)
3. Recognize that one message may have multiple received meanings depending on the recipient (each person brings their own filters, background, past experiences to interpreting a given message, so with one sole communication to multiple people, each one of the recipients may actually receive a different perceived message) – know which types of recipients you are trying to communicate to and focus on those similar types of people – don’t worry about what other possible recipients might interpret
4. Be aware that no message is ever received exactly as intended – stay alert to hints and indications that tell you that your message is not landing in the way you intended – and don’t take it personally when that happens!

Best Practices, Communication, Productivity

Communication is like the hidden grease that makes the wheels turn smoothly in a business – when it’s there, you don’t notice it at all, but when it’s not the pain (and costs!) can grow very rapidly.

One organization that I find often has interesting and valuable resources related to communication is HumaNext, and they recently came out with their top 10 communications topics for 2012, which rang a lot of bells for me so I thought I would share the wealth.

According to their posting, they don’t use surveys to gather data, but rather look at where companies are actually investing money in communication tools and products in order to determine the hot trends.  From that data, they have identified the following top 10 communication trends for 2012 (comments in brackets are mine):

1. Employee engagement (due to the current economic challenges and need to stretch resources, this keeps its place as a hot topic)
2. Strategic Communications (more and more communications efforts need to support strategic objectives – which has the pre-requisite of needing the strategic objectives to be understood and communicated!)
3. Managers as Communicators (ties in the previous item with the need to communicate the strategic objectives)
4. Communication ROI, Measure and Audit (it’s important to know what the ROI of communications is, but the challenge is a little like preventative health – how do you measure the reduction in cost by preventing problems?)
5. Leadership Communications (leaders need to be able to communicate effectively and powerfully both within their organizations and to the outside world)
6. Managing Generations at Work (we’re all familiar with the challenges of different generations working together, but it’s not only the different expectations and attitudes, even the means of communication may be different from gen Y to the older generations)
7. Electronic Newsletters (companies are doing this more and more, but is the effectiveness still there?  are we getting into information overload / newsletter blindness – I think there are some interesting conversations to be had here.)
8. Cross Cultural Communication and Global Competence (what is a truly international communication? how do you sell to multiple very different cultures?  what does it mean to be a global organization, or, particularly, to become a global organization)
9. Diversity and Inclusion (aging workforce, growing awareness of physical and mental disabilities, more and more diverse cultural groups working together, immigration issues, minorities – the discussions can be difficult and even risky for companies)
10. Social Media (is it a fad, a tool, a money pit?  It’s definitely a hot topic and can give rise to both high potential risks and potential rewards…  Who is it useful for, and how?  And what is the actual payoff?)

All interesting questions that are part of the every day conversations in business, but I found the list interesting and a good starting point for potential discussion.

One other conversation we have been having internally relates to working remotely – while some companies have this nailed and extremely effective, others still struggle with the what, the how, and the maintaining the effective and close working relationships while at a physical distance.

Where are tbe communication challenges in your organization?  One of the above, or something different?

Business Growth, Communication

Facebook 101:

1. Some companies use personal pages to promote their business
2. Some companies have brand pages set up to promote their business
3. Facebook introduced the new ‘timeline’ feature publicly in mid December 2011 (to much controversy) – this features displays your data differently and allows viewers to scroll through all past posts and activity way back to when you first created your page.  Originally the Timeline was optional.
4. Yesterday, Facebook announced that the Timeline will be rolled out to all personal pages (i.e. no longer optional) over ‘the next few weeks’ – no more optional.  Once you get timeline (it will appear at the top of your profile, unless you choose to get it now) you will have 7 days to update it and preview it and then it will be rolled out live.

Business Implications

Currently only businesses using personal pages are impacted.  So if you are one of those (or if your personal page is connected to your business profile) you may want to get the timeline at your own convenience (i.e. schedule the time in and then get it yourself) to ensure that you can choose what will show up in the timeline.  You can hide items and delete them from the profile, and you can feature other items.  But don’t let your profile switch without you knowing what is there.

If your company uses a brand page, you are not affected yet (assuming your personal page is completely separate from that brand page).  There has been much speculation about whether the Timeline will be rolled out to brand pages, but no word yet on any plans for that.  However, this may be a good opportunity to do a quick brand review:

• Does your page reflect your brand accurately?
• Has this changed over time?
• Do you need to be concerned if an when the timeline is rolled out for brand pages?  If so, is there someone in your organization that is aware of these possible changes and watching for them?

The biggest risk here is ignorance – when you know it’s coming, you can manage the process and keep aware of what is happening, and make sure that your brand continues to be reflected the way your company wants.

Communication, Technology, Tips

SQUAWK?

Ever been ostrichized by insider jargon?  Then you’ll enjoy this fourth communication tip from Open Box.

Check out the earlier tips if you missed them:

Communication game: tip #1 (working miracles)

Communication game: tip #2 (what goes bump in the dark)

Communication game: tip #3 (what lurks in the seas)

Communication, Fun, Video Tips

Are you a spammer?

Most companies will answer ‘of course not!‘.  But are you aware of Bill C-28 and the implications it may have for your business – particularly your sales and marketing processes?  There are a lot of good articles online aboutmarketing compliance for email marketing and newsletters, but it’s important not to forget that your sales processes may be affected as well – certainly if you do cold calling to potential prospects.  Here is the skinny to help you avoid being an inadvertent spammer.

Who

Bill C-58 is specific to ‘commercial messages’ – according to some, this does not apply to other types of email messages that are purely transactional or provide information requested by the recipient or in follow-up to a transaction that has occured.  I would love to know if downloading a white paper or other document from a website is considered a transaction for these purposes – if so, the value of content downloads would be reinforced as part of a marketing program.

Basically any company that sends commercial messages needs to be aware of the regulations and evaluate the impact on their processes and how they will ensure compliance

Why

For example, When you are developing sales processes, do you have a cold-calling process where you then follow up by email?  If so, you want to be very aware of the new regulations coming in, and of the contents of Bill C-28.  The penalties are stiff.  Individuals can face fines of up to $1 million, while businesses face penalties of up to $10 million per violation.

What

If you use emails for prospecting, make sure that you either have consent (this can include such things as the prospect having given you their business card or email address, or having published their email address without a statement saying that they do not wish to received unsolicited commercial electronic messages) or that you have an existing business relationship with the customer.

You also need to ensure that your emails include contact information of the sender (including company name, contact name, address and phone number) and a clear and easy way to unsubscribe.

When

One of the key questions about Bill C-28 is when it will come into effect.  The deadline for comments on the draft legislation is September 7th, 2011.  The implementation will likely follow relatively quickly afterwards (i.e. late 2011 or early 2012).

How

Industry Canada has a Q & A page about Bill C-28 that outlines some common questions and answers, but it doesn’t have a lot of detail about how this affects your business.  Check it out for a basic grounding in what the bill covers.

You can find the Industry Canada draft regulations online to read all the details for yourself.

At Open Box, we have always done our best to follow best practices for all newsletters we send out, but after a review of these regulations, we are updating our signatures to include more detailed information (i.e. our address – we used to just have a link to our website), as well as ensuring that all emails to any type of prospect or new connection we have met include an ‘unsubscribe’ link that will flow through to our customer relationship systems.

Best Practices, Communication, Marketing

From miracles to what goes bump in the dark to what swims in the seas, our communication journey continues.

Learn why Jaws was not a good communicator in this latest episode…

Communication, Fun, Video Tips

A great quote I came across this week:

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.

-Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

It made me laugh, but it’s so true – how can we ever make progress if we don’t do more than we know we can?

At our team meeting this week we were talking about being extraordinary.  Today is not a day for clear answers – rather it’s one for good questions, but biting off a little more than we can chew is often not a bad idea…

What successes have you found from biting off more than you can chew?  And what has made you smile this week?

Business Growth, Communication, Fun

Continuing on our obsession with effective communication, we move from working miracles to shining a light on dark places with tip #2.   Unexpected things happen when people are kept in the dark.

Communication, Fun, Video Tips

There have been a few examples recently of potential vendors who waste their opportunities to do business with us. It got me thinking about what makes for a waste of time.  Because I really do want to do business with other companies, but I want them to make it easy for me and to show me how great they can be.  (I know I sound curmudgeonly as I write some of this, but it’s from the heart…)  So here’s what I do and don’t want, and then what we commit to for our potential customers.

The biggest errors from potential vendors to us in the last few weeks have been:

1) Lack of clear message

I was at an event where a series of presentations were made. One of them looked interesting – an opportunity to support a group I would like to help by using their skills. Unfortunately the presenter didn’t know his core differentiator or how to describe his offering clearly – or if he did, he wasn’t able to articulate it to the group. During question period attendees asked ‘but what do you do?’, ‘what can you do for me?’, and unfortunately the answer was essentially ‘almost anything you want’. Instant loss of credibility when talking to a business.

2) Process for the sake of process

A company I was interested in doing business with sent me an introductory questionnaire, including questions that I didn’t even understand like ‘A story about your relationship with this industry or company’.

I’m sorry – what relationship with what industry or company? Not only is the question impossible to answer, but I don’t see how it will move us closer to doing business together.

On top of that, the questionnaire had lots of deep probing questions about our business strategy, marketing strategy, etc. Again, none of those will help move us closer to doing business. All they do is take up my time filling in the answers or make me think that you don’t know what you’re doing and so are asking lots of generic questions that are really ‘fishing for a problem’ so you can propose a solution.  They don’t tell me what solutions you offer or help me narrow in on whether I can use one of them.

Lastly, the questionnaire asked for our company’s address, website, phone, email, fax, social media links, my name, phone, email, etc in great excrutiating detail. Again, a waste of my time. Ask me for our contact us page & maybe my contact details (if you don’t already have them) & then go do the research yourself. Until I have decided to do business with you, ask me only what you need to know to help us both get closer to a solution, and please help me understand how answering the questions you do ask will benefit us both.

3) Meeting mania

You’ve learned that a meeting will get you to get closer to doing business with me. That’s fine. But make sure the meeting provides me with value and is not just to ‘move the sales process along’.

If I take the time to meet with you, please come with an agenda, a plan and a clear way that we will each benefit from the time. Once you have established that rapport, please try to send me what you can by email, with any questions clearly phrased so I can respond at my convenience. Please don’t ask for frequent meetings so you can build rapport – if they’re not adding to my perception of your value in a tangible way, I will hesitate to do business with you because I’ll be afraid that it will take too much face time.

4) No clear qualification process

One vendor I met with recently (yes, a meeting first!) asked me lots of questions about our business and our needs, said that he would go away and find out how they could solve our problems, set a follow-up meeting time, and then never showed up. My assistant followed up with his company to see whether he was just running late & apparently they couldn’t reach him. We never heard from him again.

I have no idea whether he decided our needs weren’t big enough for the service they offer, or were too hard to solve, or whether he just forgot. But I’m guessing that it’s the first one – we don’t need a lot of his solution. If so, that’s fine, but I really appreciate vendors who pre-qualify clearly. If you say to me ‘we want to work with company of size x-y’ and if I’m not in that size, then neither of us is wasting time exploring options, and goodness knows we both have lots of other things to do!

Which leads to my commitment to our customers & potential customers

1. We will tell you what differentiates us.
   1. If it’s not clear enough, please let us know! We’ll fix it.
   2. If the message has no value, please let us know! We’ll fix it.
   3. If you couldn’t care less about what we think differentiates us, please let us know! We’ll fix it.
2. We will not ask you for information that we can find on your website or through a little research. We value your time and respect the great things you are doing.
3. If we ask you for any information where you don’t see the direct benefits to what we are asking, please let us know. We don’t need to know everything about your business plans and strategy – we only need to know what may have an effect on what we are doing together.
4. Especially in the first phases of getting to know each other, we want to help you quickly either rule us in or out as a potential vendor. If you’re not going to work with us, we know you have other business strategies to move forward.
5. We will absolutely respect your time & do as much as we can to move things forward without your involvement.
6. We will come to each meeting or conversation with a clear agenda and goals to achieve. If you want to change that on the spot, feel free.
7. We will not ask for meetings to make us feel good; warm and fuzzy is lovely, but if it’s not moving your business forward, we have no business taking up your time.
8. We know what qualifies companies to work with us and helps them get the most value. We will not be afraid to tell you what it is. We will tell you if you do not fit that criteria; not to offend you but to save your time. And if at all possible, we will suggest other companies who do work with your type of business.
9. We will not miss scheduled meetings or be late without letting you know. We are proud when our customers laugh at us about how prompt we are to scheduled meetings. Every minute you spend waiting for someone to arrive is a minute you are not making money – we want you to make money and grow your business.

If we miss the mark on any of these, please let us know.  And feel free to share with us anything else we can do to be better prospective vendors for your company.

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication