The Merchant Stand - A Marketing Technology Place

Play it again.

Posted on 211 by 234 Posted in Agile Organization, Business and IT Alignment, Business Process Management, Career, eCommerce, Ideas, Technology Leave a comment

Repetition in youth. That song was awesome! Play it again. Rewind-stop-play-rewind-stop-play-forward-play, call the radio station for a request, press repeat. These actions are all part of my memory as a youth. Back in the days when I spent a fair amount of my income on cassette tapes and CDs. It was that song. It was my favorite song. It was our special song.  It represented something of value in mood, a feeling, a lyric, or a sound. Whatever the case when I found it, I wanted to do it again. Play it again and again. Repetition in business. The year has changed. My daily routines have changed. My friends have changed. But one thing that is still there is an attraction to repeat what works in business. Play it again! When a project or implementation goes well we talk about “lessons learned”. Sure we record the bad, but we also

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Technology Athletes

Posted on 217 by 234 Posted in Business and IT Alignment, Career, Ideas, Technology Leave a comment

The athlete. “We are recruiting him as an athlete” is a statement that football fans often read. It means the football coach wants a player on the team not because he is skilled at any-one position, but because he is talented enough to play a variety of positions. This type of athlete has a core base of athleticism that makes it possible for him to be successful at a variety of positions. But what the coach may not know,until after assessing a player more thoroughly, is if the player has the head knowledge to play a specific position. Do they understand the role within the team? Do they understand how to make reads on the opposing team’s formation? Do they understand where to go on the field and when?  The athlete in academia. When I entered Georgia Tech as a freshman computer science student I remember an academic advisor telling

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Are you all in?

Posted on 211 by 234 Posted in Career Leave a comment

Do you know them? Think about a person you know that is completely dedicated to their work. The kind of dedication that does not equate to a work-a-holic, but rather someone that is completely immersed in meeting the requirements of their job with unwavering enthusiasm and resolve. Yes, that person. The one who may have even annoyed you at times because of their dogged persistence. But the one who has earned your utmost respect. In a workplace conversation this week one of my co-workers remarked about another employee, “You know him by now right, he’s all in.” The words stopped me for a moment to think and then stayed with me through the evening. What defines the employee that is “all in”? It’s built-in to the mentality, attitude, and drive of the professional. Going “all in” is for those that believe in their odds of succeeding. The employee that is

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Perceptions

Posted on 209 by 234 Posted in Career, Ideas, Technology Leave a comment

What are people’s perceptions of co-workers using social media at work? I’ve always felt uncomfortable about it because it has never been part of my formal job description and I haven’t needed to use it to maintain business relationships. It’s not social media for personal use that worries me. I think about the perceptions of others if I use social media for business industry content during business hours. Is my thinking and worry about perceptions outdated? Part of my job responsibility is to stay current on technology trends and advances. But if I do this during standard business work hours and then share or comment on the information do others think I’m not doing my job? After all, I have operational responsibilities during the day and my research can take place at night. Right? Or maybe all this worry about perception is outdated and social media participation is now accepted? Perhaps. I

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Velocity

Posted on 206 by 234 Posted in Business Process Management, Ideas Leave a comment

We spent time this week in strategic planning discussions. One challenge is how to separate the vision for the future from the desire to get better at existing services.  That is to separate the transformational changes from the incremental changes. Both are needed. The factor that sticks out to me in both conversations is velocity. The rate at which a company can change and with what purpose will often dictate the how successful or unsuccessful it is in growing business or even surviving. Blockbuster comes to mind. In 2004, this home entertainment company had over 9,000 retail store locations. In 2010 the company filed for bankruptcy and in 2013 the last store was closed. Home videos didn’t go away. In fact home videos are more popular than ever. But the format and methods by which consumers receive home videos changed quickly and BlockBuster didn’t react with the velocity to stay

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