The Merchant Stand a blog by Bob Williams

Reserve your seat at the idea table

Posted on July 26, 2014 233 by Bob Williams 234 Posted in Career, Customer Focus, Ideas Leave a comment

A beautiful thing happened this week. How many conversations do we have each week in the office to be polite but yet stay so general that the conversation is little more than exchanging pleasantries. It’s the quick pass-by in the hallway, the introduce at a meeting, or greeting during lunch time. This week I asked a colleague if he was done with a series of work meetings that were held across the country. He was on his way to a meeting and I expected he would say that he was done with the meetings and continue on his way. But he stopped and came in my office to give a more elaborate answer. A conversation in passing turned into a conversation of substance. It wasn’t a generic answer. It wasn’t a quick answer so he could be on his way. What happened was that he gave me details about some

Practical speak for staying focused in the office

Posted on July 19, 2014 247 by Bob Williams 234 Posted in Career, Ideas, Technology Leave a comment

My greatest weakness? Focus and attention are aspects of my life that I think about each day as I try navigate through tasks and interactions with others. By nature, I’m a very task-driven and goal oriented person. I told my wife just this week that while this can be one of my strengths, it’s also my greatest weakness. I’m so caught-up in thinking about the next task to be completed that I’m often not able to pause and enjoy the success and moment of the now. During a typical work day I can struggle to remain focused on any one task because so many people and devices are competing for my attention. I’m not alone. There’s a daily war for our attention from other people, computing devices, marketing ads, etc. I was recently reminded of it in my own family through a couple of events. During a recent movie night

What I did for a close shave

Posted on July 12, 2014 225 by Bob Williams 234 Posted in Ideas, internet marketing Leave a comment

I fell for a Facebook advertisement. If you are a man, you’ve probably seen the ad on Facebook for the Dollar Shave Club. I finally gave in to the temptation tonight and I’ve ordered a supply of the 4X option. I never thought I would let Facebook influence a purchase, but it happened. The allure of the product was too strong and the investment risk is minimal. I’m hoping for the best. Let’s do the numbers. For starters I typically get over one month from the same blade with my current marketing hyped multi-blade cartridge. I do this by keeping the blade dry between uses. After a shave, I make sure to dry the blade by shaking-out excess water and using a towel. Then I store the blade pressed against a silica moisture packet. If you haven’t tried this then I encourage you do so. It’s the secret the blade

Repeating software processes. To attract and repel.

Posted on July 5, 2014 245 by Bob Williams 234 Posted in Agile Organization, Business Process Management, eCommerce Leave a comment

Are we attracted to repetition? Yes. We all are. It touches every facet of our lives. As a few examples, we eat the same types of foods each week, we watch the same TV series, and we read books that belong to a series. A study and report from Alix Spiegel of NPR captures the power of repetition in music that attracts us. Spiegel reports that “90 percent of the music we listen to is music we’ve heard before. We return again and again to our favorite songs, listening over and over to the same musical riffs, which themselves repeat over and over inside the music..” She then gives the result of a study that shows how people preferred music with repetition over the same song without repetition. Repetition in Software Development. Software development has the same draw for repetition. Managers spend time and thought to create a software development