Time and space

Without being philosophical, time and space should always be included in our equations. Mainly when we are trying to achieve success.

Success: nice word.
What does it mean?

We all kind of know the concept, but it is an individual feat. Do not try to achieve anybody else's success, that does not belong to you.

We are all unique, and we've been in different places at different times, so we need to be cognizant of that fact at all times.

Therefore, we need to mark our own finish lines ourselves; that will make us successful -or not-
Needless to say, we must set deadlines for such finish lines to be crossed. That will definitely be our personal and undeniable mark: so, applying both time and space to our personal equation, will make us acquire a particular speed that'll allow us to achieve, well, success.

Then, that speed will be comfortable enough for the next races.

Hungry for devices

The best advice for grocery shopping I've ever read is: “go when you are not hungry”.

The same way you should check the fridge and pantry to know what you have, what you want, and what you need for the most basic of necessities applies to technology, and I'm pretty sure every other type of business related purchases. Whether you are looking for a new laptop or printer, note what you already have in premises to make sure you are not going on a frenzy spending spree: even if it is only taking a peek on-line. Even if we do not have an updated inventory, noticing and noting will make us realize that most of the times what we really need is already on our place. A little bit of organization and/or rotation of elements can do the trick.

And, if in fact we need to acquire more, take your time buying; not being “hungry” will allow us to make better decision on our purchases; whether it is a device, a service, software, advice... Whatever it is, go with a full belly.

In this case, being full will translate into being smart. Saving money and investing time; what a dish!

Munch, munch, repeat. Munch, munch, repeat.

Non payable and non recoverable payments

Here’s the scenario: the accounts receivable department finds out a delinquent amount of money from a client of yours. Such customer has been a client for years, and consistently and promptly pays around $200.0 each month for services provided.

The accounts indicate that such charges derive from a difficult to track type of service, and there are notes related to your staff contacting the client about this a year ago. It is not clear what the outcome is in such notes; but the fact in your books and systems is that there is around $50.00 in arrears.
Q1. Do you send such claim to a collections agency? (Chances of recovering 50% such amount)
Q2. Do you contact the client and ask for payment? (Chances of recovering 25% such amount)
Q3. Do you simply cancel the amount as unrecoverable and move on? (Chances of recovering 0)

What to do?
Please stop reading for a minute and think hard about this picture.



Well…
Facts show that the client is consistently paying other services; so it is very likely that we made a mistake. Even if we did not err, and in fact the client did not pay; it is very likely that there is a good reason for that.

A3. Send a letter to your client along the lines of: “…we recently found out a pending payment amount of $50.00; however, we believe this has somehow been a glitch in our invoicing processes and therefore we have decided you owe us nothing. Concretely, we’d like to thank you for your loyalty during the past X years and hope we can offer you more and better services. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you might have…”

A2. Same as A3.

A1. Same as A2.

Why? Well, we do not have all the facts, or have the wrong or incomplete ones. Transferring it to collections will simply upset the client; who independently of being at fault or not and whether they pay or not; most likely will go elsewhere for the services we’ve been providing. We will lose a client, a recurring $200.00 per month; and most probably will lose some -and will never make other- clients that are acquaintances of this one.

Say "Yes" only when you are sure.

It is 1,000 times better to say “No”, than to say “Yes” and never deliver.

Clear directions and examples

Time and again we face the challenges of appropriately directing clients to our doors, whether virtual or not. They barely ever make it there and those that do, sometimes don't dare entering or calling. The culprit? Ourselves of course.
We also wonder why, after a huge investment in resources to create literature and advertising (virtual or not) for our business, do not get the expected results… same factors.

I've experienced and seen people get to places they thought were the appropriate ones, only to start asking questions; confused and delayed on their plans, simply because the directions and/or instructions are not clear enough.
I've also experienced and seen people that loses interest in a particular article, pamphlet, post, advertisement or similar. Again, lack of proper thinking and planning on our part makes it difficult for the recipient to get the message we've invested so much in trying to convey.

3b) Take a look at these 3 comparison examples:

Address at the end of advertisement
1a) Please visit us at:
ABC Center, Inc.
1234 Main Ave
San Jose, CA, 98765
1-800-888-ABCC

1b) Please visit us at:
ABC Center, Inc.
1234 Main Ave.
San Jose, California, U.S.
Zip Code 98765
Toll free: 1-800-888-ABCC (1111)
To get there: take highway # 5 towards San Jose. Take exit # 67-B, which goes west. Drive for three blocks then turn left at Sun Ave. You'll see our logo and name right in front of you. Parking is free on your right.
For map click here


Magazine article
2a) ...so, in case the temperature has risen above 90 degrees, consider shortening your distance by 2 miles, or reduce your pace to 9'/mi for the second half of this exercise...

2b) ...so, in case the temperature has risen above 90 degrees (32 C), consider shortening your distance by 2 miles (3.2 Km), or reduce your pace to 10'/mi (5’ 40”/Km) for the second half of this exercise...


Solution
3a) It is always more difficult to try to explain something without examples. Incorporating more and better pieces of data in our communication will always provide better results. Try doing these simple changes and all efforts will be compensated and targets met.

3b) Take a look at these 3 examples (implicit here)


The messenger spends only a minute in creating a detailed set of instructions, and even if it takes more time, the messenger/recipient (m/r) time ratio becomes zero as more people gravitate to our doors.
Take the second example for instance: if such magazine has a circulation of 100,000 and 1 out of 3 readers does not understand the English system; without including the metric measurement units in the article leaves 33,333 readers manually or mentally calculating degrees, distances, and speeds. Suppose it takes an average of 60 seconds to convert the three units, that alone makes more than 555 hours of effective wasted time.
When the messenger includes such data, the m/r ratio here becomes 0.00003. As the magazine keeps readers happy and therefore attracts more, such ratio keeps decreasing.

With today’s technologies it is very easy to include not just extra text or a link to a map and such. Image, sound and video clips can be included in our communication to make it even better. Think about all the possibilities.


So, invest that extra time to communicate clearly, and your recipients will become captive clients for life.

What do you want to do?

Remember when you were a kid and watched the Olympics, or the moon landing, or the firefighters putting out a fire or saving somebody from a building engulfed in flames?

How about those paintings once you enjoyed so much at an art gallery or a museum? Perhaps pictured in a book?
And books, of course! How many times after reading one you could not put down but until finishing it you thought to yourself: “I’d like to write something like this”.

What did you want to do?

Are all those famous singer or actress’ dreams extinguished? Are you waiting until you retire to retake drawing and painting lessons? Record your album? Travel the world around?

It’s a little bit late now, isn’t it?
It’s not.

What you wanted to do when you were a kid is STILL what YOU WANT to do NOW.
Be a little bit selfish and explain all those that depend on you that you will start chasing your dreams. Do not hesitate. Do it NOW. Please! Do not die with and unfinished to-do list.
Start (or restart) today.

First four steps: see yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, look deep into your eyes, and tell yourself out loud: “I’m starting today”.
That’s it.

What are you doing? GREAT! :)

Great idea!

As it happens, I was incredibly busy last week on very long days, and far away from home and my usual surroundings. Despite the fact that we have so many ways now to be productive using all kind of tools, along with cheaper rates for long-distance calls and all; it is still difficult to work when one's not in the customary places. Add a few hours in a different time zone and it becomes even harder. In brief, you end up working more than usually.

On one of those nights and despite being incredibly tired, a very good idea came to mind. It was so good that there was no need to even plan or rethink it. A Eureka moment close enough to those of Franklin, Da Vinci or Einstein.

Well, it's been a few days now and it is time to implement such wonderful idea. The only problem is ...I forgot what it was.

Another old-age victim.

Where are all the trainers?

In our ever-busy IT field, we can barely keep up with demand for maintenance, new projects, new systems and all. We have been getting comfortable lately with very basically implementing whatever it is we need to do in order to continue with the next set of tasks.

We leave the users and/or clients feeling that they have a new shining car, and although the doors are open, they do not know where the keys are.

Where are all the trainers? There must be an incredible amount of demand for so many and varied new packages and ways of utilizing new technologies. Yet we keep being asked again and again about things we thought users would know or find out pretty easily.
I'm also sure we IT departments or consultants could set training sessions for such topics, however there must be people better prepared for such tasks.

And yet, some of my colleagues keep complaining about the lack of work. There is no such thing; there are still so many holes to be filled: training is just one example of myriad areas that still need to be covered.

I'm also sure this does not apply exclusively to the IT field.

So, are you looking for work? Time to start working then.

Nice talking 2 U

This is cool: at the end of the day, once everything`s been leveraged, the bottom line is that every short conversation has become a cliche.