The following takes place between 4:00 PM Thursday and 9:00 PM Friday. The events happen in real-time:

• Leadership team (all Prolifiq managers – 2.5 hours)
• Board of Directors (1 hour)
• Shareholders (3.5 hours)
• All hands (entire company in one room 4.5 hours)
• All hands dinner (?? Hours).

Needless to say, we went from the detailed minutiae (product dev team) all the way up to the grand strategy (Board) and back down again. By Friday night my neurons were barely firing. One thing I can say for sure, and this is confirmed by my PhD friend Satwik, the Prolifiq team’s got some very serious brainpower.

The absolute best part of all was to have our customer Marty present to our shareholders. This is a tradition I started 3 years ago, where we have a customer employee come and present to our shareholders – in their own words – what Prolifiq means to their company and why they buy from us. We also ask them to talk candidly about what we can do better. Our investors tell us it is the best part of the meeting as they rarely get this kind of insight with their investments.

Marty hit it “out of the park” and provided some very keen insights that really resonated with our investors. He spoke about our “partnership” with his company, and the fact we had him meeting directly with our investors is something he has never experienced before. Marty, thanks for making the trip, your partnership and the high expectations you have for our team.

Hemingway took the time to reinforce with our investors what his original vision was when we embarked on this journey; and, he detailed specifically what we are doing that is realizing that vision – every day. He also walked us through all the work he is doing with Marty’s company and how rapidly we are scaling with them, and the impact this will have on the entire staff. Hem: you and your team do great things! Thanks for leading.

Neil, Isabella, Jeff F., Anh, Sean, and JoAnn gave us a short (3 hour) preview of what is coming out of the labs over the next 90 days. These folks are nailing it (see: “Unsung Heroes”) and I cannot wait to get all of their enhancements in the field. They keep reminding me: “…it’s a journey, not a destination….” which I translate to mean there is always more to come. The best part was when Anh was demonstrating a new tool control and a collective “…oooh, aaah” echoed through the room. Never heard that before; and, I wonder how you capture that on an annual review. Nice work folks; keep it coming!

Maureen took an hour to share with us what is happening in her Life Sciences sector. With the progress she has made, it is hard to believe she has only been with us 84 days (see: “She is here”). Our “uncloaking”, scheduled for September 13, is coming quickly. We have a lot to do; but, I have every belief we will transform this market.

And yes, we spent a fair amount of time on the score cards (meaning, the numbers). Up and to the right, with more to come. I love days like this…..

 

David, one of my mentors, is the CEO of a SaaS firm here in Portland. During a recent meeting he unequivocally stated: “Our biggest competitor is Microsoft Excel.”

This stopped me dead in my tracks; because, what VC would want to invest in a company that was taking on the “death star”? I mean, Excel all but killed Lotus; it is a very powerful application that does just about everything; and, almost every PC and Mac has it installed. So, what makes David so smart that he thinks he can compete?

It is actually quite simple – Excel doesn’t do what David’s application does; and, it likely never will. Plus, David’s team is front and center in a very specialized use case that is very high up on the value stack. As a result, David’s firm is very successful (consistently profitable, cash positive, double-digit growth) all on angel funding. And no, this is not some micro-niche application arena; it is actually a very large market sector that David is beginning to dominate. David is succeeding because he has clearly defined his foe and is competing where they are vulnerable.

Yesterday I was very vividly reminded of how this plays out for Prolifiq. When asked who Prolifiq’s primary competitors are, I sometimes answer (rather flippantly and tongue in cheek) “Fear, apathy, and stupidity.” What I mean by this is: people are reluctant to change; people have a tendency to want to wait for others to step forward and solve problems; and, people sometimes don’t initially grasp the implications of what they see. Ultimately, what this arrogant viewpoint of mine recognizes – yet doesn’t articulate – is that our primary competitor is Microsoft Outlook.

There, I’ve said it. This is something we have inherently known internally for quite some time; we have just been too humble, polite, or scared to say it. That changes today.

We compete against Outlook because salespeople often use it to send content in their daily communications. This content includes:
  *Corporate content
  *Industry content
  *Personal content.
Any message a salesperson sends needs to comply with:
  *Government regulations
  *Copyright law
  *Corporate privacy and brand standards.
Outlook doesn’t do this – we do; and we make it virtually transparent (meaning easy).

David, thanks for the wake-up call. We compete against Microsoft Outlook – and, for the use case we focus on, we kick its ass.

Last Thursday, I tried a new restaurant near our offices on Neil’s recommendation (Neil is not what I would call a “foodie” – he just likes to eat). Gloria found Neil by stopping him on the street and offering him some of her famous salsa (one of 14 varieties she makes). He told me about her place; so, I ventured forth.

Gloria’s Secret is not too much to look at; it seats 16 people, is in a very small storefront and is rather plainly decorated. This is not where you go for atmosphere; you go here for the food. Suzie, our intern, described it thus: “This place IS A FIND!”

What makes this place is Gloria. She is the: owner, greeter, waitress, cook, bus person, cashier, etc., etc. In other words, Gloria is the sole proprietor  –  in the truest sense of the word. How refreshing. Here is an American immigrant (from El Salvador) grandmother who is living her dream to provide for herself and her family.

As I was enjoying my HUGE plate of exquisite Latina food, I realized what Gloria’s Secret is: it’s her ─ her passion for good food, service, hard work, happy customers and making a living.

This got me thinking: what would happen if each and every one of us went through our day as IF our name was on the storefront?

We can all learn a lot from Gloria.

I once had a conversation with a British friend of mine where I said: “I am so glad to be an American because I don’t have to worry about being killed for publicly expressing my beliefs.” Peter didn’t see things the same way saying: “Where in the world does that happen?” Well, this week, Tehran provided us a very clear example of that. Individual citizens have been shot for expressing their discontent with what they believe to be a fraudulent election.

Our Founding Fathers got a lot right when they established our nation. Freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble and protest are recognized as divine rights and are enshrined in our constitution and its amendments. For the past 233 years we have enjoyed these rights; and, in the rare instance where these rights are infringed upon, there is a process (appeal to the US Supreme Court) whereby a private citizen can challenge their government seeking redress. We have come to take these rights for granted; unfortunately, many in the world have never enjoyed them.

What I found most interesting is how technology continues to challenge authority and governing institutions. Similar to how the moveable type printing press helped Martin Luther challenge the authoritarian hegemony of the Catholic Church in ancient Europe, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are helping ordinary citizens challenge the leadership of Iran. I am sure the founders of these companies NEVER imagined these consequential uses of their technology when drafting their business plans.

I also find it highly amusing that the Iranian leadership would be so naïve as to think they could arrest the advance of technology, thereby eliminating the political threat. What they obviously don’t realize is the technology is just the tool of expression – eliminating the media does not eliminate the sentiment. They need to address the wants, needs, desires of their constituents in order to remain in authority – but of course, my sentiments are highly skewed because I have grown up in a free country and believe those in government serve me at my behest.
Now, let’s apply this to the business leadership. We have constituents: customers, employees and stakeholders. They have wants, needs, desires; they likely have issues with us. To be effective leaders, we need to provide them a means to express these to us; and, we need to listen to what they are saying and attempt to resolve their issues. We serve them at their behest. If we do not listen, they will simply go away. One could consider this a bloodless coup; but, it would be a coup nonetheless.

Last month, I was listening to a discussion about QA, SAAS and cloud computing, thanks to Dan Carr, Executive IT Architect in IBM. One of the items discussed was a term called non-functional requirements.

We all know what functional requirements are, and the prolonged discussions in meetings about functional requirements. Non-functional requirements are items that remain the same in information technology offerings irrespective of the product features. Few of the non-functional requirements are: availability, reliability, disaster recovery, security, scalability, backup, performance, data portability, manageability and configuration. According to this school of thinking, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I think non-functional requirements are the most undocumented requirements and are hard to for teams to organize and plan for. These requirements consume more energy and resources from the available pool, yet are not brought into mainstream planning. I recommend to readers of this blog to try to find, list out and estimate resources spent to meet these non-functional requirements. If you are surprised with your findings, I recommend reading the service level agreements signed by your team and organization and how your customers rate you as a vendor. If you have a unique way of planning, allocating resources and meeting these non-functional requirements, I invite you to share the challenges faced by you and your team.

A candidate for an open account manager position we have asked me: “Tell me about someone you mentored.” While I have mentored many people in my life, I chose to tell her about Amy.

In 1993, Amy was a senior at a University in the mid-west and her mother, a telecommunications consultant, introduced us. Amy interested me because she talked her way into a job by telling the University’s telecommunications manager that he didn’t know how to deploy a voice messaging system and that she did. Whether it was true or not, the telecommunications manager gave Amy the chance and she did the job.

With the exception of this experience Amy’s resume was quite thin ─ we hired her as a sales assistant intern based on her moxy alone. Eight weeks later, Amy was doing most of the pre-sale engineering for systems in a whole sales region. Today, she earns in the mid six figures selling telecommunications systems. Why, because she’s smart, bold, and a door was opened for her. Most importantly ─ she works hard.

I believe in interns because I started my career as one; and, because I know the results.

It’s graduation season and this year’s graduates are entering a less than stellar job market (can you say “sh__ty”) – I recommend graduates pursue internship opportunities. They are great chances to get experience which will be of benefit as the recovery takes hold. It can also be the beginning a very real, and lucrative, career.

Prolifiq will be hiring a number of interns over the next 3-4 college semesters. We know your resumes will be somewhat thin; so, my advice to prospective interns is: convince us you will add value to the organization. Demonstrate you have moxy; convince us of your social media skills. Prove your persistence; show us you know how to communicate. Most importantly, let us see your passion for what we do. (I know a person who called a hiring manager every Thursday for 52 weeks to talk her way into a NON-PAID internship with a leading fashion designer—it was her passion.)

So, prospective interns: do you have what it takes to start your career?

In my last post, “Relevant and Current”, I wrote about a good friend of mine who is a high-level marketer for a very large consumer products company. In the post, I asked how marketers stay relevant and current in the fast changing environment. Yvonne took the time to respond directly to me, so I thought I would share:

Yvonne writes:  “My answer is: I listen and involve younger members of my team in all decisions and strategies on social media.  I also attend lots of conferences, read blogs and I participate by actively using the social media tools. Lastly, when I shop for shoes, I ask the sales person to choose shoes for me, bringing me shoes the younger set is wearing. They choose shoes I never would choose. I put them on, walk around the store, laugh and sometimes I buy them and love them.  I push myself to be open to new things.  We all need to try on other people's shoes, especially younger shoes!”

If you read one of my earlier posts,  “Pumps versus flats”, you’ll see Yvonne and I have a lot in common…;-)

Finding the correct technology tools that help get the job done is one of the challenges in organizations. There are interesting questions when I think about this: do we need to know a tool in depth first? How will we know if the tool meets the requirements? How will we know what else that tool can do? What is a fitting decision? Buy a tool that has some capabilities now? Wait longer for a tool that has all requirements? At what price?
 
In the last year, I was looking for different tools for deployment planning and related housekeeping. Each and every one of the requirements made me look for tools that has good data base management, great user interface, easy to arrange content, make it available over web, move data around and provide different views for individuals performing various operations.
 
I looked at tools that I have not used, used a little and a few in which I have in-depth understanding. I looked at tools used by peers. In the mean time, I selected a tool that I know has some of the capabilities, dived in and solved a few problems and questions that were taking some of our time. I am finding out more and more as I go along.
 
My recommendation to teams looking to improve planning and communication is understand existing tools, understand what others in your organization and peer group in industry are using and go out and find tools. Explore it, get down to details, ask a team member to explore it and use the tools yourself, to see what the capabilities of the tools are. It is one way to find out what else a tool can do, and the more interesting part it is, to find out what else you can do.

I had dinner with Yvonne, a family friend, on Sunday night. Yvonne is a high-level marketer for a consumer products company in California (you would know the brand if I told you) and we compared notes about the challenges in business. While there are significant differences in our businesses – we are a B2B company, they are a B2C; and there is a major difference in scale – we actually found we had some very similar concerns.

Yvonne and I are the same age (let’s just say we were born before the first oil crisis), and we work in industry segments where much of the innovation is being driven by people who were born during the Reagan and Clinton eras. One area we compared notes on is in the social media space. She just recently launched a social media site for her company and rocketed to the top – she found this surprising and exhilarating.

My loyal readers know that we embraced social media starting 9 months ago (IBM LotusLive partnership, blogging, FaceBook, etc.). We, at Prolifiq struggled to find our voice (some of my co-workers are still searching – you know who you are). Yvonne shared with me her challenges: being relevant and current with an audience that is predominantly under 30. With balancing work, motherhood, marriage, and a personal life that does not revolve around technology, she finds the “current” thing challenging. I agree; I don’t live the same life as this population, so I have to “work” to stay current and, I hope, relevant. I often shock Ian and Dylan with what I know; however, I am not comfortable I am on top of my game.

I’d love to hear from those of you who share this struggle. I’d love to know how you stay relevant and current.

Arthur was a retired US Air Force Colonel (Vietnam era fighter jock) who was the COO of a company I worked for in the late 1980s. He had this insanely bizarre habit – every day, he would stand inside the employee entrance of the office from 7:45 – 8:15. He stared at his watch and greeted you as you came through the door. If you were not there by 8:15 you would find a 3M Post-it-note on your door or your desk –you knew Arthur was always watching. I don’t know that it did much for productivity and, incidentally, Arthur died of cardiac failure some number of years ago.

I hadn’t much thought of Arthur until I read this piece about “weisure” – the blurring of the lines between work and leisure. I encourage everyone to take the test. I did, and none to my wife’s surprise, I was off the charts. I think most in the information business (with our handhelds, notebooks, WiFi, and WiMax) would qualify in the same range. I KNOW everyone at Prolifiq would be off the charts.

We are an emerging growth company. We hire professionals; we treat our people as professionals. We recognize people have lives; we know children have events that happen at hours that fall within the workday. Most importantly, we remain true to the three workplace principals Hemingway set forth when he started the company:

Work hard;
Play hard;
Get your sh_t done.

We service users in every time zone in the world; this wouldn’t be possible if we focused on OUR work hours in Pacific Standard Time, or the time zone where our people are. I know there is not an hour in the day where a Prolifiq employee is not working; the best part – I don’t have to manage it. Our people manage themselves. Our management team has identified that we need to manage the work life balance issue – suggesting that the blurring of the lines, not just at Prolifiq but in the general workforce, constantly needs to be evaluated. It is actually a qualitative metric we measure here on a monthly basis.

So, what happened to Arthur’s company – it ultimately went bankrupt in the early 1990s. I guess when senior management watches the clock, so do the employees.