Web Business by Ken Burbary

All about Google

Google plays such a big part of your everyday online life, whether you realize it or not, that it’s not surprising someone took the time to thoroughly dissect Google’s Strategy. Have you ever wondered?

This presentation does a great job explaining the answers to these questions.

The Age of DIY

I’m a big believer in DIY – Doing it Yourself. Call me old fashioned but it’s something I learned at an early age from my late father. If you don’t know something, learn it. Need a piece of info? Find it. Need specialized expertise? Seek it out. No one else is going to do it for you (usually), so you better take the initiative and get it done yourself. Like life, business is littered with challenges and obstacles that you will encounter along the way. How you handle these obstacles, what you do next, usually determines whether or not the outcome is successful.

Sound like a lot? It certainly can be. No one I know has the time, nor aptitude to be proficient in every topic and/or skill, let alone acquire deep expertise. Fortunately, the rules of the game have evolved and changed to point there where they favor YOU.

For example, until recently, if you were a web developer and needed to build a new application on a emerging platform (let’s say RoR – Ruby on Rails), what options would you have to solve the problem?

You could:

• Learn how to write RoR code yourself
• Hope someone within your network already possesses the skill/knowledge
• Pass on an opportunity because you didn’t have the answers, right partner, etc..

That’s hard if you aren’t a technologist who can quickly adapt to a new technology platform (I know some rock-star developers out there, like David Hinson, can do this without skipping a beat).

But I’m not a techie you say. This doesn’t apply to me. Ok, what if you’re the brand manager in the marketing dept. for a successful consumer products company. You’ve been asked to develop the social media component of an integrated go-to-market plan for your brand. Social Media? Doesn’t that mean Myspace or Facebook? You don’t have experience with social media and aren’t sure where to start, so what options would you have to solve the problem?

You could:

• Learn as much as you can in a short time and write the strategy yourself, hoping for the best (not advisable!)
• Hope you can find an expert in your network who has the knowledge/expertise in Social Media
• Recommend a plan that has no social media component, and miss a golden opportunity to engage with your customers

Do any of these sound good to you? Hardly. There is a better way forward, and it’s available to you because the world has changed and unleashed a new power for individuals. The network allows you to crowd source a problem. The network allows you to community source a problem. The network exponentially increases your capabilities, through the reach of others.

In the networked DIY age, the problems above get solved quickly because you have the necessary relationships and resources available to you. Don’t believe me? Try this example here, here or here. Answers come in minutes. The network allows you to move fast enough to meet business challenges thrown at you every day. However, it’s not something you get without first putting in the work yourself. How? By becoming active in the network. Establishing relationships, initiating dialogue w/others, helping others grow, so you can be in a position to benefit when you really need it.

This is available to anyone willing to take advantage of it. How? I suppose I could elaborate in extensive detail, but many others, far more knowledgable than I, have already provided the roadmap. You should read these blog posts on how to get started:

• Jason Falls – How to be the social media champion in your office
• Marshall Kirkpatrick – Social Media Starter Kit
• Chris Brogan – Social Media Starter Pack
• Rohit Bhargava – How I use Social Media

And then reach out to them.

The most important takeaway in all of this is: PARTICIPATION. Remember, it’s the age of DIY, and success can’t happen unless YOU are the one doing. The revolutionary difference about this is that you’re now able to contact these subject matter experts, build relationships with them. In some cases form partnerships with them. Ultimately, you’ll be in a better position because of it, and make better decisions about you business. Help yourself by helping others grow. The more you give, the more you get.

Let’s reexamine the hypothetical problems I described earlier, but in the DIY age. New options are available through crowd sourcing, or directly engaging subject matter experts who are part of the community. You’re able to go directly to the source for expertise. Establish a dialgoue, here (RoR Expert) and here (Social Media Expert), and work together to solve the problem. Experts can be instantly referred to you by colleagues in the network, or by contacts they have. The irony is, despite what the DYI term implies, you’re anything but alone in the DIY age.

Individuals over the world are adapting to the network so they can solve business problems, build new (and otherwise out of reach) relationships, build new businesses, even change countries.

How are you adapting to the DIY age? Do you believe in its ability to transform the way you work? The way you live? You should. It’s changing your world whether you like it or not. As Charles Darwin famously said:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

* Big thanks to my good friends Blagica Bottigliero & Alan Wolk for helping shape some of these thoughts

Is Voicemail Dead?

A recent article by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch made me stop to think about my own approach and attitude towards voicemail, the long time King of office communication.

The article’s premise is that voicemail is inefficient, out of favor, andhas been downright abandoned by some folks.

Typical voicemail messages today include things like “Please don’t leave me a voicemail, I rarely listen to them. Please just email me at [email protected]” Many people don’t bother setting up their voicemail accounts at all. Then there’s my favorite method, the one I use personally – let the message box get full and then don’t empty it. Caller ID still tells me who called, and I can simply call them back.

How many times have you called someone back and said “I saw that you called but didn’t listen to the voicemail yet, Is it anything urgent?”

I notice that I rely on voicemail much less too. In fact, I prefer to not use it unless in required to. There are simply too many better alternatives.  E-mail, Text Message/SMS, Twitter, or Instant Message. Text Messaging has become the defacto standard for team communication in my organization. It’s pretty common to receive messages from team members throughout the day, in and out of meetings, and even during the same meeting (ala the Twitter backchannel at conferences).

Why? Because it’s a heck of a lot faster for me to read a message than muddle my way through an ancient enterprise voicemail system until I am able to retreive the desired voicemail.  Besides, abandoning voicemail means one less password to remember and constantly change due to forced password rotation policies.

Are you still using voicemail as an everday business tool or has something replaced it? If so, what?