The Internet employs 1.2 million people directly to conduct advertising and commerce, build and maintain the infrastructure, and facilitate its use. Each Internet job supports approximately 1.54 additional jobs elsewhere in the economy, for a total of 3.05 million, or roughly 2 percent, of employed Americans. The dollar value of their wages is about $300 billion or around 2 percent of U.S. GDP.
via How to Value the Advertising-Supported Internet - John Quelch - HarvardBusiness.org.
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During a recent lunch meeting with a startup in NJ, a Senior Manager shared with me the following seven pieces of wisdom from Pirkei Avot.(Supposed to be 2000 years old).
- The wise man does not speak before one who is greater than he in wisdom.
- He does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.
- He does not rush to answer.
- He asks what is relevant and answers according to the point.
- He speaks on the first point first and on the last point last.
- Where he has heard not heard he says, “I have not heard”
- He agrees to what is true.
Now only if there is an easy way to remember and practice these. She said it took her almost a decade to master these.
Tags: Communication · Management
Came across a good compilation of common sense tips for people management. Link Here.
My only issue with the article is that they call it rules. Management can never be rule-based. It has to be customized to every context, person, team, culture, business objectives etc.
In particular, I enjoyed reminding myself of the following 10 from the list:
- Get to know your employees. Learn more than just their names. Get to know your employees’ family backgrounds, likes and dislikes. Doing so will make you more personable.
- Never discuss employee matters with their co-workers. This kind of gossip always gets back to the person and will make you look unprofessional.
- Keep your promises. Barring some catastrophic event, you should always keep promises you make to employees, especially about pay and benefits.
- Learn when to step in. Some problems might resolve themselves if you just let them be, but you need to be aware of times where you’ll need to step in and take control of a situation.
- Take the blame. If you’ve made a mistake, fess up. It’ll give you more time to work on fixing the problem instead of talking your way out of taking the rap.
- Rise above the crisis. Learn to separate yourself from the problem and rise above the fray. You’ll be able to think more clearly and make a better decision on how to rectify the issue.
- Lead by example. You can talk until you’re blue in the face, but the best way to get a point across is to be the model to emulate. Let employees follow your lead.
- Make sure expectations are clear. Be sure that each member of your team knows what their specific responsibilities are. This will save time and prevent tasks from being overlooked.
- Make a difference to your employees. Don’t just be a generic manager — stand out as a leader and role model for your employees.
- Remember that ethics matter above all. Be honest and reliable in all of your business and personal relationships.
Tags: Management
We are currently helping two exciting companies in New York build high performing product teams.
- One company is fairly old and profitable. Let us call it X.
- The other is fairly recent and barely profitable. Let us call it Y.
X has everyone they need to get the job done. We are helping X by doing an organizational assessment and an in-depth GAP analysis. We are helping Y hire new members to their dynamic team. Both share the same goal to grow strategically and become market leaders.
It is enriching to study how both companies differ in their approach to management, leadership, processes, incentive controls, formal structures, culture and most importantly people. I am amazed by folks who still insist that there is one best process or one best structure or one best leadership style.
While helping company Y with their hiring, I asked the CTO what was most important for him when we bring on new people, his answer: “Has the candidate happily worked in a fast-paced startup environment recently?”. I could not agree more.
Tags: Company Size
I agree with American Electric Power CEO Michael Morrison’s advice on tone the new leaders should set in the organization:
“You can never be soft in the early go….and then turn hard but you can always be a high demand leader and then over time as you become more familiar and you become more convinced that the team you are working with has some skill sets you can soften your approach…they always know like that the leader can go back to being a really tough individual”
Source: Wall Street Journal.
Tags: Leadership
- Power of user-generated content: The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes.
- Power of few: Google’s video sites gets 40% of total share of the videos watched
- Power of quality: Hulu gets only 2.4% share of users but a total of 4.2% of time spent watching videos.
- Power of bad economy: The average online video viewer watched 385 minutes of video, or 6.4 hours.
Source: Comscore
Tags: Market Segments · Metrics
Of all the American income groups, the happiest income group earn between $50,000 and $74,999 a year. Source: Harris Poll and Harvard Stat.
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About 15% of the 25 million U.S. smart-phone users access social-networking Web sites “almost every day,” compared with about 3.6% of users of more basic “feature phones,” according to comScore M:Metrics Inc.
via Networking Sites Extend Reach - WSJ.com.
Tags: Metrics · Mobile · Social Networking
