Posted by Phil on June 27, 2008 – 4:24 am
Being a leader is an interesting and challenging responsibility, but leading a cross-departmental team where influencing an already busy group of folks kicks it up a notch. For the last couple of months I’ve been leading an intranet implementation team for a global enterprise. I work with folks from several department from more than one location and report to a multi-national executive committee. The task is large and the timeline is condensed for the initial launch in the matter of months. Some of the lessons I’m learning (or relearning) are transferable to many different team leadership situations:
- Listen. A great lesson for many of life’s situations, but listening is a key in leadership. Hearing the expectations of upper management, the concerns and ideas of the team and getting feedback from the company or organization in general is invaluable. Building surveys and interviews into the process will give some beefy information.
- Communicate. It is up to the team leader to take initiative to communicate often, thoroughly, timely and succinctly. To keep the team engaged and encouraged, consistent communication from you breathes life into the process and helps to keep the team objectives front burner.
- Plan. Planning is huge and encompassing for team leadership. Developing and continually revising issues, tasks, milestones, team meetings and reporting mechanisms is critical.
- Report. Invest time into report creation. Monthly reports are a summary of the process and are a good accountability structure. I leverage the time to tie-up loose ends and advance objectives in the process of report creation. Keeping the next report in mind with every task helps in staying the course when issues arise that would become a side eddy for the teams efforts.
- Illustrate. Nothing like pretty pictures to tell a story. Illustrations, graphs, charts, wireframes all help to paint the picture that both the team and leadership need to see.
- Work hard. Team leadership requires a level of committment and industry that is not for the faint at heart. More responsibility than authority, more service than honor, but it can be a fascinating process to see something concrete develop through the course of the project.
- Be diplomatic. Issues such as the development timeline, objectives, structure and features are often negotiable with a bit of diplomacy. The reporting structure provides a means to address key issues along with ad hoc meetings with key stakeholders.
- Make no assumptions. Everyone has the best intentions in a team meeting. Follow-up and building-in accountability structures will help folks stay on task.
- Research. Know your subject well as you will now be seen as an expert. The more you know the better communicator you will be.
- Share the load. It’s called a team for a reason. Engaging all the team members in the process is critical for it’s success.
There are undoubtably many more takeaways I’ll gain from this experience. Hopefully, I can keep these points in mind as the project moves forward. There are so many good lessons to learn from leadership. Any thoughts come to your mind? I’m always in the market for good pointers.
Posted by Phil on June 25, 2008 – 8:36 am
Just released, Adobe Acrobat 9 is a major upgrade offering many slick new features such as:
- Play media within the document. Acrobat will now convert MOV, WMV, FLV and H.264 files to Flash to for playing audio and video content.
- Easy file conversion from Office products.
- Robust management for permissions, encrypted data and digital signatures.
- Drag and drop documents and multimedia content for flexible presentation creation.
- Integrate 3D representation from CAD applications.
- Dynamically interact with others via acrobat.com. The new online service allows for collaboration, live meetings, easy pdf creation, file sharing, and online storage.
Check-out the Acrobat 9 Product Comparison for the differences between Acrobat 9 Standard, Pro and Pro Extended.
It’s amazing to think what this will mean for web publishing and presentation of dynamic information. For instance, instead of a simple spec sheet for a product, why not incorporate 3D views of the product, audio descriptions and video tutorials all in a portable format that is cross-plaform compatible
Posted by Phil on June 24, 2008 – 6:45 am
This morning I dropped into Starbucks for a non-fat GRTL (Green Tea Latte). Vicariously I’m learning what one Barista called Starbonics, the tribal language of Starbucks. Tribal languages abound in every organization. To communicate effectively within any group it is important to pick-up their language. The development of a tribal language is a natural and critical element that builds cohesion between members. In some cases it facilitates higher thinking, in others more efficient processes, such as the case at Starbucks.
Some folks say, "I’m not good at learning languages." Often their experience with formal study of a foreign language resulted in a frustrating and intimidating experience. Truth is everyone learns multiple languages throughout their life. Here are just a few of the languages I speak:
- Geek Speak: Seen the bumper sticker "There’s no place like 127.0.0.1"? The default IP (Internet Protocol) address for every machine is 127.0.0.1 which is the home address.
- Design Terminology: Publishing text in a graphic from Photoshop is often kludgy (kludge meaning something is crude or inelegant). Text is more pristine when exported from a vector format such as .eps.
- Texan: Hi ya’ll.
The list goes on. Other languages I "speak": web developer, Engineering, Christianese, Higher-Ed, Austinisms, Marketing, business… and of course various standard spoken languages such as English, Spanish, Turkish and bits of Hebraic, Arabic, and Italian.
Think about all the life experience one gains over decades. With each job, each place you lived, each area of study, the first thing to pick-up is the language, the coding system for communication. Learning the right terminology is critical for success. How many tribal languages do you know? How many do you use from day-to-day? What tricks have you found in your station in life to pick-up new terminology?
Posted by Phil on June 18, 2008 – 5:13 am
Realizing I probably had too many categories for my posts, well over a hundred, I decided it was time to trim the number down a bit. But what would be the criteria? Certainly dropping-off the single post references made sense. How does one then quantify what constitutes enough for a category? I’ve landed on the number three.
Categories or tags are connect-the-dot labels that group content from multiple posts together. It stands to reason that if there are three or more related posts, a category could tie them together.
As I stripped away useless categories, I discovered redundant/like categories that I combined. There was also a couple categories such as "writing" for which I knew I had many posts but only one was tagged.
As I move forward with posts, I will for the most part categorize retrospectively after I have three or more like posts. It’s really a simple idea but one that helps solidify the concept in my mind.
Posted by Phil on June 17, 2008 – 5:30 am
Setting up WordPress websites has become a regular part of my work. Much more than just for blogs, the platform is ideal for rapidly launching sites. In fact, nine out of ten WP sites I launch are non-blogging sites. I thought for my sake and for others who are looking for a checklist for what needs to be done to setup a WordPress website, I’d punch out a basic checklist for the process. This may get quite lengthy, but hopefully it will be a helpful resource to make sure all the bases are covered.
Hosting
- Search for and select domain an open domain.
- Sign-up with host and document access information.
- Setup ftp access and document access information.
- Setup MySQL database and document access information.
- Create sub-folder on host with the same name as domain (This allows easy launching of additional sites on same host) and point domain to sub-folder.
WordPress Install
- Download and unzip latest version of WordPress.
- Save wp-config-sample.php as wp-config and edit database access information in the top of the document. The documented info from your host provider, i.e. database name, host, username and password should be entered.
- Upload WordPress and go to the domain address in the browser.
- Click to install and be sure to copy the temporary Admin password into notepad and log-in to instigate the installation.
- Immediately change the Admin password to something familiar so that you don’t lock yourself out of WordPress.
Basic WordPress Configuration
- During installation check the "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors" during the configuration process. To change the setting later go to "Settings" under the Privacy link and change the option to "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines…".
- Search for and upload a theme to modify. For CSS gurus who want to configure I highly customized site, I recommend using the Sandbox theme. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it provides a strip-down template to build from scratch.
- Change the Permalink. Under settings in WP 2.5+ go to Permalinks and change the default. My favorite is the simple Custom Structure: /%postname%/.
- Write a Page called "Home" and set it as the default homepage. Under "Settings" click on "Reading" and for "Front page displays" click "A static page" and select "Home" for under the "Front page" drop-down.
- Setup the basic landing pages and sub-pages for the site. When a sub-page is created, under "Page Parent" select the parent page.
- Delete the site Description. In most cases I have no need for the "Tagline" that is used for blogs. I’ll add-in my own meta tags later. Go to "Settings" which brings-up "General Settings" and delete the "Tagline".
Install Plug-ins
- Download the FCKEditor for WordPress plugin. Unzip and upload folder to wp-content/plugins/. Then activate the plugin. This will instigate a much improved wysiwyg editor for pages and posts.
- Download and install the WordPress Database Backup plugin. This nifty plugin can schedule to email you a backup of the database on a weekly basis. You will still need to download your site periodically, but what an amazing function to capture the content from the site.
- Download and instlal cforms II an amazingly powerful forms configurator. This plugin is the most robust configurator I’ve found which both drops form submissions to a user-friendly database on the site as well as sends email submissions to the designated manager of the contacts.
- For sites requiring mobile access WordPress Mobile Edition plugin detects mobile users and serves-up the page in readable mobile format.
- The Search Pages plugin enables the search function to return results from both pages and posts.
- Install Google Analytics for web stats.
Design the Theme
- Create a back-up of the site before beginning to tweak the design.
- For a simple, straightforward site: replace the header image, modify color scheme, font treatment and spacing as needed.
- Tweak the navigation to display pages and ditch the other widgets except the search form. If hard-coded changes are needed in the navigation, start by inspecting the header.php, functions.php and possibly sidebar.php files. These will most likely contain the code for the menu.
- Populate the site with enough content including images to get a feel for how well the navigation and flow of the site works.
- Make adjustments to accomodate what is stipulated in the scope document. If you are working with a client, a scope document will save you grief as you will have the stipulated requirements for the site. This will help scope creep to get out of hand.
Before Going Live
- Create an account for content managers.
- Orient the user with the site with basic update training.
- Check for browser compatibility in major and current search engines. There’s much debate on this subject. Generally I ensure at least the current and previous versions of FireFox and IE work well.
- Go back to the Privacy setting and enable search engines to find the site.
- Spell check and surf the site looking for content or graphical errors. Ideally, it’s good to ask other folks to hit the site as well.
- Use the free online ad credits the host gives with a new account to help launch the site and emphasize to the client that ranking in the engines takes time.
There’s the initial run-down. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Depending on requirements the design phase could become quite lengthy. There are also a boat load of other plugins, but those are the most common ones I use for a typical configuration. I may continue to add items down the line as they come to mind. Any good suggestions will be added as well.
Posted by Phil on June 14, 2008 – 9:24 pm
Being a Jimmy Buffett fan for the last 20+ years, I’ve enjoyed more than a few albums and caught a couple of live shows. He was one of the main inspirations in picking-up the guitar when I was a spry 16 years-old. Jimmy always puts on a great show. Today I landed upon the Jimmy Buffett Live in Anguilla album I’ve been eyeing for a while and to my delight the two CD set included an 82 minute DVD of the performance. The footage starts-out in an intimate setting on the beach with Jimmy accompanied by a few musicians and some folks in a circle enjoying the tunes. Then midway through the third song "One Particular Harbor" it bursts into the larger live set. Sitting with friends this evening enjoying the show I’ve been transported to a sunny island in the Carribean feeling like the King of Somewhere Hot.
Posted by Phil on June 13, 2008 – 3:34 am
IT professionals, contrary to popular belief are wired for customer service. In fact, Creating innovative solutions and solving problems is a driving factor for why we do what we do.
When technical personnel are approached to solve a technical issue we need clear information in order to most effectively help the person making the request. Some simple steps will expedite your request resulting in better customer service back to you.
1. Be specific as possible. Vague information leaves open questions that require follow-up.
- Site the specific URL or file location when applicable
- Make note of when the problem occurs and how repeatedly
- Any other information such as browser version, specific program or process related to the issue.
2. Put it in writing.
- Submit every request through appropriate channels whether a work request or email.
- Follow-up conversations with a request.
3. Plan ahead or allow for process time.
- Response to issues can take time. Expect a routine delay of one to three days for requests as they are funnelled into the cue.
- If it is a major issue plan ahead to reduce last minute crisis when possible.
These few guidelines will result in more efficient service in getting your issues resolved more promptly. To my IT support friends, are there other suggestions you would add?
Posted by Phil on June 12, 2008 – 5:08 am
I’ve been called "Master of the Obvious" more than once in my life. In my drive to economize time at work I did a little research on the best way to automate reporting from Google Analytics. I found a way to loose myself of the woeful process of exporting data from Google Analytics and compiling reports into an Excel spreadsheet. While this provides a very customized view of information in one document for the executives, it’s a real time waster.
Yesterday I clicked on the "email" button next to export and whala, I’m scheduling a nifty pdf delivery of each report view on a monthly basis. Very nice graphical presentation, the same as online and it will drop right to my inbox. For the sake of not pilfering others with a montage of email, I’ll group the pdfs into one email or possibly aggregate them into one document with Acrobat.
Report generating for Adwords can be scheduled as well, but unlike Google Analytics it’s reporting mechanism is much more redumentary. Primarily Adwords offers different versions of spreadsheet reporting with no graphical charts. Seems like Google ought to kick-up the reporting features for Adwords.
A new feature Google has instituted is Benchmarking. It’s a voluntary metric where you allow Google to use your raw stats for comparison with other sites within a similar category. Pretty cool stuff for leveraging the value of your work if your site strikes way above the norm. It doesn’t seem to change much from month to month however, at least that’s what I’ve found in my categories. There are better tools out there for comparison, but interesting all the same. It’s the kind of stat to look at perhaps quarterly.
So there you have it, my "brilliant" find for the week.
