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Management

Crowdsourcing design work with 99designs.com (a review)

Crowdsourcing, Design, Identity, Management, Outsourcing, Partnerships, StrategyEdward Kiledjian

If you are planning to start a new small business or have a small business that requires some design services, you may be tempted to try out one of the newer crowdsourcing websites. The first time a customer asked for my advice about these sites, I had no idea. As a manager in a larger organization, I have never used these types of services but decided to check them out. I asked my network of contacts and found a handful of individuals that provided their real-world experiences.

Wikipedia defines crowdsourcing as “Crowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.”

The site that came up most often was called 99Designs. The concept is simple, you submit a brief, determine how much you are willing to pay for a good design and you let the market bring you fantastic designs at an unbelievable price. At least that is the promise made by the site. Out of the 8 people I spoke to, only 1 had successfully run a project to completion using the site. This one person was satisfied and said designers in his area wanted close to $1000 for similar work (it cost him $300).

The 7 others had a very different perspective. They all said that very few designers actually came forward with design proposals and of the designs they received, nothing looked professional.  On a positive note, every one of the 7 was able to contact customer support and quickly get a full refund.

If you have enough time to wait and see then it may be worthwhile to give 99designs a try and see what you get. If you’re not satisfied, you can always ask for a refund. Who knows, you may be able to snag an amazing design for an unbelievable price.

Other crowdsourcing sites you may like to checkout

Chaordix

Crowdsourced Market Intelligence

PopTent

A site that allows you to crowsource design of a video commercial

Ponoko

Crowdsource the design and manufacture of your product ideas.

4 Tips to remember when Outsourcing to China and beyond

Behavior, Economy, Investments, Management, Outsourcing, Partnerships, Risk Management, StrategyEdward Kiledjian

I have spoken and written about outsourcing to China for a couple of years now. Although China does require special handling, many of the high level recommendations are the same as regardless of where you decide to outsource.

So here is a summary style high level overview of some of the important considerations:

Ask Why: Ask yourself exactly why you are outsourcing. It is because you want to reduce your costs, access specialized skills or as a risk management exercise? Understanding exactly why you want to outsource should be your first question. Take the time to get granular and as detailed as possible. If you want to save money, then decide exactly how much and how? Time spent thinking about this will help your decision making and later negotiations.

Ask Who: Once you’ve decided why you want to outsource, then the next logical question is who. What type of provider is best positioned to meet your why requirements? What is the ideal size of the provider? What is the ideal geographic footprint of the provider? What type of experience or client list does the ideal provider have?

Ask How: If I had to pinpoint one reason why most outsourcing deals fail to meet client expectations is SM&G (aka Service Management and Governance).  You should have as much SM&G that you need to keep the delivery adequate and the relationship healthy but no more.  Think about how you will measure successfully delivery and how you expect the vendor to report on it. What methodology should they use? How will you periodically check their reporting? Some aspects of SM&G that get forgotten are data privacy, IP handling, financial performance, etc. When dealing with offshore providers (India, Malaysia, Philippines, China, etc.), this can get doubly complicated because many times the small to mid size providers won’t have local presence and may have communication issues. Make sure all of this is clearly thought out and documented in your contract. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Chinese Model Cities: The Chinese government has built the concept of Chinese Model Cities. These cities are locations where government encourages a specific type of product or service. When dealing with China, it is important to consider this fact and deal with organizations that deliver the product or service you want from the designated Chinese model city for that product or service. Failing to do so may lead to huge headaches.

This is not an exhaustive list but hopefully it has given you food for thought. If you have questions, feel free to contact me using the Contact Form.

Weather Trends 360 predicts weather 1 year out

Apple, Environment, IOS, Management, Risk Management, Strategy, Travelling, iPad, iPhone, technology, websitesEdward Kiledjian

My local news station weatherman seems to have a 50/50 success rating predicting the 5 day forecast. Imagine my surprise when I learned about a company called Weather Trends International that claims to provide weather prediction for up to 365 days into the future.  At first I thought this was another fly by nights hocus pocus type website, then I checked out their client list. It includes names like Walmart, Loblaws, Target, Coca Cola, Heinz and many more.

The prediction

As expected, the mechanism used to predict the weather is a closely guarded secret. What we are told is that they use a constantly refined trade secret algorithm (using statistics and cyclic patterns) and the results are checked by a team of meteorologists. For what it’s worth, the company claims an accuracy rate of 80%.

Interestingly, they provide predictions for over “720,000 locations, all 195 countries, islands and territories”.

Many professional meteorology services have contested that this is a “forecasting service” and say there is no scientific evidence that proves WTI can predict weather that far ahead.

How to use the predictions

Weather Trends International is quick to point out that the best way to use their service isn’t to determine the absolute weather 6 months out but rather to determine the best time period for your planned activities. If you’re planning a trip to sunny Mexico sometime next July or August, then you can use the tool to determine which week seems to be the hottest and driest during your window of opportunity.

The mobile app

They now offer a 0.99 IOS app that is basically a mobile front end to their free website. Interestingly, they seem to listen to their users and in newer versions of the app have added requested features like UV Index, sunrise/sunset, etc.

 

Considering the purpose of the app, I would love to a historical summary of the weather (like what WolframAlpha currently provides). Coupling the historical with their prediction would make an excellent combo.

Some of the features like animated world maps are well done but the overall app interface seems a little clumsy and not well thought out (like a date slider which doesn’t work all that well on a small iphone screen).

 This is the main screen   

This is the 10 day weather forecast screen

My tests

I tested the app using 3 week long prediction periods at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days out. My unscientific testing showed that their overall period prediction seems to be close enough.

Right now they are predicting the first “light snow” for my area on November 20 2011 (Montreal , Quebec). I will see if they hit the mark with this or not.

Who should use this?

Although the 0.99 price is low which makes the purchase decision easy, I don’t know what the value of the app is when the website is free and provides the same information. To make the app truly worthwhile, they need to add some app-only features.

Setting this point aside, this is a cool tool for anyone planning a family vacation or event. Even small to medium business owners, that can’t afford the WTI commercial product but that could benefit from weather predictions, will likely find this useful in their strategic planning process.

 Positives

  • App interface is easier to use than a Safari site for this
  • Many of the graphical features are pretty
  • Simple easy to understand interface
  • Seems to be fairly accurate

Negatives

  • I would love to have the measurement scale change depending on location (Celsius for most locations outside the US automatically)
  • Rethink some of the interface design elements to make them more small screen friendly
  • Don't expect accurate daily forecasts

Management versus Leadership

Apple, Behavior, Management, Organization, StrategyEdward Kiledjian

As people read the new authorized Steve Jobs biography, they are realizing that although he was one of the greatest thinkers of our time, he seemed to lack “management skills”. This brought up an interesting management debate about which is more important for the success of a company: management or leadership.

What is Management?

Management is the art and science of controlling people, processes and technology to deliver maximum value through the prism of corporate values and beliefs.

What is Leadership?

Leadership is the gift of vision and direction. A true leader can think outside of the proverbial box and drive the business towards a completely new and yet undiscovered direction.

Leadership without Management

In an organization with a strong leader and weak management, the vision and direction are there. The company knows exactly where the leader wants to take them, however execution is usually sloppy which may even lead to the inability to exploit an otherwise fantastic new opportunity.

Management without Leadership

In this scenario, the company will lack vision and will exploit its existing position. The company may be a lean and mean operating machine but will eventually shrivel and die because their market will become smaller and smaller.

Leadership and Management

When a company has both, they are unstoppable and Apple is a prime example. Its fearless leadership duo was lead by Steve Jobs and Jon Ive. Two incredibly talented visionaries: one created new markets and the other one ensured the products had high desirability though impeccable design.

On the other end was the management mastermind Tim Cook. Many have said Tim is the supply chain genius that crafted their unique vendor management strategy that gives Apple unique access to brand new technology for 12-18 months.

This is a great time to take a step back and evaluate your own company. Who is leading your company? Does it have a little of both?

 

Research shows that Nice Guys DO Finish Last

Behavior, Management, Money, Motivation, Organization, Persuasion, Team buildingEdward Kiledjian

If you have read any self-help books, you have undoubtedly read the adage “Nice guys finish last”. Now research from Notre Dame and Cornell Universities show how being too agreeable negatively impacts your earnings. 

More recent research from Stanford, Northwestern and Carnegie Mellon) continued on the same path showing that people who are overly caring, for overs, generally tend to make bad leaders. In particular, being overly nice generally means that you will likely fail in 2 important leadership domains: prestige and dominance. Prestige comes from sharing within their group while withholding gave the person dominance. 

The researchers said:

We predicted that contribution behavior would have opposite effects on two forms of status – prestige and dominance – depending on its consequences for the self, in-group and out-group members. When  the only way to benefit in-group members was by harming out-group members (Study 1),  contributions increased prestige and decreased dominance compared to free-riding. Adding the  option to benefit in-group members without harming out-group members (Study 2) decreased the  prestige and increased the perceived dominance of those who chose to benefit in-group members via intergroup competition. Finally, sharing resources with both in-group and out-group members decreased perceptions of both prestige and dominance compared to sharing them with  in-group members only (Study 3). Prestige and dominance differentially mediated the effects of contribution behavior on leader election, exclusion from the group, and choices of a group  representative for an intergroup competition.

Their research showed that in situations of group competition, individuals preferred having a dominant leader over a prestigious one (since the prestigious individuals were perceived as more submissive). So nice guys (the ones that share) are seem as prestigious and thus nor thought worthy of leadership during trying competitive times.

You can therefore assume that when things are going great and no major competition or risk is felt, people then prefer a prestigious boss.