According to a new Avande survey, “more than 60 percent of respondents said their employees need to develop new skills to translate big data into insights and business value.” Anders Rienhardt, head of Global Business Intelligence for the Dutch manufacturing VELUX Group, said in a recent Harvard Business Review article, “the standard way of training, where we simply explain to business users how to access data and reports, is not enough anymore. Big data is much more demanding on the user.”

Anders is not alone in his views. As a result of this new challenge, more and more businesses are developing plans to help beef up their workforce’s skills if they are to get their arms around Big Data. According to Jeanne Harris’s HBR post, “Data is Useless Without the Skills to Analyze It”, most managers believe that employees need to become:

Ready and willing to experiment

Managers and business analysts of today must now be able to apply the principles of scientific experimentation to their business. “They must know how to construct intelligent hypotheses. They also need to understand the principles of experimental testing and design, including population selection and sampling, in order to evaluate the validity of data analyses,” writes Harris.

Adept at mathematical reasoning

Take a minute and think here, how many of your managers today feel totally confident at their ability to analyze, interpret, and use numeric data? This is a skill that is going to only become increasingly important. Rienhardt explains, “business users don’t need to be statisticians, but they need to understand the proper usage of statistical methods. We want our business users to understand how to interpret data, metrics, and the results of statistical models.”

Getting the team to see the big picture

When it comes to data, it’s super easy to get too granular and miss out on the larger picture – something that Harris refers to as “data literacy”. She believes that “Data literacy skills must spread far beyond their usual home, the IT function, and become an integral aspect of every business function and activity.” For example, manufacturing giant Procter and Gamble has placed a new emphasis on developing some type of “baseline digital-skills inventory that’s tailored to every level of advancement in the organization.” This would not only help employees learn the necessary skills to analyze big data, but also give managers a broad understanding of baseline skills that their employees have.

“Tomorrow’s leaders need to ensure that their people have these skills, along with the culture, support and accountability to go with it,” says Harris. To be successful we all have to dig in and get up to our eyeballs in the complexities of analyzing large, unstructured and messy data.

Basecamp

The decade-old grand daddy of project management software, Basecamp by 37signals, received a recent a long awaited overhaul. Basecamp now offers single project pages and the ability to focus on specific items, like to-dos, in a overlaid fashion. According to author Harrison Weber of The Next Web, “Overall it [the update] is a clean and welcome change to the product, with a highly visual take on managing all the massive details that can collide into professional projects.”

Teambox

If you’re looking for a good open source collaboration app, then teambox is one worth investigating. It’s simple enough that you’ll be able to get up and running pretty quickly, yet still deep enough to offer a solid tool set for people who want to successfully collaborate on projects. Teambox includes what you would expect in a straightforward task manager, including tools for creating tasks, communicating with team members, tracking people’s time, and document sharing to name a few. However because it’s a lot less costly than other tools out there, it does lack some of the more high-end features you would see in other tools – like collating tasks and timelines to highlight possible conflicts.

Google Docs

If you’re looking for more of a document-centric collaboration solution, then Google Docs is a great tool to take advantage of. Did I mention that it is free? With Google Docs, Google creates a collaborative environment for your word processing and spreadsheet needs. One of the best features of this tool is the continuous saver – a total game changer. In addition to never having to worry about saving again, it offers real-time collaboration. Whether it’s five or fifty people (it caps out at fifty people) you and your team can easily co-edit documents at the same time.

Join.me

If you’re someone who uses or could benefit from using screen-sharing and don’t want to pay bucks to Citrix or Cisco then you may want to check out Join.me. Join.me offers free online meeting up to 250 people with screen-sharing capabilities. A “pro” version is also offered with extended functionality for $19/month. Like most of these tools it’s easy to use, allowing you to focus most of your time on getting your work done rather than being brought up to speed on another new tool.

GoToMeeting

Sometimes an email or an IM just doesn’t cut it. This is where Citrix’s GoToMeeting steps in. It’s easy to launch and even easier to distribute meeting invitations on the fly. Users can audio conference in in VoIP or by dialing a toll-free number. Once inside users are not only able to communicate with each other face to face, but also are able to share what they are seeing with one another. According to William Fenton of PCMag, “For small businesses seeking a straightforward web conferencing solution from a trusted name, GoToMeeting is your go-to-guy.”

Skype

Another oldie but a goodie when it comes to collaboration software. Skype is one of the grand masters. Having both video conferencing and screen sharing features makes Skype an excellent tool if you need to keep in touch with a geographically dispersed team. There’s something to be said about having the ability to “see” one another, even if it is only through a computer monitor.

Mindjet

Last but certainly, not least is Mindjet. I work for the company and it is my go to tool when it comes to brainstorming and project management. Plus, with the new Task App I’ve got team management on the go. Now I’m able to in for project updates and then act on them assigning and prioritizing tasks to keep my initiatives moving ahead – it’s pretty neat.

There you have it. Make 2013 the most productive year to date by going out and giving one of these great tools a try. Regardless of who you chose, you won’t be sorry.

“The logic behind productivity improvements is straightforward: make more and/or use less,” writes Erickson. While the guiding philosophy behind being more productive seems simple, it rarely ever is. Employees achieve this goal by 1) developing and adopting new management practices (such as total quality management, lean manufacturing, reengineering, and employee engagement) or 2) adopting new technology and integrating it into their work processes. Both options deliver the desired outcome. However, “historically technology adoption has been the more important determinant of longer-term productivity and growth,” says Erickson.

There’s no question that technology has helped us become more productive – just look at all the product management tools and productivity helpers out there in existence – but there’s a catch. “Technology adoption only improves productivity if it is accompanied by concurrent changes in the way work is done,” writes Erickson. When looking at large productivity gains made from 1980 to 2000, companies placed a huge investment in technology acquisition. “However, research on the returns generated by these investments found that productivity growth occurred only when the technology was accompanied by thoughtful business process innovations tailored to sector – and company-specific business processes.” In other words, technology alone does not guarantee you the desired improvements. The key is a combination of technological improvements as well as understanding how to incorporate those into key business processes.

Fast forward to today. We’re seeing a new wave tools being brought to market. Instead of the information technology tools that increased employee productivity during the 1980s and 90’s, we’re seeing the leveraging social technologies to accomplish the new productivity gains desired. While it’s easy to get swept up in something new, Erickson rightly points out that “the ability of these technologies to drive real productivity growth will depend on whether or not they are accompanied by thoughtful changes in the way work is done.” These new tools promise many business benefits delivering “significant improvements in generating, capturing, and sharing knowledge, finding helpful colleagues and information, tapping into new sources of innovation and expertise, and harnessing the “wisdom of crowds.”

There no question that today’s technologies have the potential to enable a very different level of business performance. Only time will tell if the key to unlocking this productivity is in the successful aligning of new technology with existing critical business processes.

For me, the answer to this question was Apple. Don’t worry if you didn’t get the same answer, that’s really not the point. For example Inc. author Marla Tabaka’s answer to this question was Zappos. When thinking of companies who have great corporate culture, Zappos is a pretty good case study. “Driven by ten core values which define their culture, brand, and business strategies, Zappos employees enjoy free lunches, no-charge vending machines, a company library, a nap room, and free health care,” writes Tabaka in a recent Inc. article. With 75% of their customers coming back for more, Zappos is clearly doing something right.

What can companies learn from Zappos? How about “if you want to build a company that attracts and retains loyal employees and customers, creating your own unique culture needs to be a top priority,” advises Tabaka. According to Dr. David “Doc” Vik, the founder and CEO of The Culture King, and Zappos’ chief corporate culture consultant, “Keep in mind, that within all companies, there is already a culture…But it may not be what is wanted, and many times, the culture is created by default.” So if most culture’s are created by default, how do you transform it? Well, here are five steps to help you create an unstoppable company culture straight from the culture king himself, David Vik.

1. Create a compelling vision

Within every company, groups of people need to understand what they are doing or delivering. It is only once everyone is on the same page, can all ensuing decisions and actions can be aligned to the vision. “This will help in creating and re-invention and is a guiding light or ‘North Star’ to follow and guide everyone connected to your company,” says Vik.

Vik suggests doing your best to make your vision short, memorable, and repeatable. This may seem a bit silly. However the longer the vision, the more confusing it becomes. “Long or confusing paragraphs cannot guide thoughts, decision or actions of the employees, mostly because they can’t remember or repeat it,” says Vik.

2. Determine your purpose

Vik aptly points out that, “Everyone needs a purpose in their lives; this is just as true in business.” The purpose is essentially the “why” you’re doing what you’re doing. For example, Vik says that “If your company’s purpose is only about making money, employees won’t stand behind it for long.” This is why crafting a purpose that is not only compelling, but also gives employees a great reason to work at your company is so important. It will attract passionate employees who want to fulfill your company’s purpose.

“If you create a purpose that is a benefit to humankind, not just your company, you will not only attract employees, but retain them as well, which will produce the same affect with your customers,” says Vik.

3. Align your business model

Take a good look at your business model. Is it in alignment with the wants, needs and demands of the customer? Is it aligned with all the possibilities and opportunities out there?

“If your company’s business model is deeply entrenched in hard up-selling and long contracts of you don’t treat the customer like the matter, you may want to make changes to align with the wants, needs and demands of the customer,” says Vik. Today’s customers have more choices than ever before, and companies must evolve.

4. Create unique/ WOW factors

Unique/WOW factors for your company may be the single most important thing in business today. Being able to differentiate your company from the rest is quickly becoming an important factor in getting and retaining quality employees. “Having a unique/WOW factor should not only be for what you sell, but how you deliver it…Be different! If everyone is building fences, dig a tunnel!” says Vik. This is even more true for a commodity or a service, as in those cases what you may be selling may not be all that unique to begin with.

5. Clarify your values

Values let everyone else out there know what you’re all about. When coming up with your company’s values, it makes sense then to get everyone’s input as they will need to embody and live by them. Vik advises “Tak[ing] a good look around inside your company and see what the current values are. If they are not what you desire, create values that will guide the people and the company toward success.”

For example, if you’ve noticed that your company isn’t the best at getting back to people you wouldn’t want to state a value as “we communicate when convenient.” Instead, you’re probably going to want to create a value like “timely communication.” This way you’re attracting those that expect timely communication and over time, it will become self-managing, while helping your employees and company reach their full potential.

Take some time when creating these these five structures. Remember they are the foundation from which the entire corporate culture is based upon. Once the structure is set, allow the people in your organization build upon it. Your culture will then be the blueprint of “What”, “Why” and “How” you do things — now, and long into the future.

As Ward puts it, “it’s useful to ask these four questions that get to the bottom of common shortcomings, and then look at how to address them.” Amen.

Is your digital and social truly integrated?
Ward believes that “The world of marketing is moving towards a “converged media” model.” Today, in marketing, we’re seeing the strategic blending of earned, owned, and paid media. Marketers have long talked about how this this comprehensive approach is a logical next step in the natural progression of marketing. “For years, many have discussed this integrate marketing approach, and this is not finally accelerating with the digital and social consumer, particularly for brands that target Millennials (or “Gen Y”),” says Ward. Brands that take advantage of this converged media model are the ones who “collaborate, share, and even co-create content,” says Ward. But it’s difficult. The largest problem to achieving this is silos. Ward points out that “They [silos] exist between digital and other departments, and they even exist within digital teams.”

Agile practices such as daily scrum meetings help break down these silos. These meetings help foster closer cross-departmental work across different stakeholders. This activity is a primary driver to help bring these silos closer together to make converged media happen. Teams can then generate real-time data across media types, and with the proper analytics in place, create TLC loops (test, learn, commit) allowing for multiple iterations based off of data learnings. Ultimately, this leads to increased site visitors, more effective ads, and hopefully more sales

Do you have an active listening program?
Given that the feedback loop plays such an integral role in agile marketing, it’s important to have an ongoing active listening program. The two key words here are ongoing and active. Being truly agile means continually and always working towards the next iteration. To be successful, you have to be able to respond to customers and market conditions, which “can change by the day, hour, or even minute” says Ward. “Research initiatives, programs, and snapshots all have their place, but the real insight lies in the moment, which means you need to have a system in place to continually listen.” All this translates to having analytics and reporting capabilities that create easily digestible insights that help guide the next decision and action. An ongoing listening system provides the foundation for creating and starting brand conversations. It helps you and your team be more agile as it allows you to learn and immediately iterate based off of those learnings.

Do you substitute ongoing TLC for a “campaign by campaign” approach?
Traditionally marketers planned out activities three, six, maybe even twelve months ahead of time. This strategy resulted in a “leap of faith” as activities and plans were doubtlessly based on data that had since become irrelevant or dated. Agile replaces this “swing for the fences in hopes of hitting a grand slam” approach with fewer, smaller-scale campaigns. Ask famous Oakland Athletics’ manager, Billy Beane, baseball games are won by getting runners on base. It’s not about those impressive walk-off grand slams. So Ward advises compressing “your campaign-by-campaign approach [in] to one that’s always on and evolving, you’re more likely to benefit from what agile marketing nirvana promises to deliver.”

Do you have limited links to the rest of your organization?
True agile means going beyond your individual department. Social marketers stand to gain by including cross functional team members who provide data and insight from the always-on listening system and provide feedback, learning and actions that benefit the rest of the organization. Then marketing can deliver to really represent the external customer, understand the marketplace, and embed itself as a fuel for growth.

Not surprising agile can have its largest impact between marketing and product development where agile is already widely understood and used. Beyond synching department initiatives, the opportunity for it is much larger. Agile flattens large vertical reporting structures to encourage sharing, teamwork and constant development yielding better products and no to market strategies.

Ask any organization that adopted agile at any level and they can point to quick and long term successes. Answering these four questions can help you’re team improve and be more successful.

The bigger question is can you afford not to?

“It starts with acknowledging that we have a problem,” says Doug Klein, an Associate Partner at Rosetta, in a recent post. Most marketers have the view that social media is just another channel for marketers to utilize in spreading their content. “We need to instead think of it [social media] as the influencer of all channels,” points out Klein. He’s right. Part of the power of social media is that “referral from a friend”. We may no longer trust marketing messages, but we all still trust our friends. With social tools, businesses are able to tap into that collective voice and listen to what people are saying about their products and those of their competitors. By actively listening, it gives them unique insights to help marketers write more compelling content for their audience. Today’s companies are then able to capture the most talked about areas of interest and use them to help shape not only the content on their websites and customer support forums, but also to include them as features – something that Marketo has successfully mastered by introducing over sixty features suggested by their online community.

Due to the digital ADD that we’ve all developed over the past several years, more and more organizations are finding themselves searching for that one-on-one conversation. “As a result, tradeshows you attend today have become meccas of new social media participation that remind us of that simpler, more participatory age,” says Klein. For example, IBM’s October Information on Demand event created a template for how real connections can be made with attendees through “social concierges” equipped with digital devices connecting with attendees encouraging and populating social content that made the event feel more personal. So how can businesses reconnect and reestablish those one-on-one conversations and ultimately rebuild that trust with their audience.

“The best way to do this is illustrated by brands that return to their roots and remember who they’re in business to serve,” says Klein. To better illustrate what he means here, let’s look at three companies that really understand what it means to speak the language of their customers. GetBackToScratch.com is a micro-support community run by a food service equipment manufacture. They honor the artistry and passion of cooks making food like mom and grandma did – from scratch. Cisco is another great example. They do a good job connecting the heritage of the importance of networking to larger societal issues through its blog, Connected Life Exchange. Lastly Intel; Intel has done an excellent job connecting with individuals utilizing Facebook and with their recent slogan: “What makes your computer special is what it makes possible – Go Do Something Wonderful.”

The moral here is that there’s a huge opportunity to fail in social if we continue to treat it like just another channel to push marketing content through. Social requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat customers with special attention. It’s about including their thoughts in the offerings we make, to being truly interested in what they have to say in the real work, to communicating about the things they care about – with a vocabulary that illustrates they can trust us.

One painfully obvious reason why companies are now developing and rolling out social media training programs is to avoid the social media disaster. Remember what happened to Domino’s Pizza? Three years after that awful video was posted to YouTube, when you Google search Domino’s Pizza it’s still the fifth result. As a result, companies like Unisys, Sprint, and HP are creating social media training programs to avoid these types of social media headaches, as well as show employees how leveraging social media can be a valuable business tool which can increase their performance and productivity.

In a recent interview with Forbes Sprint’s social media manager, Sara Folkerts, elaborated about how today’s employees are “often confused about how to properly use the company’s internal social network.” According to Folkerts, in some of her experiences with the company’s own internal social network, Sprint Space, she noticed “that employees seemed to lose sight of the standard rules of engagement one they got online.” She points out that some employee’s “social-media blind spots” became pretty apparent, particularly as they were typically called out for inappropriate behavior. As a result, Sprint realized that they need to establish a specific set of social media guidelines.

Guidelines, however, are only the first step. What companies really need today is the existence of a formalized social media literacy program writes Meister. “Offering social media training creates a team of advocates who are equipped to represent their employer online,” says Gloria Burke, Director of Knowledge and Collaboration at Unisys. “When you give them the training, you’re empowering them to be more confident and effective in what they are sharing,” says Burke. This said, implementing a social media training program isn’t a walk in the park, so luckily Meister supplies five guidelines to help you do it right:

1. Start early

“At Unisys, new hires are briefed on social media policies practically before the ink on their contracts is even dry,” says Meister. The company has intentionally made training start on day one of a new hire’s time at Unisys. “We start at the very day of hire with our social media policies and will soon be incorporating a new video on how to engage with social media into the new hire process,” says Gloria Burke. Establishing this type of training sends new hires a message that the company’s emphasis on social media is not just lip service; it’s a legitimate focus for all employees and needs to start on day one.

2. Establish a branded program for training

“Employees will aspire to amazing things when they feel aligned to a brand. This includes the company brand as well as the brand associated with employee training,” writes Meister. At Sprint, the company has dubbed their internal employee social media training program Sprint Ninja. Sprint employees who volunteer for the Sprint Ninjas program complete a two-hour workshop in order to receive their Ninja certificate, but the training does end with the workshop. Graduates then enter into a community that is continuously engaged in discussion about how best to use social media to advocate for the company.

3. Be specific and explicit about what you want

“For many people, the thought of fusing ‘social’ with ‘work’ conjures a hazy gray area intimidating in its impreciseness,” points out Meister. This was the case at Sprint. Even after the company created the Ninjas, some of its employees still wonders what exactly to say and share. So Meister suggests helping them out a little bit. Sprint does this by posting suggested tweets and status updates regularly through its internal site’s blog, which the Ninjas and other employees can access throughout the day. Additionally, “when employees tweet on behalf of the company, they are encouraged to use the disclaimer ‘donating my status to sprint’ ahead of the tweet,” says Meister. This helps reassure employees, as it helps them mix social with work while keeping them distinct. It helps them feel secure that they are doing the right thing when they pass along information to their friends and family.

4. Gamification to engage and reward employees

Even though we all enjoy social media, it does represent another level of responsibility for employees. So managers must try to encourage employees to stick with it. They must consider how gamification can be used to help engage, recognize, and reward the achievements of those who complete, and subsequently use, their social media training. Hewlett Packard’s Social Media & Digital Content Lead, Alex Flagg, believes the success of HP’s social media training is owed in large part to its use of gamification. “The addictive nature of gamification, with badges, points, a leaderboard and ways to share all of this inside and outside the company, is highly motivating and quite honestly needed to encourage our employees to compete this type of mandatory social media training.”

5. Continual improvement

Just as its important to school employees in social media, it’s as important to for businesses to expand social media training into a social media community that engages continuously through an online platform. That way, training doesn’t end with the workshop, but continues organically as a collaborative process. “Management must listen to employees’ experiences with what is and isn’t working in the social realm and what customers are saying about the product or service. And they must be willing to adapt based on that feedback,” says Meister.

Social media training has quickly become a top priority for companies. Millennials are already accustomed to the ease that social media brings to collaborative work – from group projects using Google +, sharing documents in Google Drive, to discussing topics in private Facebook groups. In other words, they are using these tools anyway and forward-looking companies must recognize and that stay ahead of that trend.

According to a post by Andrew McAfee most new technologies have a significant problem with adoption. Makes sense. We’ve all experienced this one before – the dread of having to learn a new tool and the annoyances that accompany it. What you may not know is that McAfee quantified this phenomenon and named it the 9x email problem. According to McAfee, “the average person will underweight the prospective benefits of a replacement technology for it by about a factor of three, and overweight by the same factor everything they’re being as to give up by not using email.” This is why, for the most of us, this type of a change can feel insurmountable.

So just how did email become the king of electronic communication? “One of our assumptions is that email is easier to use than the alternatives,” writes James Dellow in a recent post. However, email hasn’t always had it this easy. In the early days of email, it faced a number of challenges that hindered its adoption. For example, some of those early issues incurred were the lack of interoperability between different email systems, cost of these early systems, competition for easier to use tools, and the lack of usability and functionality of these early tools. In 1987, David Buerger wrote in an InfoWorld piece that “email systems were still too hard to use and lacked the advanced features users needed. However, he predicted: ‘I believe E-Mail will earn a berth in everyone’s bag of indispensable business tools once these problems are solved.”

Interoperability was probably the biggest barrier to the adoption of email early on. However, with the development of the Internet and the associated networking technologies helped establish some level of standardization. Once a standard was set, email became indispensable. “Once a two-lane road for store-and-forward messages between individuals, today’s E-mail links departments within companies. It links companies with suppliers, customers, consultants and even the press,” wrote Brownell Charlstrom in a 1990 issue of CIO magazine.

“For many people, their preference for email relates not just to the ability to communicate but the familiar interface it offers,” says Dellow. You see as features became standardized in email clients, so did their interfaces. Today, users can open up any email client (Outlook, Yahoo Mail, GMail) and pretty quickly and easily get themselves up and running. “Email is no longer just used for direct communication between people, but has become a universal inbox for many different types of communication, alerts, and notifications,” says Dellow. We’re seeing more and more that other enterprise information systems – like document management and CRM tools – being integrated into email clients like Outlook. Also, as social continues to increase its presence in our daily routine and play a larger role in the enterprise, it’s not a far stretch of the imagination that enterprise email solutions will need to adapt – as shown by where IBM is heading.

There is no doubt that email will remain popular and will continue to be an important interface for knowledge workers. It’s this evolution of email that has made and will continue to make it an integral tool for employees. These new enterprise social tools can learn a thing or two from email if they are to become as important a tool as email is today. For example, right now users need interoperability between the various enterprise social systems that exist today, and some degree of user interface standardization much like what he have with email today. I believe that while we’ve heard a lot of talk about one displacing the other, this probably won’t be the case. In fact what we are already seeing and will continue to see in the future is the forming of a strong symbiotic relationship between the two, as knowledge workers develop the skills to leverage the power of both.

Today, I wanted to try and help all team leaders improve. We all can be all starts, sometimes all it takes is a little bit of help. So here are five tips courtesy of the blog, Careerealsim, that we should all focus on in our efforts to become better project managers and team leaders.

1. Understand Project Deliverables

The project manager is the ultimate person responsible for both gathering and understanding what is needed for a successful project. What you may not realize is that they are also tasked with defining and communicating project success. It is their job to make sure that the criteria for project success is clearly defined and that all the results are measurable. These must be delivered up-front so that team leaders can successfully get team buy-in. Once all the requirements are agreed upon it’s up to create and maintain an overall plan and schedule.

2. Assign Tasks According to Strengths

A team leader may be working with a predetermined team, or have the ability and responsibility of assembling a team. In either scenario, team leaders must understand the talents, the strengths, and the weaknesses of each of their individual team members. Assigning the right task to the best team member is critical for project success. You can imagine what happens when leaders make incorrect pairings. Even the best of teams can run aground if the team leader fails to match up the tasks according to teammate’s strengths.

3. Take Ownership and Lead

Effective project managers take ownership for project deliverables. They have to use a wide range of leadership skills to influence and motivate the people involved. The must coach team members, as well as inspire confidence in their management of the project. Team leaders also are responsible for ensuring that the lines of communication are always open and that team dynamics are positive.

4. Keep the Project on Track

Probably priority number one for most team leaders. This is the area where ineffective project managers typically fall short. A good way to help you stay on top of your projects is by establishing milestone reviews. They are a great way to keep track of deadlines and deliverables. Falling behind on a milestone should be viewed as a red flag that if gone untreated could put the entire project at risk. During these reviews, the project leader must also have the foresight to recognize and predict possible future roadblocks that might put the project at risk down the road.

5. Assess and Reflect

A team leader’s role is not finished when the project is completed. No, after a project is completed and delivered it’s important for the project leader to take some time and reflect on the project. What worked, what didn’t, what could be improved for next time? A good idea during this time is to meet once more with your team and solicit their feedback. This process should create a set of actionable ideas that can be used to improve the next similar project. A quick tip: savvy project managers try to keep the tone of these meetings light and positive by emphasizing the value of the team’s contribution.

Becoming an all-star project manager isn’t rocket science. We all can do it. By utilizing these several tips next time you’re managing a project you will see that your team will produce better results and you’ll be seen as one of those all-stars we all strive to be.

The advancements in technology over the past decade seem to have magnified both extremes of the managerial spectrum. As we continue to integrate technology further into our work, it appears to make good managers better and poor manager even worse. Schrage points out that technology has seemed to “make managerial control freaks even freakier and the empowerers more empowering.” For example, the rise and recent proliferation of social media platforms inside corporations has made it super easy for obsessive-compulsive leaders to fixate on their staff. However, the same tools have made it easier for trusting leaders to extend their trust. Schrage illustrates his point with the following example. At one global IT firm, a project manager famous for being incredibly picky beyond belief created an intranet crawler that alerted him to any email discussing changes in schedules or delivery dates. Any hint that someone might slip up and blow a deadline or have something be completed earlier than expected was flagged, immediately drawing his attention. It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see that this level of micromanagement ended up driving most people to use their own, personal email accounts to share information about project status. As a result, instead of successfully pulling a team together this one man’s surveillance literally drove dozens off the company network.

But, it’s not all bad. For the trusting managers out there, advancements in technology are allowing them to place a greater trust in their teams. For example, according to Schrage, “a senior account with a reputation for mentoring regularly sends links and recommendations to her people via her tablet inviting them to follow-up if they need support on the business issues they raise.” Additionally, new tools have allowed her to make it a point to respond to any and all inquiries from her people before 9pm saying, “It’s easy for me to share with them and I try to make it easy for them to share with me.”

Despite organizations’ best efforts to create “best practices” with these new tools, a key point that is often overlooked is the simple fact that the people who use these tools are well just that… people. Each of them brings their own set of unique faults and habits. So, the same technology that allows a process to be standardized and scaled is exactly the same technology that lets an inveterate micromanager aggressively assure that everyone’s complying with the rules every day. If organizations are not careful and conscious, the way they assign accountability can easily invite the worst aspects of a meddler’s temperament to materialize, quickly blurring the fine line between “trust” and “verify”. According to Schrage, the simple solution is for every manager to “ask themselves: What’s the mix between messages that might be interpreted as management, micromanagement and mentoring? Am I giving in to temptations that will corrode trust? Or am I using these technologies in a way that brings out my better managerial self?”

One of the largest problems business face today is that they “operate in an environment that does not encourage collaboration, even if they say they do,” says Fauscette. Most companies have evolved to the point where they’ve ended up placing a great deal of structure on the individual rather than the team. For example, workers are typically evaluated on individual performance. Similarly, individual excellence is one of the major paths to career success. “Incentives are built around excelling as an individual, recognition generally comes from individual effort, and in general organizational structure has not encouraged employees to work beyond their group, division or department,” says Faucette. If you are unable to change the culture, you will never change behavior.

Usually change is a slow process. It involves many different activities across many different departments. Approaching this change in a formal, project atmosphere is very important to help increase the chances of success. With that in mind, Fauscette has several recommendations that can help facilitate the necessary culture shift:

• Executive Sponsorship – Ok look, I know this seems like a bit of a no-brainer but it’s true. Nothing kills a project faster than not having executive buy-in. This said, executives can’t just pay it lip service “they must demonstrate that they too, are approaching work differently,” points out Fauscette. For example, if new tools are rolled-out, executives not only have to be on them, but also have to be visibly using them.
• Incentivise and Reward Collaborative Behavior – “Change incentives and rewards to encourage collaborative behavior, not individual accomplishment. If you do not do this, you will not get a shift in culture and you will not get the behavior you want,” says Fauscette. Think of it this way: the way in which you reward your employees says a lot about what’s important to executives.
• Clearly Explain the Value Add – One of the best ways to help get individuals to change is by clearly explaining “what’s in it for them.” Fauscette suggests using as many use cases and scenarios where collaboration is necessary as you can. Once you have some case studies created, be sure to incorporate them into this plan. Using stories about collaborative situations and expected outcomes helps make it real for employees.
• Actively Solicit Feedback – Be sure to ask for employee feedback and more importantly, take action on it. Or in other words, become a listener. Remember that crowdsourcing is a powerful tool.

Your ultimate goal is to take this culture and make it a reality. To facilitate this, collaborative companies need to implement some type of social collaboration tool set. As part changing corporate behaviors, it’s important to get as many employees as possible using the new tool as possible. And just as Fauscette had tips to help culture change, he has some great pointers to help get employees using these new tools as well.

• Identify Champions – Identify and empower champions, allow them to act as mentors to others in their organization and across the company. Fauscette aptly points out that “Having people who visibly exhibit the behavior you desire is very powerful and will help people learn the new patterns of behavior.”
• Establish the New Tools as Information Centers – “Use the new social tools/ enterprise social network (ESN) to provide the only source for critical company information so that employees will have to use them, go to them regularly.” Use these tools to create an atmosphere where employees feel left out if they don’t participate.
• Provide Employee Education – Another seemingly obvious suggestion, but it’s an important one. Learning a new tool can be intimidating, so make sure you provide some times where employees can be brought up to speed and educated. It will also provide a way to chance to let your champions shine in explaining how to use the tool as well as what they will get out of using it.
• Integrate with Existing Enterprise Systems – “Embedding collaboration inside employees daily workflow is a very powerful way to demonstrate value for the employee and is a best practice for building a collaborative infrastructure”, writes Fauscette. It goes back the previous point of making these new tools an information center.

Collaboration has been one of the largest themes we’ve seen this year. In fact, according to a recent CIO Magazine piece, in the first half of 2012 collaboration software along with CRM virtualization software have shown the strongest grown in the software industry. Software alone won’t guarantee the results most businesses are looking for, couple it with the tips outlined above to really help you shift your corporate culture and truly become a more collaborative organization.

According to a recent Harvard Business Review post, “More than 100 studies have affirmed the connection between employee engagement and performance, but the Towers Watson 2012 Global Workforce study – 32,000 employees across 30 countries – makes the most powerful, bottom line case for the connection between how we feel at work and how we perform.”

The recent Towers Watson study concludes that the traditional definition of engagement – the willingness to invest discretionary effort on the job – is “no longer sufficient to fuel top performance in a world of increasing demand,” says Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project – a firm that specializes in fueling a more engaged workforce. According to the study, to be successful today businesses need to establish a work environment that more fully energizes employees by promoting their physical, emotional and social well-being. “Many employers are pursuing a variety of wellness efforts, typically focused on giving incentives or penalties to people who embrace healthy behaviors like exercise, good diet or effective management or a chronic illness,” the report concludes. While these are important, to sustain that much needed energy, employers must go beyond these core programs and embrace the notion of workplace energy on a far broader plane.

In a broader study of fifty global companies conducted by Towers Watson, they found that companies with low engagement scores had an average operating margin of just under 10 percent. Those with high “traditional” engagement fared slightly better with average operating margins of 14 percent. However, businesses with the highest “sustainable engagement” scores had an average one-year operating margin of a whopping 27 percent. “Forty percent of employees with low engagement scores said they were likely to leave their employers over the next two years, compared to 24 percent of traditionally engaged employees, and just 18 percent of employees with the highest ‘sustainable engagement’ scores,” says Schwarts. So what can employers do?

What this means is that organizations must create policies and practices that “make is possible for employers to better manage their workload, live more balanced lives and exercise greater autonomy around how, when, and where they get their work done.” Schwarts believes that establishing policies that are focused on flexibility and working remotely are key cornerstones to developing a more energized workforce. He is also a strong proponent of creating organization-wide boundaries around the length of meetings and the hours during which people are expected to respond to email.

The idea here is for leaders to start seeing themselves as energy officers. Energy is contagious and “The manager is at the heart of what we might think of as a personal employee ecosystem,” the Towers Watson study concludes, “shaping individual experience…day in and day out.” Among sustainable engaged employees, 74 percent in the study believed that senior leaders held a sincere interest in their well-being, compared to 44 percent of traditionally engaged employees, and only 18 percent of disengaged employees. “No single behavior more viscerally and reliably influences the quality of people’s energy than feeling valued and appreciated by their supervisor,” says Schwarts.

For individual employees, it’s important to take charge and responsibility for their experience and not fall into “victim mode.” “Employees willing to take more responsibility for how they manage and take care of themselves – regardless of the sort of organization and supervisor they work for – end up feeling better and performing better than those who see themselves as victims,” writes Schwarts.

Need some more ideas on how to reengage your workforce? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Check out this post on the engaged worker for some more great ideas on how to reengage your workforce.

1. Use Relevant Labels on Your Images

Great Pinterest marketing really beings with the images you publish on your blog or website. Ray recommends one of the first things that you need to do is to come up with relevant labels for the images that you publish. When someone pins an image from your website or blog post, a label is automatically generated in that image’s description. “When you give your image a good name, it’ll automatically have a good description when someone pins it,” says Ray. I realize that this may be time consuming, but Ray believes that this is the minimum you should do when posting images on your site.

2. Write a Test Message on top of Your Images

Take advantage of the entire image. Because so much real estate on the site is dedicated to images, it’s important for individuals to take full advantage of it. The best way to maximize this is to be sure to add text to the top of your images. Ray points out that “If you visit the popular section on Pinterest, you’ll notice that most of the images have a description in the description box, directly on the image itself or on both.” He advises out that often a plain image alone may not make the most sense. If you take advantage of some of that empty space inside by placing a text description, people will not only see a cool image, but also immediately understand what the image is about. Take a look at the example below.

Wong Ching Ya wrote 19+ Facebook Timeline Features and Resources You Should Know! on the cover image of the article. Now, when you come across the pin on Pinterest you won’t have to look at the description to know what the image is about. Two great tools to accomplish this are Snagit from TechSmith and Gimp.

3. Brand Your Image

“When you add your business name, website or logo, you’re also making your images more effective,” says Ray. It’s always a good idea to try and brand your image in some sort of way. Whether it’s by incorporating your company’s logo, some form of type (like a Twitter handle), or in some other way, it’s always a good idea to try and tie your images back to your organization. This way you’re not only exposing your branding to immediate fans, but to others as well when they view the repins.

4. A Little Encouragement Can Go a Long Way

“Some people decide to use Pinterest cautiously to avoid possible copyright issues,” says Ray. While there is certainly a bit of a gray area surrounding the copyrights of images uploaded to Pinterest, there are some things you can do to help spur the sharing of your images. For example, adding a simple message like “Feel free to pin” or “Feel free to share on Pinterest” is a good way to help get people to overcome their concerns and start sharing your images. Additionally, studies have shown that when you place a strong call to action in posts on social media platforms like Facebook, it actually increases the number of likes or shares you get. So, it’s not a stretch to think that trying this tactic on Pinterest will have similar results.

5. Keep Descriptions Short

Creating beautiful images is only half the battle. It’s also important to pin your images with a description. That said, a big, long description doesn’t do you any good. In fact, it’s proven that if you keep your image descriptions somewhere between the 200-300 character range you’ll have the best chance of getting a repin. Not a whole lot of space, I know. This makes it even more important to write a good description. According to Ray, “A good description that tells the story behind the image can capture followers and make your pins more shareable.”

So there you have it, five good tips to help you get the most out of your Pinterest images. Have any good tips of your own? I’d love to hear them. Share them with me below.

1. Preparation

Just as teams prepare for games, students study for tests, and musicians rehearse before a show, mentors too should take some time and do a bit of prep work before getting started. According to Lynda Bourne in her recent article from PMHut, mentors should “Take time to understand the other person and pay proactive attention to building early chemistry and engagement with each other in the first two to three meetings.” By doing some initial preparation, mentors will be able to gain a deeper understanding of their mentees and learn what drives them. Putting in some early effort and establishing some chemistry between you and your mentee will pay large dividends down the road.

2. Know Your Responsibilities

Both the mentor and the mentee have their own set of unique responsibilities. The mentee is responsible for sharing what they would like to get out of from their mentor. For example, the best way to achieve this is by having the mentee take responsibility for setting up robust objectives and goals that will help them progress in their career. Mentees may not know the exact details of your goals, but you must have objectives that are specific and (most importantly) measurable. This way you and your mentor will be able to track your progress towards achieving those goals.

Similarly, mentors have to take the responsibility of establishing an environment of strong trust, candor, and confidentiality. Mentors must be adaptive. They must actively listen to the real needs of the mentee and help incorporate them into the process.

3. Incorporate Feedback Loops

Just like any major program, incorporating a feedback loop is a must. Bourne suggests establishing “loops of preparation and negotiation to facilitate the confident application and trial by the mentee of strategies and desired practices formulated in the mentoring sessions.” In other words, it’s important to have regularly scheduled meetings. It gives both parties a way to discuss and analyze the execution of ideas and strategies previously agreed upon. Establishing routine communication is an excellent way for both parties to talk about what is working and what needs tweaking for the next round. Here Bourne points out that “any perceived failure to trial, or avoidance, needs to be pursued vigorously by the mentor…A mentoring relationship without a bit of ‘tough love’ in the advanced stages is unusual.” So be sure to both actively listen, as well as constantly try to stretch your mentees.

4. Know when to Move On

Just as it’s important to establish goals and objectives in the beginning, it’s also important to know when it’s over and to move on. “The ultimate test of a mentoring relationship is whether it reaches the goal set by the mentee and he or she not only achieves the outcome, but is also confident in their ability to handle it into the future,” says Bourne. This is why establishing metrics to help track the overall progression to achieving those goals is so important. Then, once all of the key goals or objectives have been reached, the job is done. The mentoring process is complete, and it’s time for both parties to move on.

As with every relationship it takes two to make it work. By using these four tips, both parties involved will get more out of their mentoring efforts. So give them a try and be impressed!

“With the advent of social, communications have become a two-way street. Brands like Kodak, Zagats and Netflix that don’t connect successfully with their customer and employee ecosystems risk bankruptcy,” says Fidelman. He believes that companies that haven’t fully embraced social are not only hurting themselves but also taking on a lot of unnecessary risk. For example Fidelman points out that, “Businesses like Netflix that continue to rely on traditional arm’s-length relationships with customers and who try to dictate the relationship rather than participate in it will find it increasingly difficult to succeed.” He also points out that brands like Netflix are significantly hurt by social media’s effects primarily because they aren’t listening to their customers – as shown by their failed attempt to split the company’s streaming and DVD rental service.

Fidelman believes that the future of social will focus on connecting people with people, and people with information. It will be all about getting the right person for the right opportunity at the right time, which will yield the best result possible. That makes a lot of sense. If you look at today’s enterprise social tools this is what most are already promising. Curious as to who’s doing it right? Fidelman points to IBM. “IBM is an excellent example of where we’re headed. The company encourages the use of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs to support their sales, communication, marketing and recruiting efforts,” says Fidelman. The company’s had pretty good success. Their experiments into social have led to developing a set of social business conduct guidelines to help govern their employees’ social interactions.

IBM is also experimenting with and utilizing gamification and crowdsourcing to help reduce the costs of internal projects. They employ social analytics to help turn all the chatter into business insight and use it to base recommendations as to what an organization needs to do better its financial results.

Fidelman also offers up several strategies for businesses who want to be more forward-thinking and capitalize on social (and who doesn’t want that?) He points out that “The public relations soapbox doesn’t cut it anymore; communications are now a two way street.” This means that companies now more than ever, must work with thought leaders to generate open communication. Today’s customers no longer have the trust that they used to. They don’t trust your advertising. Instead today’s customers place their trust in recommendations from friends or individuals that they’ve been following on social media for years. For businesses, it means making it a priority build relationships with their influencers. Once connected, it’s important for the two to work together to help educate target customers about the pain that they are currently experiencing, pain that your product can help solve.

Ward also suggests companies should work at building internal online communities. “To support an adaptive organization, employees need to connect, share, and expand on ideas.” He believes that building an internal online community is a critical part of becoming a more social, adaptive organization. “Your company’s employees must have the ability to share insight with each other easily and visibly,” says Fidelman.

There you have it. Developing a social media plan is only growing in importance, and as you can see if you and your organization don’t have one in place, then odds are you’re missing out.

“Every project manager and team leader wants to direct a team of motivated people. And many team leaders probably know that the most powerful forms of motivation — autonomy, mastery and purpose — center around self-actualization,” writes Lynda Bourne in a post off of the project management blog, the Project Management Institute. One can never underestimate the power of motivation. A motivated team can deliver results that far surpass expectations, which is why today I want talk a little bit about some ways to help managers make sure that they are doing the best job possible in maintaining a motivated team while on a project.

1. Comprehension

Make sure the person assigned to “their” task understands what is being asked of them. It’s important to communicate not only task expectations, but also how individual success will be measured. Additionally, team leaders should make an effort to be always asking their team questions, and more importantly listening to their suggestions. This helps team members develop a sense of ownership associated with autonomy as well as, helps get team member buy in for the project.

2. Acknowledgement

We all like to feel like we’ve accomplished something in our workday. According to Bourne, “Facilitating this feeling is part management — minimizing interruptions and diversions — and part communication.” It’s important for managers to acknowledge team members’ progress on a regular basis and, as Bourne points out, “accidentally” catch one doing something right. Managers typically note and correct the negative (errors, mistakes, etc…) so, it’s a good idea to try and balance this out by acknowledging some of the positives. Bourne recommends keeping this as a daily process, as a means to keep the team motivated and focused.

3. Purpose

Change is an inevitable aspect of project management, and it’s up to team leaders to maintain a sense of purpose throughout a project’s lifecycle. “The challenge usually comes when you have to move a project team member to another role or change his or her objectives,” says Bourne. As you can imagine, this can easily frustrate that team member and disrupt the group’s rhythm. This can be particularly devastating if he or she has developed a sense of purpose around the overall project. If you simply instruct people to change, you run the risk of damaging or destroying that motivation you have worked so hard to create. Instead, Bourne recommends communicating the following four points:

1. The problem with the current situation, and the consequences of not changing.
2. The reason the proposed change has been preferred over the other available options.
3. The expected benefits from adopting the change.
4. The contribution the person can make while achieving the new objective.

This doesn’t have to be a complex process. As long as you clearly communicate those four points it should ease the pain that typically accompanies change.

Making a conscious effort to maintain a motivated team is always a good call. A motivated team accomplishes more, works harder, and is viewed as a role model for the rest of the organization. I mean, who doesn’t want to be seen as a role model? So, make sure you invest in the extra time to motivating your team; it will be repaid in much more than better team performance.

According to a Fast Co Design article by Daniel Sobol and Toby Bottorf, the key to developing killer customer service begins on a snowy street in Russia, a short distance from Red Square. This is where director Konstantin Stanislavsky helped found the Moscow Art Theater in 1898. It’s here where Stanislavsky turned Western drama and acting techniques and training on their head. Stanislavski believed that the true magic of theater came only when an audience felt as if the characters on stage were living out the story, instead of reciting a memorized script. To achieve this, Stanislavski used techniques of improvisation in rehearsal to create performances so real they felt improvised themselves.

How does all this relate to corporate customer service? Well according to Sobol and Bottorf, “The best services are also the ones that feel improvised.” It turns out that “Customers respond poorly to those that feel robotic, automatic, or overly rehearsed. They want to be treated like a person and know that their situation is being handled based on their specific needs in the moment.” So, if companies really want to turn customer support into a competitive advantage, they may want to take some tips from Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theater. If businesses can teach (and more importantly apply) some of the valuable lessons Stanislavsky preached about actor training, then they will be able to design a better service experience.

Loosen the script

One of the most renowned playwright of the Moscow Art Theater was Anton Pavloich Chekhov. If you look at his plays, you’ll notice that they all seem underwritten. “Simply reading the scripts, characters can seem preoccupied and trivial, and many readers find the plot, frankly, quite dull” point out Sobol and Bottorf. By not constraining his actors, Checkhov’s believed it would help create a more powerful connection with the audience. This way the play would seem to be unfolding in the most realistic way possible, instead of it looking like actors reciting memorized scripts.

What this means for businesses is “The best script for a service should be similarly underwritten, in order to leave space for action and improvisation by managers and service agents,” say Sobol and Bottorf. Let’s look at an example. Fortune magazine interviewed American Express EVP of customer service, Jim Bush, who explained the philosophy behind the company’s customer service shift: “We converted from a robotic, scripted environment to a conversational environment that brings the personality to life and brings one-to-one connections, which is what ultimately builds and sustains relationships.” The results have nee nothing short of spectacular for Amex – winning best customer service for the last six consecutive years.

Train to improvise

“If we are to deliver good services, we need to permit our staff to be comfortable enough to react and respond in the moment.” Like actors rehearsing for a play, it’s important to train customer service staff to improvise. This strategy prepares individuals for that inevitable scenario where a script won’t provide much help. Sobol and Bottorf suggest incorporating role playing in customer support training as a way to help employees prepare. “Playing out scenarios — not scripts — equips staff to understand how to react honestly to any situation and develop strong relationships with guests.”

Know your role, your character, your brand

Being effective at going off script, requires a clear and strong understanding of the guardrails – the parameters in which you’re allowed to work. Actors improvise within a clear set of constraints: their role, their environment, and the established world of the play. Companies should provide the same guidelines for their customer service reps. “The company brand provides these guardrails. Understanding the personality of the brand helps create the world within which the service agent can improvise,” says Sobol and Bottorf. To assist in identifying the personality of a brand, the two suggests a simple exercise of asking employees “If this product/service were a person, what would their personality traits be?” By going through such an exercise, really helps flush out how people view key important brand aspects.

If empowering customer service agents to go off script helps create the best customer experience possible, then it’s important that businesses take advantage of it. “We need to support our service agents with consistent brand touch points that help them get into character and perform their roles,” states Sobol and Bottorf. In the end, customer support is just like theater: it’s all about connecting and building positive relationships in the moment.

According to Kimberly Whitler, in her recent HBR article, “One of the key challenges CMOs face is figuring out how to partner with other internal functions.” CMOs are often viewed as the link between the company and its consumers, and by developing a strong relationship with CIOs it can allow these individuals to better leverage technology to understand their consumers.

Despite the proliferation of analytical tools available to marketers today, most CMOs are still struggling to convert data into actionable consumer insight. A recent IBM study indicates that “more than 70% of CMOs feel they are underprepared to manage the explosion of data and ‘lack true insight.’” This means that while today’s CMOs now have access to all this great data, they lack the skills to analyze and use in the decision making process. Whitler points out that because of this problem, “there is a growing need to identify how CMOs and CIOs can use the technology that’s on-hand to ease this process – which will ultimately drive growth for the entire business.” Luckily for us, Whitler outlines four suggestions to help build this partnership in your company.

Find Common Ground

“Differing incentives is one of the biggest barriers to an effective relationship between marketing and IT,” says Whitler. It’s really up to the CEO to ensure that marketing and IT are on the same page in terms of both innovation goals and risk management. According to Gene Morphis, former CFO of CVS and David’s Bridal, “There is an interesting intersection between risk management and innovation that emerges in the CMO-CIO interface.”

One of the best ways to overcome this is to start by understanding – and respecting – the conflicting incentive structures of each department and work collaboratively to find common ground. Whitler points out that, “In some instances, it may be necessary to align the CEO on a plan, but a united recommendation between the CMO and the CIO has a better chance of success.”

Business Needs First, Infrastructure Second

“Companies often mistakenly focus first on creating the infrastructure, and then focus on figuring out what to do with the data afterwards,” says Whitler. An “infrastructure first” approach opens you up to a lot of unplanned challenges. According to David Norton, the previous CMO of Caesars Entertainment, the “data infrastructure should follow an understanding of the business questions. For example, something as simple as deciding how to look at the data – hourly, daily, weekly – can influence how you organize the data.” By having the CMO work directly with the CIO to outline the data they will need to understand the customers, the CIO can better ensure that the data infrastructure will be aligned the ultimate business needs.

Have a Holistic Understanding of the Customer

Data can come from anywhere: loyalty cards, purchases, social media behavior, website analytics, surveys etc… With today’s technologies, businesses can integrate these disparate sources of customer-related information. However, according to Dr. R. Sukumar, CEO of Optimal Strategix Group, “the challenge that we find with most of our clients is that they do not have the internal capacity or bandwidth to focus on integrating customer data to generate superior insight. Yet, this assimilated perspective is precisely what is necessary to move ahead of the competitor’s level of customer understanding.”
Even when firms get a holistic customer view, they often lack the capacity to act on it quickly. “This is why they often turn to external partners to help fill the skill gaps needed to integrate, analyze, and use insights to drive business results,” says Whitler. These external partners typically have the technology and expertise needed to successfully generate and leverage in-depth customer data.

Apply Tools All Can Use

Whitler points out that “Historically, data analysis and customer research has been reserved for only a few skiller employees (typically in marketing research) who can navigate technically sophisticated systems.” Today, we are seeing the emergence of new tools that enable multiple users in marketing – yes, even the tech novices – to analyze customer research themselves. “Gone are the days when marketers had to get their information from a PowerPoint presentation that marketing researchers of consultants provided,” says Dr. Sukmar.

When CMOs and CIOs successfully collaborate, the relationship puts the business at a distinct competitive advantage. Technology provides the muscle to make sense of the exploration. Whitler puts it best by saying, “When the CMO and CIO share a focus on the customer, the power to drive business growth is potent.”

Does this sound like a problem that you and your department have faced? Well if it does, then you are in luck. About a week ago, I came across a great post by agile marketing enthusiast, Jim Ewel, off his blog, Agile Marketing.net, that talks about this very issue.

One radical solution Ewel suggests is to toss out yearly advanced budgets all together. “Too much can change, and a yearly budget for most businesses is an approximation, and often not very accurate,” writes Ewel. Now admittedly, this is a pretty radical shift and may overly rock the boat. Few organizations are open to that level of change. Ewel admits that while he believes that this is the best solution, it’s also the most radical and therefore difficult to implement. If you’re a little concerned here don’t worry, as Ewel also offers a more sedate alternative to this problem.

“Base your budget not on marketing activities, but by understanding the average lifetime value of a customer, as well as the average cost of acquisition of that customer, and marketing’s portion of that cost of acquisition,” suggests Ewel. So in other words, budget on your goals. So, let’s say you need to grow your sales (aka acquire more customers) by a certain amount in the next quarter. Let’s assume that your goal is to acquire 50,000 new customers in the next year, and the average lifetime value of a customer is $500. Let’s also say did some data crunching and came up with the marketing cost associated with acquiring that customer is 15% of the average lifetime value of that customer ($75). Then your budget for acquiring new customers for the New Year is $3,750,000 ($75 x 50,000), it’s that simple. If you are still a little hazy here, I recommend checking out Ewel’s entire article on the subject as he goes through a couple more examples.

Analyzing and understanding your marketing costs in this new way not only makes budgeting easier, but also has a whole heap of other benefits. For example, as Ewel points out this helps “focus you on the right goals: acquiring new customers and the revenue that they bring with them.” Additionally, by adopting this strategy helps you and your team become more flexible. No longer will changing goals pose such a significant challenge to you and your team. Crafting your marketing budget in this manner allows you to better evaluate your marketing activities. It allows you and you team to be able to quickly draft up an image of what it takes to achieve certain goals and whether or not they are realistic. So there you have it, some quick and simple ways to tackle that challenge of learning how do budget now that you’re agile.

Striking that balance of designing an infographic that pleases both the client and the design firm is an often elusive, but not impossible task. This is why I wanted to share these 5 tips courtesy of Aleksandra Todorova, the Editorial Director at Visual.ly. In her recent post she lays down some sound advice for both designers and executives in explaining what constitutes a good infographic.

1. The Idea

“All successful infographics start out the same way – with a great idea,” says Torodova. Having been part of several infographics, at Mindjet this year, I can attest that the idea is critical. If you have a killer idea then it will make the visual will be that much stronger. Don’t bother trying to dress up a poor idea. Your audience is smart, so treat them as such. To come up with that great idea, Torodova recommends trying to “think like a journalist.” Unless they are covering breaking news, they usually work in some type of cycle. “In January, it’s credit card debt hangover. February: love and money. March: taxes. And so on. Every year, the stories are similar, if not the same,” writes Tordova. They key is trying to find a useful and informative angle that really benefits your target audience.

2. Data

Many data viz professionals, usually start with the data and dig for stories from it. It’s a great way to find those new and interesting stories that I was just talking about. However as Tordova aptly points out, “In the corporate world, many commissioners are unwilling to take on the risk that their data will tell a story they (or their CMO) will not like.” Instead, most projects often start out with an idea that the data is then used to support. This is ok if the idea is focused and flexible (i.e. we can change things if the data we find points us in a different or more interesting direction) if not, well then finding the appropriate data to support it can often lead you off into a wild goose chase.

3. Willingness to let go

“Too often, we end up with more data than is needed to make a single infographic,” says Torodova. Don’t be afraid, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – you just have to be OK to exclude some of it from the end piece. Trying to cram too much data into an infographic results in an overly complex graphic that no one wants to read. “If you find it impossible to cut data out, get a fresh set of eyes. Here, your designer can be incredibly helpful: ask them what they would leave out if they were confined with certain print dimensions,” suggests Torodova.

4. Honestly & Humility

It’s really easy to think that your company’s new product or factory opening is interesting enough to warrant an infographic – news flash: it’s not. Honestly, as Torodova points out, unless it cures cancer or has huge impact on society no one will care. “Blatant self-promotion will also make it very difficult if not impossible to garner interest and pickup – not to mention, respect – from mainstream media and large websites,” says Torodova. A good tip is that even if you have really interesting, never before seen data, focus on it – not the branding.

5. Trust

Finally, it all boils down to your team – so trust them! Your researcher and designers know how to tell a good story, your data analyst knows what your data is telling you so trust them. Torodova puts it best by saying, “Being too controlling as a client or showing in any way that you do not trust the team will only alienate them – you will lose their trust, but worse, you will lose their creativity and eagerness to produce something that they, too, will showcase with pride.”

Everyone struggles with the brainstorm. We all want to have good ideas, but sometimes they can be a bit elusive. Well, it’s time to say goodbye to this problem as “A significant body of research now suggests that conflict among teams is good, especially when that fighting is focused around creative ideas,” according to David Burkus in an article from Behance’s blog, 99u. When projects are being developed, criticism and constructive feedback are integral steps that add value to the overall ideation process. According to Stanford University professor, Robert Sutton, “Constant argument can mean there is a competition to develop and test as many ideas as possible, that there is wide variation in knowledge and perspectives.”

UC Berkeley professor and researcher, Charlan Nemeth, wanted to explore the role conflict plays in creating and producing creative ideas, if at all. Nemeth and a team of researchers, assembled participants into three separate experimental groups (minimal, brainstorming, and debate) each with their own set of constrictions. Each team was then issued the same challenge: how can they reduce traffic congestion in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The “minimal condition” team was given was given no further instructions and was told to come up with as many ideas as possible. The “brainstorming condition” team was given the traditional set of brainstorming rules – the most important of which was that all judgement should be suspended and no idea criticized or debated. The final “debate condition” team was given a set of rules similar to the brainstorming team with one important difference: they were told to debate and criticize each other’s ideas as they were developed.

While the “brainstorming” team ended up coming up with more ideas than the “minimal” team, the “debate” team outperformed the entire pack. According to Burkus, “Teams that debated their ideas produced an average of 25% more ideas than other teams in the same period of time.” Not only did they develop more ideas during the exercise, but also when asked if they had any additional ideas during a post-experiment interview the “debate” team outperformed the rest, suggesting five to seven additional ideas. Nemeth writes, “Our findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas, but rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition.”

This idea of hosting a structured debate isn’t new. Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, in the 1970s held regularly scheduled arguments. It was viewed as a routine part or research and development in the lab’s operations. Today, Pixar too utilizes this management style. Each day, “teams gather first thing in the morning to review their work from the previous day. They examine each frame produced in turn and criticize nearly everything about it. No detail is too small to critique and no one is prohibited from arguing against the work of someone else,” explains Burkus.

There are some important principles to keep in mind if you are to get the most out of a product debate. For example, Burkus points out that “Whenever you’re fighting about ideas, however, it’s important that you’re engaging in the ‘right fight,’ criticizing another person’s ideas and not the person himself. This type of conflict, what researchers call ‘intellectual’ or ‘task’ conflict, must be done in an atmosphere of mutual respect and must be based on the factual information available.” Bob Taylor, a former manager at Xerox PARC, said of their meetings, “If someone tried to push their personality rather than their argument, they’d find that it wouldn’t work.” These are the “ground rules”, if you will, that are necessary to create these “structured” arguments.

So there you have it. Next time you’re starting a project, working on a new product update, or outlining a new campaign, try holding some of these arguments – the result will be a stronger end product as well as fostering more ideas which everyone can benefit from.

Listen Continuously

“Your business is not just an online brand; it is also a continuous listener,” writes Zucal. People who are on social media are there because they want their opinion and voice to be heard. This translates into two important takeaways for your brand:

1. Because of the nature of social media this means that individuals will now be able to access your brand 24/7 – maybe not super shocking, I know.
2. However, what this also means is that organizations must now be listening and paying attention to those comments. If a fan or follower tweets to you or posts a question to your Facebook wall, they are looking for a response – and a fast one at that.

Quality Interaction

Social media opens the door and connects brands and consumers because it provides the ideal platform for interaction. “With this open door comes the importance of brand perception and engagement. It’s not only what your brand says that matters, but also what customers are sharing about you to the social universe,” writes Zucal. This two-way conversation begs the question: what is the best way to foster these relationships between customers and your brand? What some brands fail to realize is that when it comes to building a strong Facebook or Twitter following, it really all boils down to the quality of your posts. “Consumers want to be involved, interacting with someone who not only understands them, but also someone they can relate to,” says Zucal. So, before you start posting status updates and Tweets, take some time and listen to your audience, research their behavior and try to get an understanding of what excites them. By conducting this initial research, your business will be on its way to turning social media engagement into customer and brand loyalty.

Help out

More and more often customers are turning to a company’s social media account instead of calling a customer service line to say what’s on their mind. “Your job as a brand is to keep an open ear and be ready to respond,” says Zucal. Today’s followers and fans won’t hesitate to pose a question directly on your company’s social media sites. So, be prepared to provide helpful content, everything from how-to guides to simple customer service answers about your products and services. By going out of you way a little to respond to someone’s question, it instantly creates a closer connection making your customer feel appreciated and important.

Become a Customer Service Master

When you receive a negative comment, try to provide a speedy solution. Let those who are having issues know that you appreciate their business, as well as their patience while the problem is corrected. “Target audiences will respect your brand if you take the time to keep the conversation going, instead of ignoring what they have to say because you have a thousand other satisfied customers,” points out Zucal. But it’s not only about responding to the negative comments, at the same time you want to respond to the praise that you receive. Let those know that you appreciate them – it’s a surefire way help build brand advocacy.

Highlight Customers

An easy and fun way to create a lasting relationship between your customers and your brand is to allow your fans and followers to share some of the spotlight every once and awhile. “As much as people want to be heard on social media, they want to enjoy themselves just as much,” writes Zucal. Celebrating what fans and followers share online is a great way to show they are important to you and your business. For example, here at Mindjet, we try to showcase some of our awesome users in out “User Spotlights”. No matter how you choose to do this, it’s important to take some time and let your fans take center stage every so often.

While there’s no one magic bullet to turn all your customers into brand advocates, by trying some of these simple brand loyalty tips outlined above you’ll be sure that you are off to a good start.

1. Identify & Develop Team Leaders

“The most important part of running a project management campaign is to identify a team of leaders,” writes Karen Smith in a recent blog post. Usually at the onset of a project, a large amount of time is spent gathering and aligning all the necessary resources. However during this phase, a disproportionately small amount of time is typically given to selecting the team’s project manager. This is a huge mistake. Even the best teams can fail if they have a sub-par project manager. “Do your business a favor and cultivate a team of leaders who thoroughly understand the dynamics of your project management system and are also good at motivating and coaching team members,” suggests Smith. This way you can rest assured that you’re leaving the project in good hands.

2. Communicate

We all understand that without communication, things fall apart. This counts double for projects. To be successful, teams must be in constant communication with each other. This helps maintain order and build camaraderie. During a project, make it a top priority to arrange regularly scheduled team meetings (whether virtually or in-person). You can never underestimate the power of having a face-to-face interaction, so make it a point to have a weekly meeting.

Additionally, teams should actively encourage the use of as many other communication tools as possible. This may seem like a lot of unnecessary work, but the goal is for a team to create a culture of communication. It increases transparency and helps everyone understand how their individual tasks fit into the larger scheme of things. By encouraging the use of lots of different communication tools, you are helping make it as easy as possible to foster this type of culture.

3. Train them, Train them Good

Picking up a new tool is never as “easy as it should be” regardless of the claims from the provider. Picking up a new tool not only requires the alteration of habits, but also takes time to learn. When picking up a new tool, be sure to inquire about the onboarding process – investigate to see if they offer training, have FAQs, or recorded tutorials that you can easily access. All this information will only help speed up the time it takes for you and your team to become pros.

4. Encourage & Embrace Feedback

Just as frequent and open communication is essential for project success, so is encouraging and embracing feedback. Make it a point to check-in with your team after each project, ask them how the like the software, is there anything they would change about it? Eliciting team feedback is a great way to see if the tool is really a good fit for you and your team. Be sure to encourage team leaders to inform you of any problems of changes that take place within their teams during the project. Gathering information about how the tools were used and what could be done better is as important as completing a project on time. Without feedback, you’re opening your company up to tons of possible future headaches and problems.

5. Be Organized

Just because you’re using project management software doesn’t mean that you can let your organization slip a little. In fact it’s quite the opposite, online project management depends heavily upon organization. If you’re not organized, you’ll quickly end up with a mess on your hands. “Create a system that works for the company as a whole and make sure everyone adheres to that system,” says Smith. Even something as small as forgetting to check off an uploaded file or not naming it correctly can kill productivity. As long as you develop and (more importantly stick with) a system you’ll be set for smooth sailing.

As online project management becomes more and more popular, it’s important to be aware of these five tips to help you make sure you get the most out of your efforts

Image Source: www.istockphoto.com

As defined by Lepofsky, social task management (STM) consists of standalone products (like Salesforce’s Do.com and Asana), as well as enterprise social networking platforms (like IBM Connections) with strong task management functionality, and “hybrid” products (like Wrike) that can be used as either a standalone solution or can easily integrate with existing enterprise social platforms like Jive. In his report, Lepofsky outlines the STM competitive landscape:

• Standalone: AtTask, Asana, Basecamp, Do, Mavenlink, Producteev (Jive), Rule, Strides, and TeamBox.
• Integrated: Goshido, Neodesic, SAP StreamWork, Sparqlight, and Wrike.
• Social business platform with embedded task management: Clearvale, HyperOffice, Huddle, IBM Activities, Jive, Podio, and Traction TeamPage

Lepofsky does not argue that one platform is better than another. Instead, he focuses on explaining their tradeoffs. According to Lepofsky, standalone products tend to have rich feature sets and functionality, along with frequent updates. Compared to the pace of improvement on larger social business platforms, like IBM Activities, may be slower because it’s part of a larger platform.

Selecting the right one of these new social task management products for your specific needs can be a tough call. However, the investment in these products is worth it. For example, with traditional project management tools only those assigned tasks on a project are incorporated into the software. However, as Lepofsky points out, with social task management tools “You might have a dozen people assigned tasks, but then other people put into that workspace just to monitor.” A good example of this would be sales using the tool to monitor the progress of an engineering team’s work on developing a new product – and that’s what’s so cool with this kind of software.

Now is the time to start investigating social task management tools. They bring a lot to the table in an exciting and rapidly growing market.

Image Source: www.istockphoto.com

The Good

“The organizations I’ve seen that have been successful focus a lot on very specific business applications that they insert into a business process,” says Byrne. One of the key differentiators in organizations where social media adoption has been successful is that they focus on using social tools for very specific business processes. “What you don’t want to do is drop a social collaboration platform into the enterprise, give it to everybody and expect that you will get all this value out of it,” points out Byrne. That’s a surefire way to set yourself up for failure. So, instead of immediately rolling out a tool enterprise-wide, first focus on implementing these tools in a limited capacity.

You have to remember that with these tools you are trying to change individual’s habits. In addition to starting small, there needs to be proof that picking up this new tool is worth it. Successful organizations try to pinpoint specific purposes and business processes where it makes sense to use social networking and collaboration tools. Then, they communicate these across the organization. So, for example it could take the form of a social Q&A which can be very useful in mergers and acquisitions, or it could be around knowledge management – the point is that it is initially used for a specific process and that managers communicate the value of using these tools to the greater public.

The goal should not be adoption; it should be about deriving business value. To put it briefly, “If you can actually help people in their day-to-day work, they will use the tools,” says Byrne.

The Bad

When implementing these platforms, it’s important to remember that while they are a useful service, they are not actual applications — “they are kind of a helper application,” says Byrne. You have to think about the specific ways in which your employees can use this social collaboration application, and then customize it for the business – as I previously highlighted. Or, in the case of the more sophisticated platforms, you have to think about how to take this mass of capabilities — and shape it into specific business applications that solve real business problems. Another issue is the lack of cross system integration. Byrne points out that while it is possible to integrate multiple systems, it’s not an easy process. “With enough time, money and painkillers, yes [integration is possible]. But people really underestimate the difficulty in doing this.” This can be easily avoided by having an enterprise wide plan, even if only the sales team is currently using the product.

The social networking and collaboration space is still new, and with that comes a lot of unexpected obstacles. The power of these tools is universally understood, but having an understanding and being able to achieve these benefits are two entirely different things. I hope that by checking out how what some of these companies are doing right will help you and your team unlock the power of these great tools.