5 tips for building a collaborative community

Posted by Tad Johnson - Apr 17th, 2008 at 15:04

I wrote the article below for an internal blog at work. Once I wrote it, I realized that it was pretty much applicable anywhere so I thought I’d try to get a little more press. I’m also posting it over at tadfad.com.

Collaboration is all the rage in Corporate America this year. With a globally dispersed workforce, much of this collaboration is taking place online. Web sites, wikis, blogs, forums, and even full collaboration suites are emerging on the scene.

Are you looking to tap into this collaborative energy? Want to form an online presence for your global team? Here are 5 tips that will help grow your collaborative community.

1. Get Personal. The web is often criticized for being too impersonal–but it need not be so. Most (all?) online collaboration tools have the ability to include small photos (sometimes called avatars) for users. Encourage everyone on the tool to add their own photo. We’re visual, personal creatures by nature so let’s make it personal! For example, there’s my photo. Doesn’t that feel more personal?

2. Respond. If you are trying to start a collaboration community online, you have the burden to check for updates frequently and respond as much as possible. This is especially critical during the first days/weeks as users are testing it out. If a colleague is going to take the time to pose a question or comment, you need to respond in kind. Yes, this is a time investment. Yes, it will pay off.

3. Reward/Recognize. Participating in collaboration communities is not a mandatory task. It’s not critical to our day-to-day jobs. Yet it has the potential to yield great results in improved efficiency and outcomes for businesses. The early adopters who are willing to stick their necks out and participate should be recognized and rewarded. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, and it can be done entirely within the online community, but some sort of recognition is key. As an example of free, easy recognition, Flickr.com (a photo sharing site) allows users to give each other virtual awards for outstanding photos.

4. Set some goals. Users will be encouraged to participate if they know why they’re participating. Set some goals for your collaborative community, making sure they’re time based, measurable, and significant. As an easy example, you could set the goal to reduce team emails by 20% through the use of an online collaboration community.

5. Show progress. Once you’ve set some goals above, track them and communicate progress. We all love trackers and metrics, so this should be second nature. Give your collaboration partners a sense of accomplishment by charting the groups successes (and/or failures).

Don’t be discouraged if your first attempt at collaboration is not wildly successful. As we all become more comfortable and aware of the opportunities of online communities we will work our way up the capability ladder. These tips will help you start that climb.

5 tips for a successful carpool

Posted by Tad Johnson - Apr 13th, 2008 at 20:04

With gas prices on the rise, driving alone in your car is an expensive proposition. We’re paying $3.50/gallon here in Milwaukee which works out to $0.15/mile for the average car. (Double that if you’re driving a truck/SUV). With such a cost pressure, the carpool is certainly an attractive alternative to the solo commute.

I’m lucky to have the idea setup for a successful carpool : my roommate and I both work in the same building. We’ve been carpooling for a few months now and it has made a noticeable impact on my budget. Even as gas prices have gone up, my spending on gasoline has decreased.

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Like most things, the carpool is not all roses. My roommate and I both give up some freedom of scheduling exactly when we leave for work & home, and I’m not able to run errands or drive to lunch on the days he drives. These drawbacks are well worth the extra $20 that I keep in my pocket every week.

Here are some tips for a successful carpool :

  1. Keep a routine. Try to leave at the same time every day so it becomes part of the natural routine for all carpool members.
  2. Don’t keep the driver waiting. If anyone is waiting for a pickup, it should be the passenger(s), not the driver. A happy carpool is a punctual carpool.
  3. Spread the driving evenly. This one is pretty obvious, but it deserves mention. Keep things simple with a daily rotation of driving duty.
  4. Celebrate your savings! To keep the good feelings flowing, celebrate with your carpool mates every now and again by going out for lunch, drinks, or some other event. Since you’re saving money each week, you can think of this as a “free” celebration!
  5. Spread the good word. Encourage your co-workers and friends to try the carpool. It’s really not as scary as it sounds and it’s a great way to save gas, save money, and save the environment (at least a little).

Self Reviews

Posted by T.W. Hanson - Mar 25th, 2008 at 18:03

goals

Twice each year, I find it useful evaluate my professional life. The introspective few hours spent looking at past performance and setting goals for the future can be more useful than reviews from your peers. You know what you have done well and poorly and where you really stand to improve. Give it a try sometime in the next few months, and try to achieve your goals. It could save you from the axe in the current economic environment.

Here is a small sample of what I will be working on:

Networking: Having just moved from the East to the Midwest, I have much work to do to meet new people. I intend to become more involved in the community through recreation, volunteer work and even faith based activities.

Smiling More: Although I am proud of my general stoicism, I know it can come across as depressing at times. I have gotten much better at this, but there is room for improvement.

Increasing Efficiency: By concentrating more between the hours of 7 and 6, I hope to cut back on the late nights and weekends in the office. This may just result in more work. We will see.

How To : safely use your work laptop at home

Posted by Tad Johnson - Mar 19th, 2008 at 18:03

My employer gives me (and the rest of the IT department) a laptop for work. This decision was made in the hopes that it would make travel easier (we can bring all our work with us) and allow us to work from home. I have my reservations on both claims, but it is what it is.

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One of the sticky questions that develops when you give your employees mobile computers is how to differentiate work from personal use. The official policy, as you might guess, is that our work laptops are to be used exclusively for work related tasks. As you might imagine, this is rarely the case.

I occasionally use my work laptop for personal use at home, and I know more than a few people who use it exclusively as their only computer. This may seem like a great way to save money and reduce the electronic clutter in your life, but there are some very troubling implications.

For example, what if your company is involved in a lawsuit and they need to scan your hard drive as evidence? Do you want them finding photos of Fluffy mixed in with your TPS reports? What if you’re using your laptop (at home) for activities that run afoul of your company policies? Can they distinguish between the times you’re online at work versus the times you’re at home?

Fortunately, a few new technologies may save the day :

  • Use web apps. Keep your personal data in “the cloud” as much as possible. Use Gmail, Google Docs, Hulu, and any other web apps you like to ensure that your personal data stays off your hard drive.
  • Use an alternate browser. Keep your work links, history, and cache separate from your personal stuff by using a totally separate browser. (Such as Firefox).
  • Boot Linux. Most of the popular Linux distributions offer Live CDs that allow you to boot into Linux and use all the standard apps without touching your hard drive. These work surprisingly well, though you will experience a slight performance hit compared to a regular OS installed on your hard drive.
  • Boot Linux from a USB key. As a more advanced offshoot of above, some Linux distributions (including my favorite, Ubuntu) allow you to install and boot from a USB key. This is an ideal solution, since it offers good performance and it saves all your data. [Believe it or not, I’m using such a scheme right now!]

As a vicenarian, you hopefully haven’t been forced to deal with a company lawsuit. Just because you haven’t been bit doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be cautious. If you’re using your employer’s laptop for personal use, please be safe and make smart choices.

Manage your personal finances like a CEO

Posted by Tad Johnson - Mar 15th, 2008 at 6:03

Google vs Costco. Two giant businesses, both very profitable, (both from California) but with a fundamental difference in strategy. Google is all about revenue growth–they release many new products each year and add customers to drive top line growth. Costco, while also focused on growing revenue, places a larger emphasis on driving down cost for bottom line growth.

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Each strategy has its benefits and constraints, but both produce results. As a vicenarian, you too should be thinking about both strategies. As CEO of your personal finance, you need to manage both revenue (your paycheck) and cost (your expenses). You’ll never achieve your financial goals unless you take both into account.

Most of us like to think of the revenue side of the equation first. Everyone dreams of the big fat paycheck coming at the end of the month. The problem is, that’s only half of the equation. Ask the hundreds of movie stars, pro athletes, and rock stars who’ve gone from million dollar paydays to broke–when your expenses exceed your income, you’ve got a problem.

Borrowing another term from corporate finance, consider your personal margin–the difference between income and expenses. If you can arrange your lifestyle to provide a healthy margin, you should consider yourself rich, regardless of your income. Since you have more direct control over your expenses than your income, it’s easy to see where to start. A unifying theme among all the get-rich books and blogs out there is to live below your means. To put it a different way, focus on maximizing your margin, not maximizing your income.

T.W Hanson discovered this in his first year out of college, working in an industry that paid well but required high personal expenses as well (emphasis mine) :

When picking out my New York apartment after undergrad, I had heard that approximately 1/3 of your income should go to rent. Rules of thumb like this do not account for student loans. I unfortunately took the 1/3 advice, and my first 12 months in the city were difficult. I was in more debt after twelve months of work than before I arrived.

You’re the CEO of your personal finance and you’ve got shareholders to satisfy (which, conveniently, are also you). Don’t blind yourself by thinking only about growing your income–it’s the margin that’s most important.

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