Work

business & working

Small Towns & Free Agents

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Sackville, New Brunswick, where I live, is a small town of 5,000 people, which increases every Fall by the 2,500 students at Mount Allison University. I think that it is the perfect small town for free agents who run virtual offices. I’ve discussed this with some of the town councillors, but I don’t have any convincing market analyses to show that we could attract some more small businesses to set up shop here. Here are some of the attritubes of this community that I think would be appealing.

We have high speed Internet access, both DSL in the town core, and cable access in the outlying community. My web site is hosted locally. The town is located on the Trans-Canada Highway with Moncton Airport 20 minutes away and Halifax Airport 90 minutes away. There is a hospital in town, and larger hospitals in Moncton (50 km) and Amherst (20 km). We have a number of physicians in town; more than most small towns. Sackville is centrally located in the maritimes, with Fredericton, Charlottetown and Halifax within 2 hours driving distance. We also have a local, live theatre company.

Sackville is a great town to raise a family, as it is safe and hospitable. Many of us were not born and raised here, so the town is open to newcomers. A good house will cost in the vicinity of $(CAD)150,000, but you can even find them cheaper. For families looking to get out of the big city rat race, this may be the place. The school system offers French immersion starting in Grade 1. French schools are available in the neighbouring community of Memramcook, about 20 km away. There a few companies in town, and some free agents as well. We tried to start a loose association, The Sackville SOHO Society, to discuss non-retail business issues, but we never got the necessary critical mass.

So what would it take to interest a free agent to move to Sackville? Do we have what it takes? Are there essential infrastructure requirements, or cultural issues? I’d appreciate your comments.

Update: My neighbour has just put her house on the market, through Property Guys. Search for Listing #2370.

From Classroom to Boardroom

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Jay Bahlis, President of BNH Expert Software in Montreal, has produced a free, online booklet, From Classroom to Boardroom, that will be a good job aid for performance improvement professionals. It covers step-by-step actions and six strategies for aligning training with business goals. Though not new in its concepts, this booklet is an additional resource that may be helpful, especially for internal initiatives. Some of Jay’s cited references may be of use as well:

  • Ford and Weissbein estimated that less than 10% of training expenditures actually result in transfer
    to the job. By focusing on the most important initiatives, you can reduce waste and maximize the
    impact of training.
  • Broad and Newstrom observed that most of the knowledge and skills gained in training (well over
    80% by some estimates) is not fully applied by employees on the job. And more recently, Robinson
    reported that on average, less than 30% of what people learn (in training) actually gets used on the
    job. By focusing on solutions that resolve clearly identified performance deficiencies you can
    minimize waste and maximize performance.
  • Lance Dublin observed that over 90% of training is conducted through informal means such as web
    searches, chats, reference materials and mentoring. Providing the right information to the right
    individuals at the right time “learning at the speed of work” can significantly increase the competitive
    advantage of the organization – allowing individuals to do things they have not been able to before.

Many thanks to Jay for making this available to the community.

ChangeThis

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ChangeThis has been created as a distribution medium of rational, logical "manifestos" that encourage thought and debate. The ChangeThis Manifesto is in the same vein as The Cluetrain Manifesto, but the former reads less like a rant.

We?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re betting that a significant portion of the population wants to hear thoughtful, rational, constructive
arguments about important issues. We?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re certain that the best of these manifestos will
spread, hand to hand, person to person, until these manifestos have reached a critical mass and
actually changed the tone and substance of our debate.

The site includes a blog and there are a number of manifestos in the mill from authors like Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Peters and Seth Godin. It seems that the new medium is "retrieving" the pamphleteer of old, and I look forward to reading, and commenting on, future manifestos.

Cycling and KM

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Denham Grey has the perfect presentation for my tastes, but I won’t be able to get to Cincinnati to see it. Denham is using cycling as the metaphor for knowledge management (The only sport I love more than cycling is cross-country skiing) .

Having cycled across France & Belgium, as well as climbing three passes in the Alps in the same day, I must admit that cycling is a passion, and Denham is going to link it to my business – great!

Ever had that sinking feeling you are being dropped from the peleton as new technology decends?, looking for new ways to collaborate on a strategy or coordinating to chase down a break-away?, is your team self-organizing or do you rely on command and control?, do you have the agility and the shared mindset to react to a sudden event?

I hope he posts his notes. Allez-y!

Dummies Guide to Change

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In the Dummies Guide to Change … Rob Paterson synthesizes concepts like “tipping points” and the “law of the few”. In a recent paper from HP, Wu and Huberman indicate that their data confirms the law of the few:

Our theory further predicts that a relatively small number of individuals with high social ranks can have a larger effect on opinion formation than individuals with low rank. By high rank we mean people with a large number of social connections. [Connectors?]

but does not support the concept of a tipping point:

Our findings also cast doubt on the applicability of tipping models to a number of consumer behaviors.

The math in this paper is beyond me, but I am assuming that it is valid.

Below is an image that shows my interpretation of these concepts. I was wondering about the parallels between Rogers and Gladwell, and created this image to organise my thoughts. What I’m thinking is that if you want to create an epidemic, then would you first

  1. connect the right Mavens with the potential innovators,
  2. target the early adopters via the Connectors and then
  3. find the salespeople who will influence the Early Majority?

This gives you a potential 50% of the population, which should get you to the tipping point. As you move along the process, you constantly try to increase stickiness.

Might be too simple, or a good start. Not sure yet.
diffusion.jpg

Professional Development – Cheap

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As a free agent, I’m always on the lookout for professional development oppotunities, especially low or no cost ones.

  • Learning Economics Group – Free membership is available to this non-profit focused on the business metrics of learning in larger organisations. The telephone/ppt presentations are quite informative, and you get to link to some smart and innovative people. Sign up for information about monthly meetings, discussion boards and shared resources.
  • Business Process Trends – this website and the accompanying newsletter links many business process methodologies together.
  • Synchronous Web Events on e-learning, by Horizon Live
  • The e-Learning Guild has some free and some fee-based resources and events
  • ISPI‘s Performance Xpress has many good, free articles on performance improvement.
  • The Knowledge@Wharton Newsletter is a free service of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It covers knowledge management and business issues.
  • LearningTimes.org is an open community for education and training professionals. There are various learning events offered.
  • Work-Learning Research makes its publications and other research-based information available through its website at.
  • Jay’s Emergent Learning Forum, online or onsite.

Go ahead and add your own recommendations.

Blogs and the Laws of Media

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According to McLuhan’s Laws of Media, every technology (in the broad sense of the word) that we use has precisely four effects on us – to extend, to retrieve, to obsolesce and to reverse. According to Federman and deKerckhove, the retrieves quadrant can be the most revealling. It can provide us with some insight on possible effect of new technologies. Jon Husband makes this observation about what weblogs retrieve:

Much in the same way that email revived the lost art of letter writing, Blogs are reviving the lost art of civilized civic dialogue – of argument, of well reasoned thought and response.

As Federman and deKerckhove state in their book, “McLuhan for Managers“:

For a manager who is considering how the next innovation will affect his or her staff or target market, studying the precedent can be particularly revealing. The RETRIEVES quadrant directly furnishes the lessons and experiences of history.

McLuhan’s laws of media can be used as a lens that can help us to make business and organisational decisions regarding new technologies.

Small Business Trends

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Here’s a website that focuses on "the forces driving small & midsize business". I like their recent article on small businesses going virtual:

The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses. The newly opened two-person office will be able to look big, established, and successful. Build a really good website, toss in some color printers, fast computers, and cell phones, and you’re halfway there. After that, it’s a question of leveraging your creativity and ability to partner with other entrepreneurs.

It is a bit of what I envisioned when I started the Sackville SOHO Society, but apathy led to its early demise. Maybe there’s hope for a renewed small business (or Natural Enterprise) network in the region.

Learning …

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I’ve been on my own for just over a year, and as I had a couple of days off over the holiday weekend, I thought I’d reflect on what I’ve learned, or confirmed, this past year:

  • Learning: is a process, not a product — subject-based teaching is a mistake — we have to focus on process skills like metacognition, problem solving and collaborating, because the subjects will change. I first realized this through Kieran Egan’s writing, and it has been reconfirmed many times.
  • Work: Markets are conversations — it’s only through conversation that we begin to understand each other — success comes when producers and users understand each other, and help each other.
  • Technology: It’s a world of ends, and innovation happens on the edges — look at the edges to find opportunities (but not traditional financing).
  • All Three: Marshall McLuhan was right, especially regarding the Laws of Media.

These are the messages that are staying with me.