Beginner Business

Recently our business has been experimenting with using Google Docs, and we’ve been having some limited success. I’ve noticed there are a lot of articles on the web about Google Docs, and they all seem to either praise the system as a Microsoft Office killer, or imply it’s just a kindergarten toy. So far it seems to be neither. Here’s why.

First - What is it?

If you’re recently emerged from a long sub-rock siesta, maybe you still haven’t heard of Google Docs, Google’s new online suite of office web applications. If you use other Google services such as GMail, then you already have an account, and in fact when you receive an MS Word or Excel document through GMail, you have the option of opening it as a Google Document.

The idea?

• Instead of firing up MS Office every time someone emails you a spreadsheet or Word document, you can open the document directly from GMail.
• Where did you leave that document? At home? In the laptop? At work? Instead, just store them online and access them from anywhere.

The Good

The first time I used MS Office for collaborative work, I was co-writing a book (Slackware Linux 4 Unleashed). The revision process involved me sending a new chapter to the editors, receiving their revision comments, and sending back my revision. Sometimes we had several layers of revisions contained in the same document. It was a lot better than the old marker-on-the-printout method, but still slow.

Google Docs is a big step up from that. As with other online collaborative systems, several people can update a document simultaneously, in real time.

Recently at Swing Dynamite we used Google Docs to collaborate on making a schedule for an event, and sharing registration and financial details about the event. Here are some of the things I loved about doing it this way:

• Chat. The Google Talk chat system is built-in, and as soon as you’ve invited someone to collaborate on a document, they’re available in a chat window when they’re editing the document. When we were working on our event schedule, this was very useful, and it saved a lot of time. Instead of getting together physically to meet, we saved time by doing all the revisions and discussions online. In total we took about 30 minutes instead of several hours.
• See changes in real time. You can actually see the other person make changes as they happen. This is handy–you can easily respond in the chat window and discuss what they’re doing: “are you sure those numbers are correct?” This was useful for building our event schedule, and also for going over some of the numbers.
• Permanently share. What I mean here is that, instead of having to email your colleagues every time you make a revision, they always have access to the most recent version.
• Customizable notifications. In my case, I wanted to know when any update was made, so I had the documents set to notify me by email whenever there was a change. However, if I was only interested in looking over the final version, I could have turned notifications off. What’s nice is that unlike email collaboration, where typically you get emailed every time a collaborator deems appropriate, you choose how often you get pinged.
• Surprise: Spreadsheet formulas work. That was my initial fear: that the formulas wouldn’t work, rendering spreadsheets basically useless. But in the simple spreadsheets we were collaborating on, the formulas and even formatting worked perfectly.
• Soon: Even work offline. Google is also slowly rolling out an offline capability, enabling you to use Google Docs even without an internet connection.

The Bad

The system still has a lot of limitations, however. Here’s where we hit a wall:

• Word processing is very limited. More to the point, usually when we use a word processor, we’re not just writing a strictly text document–if we were, we’d probably just send an email. Usually there’s a lot of formatting involved. When I tried collaborating on a staff handbook, I found that the version I uploaded ended up looking nothing like the original when I viewed it as a Google Doc. All the text was there–but none of the formatting. So if you’re collaborating on a Word document, I suggest using Docs in the early stages of collaboration, as you work on the text itself. Afterwards, import it back into Word and finish it off with style.
• Spreadsheets: Keep it simple. I found Docs to be much more useful for spreadsheets. I didn’t encounter major issues with formatting or formulas, although I’d advise not trying to work with spreadsheets that contain complex formulas. The big difficulty, though, was in the limited functionality. For example, you can sort a column–but only the entire column. You can’t just sort an area without affecting the rest of the sheet. So to collaborate you’d want to make the spreadsheets fairly simple, or realize that you need to do more complex updates offline and then upload them. It’s a little annoying, but then it’s really just a return to the old email revision process.
• Lossy Saving. That’s lossy as in loss of information: remember that if you upload a document that’s too complex for Google Docs, you lose all of the extra formatting. So you can collaborate and make changes, but even when you download the revised file, you’ll have to re-format it.

Is it useful?

The proof is in the pudding: I’ve started to use Google Docs more frequently after my recent experiments were a success. The key is that I wouldn’t work on a document for public release through this method… yet. However, as a method for sharing information between members of a project, Google Docs is a very useful tool, especially if your collaborators already use GMail. I’d especially recommend it for internal documents, not for collaborating on something your clients will see unless you switch to something more sophisticated in the final stages.

Where are they going with this?

Is it going to last? Between the enthusiasts crying “MS Office Killer” and the pundits claiming Google Docs is too limited… they’re both right.

The one thing we know about technology is that it improves. Today Google Docs is a useful collaborative tool, but in no way sophisticated enough to replace MS Office. In any case, there’s already a major alternative to MS Office, and completely free: OpenOffice. And yet MS Office still thrives. There’s no reason to think that Google Docs will kill MS Office tomorrow.

However, looking to the future, the entire reason OpenOffice exists as a completely free Office suite is that to a large degree, the Office application space is stagnant. Basically spreadsheets and word processing documents do what we need them to. Little vertical improvements aren’t really enough to charge money for. In fact, it really doesn’t make sense to me that anyone whole pay for MS Word anymore, when OpenOffice is available. So the lateral leap that Google has taken with Docs is essential. For now, Docs is just a limited (but very useful) online collaboration tool - not full-fledged Office suite. But as the technology improves, Docs may set the standard. Still, MS Office has a major asset if it can leverage the combination of its existing MS Office and .NET technologies combined with the Hotmail/Live system, behind their new Office Live Workspace edition.The question will be: who can do it the right way? So far Google’s been winning on that point.

In the meantime, my advice is to download OpenOffice and start using Google Docs for online collaboration.

The title of a post on Tom Peter’ blog caught my eye:

To Get Out of Bed. Or Not Get Out of Bed. That Is the Question.

This was one of the earliest business lessons I learned. When I was a university kid, I occasionally supplemented my two part-time jobs with odd jobs at $10/h with a local entrepreneur, doing low-level marketing tasks like passing out fliers. One day Mr. Entrepreneur calls up and says, “I’ve got a job for you, but I can only pay $8/h this time.” I told him I wasn’t interested. I could actually hear his smile on the other end of the phone.

“I see–you won’t get out of bed for less than $10/h, huh?”

That was it, in a nutshell. In that moment I understood BATNAs, BHAGs, and diminishing marginal returns in one intuitive leap. And I got a glimpse of what leadership is about.

The bottom line is asking yourself if what you do is REALLY worth getting out of bed for. What’s your time worth?

That’s a big part of leadership, and entrepreneurship is really just leadership taken to the extreme. Entrepreneurship comes from being driven to spend your time on important things.

That’s why time management for entrepreneurs is a little different from many jobniks. It’s not about seeing how many things you can cram into a day. It’s about deciding which things aren’t worth doing at all, and dropping them.

It’s about deciding what’s worth getting out of bed for, and what’s not.

As I write this, I’m installing Linux.

The funny part about this is that I’m installing Linux on the same computer I’m working on. Using something called a “Live CD” I’m able to actually run Linux, complete with a web browser, while I install the system. This is insanely cool.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with installing operating systems. My geeky side enjoys the excitement of the upgrade, of trying something new. But the business side of me knows that upgrading or installing a new operating system always means a few weeks of lost productivity. Sure, months later everything might work better, but that first day of installing the operating system and new drivers, re-installing all the old programs, migrating data, re-configuring settings… it’s a lot of wasted time.

Having just installed Vista on a new computer, I had mixed feelings. The install was fairly easy, although I had to install some new drivers, and with Vista’s driver reputation, who knows if they work properly. The look and changes to the operating system seem decent, little things like the way that you navigate through folders, or additions like more sophisticated CD burning programs.

However I also found Vista to be surprisingly slow, and I encountered some small bugs that led to some bigger problems. This morning while doing some updates, the system crashed and wouldn’t start up again without recovery.

(Linux has finished installing now. No joke.)

I figured that would be a good reason to try installing Linux for dual-booting. Already I’d tried out a new brand (ie. “distribution”) of Linux called Ubuntu. The cool thing is that you can use a Live CD to try out the system without even installing it. I found that even running from a CD, Ubuntu was faster than Vista.

I started using Linux back in ‘94 or so, and since then I’ve used both Windows and Linux on a regular basis. The big question I’ve been asking myself for years is, which one makes the better business case? And since the introduction of OS X, MacOS has been looking pretty good, too.

What we’re seeing is a huge convergence. It used to be that MacOS was a beautiful system for artists with a rickety back-end, Linux was the technologically superior system that only geeks could understand, and Windows was somewhere between the two, making it the best option for business.

But now it’s different. MacOS now runs a BSD system under the hood, putting it technologically on a par with Linux, and Windows has both improved its usability and shifted to using its server-oriented technology (eg. NT-based OSes) even for home users. Finally, we’ve seen many groups try to create Linux brands for the masses. And it seems that Ubuntu is succeeding mightily.

Currently, I’m still using Windows because of a few minor things: needing to verify web sites in Internet Explorer, which is possible but not easy under Linux; the slightly greater ease of use with movies and multimedia; and the comfort of knowing that all of those popular Windows programs will run.

Most of that is changing. Multimedia seems to work just fine with Ubuntu, and the system is at least as easy to use as Windows. Updating the system is extremely easy, and there are tons of programs included right off the bat. In fact, as for the programs, my preferences are mostly with the open source software in any case. It’s just a sensible business choice: the programs do everything I need them to do, are easy and quick to download, and cost nothing.

Of course, we’ll see what I think in two months, but so far Ubuntu may be the first time I’ve felt Linux was a definitively good choice for business, especially for entrepreneurs starting out, who don’t have a lot of investment in other software. People have been saying this for years, from the first appearance of Red Hat, but now Linux has really grown up.

Now it’s time to boot into my new Ubuntu system.

There’s a feeling throughout the business world that meetings are a waste of time, yet they’re in no danger of disappearing.  Research suggests that many workers spend at least 5.5 hours per week in meetings, and the number may be more than 17 hours per week for executives.

How do you organize an effective meeting?

The number one complaint is lack of focus.  Lack of focus means lacking a clear agenda and defined goals, but also effectively choosing the attendees.  Often this lack of focus is revealed by an ambiguous meeting style, where brainstorming, status-checking and decision-making are combined.  The end result?  Many meeting attendees feel their time was wasted.

Do You Need to Meet?

Many meetings are called almost out of habit.  So before you even call a meeting, ask yourself two questions:

• Do we really need a meeting?  Or could an email or phone call suffice?
• Who needs to be there?

The Agenda

An agenda listing all items to discuss should always be sent out before a meeting; 2-3 days in advance for small meetings and at least a week in advance for larger ones.  Along with the agenda, any background or reference materials should be included.

The purpose for the agenda is not just to establish the goals of the meeting.  It’s also to give people a chance to think about any decisions they may need to make, and to prepare ideas or necessary materials in advance.

The fewer the items on the agenda, the better.  Most accounts say that more than three items is too many, and one item is best.  Even if there are several items, by sticking to one topic the meeting will still be focused.

Chairperson

Someone needs to lead the discussion.  In some cases it makes sense for the person calling the meeting to also chair it: it can help them stay on track with the topic they’ve chosen, and identify the most important questions.   However, when there is likely to be some disagreement, often the best chairperson is the most outspoken uninterested party: someone who won’t be too involved in the discussion itself, but who is able to get people to shut up and stay on topic.  Roles of the chairperson:

• Keep the meeting focused
• Prevent digressions
• Limit how long any person can talk at one time
• Start and end the meeting on time
• Ensure that quiet people are able to speak
• Accomplish the stated goals of the meeting (eg. make a decision, take an action)

Meeting Styles

Many of the meeting styles that are common in organizations are ineffective.  Status meetings can often be replaced, and just about any regular meeting (eg. weekly status meetings) tends to be a waste of time.  If you really need to get together, you don’t need the excuse of a weekly meeting.  Here are some meeting styles that work:

• Stand-Up or Huddle: It’s a lot like a status meeting, but confined to a short time period of 10 minutes or less, just before people start wanting to sit down.  This is an exception to the rule of “no regular meetings”: you can have Stand-Ups every day and actually see productivity gains.  Since you only have 10 minutes, only members of a team working together should be invited, or occasionally guests who are involved in the team’s activities.  The focus is on what you’re going to do in the next day or so.
• Action Meetings: ONLY for making decisions.  The idea is to present a problem, offer some background information, and make a decision of either YES, NO, or MORE INFO.  If more information is needed, make sure it’s still an action.  That means “think about it” or “do research” isn’t good enough, but “ask the User Interface team if they can add a status update icon” would be an action item.  The hard part about action meetings? Avoiding discussions, lengthy opinions and especially brainstorming.  If more discussion is needed, it should be part of an action.
• Brainstorming: These are hard.  The key to brainstorming is coming up with crazy ideas and avoiding criticism.  Participants should feel comfortable making jokes and suggesting silly ideas, simply because unrealistic and funny suggestions often spark more realistic ideas.  People who can’t help but ridicule or criticize during brainstorming sessions simply shouldn’t be invited back.  Not everyone is great at brainstorming.
• Nitpick sessions: Doesn’t sound like fun, but with the right attitude, these can be both enjoyable and very useful.  This is the chance to call in the incessant critics and get some real feedback.  Once you have a prototype that is soon to be ready, or a long-term plan becoming finalized, call in the nitpickers and find out early what might go wrong.
• Planning sessions: The hard part with a planning session is sticking only to the relevant level of detail.  If you’re planning out the year, choose the date for the yearly training seminars but don’t argue over which speakers to invite - just make a few suggestions.  You can discuss the finer details when you get around planning the actual seminar.
• Emergency meetings: You’re organizing a conference, and Friday afternoon you find out that your speakers for that evening are all going to be very late because of a cancelled flight?  Sometimes when something new comes up, and plans fall apart, you need to have a short meeting to change plans and make new decisions.  The style is similar to a Stand-Up but there’s more emphasis on finding quick solutions to new, urgent problems.
• Cocktails: Sometimes what you need isn’t a formal meeting, it’s just a chance for co-workers to get together in a casual environment and chat.  Whether it’s martinis, beer, lunch or coffee, keeping it “chill” often makes it easier for people to bring up topics and solutions.  Some of the best ideas I’ve seen teams come up with, have come from these get-togethers.  And don’t forget: the food and drink is essential.

The One-and-One Meeting Technique

The most effective way to hold a meeting is to stick to ONE meeting style and ONE issue.  Limit the meeting to a brainstorming on the new marketing campaign, or an action meeting to decide which of the two product designs to use. Keep it to one style and one issue, and you’ll find your meetings are more productive by an order of magnitude.

Or those of us who need a lot of extra help.

Like many other artists and entrepreneurs, procrastination is a huge part of how I work. I’m not great at sticking to schedules religiously, and deadlines seem to inhabit a parallel universe that has no effect on my own. I’ve tried to collect tricks for making sure that I got done the things that were most important, distilling the “productivity pr0n” into a small set of useful habits.

The work sabbath

Kind of an oxymoron, it came from the perverse realization that I was more productive and inspired when I was on vacation than when I was supposed to be working! What I found was that by not having a schedule, all of a sudden I could just work on whatever I wanted, for as long as I wanted! No obligation to go to a meeting, to answer the phone, or to submit something by a deadline.

So I’ve found that by scheduling at least one full day of the work week where I schedule no appointments, do no email, and answer no phone calls, I can get done huge numbers of things that I otherwise can’t find the time to do. Or more importantly: I can get much further in a few important things.

This is essentially a mid-way point between time-chunking and No Schedule. Time chunking is the idea that you need to block off a minimum amount of uninterrupted time to get certain things done. You can’t block off 1/2 an hour of “writing an article” or 15 minutes of web development. To be effective, you need to block off a full amount of time.

The No Schedule is extreme: you simply never agree to make appointments or have deadlines. While I’ve tried this and found it useful to a point, personally I found that having some deadlines helped structure my work, even if I didn’t follow the deadlines very strictly. And most of us can’t avoid scheduling anything.

The Working Sabbath is a much more reasonable compromise. I find that 1-2 days like this is just perfect. The hard part can be standing firm when people insist on contacting you or trying to book you during your no-schedule days, but it’s worth it.

Morning Short-list

This is one of the most popular approaches and it works:

1. Wake up early and have a good breakfast.
2. Write down a short list of things you really need to get done today.
3. Do them.

Many people emphasize having only a few items on the list, say 5 or less. I find something else more important: the number of hours. Figure out how many hours you have to work in the day, and estimate how long your To-Do items “should” take. Your To-Do list should only total about 50-60% of your working hours. If it’s any more, you won’t focus on the things that are most important. The idea is to acknowledge that interruptions and procrastination will eat away at some of the time. You want to make sure that in the time that’s left, you get the important things done.

And I’m not joking about the breakfast. I find I’m a lot more focused if I’ve eaten well.

Procrastinate Effectively

An approach advocated by a number of effective procrastinators. If you accept that you’re going to procrastinate and get distracted, at least spend your procrastination time doing important things. Usually I procrastinate most about short-term things-the things that have upcoming deadlines but aren’t hugely important in the grand scheme of things. So while I’m procrastinating on those things, I use my time to work on things that aren’t as urgent, but are much more important in the long term–planning out projects, writing a draft of a document.

It’s amazing, because often by doing this I actually prevent procrastination in future tasks. Say I procrastinate from writing an email by working on ideas for a new brochure. The great thing is that once it comes time to implement some of the new ideas, often the work is almost completely done. The hard part is usually starting with a blank page, and by working without a deadline, often the page fills up much faster.

Mad Drafts

Since it’s so much easier to come up with things when there’s less pressure to get it right immediately, a great way to procrastinate or kill time is by writing drafts. Since I carry a notebook with me everywhere, any moment that forces me to wait is time for me to work on drafts. I don’t usually share my notebooks with other people, so that sense of privacy makes it easy to spew out a quick draft.

The funny thing is, often the drafts are nearly perfect. By just chilling and writing out a few notes, often I find I’ve done 90% of the work. When it comes time, I just do an electronic version in a jiffy and overall I’ve saved myself a lot of time.

Some of the things I’ve jotted down while waiting:

• Price revisions for existing products, with different scenarios. The math is too simple to require a spreadsheet, so paper works great.
• Course plans for training
• Advertising ideas (brochures, web sites, etc.)
• Long-term planning

Say No - LOTS

Learn to relish the feeling of saying, “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to make that meeting” or “no, I’m not interested.” The biggest thing I try to say no to is any kind of obligation that doesn’t either make money or in some way contribute directly to my goals. I don’t accept a lot of obligations any more, period. It doesn’t mean I won’t help people. I just won’t commit to helping someone at a specific time or place.

Have Fun

Often we procrastinate worst when we’re not allowing ourselves to have fun. So take a fun approach to what you’re working on, or intersperse work with fun things. A trick I’ve used for writer’s block is to deliberately start off writing the worst, most offensive thing I could possibly think of. Not only did it make the process fun, but it also often revealed some great ideas that wouldn’t have come to me otherwise.

Stay True

Sounds quixotic, but make sure that you do every day at least one thing that you’re passionate about, or that is related to your long-term missions. Don’t allow days to fill up with tedious tasks while you forget the stuff that really means something to you.