You Have 2.8 Seconds to Impress

Apparently, Al Gore didn't realize that inventing the Internet would also eliminate attention spans. You have 2.8 seconds to capture someone's attention when they land on your webpage. If you fail to impress, inform and help your visitor to achieve their goals, you will lose them.

There is so much information out there most people will click away from your website for the slightest reason. Too wordy, too short, too ugly, bad colors, too slooow, where's the buttons, too confusing and "too old fashioned looking."

The Internet has bred snobs.

This doesn't mean your website must be enormously expensive, it just means you need to know the new rules.

The Internet continues to evolve. If even a fragment of your business is online, you need to stay on top of these new changes. It is pretty clear that Dr. Whitehead's brilliant observation continues to apply to business. The changes in the Internet will impact how you do business.

Your success online is based on adapting to new paradigms. The Internet continues to evolve and change, you need to stay on top of that change or you will not survive.

The Economic Meltdown

Business has gone insane.

We've seen corporate scandals, accounting irregularities, criminal convictions, bankruptcies and bailouts. And that’s just in the last six days.

Why? What's going on? Why are all these corporate giants folding? Why is corporate scandal and failure so rampant? What is business doing wrong that causes these instabilities? Where the hell is Adam Smith's invisible hand during these catastrophes?

While the mortgage crisis is the cause of the financial failures, there's a larger problem that isn't getting any attention. Something is deeply wrong with how we do business in America. There is a problem at the root of our business model that leads to decay and failure.

You can choose to blame the government, greed, corruption or the economy. You can argue for more regulation, more oversight, more transparency, more taxes but nothing will solve the problem that corrupts modern business practices.

The deep-rooted failure of modern business is a failure to think in the long term.

In part, this failure comes from John Maynard Keynes and his famous statement "In the long term, we're all dead."

This has become the battle cry of modern business. Short-term thinking predominates amongst the C-suite who measures success in fiscal quarters. We have condensed the entirety of business existence into three month time slices that determine the rise and fall of highly paid executives.

If business is to survive, we must adjust our point of view. Executives must adopt a long term view in order to establish true long-term growth and create real value for shareholders. The failure of these companies is directly attributable to short-term thinking and the inability to see further ahead than the next quarterly report.

How Progress Wrecks Everything

"The major advances in civilization
are processes that all but wreck
the societies in which they occur."

- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Mathematician, Author & Philosopher

Every great leap forward, everything we've invented has caused major changes in how we live. As new technologies are born there are also changes in how we do business.

The fax machine nearly put couriers out of business. The explosion in home computer sales almost killed IBM back in 1993. When Al Gore invented the Internet he re-wrote the rules of business. Every change in how we work causes a huge impact. How we adapt to these changes determines whether or not we survive.

Amazon.Com started as the Internet bookstore. They were a media darling with investors lining up to give away their money. The stock stayed high even when they were hemorraghing money! Then the Internet bubble burst. But Amazon learned the wisdom of the long tail so, they added every product in the solar system. Now, what started as a humble bookstore has turned into the world's largest and most phenomenally well-stocked General Store.

Amazon recognized a major change caused by the Internet. They adapted, with some bumps, but now they thrive. But plenty of others never survived. Hopefully you weren't invested in any of them when they collapsed.

And, no, I don't miss the damn sock puppet commercials.

The Digital Age has made everything move faster. The Internet continues to evolve and change. You cannot stop the march of progress.

Best to pay attention.

5 Warning Signs of a Ponderous Business

They say that the miracle of the dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all. That reminds me of some companies I've worked with over the years. They were bloated, ponderous business enterprises that were slow to react to change and burdened down by poor processes. The miracle is not how well they survived, but that they survived at all. In a slow economy, you cannot afford to let your ponderous business slow you further.

Fortunately there are five signs that can warn you if your business is ponderous and slow.

1. Nasty Surprises
Frankly, as a business owner, I hate surprises. Usually because they are rarely good surprises. I can't remember the last time my accountant called me with good news. Do you understand what I mean? Do you get too many nasty surpsies? If you do, there is a serious problem with your information systems.

2. Breakdowns in communication
Do your subordinates know The Big Picture? Are they on board and pulling in the same direction? Are all the teams playing nicely and sharing information with one another? Have meetings ever turned into sessions of "Pass the Blame"? Do people complain about a lack of communication? If you understand what I mean than you have a serious information problem.

3. Constant firefighting
Are you constantly fighting fires? Are you being pulled back and forth by the crisis of the hour? Have you ever had to abandon a crisis to fight a bigger disaster only to be summoned to battle a catastrophe? Is there always something that demands your immediate attention, right now or the world will end? If so, than you have a serious problem.

4. Constant errors
Have you stopped to think what a bad decision can cost your business? Have you ever wondered if the data you use to make decisions is accurate? Do you have evidence of a time when bad data lead to a bad decision? Can bad information cause you to make a career ending error? If so, than you have a serious data problem.

5. Slow response times
Does it take forever to get answers to questions? Do you wait hours/days/weeks for reports? How long does it take a decision to be implemented? How does your company react to adversity? Does your business react smoothly, avoiding obstacles by adapting or does it grind to a halt? If not, than you have a serious problem.

Ponderous Beast
You need to retool your business! You need to trim down and prepare for hard economic times. You need to accomplish more with less and that's just the hard truth of it. If your business is slow to react, does not adapt easily to change, is constantly on the brink of a disaster or has concerns about the quality of information then you need to contact me immediately. I will happily explain how I can solve those problems for you.

Free telephone consultation.
(800) 784-8045 ext. 500

Build Your Skunkworks

In Al Capp's 1934-1977 cartoon series “Li’l Abner” the colorful residents of Dogpatch work diligently to produce illegal moonshine at the Skunk Works. In the 1940's the Lockheed aircraft company’s top secret design, development and production facility was given the same name which they trademarked in 1980. In the 1980's IBM turned to an inhouse skunkworks to figure out the best way to break away from their pure mainframe business model and break into the PC market. And more recently, Motorola's Razr telephone design was completed not at their main R&D facilities but 50 miles away in downtown Chicago.

What makes all these skunkworks similar is that they have all been established outside of typical corporate management constraints. Designers and engineers are given the freedom to innovate and develop ideas that might otherwise not fall within the corporate mold. Usually a skunkworks is a small team with a laissez-faire manager who allows their creativity to reign.


However the original purpose behind the corporate skunkworks was the development of new ideas that would launch radical new technologies like the U2 spy plane. Now a well run skunkworks works closely with marketing, sales and other company departments in order to design new products and services that will help you steal customers from your competition. The old concept of the Young Turks bent on overthrowing all corporate standards fell prey to the cost reduction era of the 1990's. Now, a well run skunkworks will help your business innovate and develop the next generation of products and services.