bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

Kaizen, an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

[From Wikipedia] The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as:

• Standardize an operation
• Measure the standardized operation (find cycle time and amount of in-process inventory)
• Gauge measurements against requirements
• Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity
• Standardize the new, improved operations
• Continue cycle ad infinitum

This is the standard business model.

It’s worth acknowledging that everything has a need for continuous improvement, constant maintenance, growth, nurturing.

The idea that you can set & forget doesn’t make any sense, especially in a technology driven world.  Embrace it.

Just because a decision was made once that you were/weren’t going to do it that way, it doesn’t mean that you should stick to it.

I’ve seen a few bootstrapped startups over the years do bootstrapping very very well BUT have in the last 12 months missed out on their tipping points. As others have recognised the opportunity, taken investment and grasped the market.

Their fundamental decision to bootstrap initially which was their biggest strength became their biggest weakness. Don’t be afraid to admit that what was right a year ago, doesn’t mean anything today. It’s this inability which can kill a very quickly.

It is difficult, as you are changing from what you know and have advocated but recognising & switching might mean you need to swallow your pride this month, will mean you will definitely win in the long term.

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NB: You are always wrong.

It’s the new personal media.

Instead of checking into your local media site 10 times a day

You’re checking into your personal media wall.

Most often it’s presenting the same information, but you’re checking for what’s new, what’s changed, what’s happening.

An interesting swap in media consumption that we’re seeing.

If your idea doesn’t get traction online, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t exist, moving along.

You can pour your heart into an idea for 2-3 years then release it online & it can be culled within hours…literally. Or it’s deemed a good idea & someone with more resources will just build the same idea.

It is ruthless. But it’s good. It forces you to execute better ideas all the time, an eco-system that breeds & rewards the best ideas.

Sometimes you need to quit an idea to open up room for the next one.

Prepare for them, plan them out, be ready.

Be ready to win a massive client.  Have your bag packed for that last minute flight.  Build the capability to grab that opportunity.

Alan Webber shares in his book, 52 rules of thumb, the difference between a crisis & an opportunity is when you learn about it.

If you are prepared for it, it’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity.

Hint: Companies get acquired when they’ve prepared for it.

Are those that YOU create.

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This buzz phrase has stuck with me for about 10 days, since Dan (who works for us) mentioned it, his goal is to mention it as many times as possible.

It just keeps ringing around & coming back to the forefront of my mind.  It’s annoying.  Like a pop song.

But you see, it’s the power of an idea, it has resonance.

It keeps bouncing around, resonating with your customers.

The question is does your idea have resonance?

Finally companies have a way to run a locals discount with the daily deal sites.

It lets us as locals be incentivised to use these deals.

It gets us out & exploring our local town.

On a mass scale that’s got to be good for culture.  Amazing in fact.  It’s the first step in changing consumer behaviour.

I had the pleasure of being a Judge & Mentor at Auckland Startup Weekend, you can watch my overview on YouTube.

It was very interesting to watch, observe & take part in the weekend, a few notes I had as key takeaways:

– Keep confident in your idea, some that had early potential but lost it as they lost confidence and made the idea more complex. Always second guess adding complexity, does it add value to the idea or take away from it? The value is in what you’ve left out.  (Stop.  Read that sentence again.).

– Get to your idea fast.  Explain it in simple terms.  People switch off if they don’t understand what you’re doing, no matter what numbers or justification you throw on the table.

– Keep your idea execution tangible, how are you really going to execute against it

– Address how you are going to acquire customers.

When you are developing an idea, remember you are the curator, you curate everything around that idea.  It’s that curation that people buy into, what investors invest in and what excites customers.

If you’re a blogger it works by interviewing people & sharing the content on your blog.  You then grow your authority, networks & credibility.  Often then they will link to your blog & help you grow.

The other way is to integrate your website into lots of existing platforms (same metaphor) and let them promote your offering to their network.  I.e. integrating your project management software into Xero, or eCommerce plugins for PayPal etc.

Same frameworks just different scenarios.

Share this.

Share that.

Forward it to your friends.

If I load these share buttons over here people will share more.

OR

You could spend that time writing better content.  Better ideas.  Ideas that will compel people to share no matter how hard it is.

PTE. Planning Thinking Executing.

We spend our careers in two modes, doing planning, thinking and then executing.

OR more commonly planning thinking executing all at once.  Doing it on the fly.

Problem is lack of planning kills projects.  If you can pull just one or two projects across the other side into doing the planning & thinking upfront you’ll have far more success.

Speed, how fast are you going?

It’s all relative.

Your speed is relative to the context.

In New Zealand driving 120km on the road is a no no (it’s too fast).

In Germany on the autobahn driving 120km on the autobahn is a no no (it’s too slow).

It’s the context of the driving.  If you truly want to go faster change the context.

It’s not revolutionary, we all know what a service level agreement is.

But it’s an interesting service we offer at Young & Shand – a defined service level agreement.

It allows us to be agnostic on the tools & tactics to drive results whilst owning the execution.

It’s strategy, ideas & execution.

SLA’s are straight forward, transparent and hugely helpful for your customers.  It takes what keeps them up at night away.  Imagine a SLA for your car? Never worry about car maintenance (I’m sure someone is doing that).  SLA for your groceries? SLA for…

It’s interesting to see what happens when you apply a bell curve to human behaviour.

One I’ve noticed is traffic.

If I leave home at 7.00 am – traffic is bad.  If I leave home at 7.30 am traffic is bad.  If I leave at 8.00am… well I may as well stay home and have a coffee.

However if I leave at 7.20 the traffic is sweet and a quick breeze through, same at 6.55 (and a few other times I’ve tested).

My theory is this, we all set our alarms for the same times, 6.00, 6.15, 6.30, 7.30 etc.  Rounding up to the nearest 10 minutes or logical time.  What I do is set my alarm for obscure times 6.37, 6.40.

This means that at any point in time there is peak traffic generated from the 6.30 alarm, the 7.00 alarm.  If you catch that peak wave you have slow traffic like the rest.

Give it a try.