Learning Practice

Be the giver in 2019

2019-02-17T19:57:00.002+05:30

What I have attained is because someone helped me get it, I wish to be of help to others.
My success multiplied the happiness for my well wishers, I wish to be the well wisher for others success.
I soared high with a mentor to speed me on the runway, I wish to be the mentor to push others on the runway to soar.
I do not want to look beneath to count my luck, rather be the lucky charm to make others as lucky as I have become.
What I understand now about privileges, is by giving it to others, hope I be the giver to a cause.
In a world where abundance is free, you can't get it all, be the giver who shares more than is consumed to become better among the best.

I wish to "Be the giver" in 2019.
What is your wish for 2019?

Road to Redemption

2017-12-31T23:00:00.000+05:30

We shift gears,
Learn to be agile,
Do the bidding,

yet we leave a lot to finish.

While we succeed, we also
hide our scars,
Forget the sacrifices,

yet we leave a lot to finish.

May the goal be not be to finish,
But that, we pull up,
chin up, dust off,
Get ready to roll,

And we are eager to start a lot.

Another day, week, month year,
Set forth our redemption,
To finish what we should,
Continue what we need,
Replenish our souls, mind and body,
To the greater purpose of our lives.

Happy new year 2018 :)

Evolved Learning

2017-12-24T23:00:00.000+05:30

The one great luck I had in this sabbatical was the nature of the learning evolved.
Books (published), still are the charm I long for, and the best stress busters.

However, the love for learning makes you cross boundaries every time you come across a great service.

Three great services I got introduced and subscribed are Kindle, Blinkist and Audible.

KIndle: Arguably the best reading experience "after" a physical book. The choices, varieties and ease of experience to purchase and sync across devices make it an awesome choice for avid readers.

Blinkist: I still remain a fan of getAbstract, but blinkist provides similar service at a fraction of the cost. All the summaries are of a definitive length, can be quickly completed while in a coffee shop queue and building your own massive library is "free". Give it a try and you would fall in love with their distilled essence from the books.

Audible: The "gold" subscription is costlier for my standards, yet I tossed a lot to go for this one and only service available at a good standard. Given that nothing beats reading a full book by the authors, this gets your commute and traffic jams enjoyable. If I enjoy a blink, I get a full copy to listen. The programming, production quality and the narration by professionals and authors themselves makes us long for more drives. I get restless to get on road again just to complete the book. The reproduction in audio format is more appealing given that we could have a multi-tasking attention. Listen in your gym, commute and long flights with eyes rested.

All the above, transform your smart phone and your car into a learning powerhouse. Don't miss converting your mobile device into a learning junk box and appreciate that commutes are actually our road to self-actualization.

Distractions and the pitfall of the "best"

2017-12-17T23:11:00.000+05:30

I have seen distractions play a havoc in my blogging life.

First are the choices in platforms: Blogger, wordpress, typepad which are mainstream blogging tools and then catch up of Facebook, LinkedIn that gives you an audience ecosystem, new age publishing systems like Medium, smaller sites like squarespace and the ever ego to have a branded full fledged paid hosting site of your own.

I don't argue the merits or otherwise for each of them here. When I started looking around, I was consumed to look for the best because I felt my thoughts deserve them. In this search for the best, stopped doing what I was trying to improve.

What I learnt from all of search is gold.

1. There is merit in the saying "Don't fix what is not broken yet". This suggests that we don't abandon what we do and jump and hop without a destination in what is "new".

2. Get comfortable with anything new before making the switch. In hind sight, I could have continued sharing in this platform, while "following" other channels and getting comfortable with the idea to switch.

3. Change Management matters: I was introduced to this concept in my profession and yes, it applies every where. If I had the desire to switch, the process of change management could have eased me out of the pain.

4. When in distress, seek to talk: The unfortunate event that happened around this time was that my already small blogger friends circle pushed themselves away from this endeavor. May be, we all could have benefited from the withdrawal symptoms and reassured each other to refresh and re-look.

5. The calling of "Why" needs to be answered as a mantra: I started blogging by accident and it became my obsessions and then my love. At some time, probably, I couldnt answer "why" am I spending time here. And should I continue just because I love and dont see value ? The nag eventually gets shriller and gets a shell we live comfortably.

The hiatus that wasn't to be

2017-12-10T22:19:00.000+05:30

Have you ever felt the disappearance of Mojo one fine day and struggled to get it back. ?Started wondering why, and erased all memories just as we tend to hide the first crush of our lives that re-surfaces on a sudden event ?

This blog was one such event of my life. After the last post in 2015, I couldn't muster the energy to pick myself up and pen down what I wished to. And eventually my struggles weakened me until this time.

Outside the blogger life, it has been a hectic journey, lots of new learnings, developed maturity with the onset of older age, overcoming crises and mostly an avid consumer of learning and a reticent contributor.

Picking up my love once again to blog. Counting on your support to go from here.

Review: Doing What Matters Doing What Matters Doing What Matters

2015-08-17T08:23:00.001+05:30

Doing What Matters Doing What Matters Doing What Matters by James Kilts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is often a rare book that resonates with you. The reverberation is so strong that you wish to align with each and every line written as a wisdom that is talking to you.

This is one such wonderful book. I did not just read this book, but learnt it as a text book in university syllabus. I read it, took copious notes of each and every nugget, now have realms of pages of written notes to synthesize frequently.

If there is a practical actionable insightful book to excel in a management role, do not bypass this text.

View all my reviews

Instruction Design: A Process centred outcome or a Creative pursuit

2015-05-31T12:56:00.000+05:30

It is a emotionally charged question with no definitive answers, as I realized when I was discussing this with my leadership team in a late evening coffee shop conversation.

The middle road and an easy answer can be that it is art as much as science. A variation of the same is that, while IDs follow a process it is creativity that makes the training package outcomes unique, tailored, relevant and effective. And to think of it, any work, job is always the same. A process is defined and individuals using their thinking skills to deliver unique value in every job that exists in the world.
However, the trigger to this post, is to highlight that when decisions are to be made on people, such middle ground exercise is a danger. Because, people need to be selected, oriented, trained, motivated and given responsibilities to build them up for success. Thus, the leaders and operating teams views matter only if it is either way - so that decisions are consistent and fast.These decision, then determine:

Hiring and selection,
Retaining the right fits, and,
Choosing the type of customer where successful partnerships can be built.

My argument and stand is that, Instruction Design is a pure process driven domain satisfying most (well, almost all) of the needs of corporations and programs commissioned to resolve learning gaps. Supporting my case is:

Analyzing content to meet the learning needs (follow a structured traceability) has to be a process-driven to get solutions in time,
Content/Context/Environment/User devices/time availability and attention span, drives logical decisions for crafting the learning paths/modules, repeating learning objectives and defining interaction patterns, deployment mediums and
The important step of writing instructions, has to be style guide driven, just as in editorial rooms for maintaining standards, consistency, understanding, error-free, audience appropriate, build brand identity, which all has to prove to be successful instructions to drive the learning which is the aim of the whole exercise.
Determination of Learning Object is a collaboration between developer on what can be implemented as a SCO (if made SCORM compliant).

Having said this, it is important to clarify that the thinking behind all this is not to create a large step by step documented procedure manual and that robots can replace humans in this field. The human mind wins in developing instructions for fellow humans. Over-hyping this piece of a process, probably gives Instruction Design a narrow window of evaluation to prospective talents who could make a successful career. Instruction Designers can be successful, where natural competencies are being good at process management and can deliver good outcome with the reserves of empathy, Learning Agility (mentored on best practices that are available to read aplenty on the SoMe world).

Next time, when you are in job market understand the hiring manager philosophy to your job and if it aligns to the job perception you hold, express your wish. It will save both the manager and individuals from the path of draining the energy and enabling success to reach the business.
I took Instruction Design as an example, as the in-world, in-person discussion happened on the question, which am sure is applicable in any industry, domain, work.

7 principles inherent in any Lean Enterprise and how to be good at it

2015-05-02T22:42:00.002+05:30

1. Shed fat: Continuously. Unlike a weight loss program, keep getting at it often. No, this is not to mean cutting resources or going for a re-org. These are at best symptomatic treatments that lasts a fall.

Shedding fat, in Lean, implies to keep looking at ways to continuously drive away what we would accumulate as we grow, produce and do new things. Things could be excess inventory, unused or rarely required tools, never ending projects, cost escalating services, unproductive events, inflated processes, innovation lacking teams, etc.

Focusing on Rapid Improvement Events, standard work and following the associated playbook eliminates Mura (uneveness, irregularities), avoids Muda (waiting, surprises, shifting priorities, scrapping of work) and empowers teams to avoid Muri (over-burden, working without clarity). It is therefore, an essential quick win and showing the results motivates your entire team to keep getting good at Lean philosophy.

2. Be clean: Cleanliness is godliness and it is a fact. Keeping surrounding clean, allows to identify dirt and dirt making elements, helps shed fat sooner rather than allow them to fester. A clean environment brings in productivity, drives discipline, lets in sunshine, promotes transparency, discourages dark rooms, limits back side gossips, rumors or lingering bad after-effects, and above all encourages us to be clear in thoughts, words and deeds.

Daily Kaizen, Kaizen events and an ever-attentive focus on 5S(sort, set, shine, standarize and sustain) helps to instilll the spirit in teams to keep the surroundings and environment clean. Environment and systems are the pillars that promote transparency and ethical behaviors in business dealings.

3. Allow honest confrontations: A big letdown, often is the case in diversity focused teams, is leadership style. Teams tend to perceive, due to their diverse experiences and backgrounds, different interpretations for actions, unrelated attributions, seeing seeming patterns that might just be an aberration, probable theories in decisions and many other relationships that suits their mindset. Interpersonal strife and collaborative challenges rule until open communications and reiteration of meanings serve as the key.

Continuous coaching, feedback and teaching treating these instances as learning opportunities along with transparent dialog becomes the guiding light that determines leaders and teams actions. Being Genuine and feeling empathy are not weaknesses in leaders. Counter-intuitively, they in fact, make the leaders stand tall and helps them work adapting within the teams mental models.

Lean culture encourages the practice of Gemba walks, take decisions after Gembutsu, rely on Genjitsu and Genri that ensures quick navigation back to standard work and Genichi styles and working in self formed quality circles enable honest conversations in the workplace.

4. No penalty culture: It is not about affixing responsibilities to people but identifying what misses led to this fall ? An occurrence of an issue inevitably leads to a gap in the process and if detected late means audit system in turn are non-existent. As my boss, often says, a disaster is never because of one event. It is a series of misses that blows up making people believe a cause and effect relationship to the last blunder.

Make mistakes - Share problems, Fail often - Post Improvements, rely on recognizing that process and not people are the cause of any screw up. It is always about: Why did your system allow the person to fail? In almost all cases, a process gap or failure to follow a process or lack of understanding, missing warning systems are identified as primary causes and Lean teams acknowledge and celebrate these improvements together.

The spirit of acknowledging mistakes and treating every opportunity to listen to feedback and as a learning need will build the spirit of continuous improvement. Continuous Improvements are the cornerstone to promote innovation and free the spirits high to soar.

Lean is all about learning and improving. This makes the Lean program learn-able for every one where lean practicing teams bond stronger than beat each other in the journey of optimizing productivity and changing direction.

5. Customer Satisfaction is the center of all action: It is not the end result as some training programs and managers speak it out to be. The end result is company's profitability (can exist if they can sell to customers), value (can happen only when they deliver quality and have high perceptions on the abilities with employees believing high on their company), and brand (only when they do more than just exist for commercial transactions) in the marketplace.

Wastes for customer is the hidden, unusable, rarely used, not so important feature that costs them but isn't delivering a value or never used at all. A product with Value is essentially a product that rings in customer satisfaction every time of use and is produced eliminating waste: For user, customer and people working on the project. Waste from production lines(scrap, unused inventory, longer work in progress times and many more) add to the costs that skews on the pricing.

Lean has identified 7 forms of waste. Continuously eliminating them from production lines and end products helps enhance the value. Takt time, One piece flow, stopping the line are all hallmarks that great, disciplined teams can alone perform. High productive and inherently quality products emerge from Lean environments that provide repeatable and remarkable benefits to customer.

6. Put premium on process: Rewards should go to people who enhance and improve the process, not their importance. Following and practicing structured problem solving approaches will make individuals successful and teams scale performance benchmarks by addressing root causes than just symptoms. A team of stars could remain just that: People as stars in their individual right. A team, bonded by a system, glued by processes, incentivised to become teachers for others, survive, thrive and emerge as great champions.

Hoshin Kanri, Takt time, Poke-Yoke, Visual Management, Kanban and other tools help provide the framework for professional collaboration and grounds-up empowered decision making teams.

7. Measure and reach targets: What is visible gets recorded, What is recorded gets improved and what is improved is appreciated. Lean is so good at this cycle.The purpose of any system is to track data. Recording necessitated and planned data is an integral element in successful teams. In Lean and in any quality system, the fundamental premise is to Do what you say, and Say what you do. In other words, what is acted upon is documented as a process. A documented process is audited for its performance. A performance gap is mentioned as an opportunity for improvement. All improved and benchmarked processes are certified. All improvement opportunities drive towards consistency, predictability, stability, and team satisfaction. Heijunka, Stop the Line and other quality tools with

Lean help establish a metrics driven culture in teams for all-round excellence, every minute, for long years to come.

A cycle of positive spiral using the above 7 principles enables Lean teams to get "Lean" and be good at it for years to come as the culture starts moving in this direction.

10 behaviors that we tend to look in every leader

2015-03-22T17:22:00.004+05:30

Raise Morale
Satisfy the need for appreciation
Give honest feedback genuinely
Take the right actions
Be engaged and engage others
Take Risks for results
Focus and align to a purpose
Manage people with care over projects
Expect processes to deliver results and close deals the right way
Insist on learnings, improvement and adherence to accepted practices. Live every moment and act upon each of these values and adhere to imbibed principles which are never compromised.
Additional One: The key in leadership is to establish a value system and make them the anchor for decision making. Being a transaction and adjusting decisions to tide over crisis or adapt to a changed context without knowing the shifting value system baseline is very managerial and short term.
And one more: Manage your perceptions from other views. They shape you, your ability to instill trust, earn their following and be relevant to their aspirations.

Thus, leadership can be practiced by everyone. All it needs a conviction to state a vision boldly and a passion to deliver the results through people.

5 "KS" Etiquettes to manage small teams

2015-01-24T20:50:00.000+05:30

I learnt these simple mantras by observing and working with my earlier boss who is great at building start-ups.

Keep Sharing
Keep Shipping
Keep Improving
Keep Smiling
Keep Simplifying

Following the above, it is possible to achieve what consultants, crack teams, hiring specialists and luxury retreats, all that cost big money, for developing:

A. Strategy (simplify enough to enable clear focus on the vision),

B. Engagement (value differences and still find ingenius ways to co-exist with happiness),

C. Winning Approaches(compete to deliver and become better and better than competition and meet rising expectations of customers),

D. Earning Revenues (Ship often to monetize the work/investment as close to the cost as possible. Small companies need cash flow to stay in business)

E. Marketing Collateral (Allow teams, peers, customers, industry, end markets discover you and makes it possible to contact you for doing business while teams share knowledge, experiences, successes learnings, R&D experiences and solutions.)

Start living the entrepreneurial spirit!

Expectations Mismatch

2014-10-05T12:30:00.000+05:30

How can expectations be a mismatch ? Isn't it a misnomer ?

Expectations are a consequence.
Expectations are shared.
Expectations are decided mutually
Expectations are a reward of the future.
Expectations mean a practice that has a precedent and is bound to be met all the time.
Expectations evolve over a period of time
Expectations shape up with change
Expectations get realized by executing a choice
Expectations are distinct possibilities in the realm of reality
Expectations are meant for adequate care of the result and future preparation to live again.

Assumptions are self-focused and self-thoughts. Hence they can be rightly-placed/misplaced, matched/mismatched, negotiated/manipulated, right-on-target/over-estimated, compared, demanded, disoriented, disturbed, denied, non-gratified, disagreed upon. ....

While expectations can be fulfilled, assumptions can only be calibrated.

D.I.A.L change

2014-09-26T12:30:00.000+05:30

Having been impacted by change early in career and seen the after effects to the organization and the people, then took a risky opportunities to join a start-up venture which failed and then be a part of a successful turnaround story, change has now become my De-facto tool to motivate, innovate and define success. The easiest way for me to visualize a change is to create different trajectories and reflect on the accomplishments vs misses.

There are just 2 sides to a change or integration effort. One side are people who are given the mandate to make the change and the second side are people impacted by the change. The availability of information and the vision for the future are so different in the 2 camps that bringing them together is what makes a change challenging. The needs, wants and desires of the 2 camps are always tangential and never meet up, making even an experienced, senior, seen-it-all experts, start as a novice in every new project.

To DIAL a change, 4 key metrics determine the outcomes and the shape of it. They invariably are present in every situation, turn and with every person.
The metrics are:

Dialog: Do we and how much we Communicate, Collaborate, Share and Speak the truth ? Are we helpful and are the take-aways intended as it should be? Do we receive feedback ?
Inquire and Inclusive: Are we including everyone required? Are we inquiring into everything we hear, see or asked ? This is the most time consuming piece. So many individuals have so many different perceptions and very many expectations that is impossible to match or could be conflicting with business advocacy. Are we considering the option that is most inclusive and do we conclude our decision with an inquiry that the choice makes the most sense in the given circumstances and with available evidences ?
Actions: Is there a plan ? What are we leaving behind (if no to this, there is no need for change preparation) ? Where is our focus ? Do we have the complete buy-in from stakeholders and shareholders ? What can be the pain alleviating points ? Where do we go for help ? Whom are we recruting ? Are we course-correcting often?
Love: For people signing up and people signing out, do alike with love. Inspite of best efforts, we have to shift or transfer our friends and people interwined in our lives for years. Does our solution show care, consideration, compassion, support, ease and are we giving appropriate time ? Are we sensitive in dealing with a hard call. The hardness cannot be recalled, but what are we doing to soften the blow ?

Change often links up and changes people lives in myriad unexpected ways. We cannot escape change and if we dont make it happen, it will happen to us. The deal is to DIAL and co-exist with it.

How change is perceived - The paradox of Change

2014-09-13T12:30:00.000+05:30

Managers and champions of Change, particularly in integration teams tasked with overseeing team merger with diverse cultures, needs, processes, systems, people and standards, need and are expected to:

Be Disciplined, Adaptable & Flexible
Incisive in diagnosis from symptoms,
Take actions with clinical precision,
Address every stakeholder needs truthfully,
Behave pragmatic with people
Insightful to tailor solutions than force fit past practices
Pragmatic with people
Practice being in the context and time and patient
Manage crazy timelines
Keep moving ahead in multiple paths to reach the goal

Paradoxically, every change always is mentioned in attributes of:

Chaos,
Turbulence,
Insecurity,
Lack of Focus,
No clue of what is coming next
Communication breakdowns,
Missing ownerships and accountability,
Unstable working conditions,
Missed family times & Skewed work-life balance,
delays, confusion and lack of clarity

How does change affect you ? Ask your manager what attributes they would associate and you would get the answer. :)

Alternate or better - the paradox of change

2014-09-06T20:30:00.000+05:30

When we say, the current way of working needs to change, the immediate reaction is to show and ask us to choose an alternate practice that is worse than the current. It is often the need for a status quo and pushing back an idea that isn't mine, is easier, than asking to get involved or champion the unknown.

Digging deep, it is the pedigree that matters when I will align and would support the need to change. The idea, needs to be from a person I am comfortable changing for, or should be based on a future prospect that is skewed in my favor. Plus above all it needs to become an overwhelming current need- something as an imperative that cannot be passed on and that condition needs to be vouched by a person of trust. Otherwise, my reactions are often the first instant push-back type.

New managers always find the need to change and start early buy-ins, to identify who is in and who's out. Needlessly at such times, stars opt out as early adoption from an erstwhile comfortable, proven high performance and high market valuations doesn't play emotionally, physically and professionally to start afresh a new path.

Losing stars early and having a team minus them, may allow for new stars and better market professionals, but the losses to steam ahead and more bottlenecks in terms of calibration slow the pace down.

It takes a deep breath and few seconds of awful pause to ask "what better looks like?" when a rather pale alternative is presented. Moving discussion away from speaking of the alternates in terms of reference of the current, peg the changes as the reference and wouldn't it be a win-win to ask repeatedly - "what more can this better become?" and followed up with "how can you make it happen?".

First post on Coaching

2014-08-30T22:01:00.001+05:30

I wrote this as a feedback in Amazon and realized that it is good as a post with minor edits...
Let me know your feedback
--------------

Coaching is a tough subject and act. It spans cognitive, psychology, philosophy, bringing two experiences together and requires calibration in actions according to context and life dynamics of the coachee. Yet mastering these subjects is no good for a coaching career.

Coaching is a person-person interaction that requires

Attentive listening,
Building relationships,
Nurturing positive thoughts,
Span new perspectives,
Nudge towards self-realized actions in the coachee
all without authority or responsibility or a formal hierarchy.

Thus, a coach needs to do all of the above, every single time through

Continuous probes,
Constant motivation,
Following a long path for solutions to unravel than just giving them,
Using no coercion tactics,
Influence yet not over-power the coachee.

Being truthful, Holding confidence, Constant intent to help, Deliver messages directly not at the person but at the problem requires constant reminder of the basics.

This book by Max Landsberg: Tao of Coaching does just that. Coaching is never measured in number of sittings or weighed in hours of meetings. It can be a hallway conversation(like how the book starts), a 20 minute discovery exercise or a structured feedback session and shows how it is needed for both successful people and struggling folks alike. Highly recommended!

10 (+1) steps that worked for me in any escalation management situations

2014-06-08T14:14:00.002+05:30

Accept the issue/challenge on an as-informed basis and not probe/cross-question.
Apologise without conditions.
Appear without seeming abdicating
Announce plans, not reasons, problems and past
Analyze process not persons
Own the chain, never leave anyone out. (affected parties, stakeholders - Up, Down and Sideways, Cross domain teams)
Keep relevant the communications for different audiences.
Offer personal services not automated responses
Brief daily with progress report until resolved and back to normal
Position yourself as a vent than to blow back
Bring back your creativity and innovation to de-stress and lighten the environment

Lean concepts in 10 bullet points

2014-05-04T12:09:00.000+05:30

As you "see", "hear" and "find" opportunities, recruit a team, prioritize and "DO" what is necessary to complete them.
Be concious of the steps you take and use to reach a result. That, is your learning and personal gain that translates to experience.
Teach relentlessly. No matter your hierarchy, share your knowledge. This wisdom and passion, alone counts as your expertise.
Waste and Losses are part of the process, not the people or outcomes. Reduce or eliminate them at the place of encounter to optimize the flow.
Vison, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, Goals, Plans and Tactics is the compass to keep you guided and grounded. These tools enables discovery and realize the gap between realities and vision. People groups and actions, then, embark on the journey to bridge the gap and reach the desired state.
Life is analoguous and so is Continous Improvement. Never rest, as "Better can be Better" and that is the best place to operate.
Change is not the only constant. It is inevitable. The only constants are to increase: revenues, customer satisfaction and, profits that is given to the society, stakeholders and shareholders.
Customers and employees will never ask for risks or path less taken. They will on-board when the value and success are greater than the asking price. Hence, innovate and communicate vigourously.
Do all of the above as a clock work and in a rhythmic beat day, week, month and year, over and over again. Never stop it as a end state, but as a daily chore for path-breaking success.

Tip #10: Lean is difficult as it involves not great amounts of work but because it is least exciting and less visible as a measure. Isn't it the same with greatness and trust, which is always recognized and never measured in indices?

Career is a self drive

2014-04-19T14:06:00.000+05:30

Career has lot of similarities with driving.

Safety lies in pursuing change,
Strength is always found in resisting temptations,
Err is a detour to get back on track,
Milestones are only an indicator to achieve the next,
Navigators and Guides are partners to success and enjoyment.
Finding the power range is the key to enjoy the cruise and career,
Journeys are a pleasure when a sense of purpose is accomplished,
Tools to pursue the free spirit requires responsibility and following of basic rules

So how do we drive our careers forward? Looking forward to your insights.

Hare and Tortoise Story - Tweaked for my kids to understand speed and practice

2014-04-19T14:04:00.004+05:30

As kids, we probably took the "slow and steady wins the race" moral uncontested. For my kids, knowing they will turn the tables on me with lightning speed and thunderous effect, I required tweaks to the moral, that reinforces speed, practice, consistency, and focus, as success mantras for their activities. So here it goes:

1. Slow and Steady finishes the race.

2. Fast and Lazy loses the race.

3. Slow and Lazy doesn't wake up at all (this was completed by my daughter)

4. Fast and Steady Wins the race.

Couldn't this be why the tortoise finished the race and won because it was against a known loser (that particular hare).?

What if the Hare would have been steady and focused ? It would have won and tortoise would have finished the race. A win-win deal and demonstrates a sporting spirit of the race event. - Right ?

5 common mistakes during content strategy

2014-04-04T14:32:00.000+05:30

Content is "King". Making the king affable requires careful selection, cohesion and showcase them in the best stage. Platforms, technologies, features, all service the content in the way a king would like to be served. The most important aspect of any content based project - be it websites, collaboration mediums, knowledge management tools is to share the content in the most usable and likeable fashion for the users, it is meant to enable and assist.

Invariably across multiple projects within , the following 5 pitfalls are common and give a "Oh! yet again" feeling. These are so obvious that they skip the logic, analytical and focused and otherwise bright business minds from delivering a best in class experience.

1. Content consumption vs User Engagement
A content dissemination project is an experience. It needs to enhance or at the minimum sustain the expectations in every page and at every visit. Putting in processes and workflow to contain content, validate contributions, and determine a "Who s who" chart in a content rich environment is so common sense in the first round, but is very counter intuitive. Even a captive content dissemination requires users engagement, not consumption.

Consumption depletes and wears the content with age. A contributed and user engaged content shapes up to the needs of the audience and reaches far and wide, fresh every time. Make it easy to share, allow users to bookmark within your site and in the browser, make visible the stats, ask for feedback and importantly scan for usage pattern to bundle the content with likelihood siblings that users choose before and after the site visit.

Workflows can focus on moderation, add specialized services like taxonomy generation, proof reading and editing, ensuring content adequacy across multiple interaction points and pages, but must be very less towards routing for approvals and publishing.

Have at any time, your project has gone down because users were reckless in their contributions or have written nasty about the topics they care ? How many times after rejecting a first posting, the same users felt motivated to contribute more ?

Isn't this the reason why public facing sites become jaded after a couple of visits.

2. Research the audience before "context":
A user research typically classifies and categorizes the audience by age, ethnicity, race, region, religion, intelligence, etc, which is good for presentations but not much useful in final product success. When the final product isn't a success, will we blame that the audience types who accessed the site changed from what came out of research ?

A user research is to sample the intuition for the interactions a general user base can do at the minimum without an aid. Are instructions suitable ? Are the colors for a meaning or for differentiation ? Does the site behave well with custom style sheets ? Can the user be permitted to move across, up and down the site in a consistent way that can be explained by word of mouth to another user over a phone ? With a tool bar, when the site is translated, does it render well within the layout grids ?

A user research is to ensure the audience experiences based on their location and need in the site, just like in an audition. There is a general sensitivity required about the audience tastes and preferences and a better clue since in the content and web medium there is a direct interaction on the "stage" with the users.

The "context" is actually "open" in the web world and only the content requires definition of a context to drive its meaning and establish its brand in the web cacaphony.

3. Pitching wireframes and sequencing them as "Site Map":

Wire framing is a good concept. Site map is an essential first step. Both are different, though. Many a times, we do individual wireframes, thread them together to call as site map. Not a bad idea and an easy way to visualize.

It has just one flaw: We are enforcing conformity of page layout and page types (page design) to decide the site structure. Not creating a site structure to visualize the flow of "content" is a common mistake and will be a discussion point at some time in the content strategy meetings.

4. Adopting a "Template X" approach
This template suited a similar need in project x. Let us fast track it by fitting the content in the template. This is the main "break" factor. A new project or a client with similar needs exist because the earlier solution is not 100% compatible. Else in the age of Google, why take the pains to execute a content dissemination project ? Template X is for Project X. While in Project Y, leverage template X is acceptable, but ensure it suits the needs and never hesitate to go back to blank canvas.

This isn't a "product" which can be configured for multiple variants by choosing to mix n match or rip-off features to match lower price points. This is content and a site structure, wireframe, design and development needs to match "content" and its relevance in "context" and never the other way around.

5. Missing the link between "copy writing" and "SME" collection

Never miss to create and follow a style guide. For the project team, it is boring and looks uniform. For the users it is consistent and sets the expectations.

6. It is "about" the users and "for" the users, not about and for content: This is the anti-climax. While all we do is to present content in a nice and great way, it is one and only about the users and User Experience. How many times in a content strategy discussion, is there a serious concern and involvement for users ?

Art to seek information

2014-01-02T23:39:00.004+05:30

Seeking information is determined mostly by the way it is phrased than the person behind the questions.

Testing this hypothesis with multiple instances, I realized that any query with a moving intent to act or an expressed desire to prepare for action will always get the most factual details of the situation.Embedding a self interest in other's story as being compassionate and a keen listener gets the emotional side of the details.

On the other side, if the phrase is provided as a question and the way it is asked looks reactive or gives the perception that it is to self dodge a prospective situation or if the impression is of using it to own an advantage that is different from the groups objectives, will result invariably in push-backs or a laid back answer.

Many a time, senior people demonstrate this maturity by asking "Why do you ask?" and then give answers. Probably we can use it too. In the mean time, practicing phrases that demonstrates an innate desire to act or just the mere efforts to listen intently as an emotional shoulder, would help us break barriers to get intimate with the details and information desired.

Uff... Get Organized

2013-12-17T10:04:00.002+05:30

Messed finances get organized,

Too much credit get organized,

No time get organized,

Troubled life get organized,

Confused ? Get organized,

Misplacing things ? Get organized,

Missed deadlines ? Get organized,

Forgot important dates ? Get organized,

Screwed relationships ? Get organized,

Delay work ? Get organized,

Scatter attention ? Get organized,

Frittering chances ? Get organized,

Paying fines ? Get organized,

Forgot insurance ? Get organized,

Diagnosed bad health ? Get organized,

Missing active lifestyle ? Get organized,

Procrastinating ? Get organized,

____________ ? Get organized.

One solution applies to anything you wish to throw at it.

Velocity is the biggest Motivator

2013-12-08T21:32:00.001+05:30

By reading and trying to adopt lean, I realized that the purpose of targets should be to drive velocity than to cut corners to reach the destination.

Treating target as an absolute figure to either shoot or scoot defeats the purpose. Year on Year there are bound to be hits or misses. What matters is whether the trajectory leads to hope or despair. Chasing a target is exhilarating for sure, but the risks of burn-outs abound. Inching closer with sure steps will help us enjoy the chase at a relaxed pace. Abandoning it after initial enthusiasm and not seeing through demoralizes inner self.

Choosing velocity calibrates the path, make us take informed decisions based on the business and economic conditions. Velocity keeps us engaged with the present, the work at hand, being "in" the role, continously expanding our learning, stretching our horizons as we take confident strides and be better at it with each passing step.

Consider velocity as a target metric than an end state result that fades to transience and a new one comes in its place.

Trust...

2013-12-03T10:26:00.000+05:30

It isn't what we do to gain trust that is difficult, but how we behave in a trust worthy environment that determines our innate nature to trust others and be trusted.

Gaining trust starts with a constant scrutiny and an uneasy relationship that needs us to ignore loose ends, separate our judgments, become blind and implicit to suspend any residual disbeliefs to start believing in self and others. Once we believe to trust, reinforcing the trust is built on a random sampling of behaviors from a heap of daily interactions, utterances, and perceptions.

Faking behaviors behind repute is unhealthy, misusing intellect is fraud, maneuvouring the vulnerability from a position of power is unpardonable, hiding behind a facade is deceit and any of this leads to disillusionment. Least of all it irrevocably breaks the beholden cradle of trust with lethal consequences.

Keeping the trust then, needs to become the second nature of our existence. Being natural as to who we are and behaving consistently to our true self, drives better results in any sampling tests. "Just this time" or "Only in this situation" or "Not twice but just once" is a behavior that has been cruel to many lives.

[Ruminations based on recent cases and statistics that all news avenues mince daily]

Relationships endure communications

2013-11-12T08:52:00.000+05:30

Do relationships endure communications or is it the other way around?

The levels of communication or the breakdown of it impacts this critical piece in our lives. The communication needs to confide or reach out for courtesy, execute a mandate or a flip-around to check reactions depends on how deep relationships grow. The intent in communication manifest in the message and by the way it is conveyed.

For the need to share, socialize, speak, be by the side, we need relationships. Enduring them in good and bad depends on how we communicate.

For feedback, coaching, mentoring, change management, project deliveries, sales, it is relationships that endure the communications Communications move around at faster pace where relationships are thicker and lesser are the chances of losing valuable opportunities.

With various forms to communicate, it might be over-whelming, but the need for relationships would reduce the decision making to use the simplest means to be in touch.