The Indicee Blog

Road Warriors

by Craig Todd on May 18th, 2010

What is it about life in a startup that is so compelling? Certainly not the coffee. We have amazing developers in our company, none of whom left a promising career as a barrista to join our team.

For me, it’s the opportunity to have impact. The ability to go out on a limb. The chance to come up with ridiculously creative ways to save a buck.

Attending Sage Insights 2010 conference in Denver this week. Hanging with old friends and making new ones in the Mile High City. For those of us that have done time as the “booth babe” or “demo dolly”, traipsing our laptops, banners, flags, t-shirts, business cards and promotional literature around the country, we recognize the high cost of shipping all of our wares from show to show. After 10 years and over 100 shows, someone suggested I try taking my booth on the airplane with me. Ok, it’s hardly carry-on luggage. The pilot never comes on to suggest that anyone wheeling aboard a trade show booth should please place it in the overhead bins wheels first. I took it anyway. It’s about $800 to ship one of these things, not to mention, for us Canadians, the pain and suffering of dealing with customs brokers while cross-border shipping.

So, away I went, booth in hand. If you’ve never shipped one, they’re not exactly teensy. About 65lbs and over 3 feet tall. Basically, it’s like shipping an 8 year old. A really wide 8 year old with wheels on the bottom. I expected it to take a while for everyone to figure out what to do with my over-sized package, so I made sure I arrived very early for my flight. Much to my surprise, they’ve handled this sort of thing before. No problem. 25 bucks and a baggage tag later, I was dropping the booth off at the oversize bag check-in.

Of course, arriving in Denver, I fully expected to deal with lost luggage, my booth bound for Spain. Nope. There it was, in all its glory, already unloaded from the belt when I arrived by the carousel, and as fast as I could wheel it over to the regular luggage offload area, there was my suitcase. Now, of course, I’m expecting the worst. Nothing goes this well for me when traveling. Must be a hassle waiting for me with the cab, the hotel, the delivery of the new shirts, something. Wheeling out the big black case, the suitcase and the laptop bag, I head for the taxi stand, fully expecting a negotiation with a mini-van driver on the oversize nature of my belongings. Instead, I’m greeted enthusiastically by a driver who insists he can fit everything into his car. And he does. Flat rate to city, just like everyone else. Tipped well.

Checking in? Everything is ready Mr. Todd (note, they actually used my real last name and got it right. Interchangeable first and last names are a curse, but that’s a whole other story.) Oh, and there’s a package waiting for you – must be those shirts you ordered. Wow. At this point, I’m waiting for the Apocalypse. Nothing goes this well on the road.

The point of the story? None really. The next step was to get ourselves to the store and buy some monitors to give away at the booth. Renting ANYTHING for a trade show is outrageously expensive. $1400 for internet service, $1000 for carpeting and vacuuming, $300 to rent a monitor, $3.50 for a bad cup of coffee – you get the idea. So, instead, I buy brand new monitors and give them away. Makes me happy – no waste. Instead of renting at inflated rates and wasting money, I get to make 2 people really happy as they wing home with their new monitors.

We head down to the local Office Depot store and find the monitors we want. “We’ll take two”, we say. “Sorry, I can only sell you one”, is the reply. Apparently, “one to show and one to go” is their stocking policy and they refuse to sell their display monitors. Fortunately, the store manager arranges for us to pick up a second one at the other store. We hop on Denver’s free tram service (really cool service that runs the length of the 16th Street mall) and a short 3 or 4 or 6 or 7 blocks away – depending on which story you believe – we pick up our second monitor and we’re away to the races. Oh ya, stopped by the Capitol Building for a photo opp with monitor – I think we’re making this a tradition.

Keynote session has just let out. People to meet, coffee to be had. 7 hours at the booth ahead. No sweat, I’m wearing comfortable shoes.

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Filed under: Company News, Industry, Marketing, culture, stories

Measuring What Matters: Interview with Cheni Yerushalmi

by Geoff Devereux on March 3rd, 2010

Using Interviews to distill meaning

Last time, we were talking about how to “Think Like a Reporter“.  My goal was to convey the importance of asking good questions in order to figure out how things actually get done and what the critical elements are in your business.

Today, I’d like to take it one step further and showcase an interview I was fortunate enough to secure with Cheni Yerushalmi, the managing partner and co-founder of Sunshine Suites in New York City.  In the interview, I’ve tried to apply the principles of good questions in order to create an environment that’s conducive to storytelling.  Then, getting out of the way and letting Cheni tell his story.

The other key point I would like to offer up as a takeaway from this experience for all of you is to stay alert for opportunities to expand your networks and your knowledge base.  This interview would not have happened had it not been for: 1) Cheni’s willingness and his courage to put himself out there, 2) the enterprising, public invitation from Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of Wine Library TV and author of Crush It, and 3) my recognition of the opportunity and taking action.  These are all voluntary actions.  How can you ever bottle up this mix of bravery, curiosity, inquisitiveness, openness, and indeed playfulness that’s required to create something out of nothing into a “formula” or a “job description”?  This stuff doesn’t show up on your desk with a neat little bow on it, conveniently labeled and packaged for consumption.  You have to create it and I think that’s a useful lesson.

Instead of existing in a constant state of “beware”, move into a state of “BE AWARE”.

Back to the point, we are talking with Cheni Yerushalmi from Sunshine Suites in NYC about business, entrepreneurship, recognizing opportunity, and the critical measures that determine success within the business.

I’ll summarize and paraphrase some stuff here to keep the wordcount net-friendly, but feel free to look for some of Cheni’s other recent appearances here, here, here, and here for more great content.

Sunshine Suites NYC with Cheni Yerushalmi

What is Sunshine Suites?

Sunshine Suites is an office community in New York City specifically designed for entrepreneurs to get out of the house and network with other entrepreneurs in a cool environment.  Sunshine has 2 locations and houses roughly 600 businesses and 1400 entrepreneurs at any one time.  Far from being just another co-working site, Sunshine is serious about creating community!  In addition to a place to work they offer mentorship, events, gym memberships, affordable healthcare, and even access to a timeshare in Vermont’s ski country!

The types of businesses incubating within Sunshine runs the gamut, “every company under the sun”, as Cheni and his partner Joe will sometimes say.

What motivated you and your partner, Joseph Raby, to start the Sunshine Suites?

Sunshine Suites was the result of the frustrations experienced, as an entrepreneur, with the lack of both affordable office space and community support available in the city.  It was the realization that “there must be a better way”.

Leveraging each other’s strengths, as all good founding partners do, Cheni and Joe took the initiative to create the tool that they wished they had when starting out.

So, what would you say to people unfamiliar with the NYC start-up scene?

Historically, the NYC start-up environment has been difficult but it’s improving.  During the heady days of the Dot-Com’s there was interest from investors and lots of money flying around, but not much of an infrastructure to support the companies.  Since the bust, it has been a slow process of building that infrastructure and creating an environment better suited for start-ups.

A couple great examples of groups supporting this infrastructure are the New York City Economic Development Corp and the Coalition of Office Space Providers.

The message coming out of New York right now is innovate and build partnerships because right now nothing is being taken for granted.

How do you measure success at Sunshine?

Feedback from the community is most important.  Of course, we keep track of revenue and occupancy rates, but these numbers don’t provide any context that we can act on.  Obtaining real feedback from members through regular surveys provides a more accurate gauge of whether or not Sunshine is living up to customer expectations and provides direction that’s actionable.  Fortunately, entrepreneurs don’t tend to be shy about sharing their opinions so we know exactly where we stand.  It’s particularly important for the ongoing success of the business since 70% of new memberships are created through referrals.

How do you balance the qualitative elements relating to feedback with the quantitative numbers side?

The business model itself isn’t very complicated.  We know the model works and, being a “for profit” business, we need to keep track of the numbers.  But, revenue is not the overriding consideration and the numbers can be misleading.  Our success is more accurately measured by the happiness of our community.  We like to think of this as a place where we help each other to succeed.  For us, it’s better to look at something like, how many companies have we been able to graduate from Sunshine? We also work with entrepreneurs who want to be more active in the management of the programming.  We call these guys “Shiners” and it’s this level of engagement that tells us we’re doing something right.

You mentioned companies “graduating” from Sunshine Suites; is that a formal process?  Is there a ceremony or what?

It’s funny you mention that.  We’re working now to create a more formal process and you should see something in Entrepreneur Magazine about it in the near future.  Entrepreneurs who have “graduated”, our “alumni”, tend to stay active at Sunshine, providing mentoring to other entrepreneurs.  As well, we provide workshops, panel discussions, and bootcamps.

What do you see for Sunshine Suites in the future?

We are looking at expansion.  We would like to expand into other cities, but we want to be careful.  Every city is different.  They each have their own ecosystem and it’s important to know the environment and the people in order to provide something of value.

Distilling the meaning in relation to Indicee

So, how do we relate what Cheni told me to what we are trying to achieve at Indicee?  Simple.  The most important performance indicators for the business DO NOT come from the financial reports.

We all know the requirements for financial reporting.  A full set of financial statements are crucial for dealing with banks, tax authorities, and investors; but it’s like Cheni said, these numbers lack the context that’s needed to guide meaningful actions on the part of managers.

Using Indicee increases the contextual meaning of your numbers and guides action in that way, beyond the financial statements.

Your customer’s happiness is not an Income Statement line item.  The path to knowing your customer comes from looking at operational measures; things like behaviour, feedback, distribution, and consumption.  This requires building the additional dimensions into your reporting structure to capture these things.

Final thoughts and random words to live by

Working within a start-up environment and having worked for start-ups in the past, I fully appreciate and applaud what the Sunshine Suites community is doing.  I would also point to other great examples out there such as TechStars, YCombinator, and our own local BootupLabs and Network Hub doing great work incubating companies and providing mentoring in order to tilt the playing field a bit in favour of innovators and disruptors who will create the next generation of market leaders.  You could even look to mainstream media and programs like Shark Tank in the US and Dragon’s Den in Canada and the UK as a means of educating and illuminating what goes into building companies. You have to look past the TV-silliness, but it’s there.

I encourage anyone who is interested in this stuff to get involved.  Check out a networking event, look for people to follow on twitter, talk to your local politicians and get talking to each other.

During our conversation, Cheni told me about when he and Joe were last in Vancouver.  The two of them flew into YVR with 2 bicycles in boxes, they assembled the bikes in the airport, then rode from Vancouver all the way to Tijuana, Mexico.  He went on to tell me that he never buys a round trip ticket when he’s on vacation.  He buys a one-way ticket in order to stay open to the opportunities that present themselves. I think there’s a great lesson in that philosophy and it exemplifies what being an entrepreneur is all about.

Enjoy.

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Filed under: Asking questions, Industry Insights, Performance Management, culture, interviewing, stories
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Sharpen your Business Analysis: Think Like a Reporter

by Geoff Devereux on February 25th, 2010

Walter Cronkite, Amanda Lang, Tom Brokaw, Woodward & Bernstein, Barbara Walters, Larry King, the entire cast of 60 Minutes;

What do all of these people have in common?

These guys all make a living through establishing rapport (trust), listening, and through their skillful use of questions while interviewing.

Think Like a Reporter

As a business professional, whether you’re in accounting & finance, sales, marketing, or IT, you need good information about your environment.  Some of the best information tends to be locked up in the head’s of all the people you work and interact with through the normal course of your day.

Why not try “interviewing” your colleagues?

I’m talking about anything from stuff about business process to procedural and administrative workflows, operations design, and business and financial report requirements. Pick a topic and ask questions on it.

The opportunity exists to understand all the systems operating around you better when you start thinking like a reporter and asking good questions.

Let’s be clear.  I’m NOT talking about badgering, browbeating, hectoring, pressing feet to the fire, inquisition style questioning that’s designed to embarrass or belittle your colleagues.

So, what makes a good reporter?

I’ll go into a few pointers and some media, but I would also encourage all of you to watch the CBC’s Amanda Lang interview some people.  In my view, she is far and away the best question-asker in media right now.  She’s a great example of doing all the right things through the course of an interview to engender trust of both the interviewee and the audience as well as to ask insightful questions that allow for detailed answers.

The Role of a Reporter

Mathew Ingram, formerly a technology reporter with Globe & Mail and now blogger with GigaOM, sums up the job of a traditional reporter beautifully in his recent TEDx Toronto talk, Five Ways New Media Will Save Old Media, as:

“we called people up and asked them irritating questions and then wrote down what they said”

Whoops! Sorry, wrong clip.  Do we have the right clip?  Do we have a clip?

Ah, okay, what he said was,:

“If you’re writing about a story, somewhere someone out there knows more about that story than you.  In fact, a lot of people might know more about that story than you.  So, you should allow them to tell you what they know.”

This is the essence of reporting.

Now, when he said this, he was actually talking about having newspapers incorporate comments and input from readers into the process of journalism and not specifically about interview etiquette.  But, in the New Media world there’s less and less difference between the audience and the subject.  Here’s Mathew’s TED talk where he describes this evolution:

I think Mathew makes a good point as well in recognizing the importance of having a dialogue going.  In “traditional” reporting, there may have been the perception of a one-way exchange.  The reporter asks, the subject answers.  That’s only half the story.  It’s a conversation and like any good conversation it’s a two-way street. But, it’s a conversation with purpose.  You are the guide.

Simple Tips

Broaden your sources

Think about this question: Where do we get our information?  Bob Woodward, one of the journalists that brought down Nixon in the Watergate Scandal, tells us in the following clip that we get information 1) from people 2) from documents (or evidence) and 3) from the scene (observation).

He make a great point about talking to people.  He says, talk to A BUNCH of people.  Not just one person.  In a day, he may talk to a dozen people around the same issue in order to gain that broad perspective of views.

Asking Questions

Basic journalism tells us to focus on the Five Ws (that isn’t really 5… or just Ws, okay, so don’t use Journo’s for calc’ing your Net Profit):

  • Who? Who was involved?
  • What? What happened?
  • When? When did it take place?
  • Where? Where did it take place?
  • Why? Why did it happen?
  • How? How did it happen?

Of course, all questions are not created equal.  Journalism 101 blog lays out some ground rules about the soft skills, but suffice to say I don’t think you want to make people feel stupid.

In general, keep an open mind and ask open-ended questions.  Keep that question engine going in your mind so you can delve more deeply as opportunities present themselves.  LISTEN, so you can key off of what the subject is telling you.

Remember, you are questioning yourself during this process as well.  All of those assumptions you may have embedded in your thinking need to be questioned throughout this process.

Say Thank You!

and, of course,

Be Prepared

‘Nuff said!

Here’s some additional resources that should help you build up your skills.

Media Training Basics: Mastering Tough Questions from the Media by Harvard Business Service

How To Ask Better Questions by Judith Ross at Harvard Business Review

Learn To Ask Better Questions by John Baldoni at Harvard Business Review

The Four Principles of Interviewing by Columbia University

From Chapter 13 of Sun Tzu’s famous, Art of War, on the use of spies:

“The means by which enlightened Rulers and sagacious Generals moved and conquered others, that their achievements surpassed the masses, was advance knowledge.”

“Advance knowledge cannot be gained from ghosts and spirits, inferred from phenomena, or projected from the measures of heaven.  But must be gained from men.”

Added Bonus

Sun Tzu’s Five Types of Spies

1. Local Spy

2. Internal Spy

3. Turned Spy

4. Dead Spy

5. The Living Spy

Enjoy!

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Filed under: Asking questions, Critical Thinking, Operations Reports, Performance Management, Reports, stories
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Improving Your Month-end Throughput

by Geoff Devereux on February 3rd, 2010

January is “in the books” as they say.  How’s the month end coming?

This isn’t a month-end tirade.  Instead, I’m feeling nostalgic so I thought I would share a story from my past.  It’s been some time since I’ve been subjected to the time pressure of month-end & period close activities. For as much accounting has its common elements, every company’s month-end experience is different.  I’ve worked for a number of different companies in a number of different sectors, and no two were the same.

One of the things about Accountancy, and it’s often cited as one of the profession’s advantages, is the ease with which one can move between industries.  The common elements enable it; bank rec’s, financial statements, “the binder”, you know the drill.  I think this is true to a point; however, I have also noticed that we can build up domain expertise as well as anyone in an organization. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this bit.

Today, I’m thinking about some work I did for a mid-sized media company here in Vancouver.  I was brought in as a chair-warmer Analyst while the company restructured and relocated its back office to Toronto.  My predecessor had jumped ship early (before his job was scheduled to disappear), but Toronto wasn’t quite ready to steer the department so the local Controller (who was also on the block) needed someone to wait it out with him.

This was not one of those nightmare month-ends ( I’ll save my nightmare stories for closer to Halloween… and maybe April Fool’s).

I had some pretty standard stuff to do; the bank rec wasn’t pretty, standard payroll auditing for a few hundred employees, a systems conversion meant that we had to chase down some entries that got dropped from one of the back office systems, and then there were the Revenue Reports for the managers.  The Controller did all the financial reports.  He would often describe his month-end consolidations style as the brute force method.  He understood 1) the importance of having a process and 2) the tenacity that is a requirement for the profession.

I’m going to focus on the Revenue Reports for the managers that were part of my month-end process.  I would collect data from the accounting system, from the system that recorded the advertising sales, and the system that generated the physical page layouts (capacity).  This business has a number of publications being produced.  Each publication required a report.  After which, the completed reports were emailed and yes, were printed, for each of the managers.

You’ve probably guessed buy now that I put all of this data into a spreadsheet.  Thinking back, could the company have benefited from Indicee? It probably would have taken a bit of work to set it up and the reports would have looked a bit different, but Indicee probably could have provided the information I was putting into these reports.  But that’s not what I want to tell you about.

I want to tell you about how I learned the process of completing these reports.  The incumbent, clever fellow, had developed his process for these over a number of years and in relative isolation.  He had it down to a science; but, all that knowledge was locked up in his head.  When he walked out that door, the process walked out the door with him. Typical in mid-market companies.  Documentation on complex processes that have evolved over time tends to be weak.  In this case, the damage would be shortlived because these reports were being killed when the head office transition was completed.  In the meantime though, I was left to decipher and de-engineer the reports and get them out to the managers.

To the point:

In the course of my investigation, I found that neither my boss nor some of the other managers actually knew what large parts of the reports meant!  Or why they should care! The process of creating the report, even with practice, was big.  Why was I going through all of this if the end users had no clue what I was giving them? Why had my predecessor done so over the course of a number of years? A pretty big portion of the reports were just wasted effort.

My theory is that reports evolve over time.  This one had evolved, but it hadn’t “lost it’s gills” so to speak.  It was standing upright and talking, but it had a tail.

http://www.cafepress.ca

Tightening up your month-end throughput means recognizing the Darwinian nature of your reports.  Questioning your end users, your internal customers, is key to understanding what parts are no longer relevant.  You’ll need to be persuasive within your organization in order to overcome the natural tendencies toward the status quo.  Be prepared to quiz people.  This part is easier said than done, but with tact and a collaborative attitude gains can be made.  I suggest using the analogy of accounting as a manufacturing process.

Month-end, like any good manufacturing process, needs to be free of waste.

It’s a question of throughput.

That’s my story for today.  For more on stories, I recently produced a guest blog post on the Sage Peachtree Community site called, The Importance of Stories.  Don’t worry, month-end will be there when you get back.

Enjoy.

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Filed under: Accounting, Asking questions, Critical Thinking, Month-end, Operations Reports, stories
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