Procrastination and people management

hiding by Lance Neilson, on Flickr – Some Rights Reserved

Procrastination is evil .. almost always. When you think it’s probably the time in which procrastination is ok, double check: you are not that smart, you are probably cheating yourself 😉 (fear?)

And there is an area in which procrastination is even more evil: when you deal with people so procrastination and people management (can be your direct, your son, a friend …).

Procrastinate a negative feedback? You enforce a wrong behavior.

Procrastinate a positive feedback? You have chances that a good behavior is changed in search of a (potentially) bad one.

PierG

On the usage of smartphones, tablets, PCs …

Extremely interesting study by Google on the usage of smartphones, tablets, PCs … or better on the usage of ‘screens’: The New Multi-screen World.

Thanks to @HagakureLive to link the presentation in his tweet.

PierG

Startup4All Live Twitting Report #Startup4All

Yesterday I had the chance to be at the Startup4All event in Vignola. Very nice venue, very good people. A bit too long for me (I’m old 🙂 )

We had a talk from Fabrizio Capobianco, one from Fabio Lalli, and then some pitches from local startups.

Here it follows my live twitting.

Fabrizio Capobianco (twitter.com/fabricapo) Talk

#Prezi for the presentation of @fabricapo
I’ll talk about my life: it’s one of the few arguments I’m sure I know better than anyone 🙂
Funamble? Like iCloud but it works on any device
All my engineering is in Italy (Pavia) while funds (35M) come from the Silicon Valley
First answer I had from an Italian CEO? “you are 23, too young to make business with”
VC in Italy? No one in the late ’90, then they came, then they went … and now they are here again, in Italy
Silicon Valley works also because you can hire a bunch of people one day, and the day after you can fire them all and survive
My idea? All devices will have an IP address and will exchange data
US guys call it ‘timing’, in Italy we call it ‘botta di cuxo’
People thinks VCs evaluations come from some logic: I started a dinner with an evaluation of 3M at the end it was 8M
I’m thinking of my next company … with no hurry  (PierG: good ‘timing’ 🙂 )
Why Italy? we are well educated, smart and creative, hard working That’s what I say to US’ VCs
If I have to choose where to make SW I choose Italy, I’ve done it in Us, India, everywhere … I do in Italy
Let’s talk about SW designers (design = cool) and not developers
SW is creativity, that’s why Italians do it better: we were born to make SW in Italy
Our engineers tend to stay in the same company for long … that’s a plus in SW
#MindTheBridge? It’s goal is to have 1000 #Funambol
To make the new FB here we don’t miss people, we miss money to start and money to be bought
If you want the life style company don’t ask money to VCs
In Silicon Valley if you fail twice you have more chance to get money than someone who starts
In Italy we need a model, someone who ‘did it’, someone who can inspire. We will have it in the next 10 years

Fabio Lalli (twitter.com/fabiolalli) Talk

Indigenidigitali is a network of almost 5000 people
At the beginning Indigenidigitali was just developer, now we have more competencies
Italy is small and we have talents all ever the country, the Silicon Valley in Italy must be the whole country
In Italy we don’t have the culture of making real network
We need hubs not aggregators
Indigenidigitali is here exactly for this purpose: to connect dots, to facilitate connections, to find resources
Too many networking events are evil? I don’t think so: they are useful to develop a proper network
Starting from September we will start choosing startups and bring them to NY
Almost 100 persons here at Startup4All in Vignola. Impressive.

Now some of the suggestions /questions @fabricapo and @fabiolalli gave to the startuppers during their pitch

#Pasisinvictim tests your assumptions “the dream of our users is to have their own boutique” #LeanStartup
“your business statement in 1 sentence of EIGHT lines is toooo long” #suggestions #pitch @fabricapo
“If you put competitors in your slide, be sure they are HUGE: it means there is a market” #suggestion
In the US engineers sleep with economists in the University campus, in Italy they sleep with engineers (or alone) @fabricapo
A company that has no money, does the product for a single client. It does no platform. That’s why we need money: to have the possibility to say NO to a customer. @fabricapo

PierG

Market positioning from Twitter

I’ve just got an experiment: I’ve got the names of the lists you have added @PierG (my Twitter account) to.

Then I used Wordle to make a map … and here is the result.

So it seems so my ‘personal brand’ as associated with people (that’s probably because you use ‘people’ in the name of the list like ‘agile people’, ‘italian people’ …), agile and development, things. There is some social too, web, ICT, europe,  influencers, reggiani, reggio emilia, managertools.

I don’t know if I like it or not but … that’s how you see me 🙂

What about you?
PierG

Social Media resources – week 20

In my readings I’ve collected some resources about “Social Media” and I want to share them with you. I hope they can inspire or be helpful!

Google+ Hangouts on Air live broadcasting is now out of beta
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/05/google-hangouts-on-air-live-broadcasting-is-now-out-of-beta.ars

“The Best and Worst Times to Share on Facebook, Twitter prsm.tc/P0KvZb via @prismatic”
– Piergiorgio Grossi

PierG

“UX and friends” – week 19

I’ve collected some resources about “UX and friends” and I want to share them with you. I hope they can inspire or be helpful!

Is the New Facebook Timeline a Failure in Design?
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/05/03/is-the-new-facebook-timeline-a-failure-in-design/

A Persona Template
http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/agile-product-innovation/persona-template-for-agile-product-management/

37 Best Wireframing, Prototyping and Mockup Tools for Web Design and Planning
http://www.quertime.com/article/arn-2012-05-02-1-37-best-wireframing-prototyping-and-mockup-tools-for-web-design-and-planning/

How text editing on the iPad should be prsm.tc/VH36XV via @prismatic

PierG

“UX and friends” – week 18

I’ve collected some resources about “UX and friends” and I want to share them with you. I hope they can inspire or be helpful!

Usability Design Considerations for Web Forms
http://www.onextrapixel.com/2012/04/13/usability-design-considerations-for-web-forms/

The Death of the Wireframe? Towards An Integrated Approach to UX Design
http://www.fabernovel.com/en/blog/284-the-death-of-the-wireframe-towards-an-integrated-approach-to-ux-design

The New Google+ Is More Beautiful Than Facebook
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669497/the-new-google-is-more-beautiful-than-facebook-but-it-doesn-t-matter

PierG

Cruise it home Michael

The title of this posts is probably meaningless to you (but if you know what it is, just let me know using the comments 🙂 ) but reminds me of a good time.

Yes sometimes good times come, not many usually, but they come.

I think our culture is too focused on learning through mistakes, looking at problems or failures. There is a lot of hype around the fail early paradigm. I’m not against it and I think we must start getting more from our success stories and moments.

So (1) celebrate! Yes Sir, when you do something good, you are successfully do celebrate. It’s not a sin. It’s good for our self, for our self estime, for our colleagues, for our family too. Smile. Be happy!

(2) learn. What went well? What can you do differently? But above all what was the key success factor of this success? Our brain stick to these emotions and you don’t need to be beaten to learn. Forget it. Learn from success!

(3) after a successfully project or task or … use this positive power, this power moment, to study something new. Maximize this learning moment studying something new: add a new arrow to your weapons.

PierG

If you can’t convince them, confuse them

Last week I had the chance to listen to a good training class on innovation.
The teacher talked a lot about his experience with several well known companies, talked about his best projects and then did his class.
Pretty interesting.
At the end I listened to a comment from someone in the audience:

‘wow, have you see how many good companies he worked for? And what a project! I’ve not understood very much of the lesson but he seems really good and he surely gave us a lot of good techniques’

What does this mean? That the content you are delivering is very importance but the credibility you have goes beyond the content. And it seems you can create credibility not only with facts but also through (hypothetical) third parties experiences. And if you have some content to deliver, it’s better you are credible if you want to be listened to. Especially if the content is good. And if the content is not good, you can try pushing more on the credibility, it might work anyway 😦

Our brain is so tricky sometimes …
PierG

On delegation

There are the micromanagers. The ones who believe they can do better than anyone in their team and for this reason they use people in their teams as their arms …. just because they don’t have time enough and so are obliged to ‘use’ other people.

Then there are those who see themselves as managers who delegate. When they have something they cannot do, or don’t want to do or … they throw it to someone in their team. Almost no direction given, just thrown the activity / problem like a ball and above all no reporting / feedback model in place. When something goes wrong they start running and shouting …. and thinking ‘next time I’ll do it myself’.

Then there are those who choose what to delegate to whom, who provide proper context, proper guidance, proper empowerment, who agree in the reporting / feedback model. Those who are in touch with the activities because they are reported with the proper cadence and the proper content.

PierG