Metrics Equal Accountability?
I’ve always been suspicious of directly correlating metrics with compensation or performance reviews. This flies in the face of the cliché “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” and perhaps a little of the six sigma that goes along with it. It isn’t the idea of metrics that I am bothered by, more so, the complication of it. If my job was routine enough to just count widgets then I know I wouldn’t enjoy the job and wouldn’t stick around long enough to actually see the widgets counted. I know I’m oversimplifying this, but bear with me, to express my point, I need to. I’m a believer in thought. I feel like if someone just watched me at work, they would think I’m not a busy person. I don’t file papers or constantly attend meetings. I often get information in, review it, consider it, put it aside, and leave it for a day or two. I then come back to it after absorbing it and think of ways to apply it. Maybe I am just a slow analyzer? But if the decision was easy to begin with, then I might be wrong for the job. The other element I am infusing is some sort of creativity to the information. I think at times that this is over doing it, but at other times, I think I come up with something truly unique and novel. I have coworkers and friends that are baffled by the angles I take at times. It usually get a laugh, but it is different.
Business 2.0 Loses to Business 1.0
I read in the NY Times today that Business 2.0, a magazine I subscribe to, is publishing its last edition next month (October, 2007). I really enjoy their writing and the arrangement of their information. But what I really like is the attitude. The magazine comes off young, or at least optimistic. I found it [...]
Productivity Pays – The CEO
Two separate articles came out on CNNMoney.com in the last few days. Those articles are:
GDP Growth Not Reaching Paychecks
CEO Pay: 364 times more than workers
What I conclude from even these two headlines is that the productivity gains seen over the last 7 years are resulting in higher earnings for large companies. The higher earnings give way to rewarding
the CEO. But the CEO is not trickling down to his employees. …
All Kinds of Advice
The other day I was clearing out my working space. I changed jobs and the group I used to work for needs the space I was in. Fair enough. So I sat in that cubicle for about 4 years. I tend to be a pack rat. I keep everything. What caught my eye were all [...]
PowerPoint Manipulation
For those of you that don’t work for a big company, I apologize, this is pretty specific to the PowerPoint culture.
Microsoft built two iconic product sets, the OS for the mainstream public and a great office suite. Thanks to Wikipedia, I discovered that PowerPoint was originally developed in 1987 for Apple. It was purchased later that year by Microsoft and added to the Office suite in 1990. You can learn more by going to the Wikipedia entry for PowerPoint.
So what does this have anything to do with anything?
I often find myself proving myself or my idea through the use of PowerPoint. I usually get less than 10 slides and sometimes just 1. To adjust, everyone gets very good at drawing pictures, because, hey, a picture’s worth a thousands words, right? But what I’m realizing is that those thousand words might be mostly wasted. What if one word or phrase does achieve as much as a picture?
Earning Season
We are currently in a period where corporations are reporting their year end or second quarter earnings. I expect most companies to do well, but what I’m not sure of is how well? I’m probably oversimplifying but in my opinion two factors pulled the US out of the poor economy in 2001 and 2002: interest rates were lowered creating a housing bubble and the job market tightened. …