Check out this article on Venture Capital.
Didn't read real close, but basically VC Money out there is remaing the same, but those currently funded companies are having a harder time exiting, so sucking up more money until exit.
Do we have too many entrepreneurs out there? I doubt that. What I think is happening is Sarbanes Oxley has made it so difficult to go public that companies will be venture backed for longer looking for buyers instead of going public when they're hot.
Sad really, one of the reasons I went to BYU for an MBA was to get do some cool company building and exiting. I understand the need for security of people's money and retirements, but I think the next president is going to have to tackle the issue of not killing off companies with too much regulation.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
It's back.... Minto!
Went to a meeting yesterday where an IT consultant was telling us how to better integrate our systems. I was there because of my responsibilities for making sure e-commerce is awesome.
So we get in this meeting and the consultant goes: blah blah blah. For each "blah" he was supposed to say, it seems he said forty-extra "blah's." In mathematics, that's a blah-speach to the 40th power. So what should have been 5 minutes was quite a bit longer.
I spoke with an executive after the meeting and he said the guy should have displayed 1 chart slide and said the systems aren't integrated and too many manual processes are used to link them.
Then put up a second slide saying that phase one is just to get csv files to link them-- creating X manual processes per day instead of per order. 3rd slide: Phase 3 eliminates those manual processes etc...
Ok fellow BYU MBA'ers, do you know what this guy was describing nearly to a "t"? Minto. Start with a story: "Data Entry is going on and it sucks"
"Here's why it sucks"
"Here's the band-aid fix"
"Here's the long-term fix"
5 minutes and 4 million less "blah's" later, everyone is able to make their carpools and read over the full version of the report if they need to.
Glad I wasn't the guy presenting. When it comes time for me to, I will remember this lesson.
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I'm not trying to be rude to the guy here, but just make a point. He was actually well prepared, but most the people at the meeting wanted to donate precious few minutes and his strategy was to explain his findings in great detail. If they had more concerns they could get them addressed (hence be prepared), but I think the biggest concern was "let me know the problem is beiing taken care of and I won't get in your way."
Make sure you're prepared to answer questions but people in most businesses are busy; communicate necessities and then hand over your report.
So we get in this meeting and the consultant goes: blah blah blah. For each "blah" he was supposed to say, it seems he said forty-extra "blah's." In mathematics, that's a blah-speach to the 40th power. So what should have been 5 minutes was quite a bit longer.
I spoke with an executive after the meeting and he said the guy should have displayed 1 chart slide and said the systems aren't integrated and too many manual processes are used to link them.
Then put up a second slide saying that phase one is just to get csv files to link them-- creating X manual processes per day instead of per order. 3rd slide: Phase 3 eliminates those manual processes etc...
Ok fellow BYU MBA'ers, do you know what this guy was describing nearly to a "t"? Minto. Start with a story: "Data Entry is going on and it sucks"
"Here's why it sucks"
"Here's the band-aid fix"
"Here's the long-term fix"
5 minutes and 4 million less "blah's" later, everyone is able to make their carpools and read over the full version of the report if they need to.
Glad I wasn't the guy presenting. When it comes time for me to, I will remember this lesson.
----------------------
I'm not trying to be rude to the guy here, but just make a point. He was actually well prepared, but most the people at the meeting wanted to donate precious few minutes and his strategy was to explain his findings in great detail. If they had more concerns they could get them addressed (hence be prepared), but I think the biggest concern was "let me know the problem is beiing taken care of and I won't get in your way."
Make sure you're prepared to answer questions but people in most businesses are busy; communicate necessities and then hand over your report.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Flush DNS
I don't have much of a tech blog, and since I'm dealing with websites still, I thought I'd just get this recorded here.
Just released the new website, and its not populating to my browser correctly. To get my computer to recognize the new IP Address we're pointing our website to, I ran the command:
ipconfig /flushdns
Wow, as a BYU MBA, I'm learning a wide array of skills. Brigham Young University helped me get hooked up with a very cool internship.
Just released the new website, and its not populating to my browser correctly. To get my computer to recognize the new IP Address we're pointing our website to, I ran the command:
ipconfig /flushdns
Wow, as a BYU MBA, I'm learning a wide array of skills. Brigham Young University helped me get hooked up with a very cool internship.
get 'er done
I've been put in charge of a few vendors to get my projects done. I'm learning a lot in dealing with them. Thursday, I had to have everything in place for our new website to go live. The vendor has been really difficult to work with and commuicate with. On Wednesday, they actually sent me an email saying I interrupted too much.
I didn't care! I only wanted it set up, I wasn't worried about their schedule. I went to their office Thursday afternoon to discuss what was left and to make sure they were working. Trying to respect their need to focus, I didn't bother the programmer too much for the first hour. Then I went and asked about the progress and he told me he was woring on soething entirely different!
So I sat there and discussed it with him for 10 minutes and then 10 minutes later the programmer had given me what I wanted. I was excited and I was apalled at this web-designers system! They charged us for an hour of work when 20 minutes was what was needed! Well, from now on I will make sure they repeat back to me exactly what I want.
That's the principle I'm trying to highight-- know what you want and make sure they can tell you. Until then, they do not have permission to start the work.
I didn't care! I only wanted it set up, I wasn't worried about their schedule. I went to their office Thursday afternoon to discuss what was left and to make sure they were working. Trying to respect their need to focus, I didn't bother the programmer too much for the first hour. Then I went and asked about the progress and he told me he was woring on soething entirely different!
So I sat there and discussed it with him for 10 minutes and then 10 minutes later the programmer had given me what I wanted. I was excited and I was apalled at this web-designers system! They charged us for an hour of work when 20 minutes was what was needed! Well, from now on I will make sure they repeat back to me exactly what I want.
That's the principle I'm trying to highight-- know what you want and make sure they can tell you. Until then, they do not have permission to start the work.
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