How company policies are made!

Start with a cage containing five monkeys.
Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done round here.
And that, my friends, is how company policies are made.

5 Tips for Productivity, Organizing & Changing Your Life

Have you ever had one of those days or weeks where nothing goes as you originally planned? Well, if you have, you are not alone.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the average person spends over 150 hours per year just looking for information.  The Esselte company conducted a study of over 2,600 executives and found that the average executive wastes 6 week a year just looking for lost documents and information.
If your business is not effectively organized, it is costing you money.  If you are like the average executive, I bet that you have a lot of things that you would like to do, but don’t have the time.  You are so busy working you can’t even imagine taking time off to enjoy life.  It is not an easy problem to solve – otherwise there would not be so many places with this problem!  The good news is that you can solve it!

1 – Define Success – What is Your Dream

Start by making sure that you and your team know the vision.  Here are a few questions you can ask yourself as you figure out your “why” for doing what you do.

• In a perfect world, how would things work for you?  What would no longer happen?  What would happen that is not happening today?
• What would success look like?  How would you feel?  What would you be able to do that you can’t do now?
• What are you building? Why does your business need to exist?
• What could you measure over time to know if you’re making progress?
• How do you intend to build the business?
• What are the key projects to be completed this year?
• If you are not sure how to answer these questions, begin by writing down what you don’t want!

You can be as detailed or as broad as you would like.  Consider your life, your home, your work, your office, or your desktop.   Consider what things might look like.  Consider how you will feel.  Nothing is too crazy.  Don’t limit yourself.  It is your dream.  Write it out.  It is important to understand your “why” because it is the foundation for everything else that you put into place.

2 – Understand You

This sounds really simplistic, but for many it is not.  In fact, most of the time this step is skipped completely!  We learned back in pre-school that trying to fit a square peg into a round hole just does not work.  No matter how we turn it or twist it — it doesn’t fit.  Yet, we try to do it all of the time by putting systems in place that don’t match our personal or our organizations’ styles.
Begin by being realistic about your lifestyle and personal style.  Focusing on the way you live is important to finding the right organizing strategies for your life.  Be realistic about your personal style – it is not about what you should do, it is about what you WILL do.
There are some that think that one system should work for everyone.  It would be nice if the world was that simple, but as we all know, people have different thinking and learning styles.  They even have different rates that they can learn and absorb information.  There are different organization styles too.  Understanding your style and developing systems that fit with who you are sets you up for success.
Are You an “Innie” or an “Outtie”? Understand Your Organizing Style
An “Innie” is someone that functions better when their space is clear of distractions.  An “Outtie” is someone that will forget items even exist if they are enclosed.

Recognize that I’m not talking about piles on a desk or papers shoved in a cabinet.  If you have piles all over your desk, it does not mean you are an “outtie.”  That means you don’t have good systems.

Consider that organizing systems work differently for different people.  In the picture above you see a standard file cabinet on the left and one that is open and on wheels on the right.  Both are containers for holding files, but one would work better for an “innie” and the other would work better for an “outtie.”

3 – Get Solid Systems in Place – Make Good Use of Routines and Processes

Routines/processes are habits that support your efforts in an effortless way.  To illustrate, let me ask you a few questions (no calculators please):  What is
2 + 2?
4 + 4?
8 + 8?
7,873,923,740,934 + 981,748,174?
When you read the math questions above, could you answer the first 3 quite quickly; but wanted to reach for your calculator for the last one?  Why is that?  It is because when we were quite young, our adult caregivers drilled the basic math facts into our minds until they were routine.  When you first started to learn 2 + 2 it was not as easy as it is now.  That is true of any routine or process you put into place.
Look at the answers you came up with in Steps 1 and 2 above.  Then look at all of the different activities that your business does every day.  Do you have a process manual and an employee manual outlining expectations and procedure?  If not, now is the time to start!  Businesses with well-defined systems and processes not only function better, but are actually valued at a higher rate by business appraisers than those that are run by memory.

4 – Understand the Best Way for You to Retrieve Information

One of the biggest time wasters in the business world today is time spent looking for information.  Accenture conducted a survey of 1,000 middle managers in large companies in the U.S. and U.K. and found that 59% miss important information almost every day because it exists within the company but they cannot find it. The paperless society just never happened. We actually have more paper today than we did 10 years ago!
There are 2 parts to a great information organization system.  1) reference information and an 2) action system.
Reference Systems
Your reference system is what you might think of as a traditional paper filing system.  It contains the information that you need to keep for reference, but is not necessarily accessed on a daily basis.  For ideas on how to get started building your reference system, see effective physical “finding” system.   If you struggle with deciding what to keep or what to let go, read Set Your Target and Throw Your DART! How to use the DART system to get through your paper piles.
Action Systems
An action system is created to manage all of those pieces of paper that seem to stay on your desk because you don’t want to forget to do something. There are a few different ways that you can create an action system.  Here are three resources to help you pick the right one for you:

• Video: Create Your Action System Today
• Totally Different Idea for People that Hate Filing
• Managing Goals & To Dos the Michael Masterson Way – Monday Motivation

Which picture looks like your workspace?
After Colleen put information organization systems into place (reflected in the picture to the right) she found that she was leaving work earlier and even accomplishing more in her day.

5 – Know Where Your Time is Going and Resist the Temptation to Multitask!

In today’s society, it is difficult to get away from all of the electronic gadgets that keep us “on” all of the time.  Unplugging, even for a short while, is not readily accepted by our co-workers, clients, friends and family.  The false assumption is that the more gadgets we have, the more we can get done.  The reality is that the more gadgets we have the more we can get done half-way.  Completing projects and tasks is harder than ever for most of my clients.
Interruptions Cost You More Than You Think!
University of California, Irvine researchers, Gloria Mark and Victor Gonsalez, found that it takes workers 25 minutes to return to the original task — if they return at all.  In another study, Basex, a New York research firm specializing in information overload, found that office distractions and interruptions ate up 2.1 hours a day for the average worker.  The time it takes for your brain to get back into its original train of thought is costing your company money in unproductive time!  Your brain can really only process one type of thought at a time.  Cultivating the skill of just focusing on one thing for 60 minute time period is an important skill that we are loosing with all of the multitasking that we do today.  So, the next time you have a project that is important consider the following:

• Block the time on your calendar.
• If you have something electronic around you cell phone, radio, tv – anything that is on or could come on anything that could bug you – turn it to the off position.
• Email is the ultimate distraction that most of us face now.  Try to prevent any incoming email from coming in and bugging you.
• Close all online social networking applications – or better yet, close down your internet browser.
• Use the restroom and get yourself something to drink so that you don’t have to get up and leave.
• Close your door so that you cannot get interrupted and consider putting a do not disturb sign on the door.

Then, work on your project fully focused.  If you find your mind wandering or have a strong desire to check Twitter, resist!
If you are really guilty of multitasking and doing too many things at once, you might want to put a sticky note on your screen that says ‘Eliminate Distraction and Interruption‘ – the more you can do that the better you can do in business and life and everywhere else.

Start Small and Build on Successes

If you or your employees are exhibiting stress due to disorganization, take a step back and start looking at the causes of the stress rather than the symptoms.  Don’t know where to start?  Take caution in making numerous changes at once.  The average person can only work on 3 major changes at once and be successful.  Getting organized takes time and a change in habits.  When the habits are changed and maintained, a feeling of release will happen and more creative work on the business can begin.
Have some ideas that you would like to “bounce around?”  Have something you have tried and it worked?  Leave your comments in the comments field below.
To your success!

Facebook Investor Thiel Will Give $100,000 Grants to Teenagers

By Douglas MacMillan

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Peter Thiel, a Facebook Inc. investor and board member, plans to make 20 grants of as much as $100,000 apiece to teenagers who have promising ideas for technology businesses.

The investor’s Thiel Foundation will award as many as 20 grants to individuals or small teams of entrepreneurs by the end of 2011, Thiel said yesterday during a technology conference in San Francisco. Some partners at the Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Thiel, will act as advisers and mentors to the grant winners.

The grants are aimed at removing some of the barriers, such as heavy course loads and high college costs, that young people face as they try to create businesses, Thiel said in an interview. He was one of the first investors in Facebook, which like Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc., was founded by a person who hadn’t completed college.

“We need to encourage young Americans to take more risks,” Thiel said. Traditional education steers young people away from entrepreneurship and into steady jobs, he said. “While they are able to get certain types of jobs with it, the problem is they can’t actually do anything that pays less in the short term and may have more value in the long run.”

Thiel contributed to Facebook’s $500,000 first round of funding in 2004, when founder Mark Zuckerberg was 20. Zuckerberg hadn’t completed his undergraduate degree at Harvard University when he began Facebook.

Halcyon Molecular

Besides Facebook, other startups created by teenagers in recent years include Halcyon Molecular, a genetic engineering company, and Napster Inc., the music file-sharing site created by programmer Shawn Fanning, Thiel said. He was one of Halcyon’s investors.

The greatest opportunities for new and world-changing businesses may lie in the hard sciences, as opposed to consumer- oriented Internet startups, Thiel said. A backer of rocket builder Space Exploration Technologies, Thiel is exploring investments in artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology and aerospace engineering.

Facebook, valued by secondary-share markets at about $30 billion, is undervalued, said Thiel, who also runs Clarium Capital Management LLC.

A top candidate among Silicon Valley startups for an initial public offering, Facebook is unlikely to make its IPO until 2012, Thiel said. The offering would be one of the biggest in the technology world since Google Inc. went public in 2004.

“They’re focused on building a great product and building a great business around that product,” he said. “Google in some ways did it right by waiting a long time to have their IPO.”

Facebook was likely to put off an IPO until that time to give Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, three people familiar with the matter said in July.

--Editors: Tom Giles, Nick Turner

To contact the reporter on this story: Douglas MacMillan in New York at dmacmillan3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net.

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Gap's Failure Wasn't the Logo: http://bit.ly/8YJTqU (by @baekdal ).

Gap experienced the power of social media last week. They unveiled a new logo, quite badly designed, and the reaction was an immediate social media backlash.

People complained, and a movement was started ridiculing the new logo. Twitter profiles and Facebook groups where created - Gap or Crap was the slogan. When Gap tried to solve the situation they made all the mistakes a company can possibly make, and finally had to admit defeat and go back to their old logo.

But, the problem wasn't the logo, nor the reaction on social channels. It goes much deeper than that.

Gap's logo is broken

In the wake of the Gap disaster, many people say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." What they fail to realize is that the Gap logo is badly broken. It is designed for print, and doesn't work on digital devices.

The lines are too narrow, the accents to small. The lines in the letter "A" is placed at an angle that creates huge amount of pixel distortions. The logo is boxed into a blue square, which creates design constraints and limits what you can do with it.

Gap's logo is severely broken and is in a desperate need of getting fixed.

But this story is not about the logo, it's about meeting people's expectations

In 2008, Gap was hit head-on by the financial crisis. Like so many other companies, they were creating exactly the wrong type of products. Gap's stock price dropped more than 40% and something had to be done - fast! ...and they did.

Gap started to cut costs aggressively. They refocused their Old Navy line, focused on discounts and offers, strengthened the brand, started a digital campaign about being able to shop anytime, anywhere. They opened a web shop, was one of the first to create an iPad fashion store, and they started to use social media successfully.

They were aligning them with the needs and demands of the market. They where exuding confidence and professionalism. A brand that knows what they are doing, and have the skills to match it.

Gap was doing well. They had successfully weathered the storm, had brought the company back in line, and they where even exceeding past stock performances.

Fast forward to 2010

In 2010, the world changed again, and Gap failed to anticipate it. Sales are dropping, and so is the stock price.

People are getting their confidence back, and Gap needs to reflect that in their product lines. But, Gap is still in financial crisis mode. They are still focusing on basic products that can be produced and sold at a discount.

Gap is starting to feel bland and boring. Their products lack a certain direction, they are now making average products for average people, and their customers are moving away from that.

People don't expect Gap to be Gucci, but because they handled the financial crisis so well, the expectations people have is a professional and talented company. Kind of the same way as people have high expectations of IKEA. It's cheap, but they do know what they are doing.

The logo disaster

We don't know exactly what happened inside Gap, but I would guess that management was in panic to "do something, and quick" to get the sales and stock prices back up.

Marketing, now faced with no money, no time, and a growing annoyance about their "print" logo, decided that rebranding the logo was a good idea. At the very least, it made them appear to "do something."

The result was a disaster. The logo itself looks like crap. As Scott McKain puts it:

It's embarrassing - when I first started my speaking business, I had a similar logo. It was from a generic business card company that sold 5,000 cards for ten bucks or something.

That's not the impression you want to give people who are already expecting you to be better. Gap told their core customers that they had no idea what they where doing, and that people are right in thinking that they cannot live up to their expectations.

What made it even worse, is that Gap is a fashion company? The special thing about fashion companies is that they have to inspire through style. That's what they do.

The logo was not even remotely fashionable. Of all companies, they should know. It's their business to lead with style.

From this point, Gap had already lost. There was no way to save this disaster. But that didn't stop them from continuing to shoot themselves in the foot.

When people started complaining, Gap said, "We love our version, but we'd like to see other ideas." It was like looking at the captain of a ship, walking around the bridge with the inexperience of insecurity of deckhand.

The logo wasn't the problem; it just made it worse. The problem is that they are no longer a company that is "Exuding confidence and professionalism. A brand that knows what they are doing, and have the skills to match it."

Finally, after a week of negative reactions, they decided to admit defeat and go back to the original logo. They really had no choice. Emotions where running high, and it was clear to everyone that they had made a bad decision.

People were guided by their emotions, and every action (even good ones) would have been confronted by protests. Gap needed to contain that situation.

Of course, to save face, and continue to appear to "do something" (as opposed to actually getting results, and solve the problem), their final message was "Meanwhile, the website will go back to our iconic blue box logo and, for Holiday, we'll turn our blue box red for our seasonal campaign."

Bang!! ...there goes another foot.

Social Media saved them

Most of the press is now talking about how social media influenced Gap, and wether or not Gap should have listened. But that is not really what this is about.

The problem wasn't the logo or people's reactions to it. The problem was the growing "gap" between people's expectations and what Gap delivered. The logo, and the reaction to it, was just the last drop to burst the bubble.

Facebook and Twitter certainly amplified the issue, but even more interesting, it saved Gap before it was too late.

AdAge did a survey two days ago (only 5 days after the new logo was unveiled), asking people if they knew about the new logo, and how it had influenced them.

After just 5 days, 17% knew of it, and the reaction was that 29% (of those) felt it affected their decisions.

That is incredible.

Imagine if this happened 10 years ago, before we had social media. Then Gap would have unveiled their new logo. People would be talking about it, but Gap would never know.

They would then push ahead and spend an enormous amount of money on changing their signage, clothes labels, letter heads, and all the other things that have a Gap logo on it. Just before the big important holiday sale.

Then in 6 months, management would be looking at their sales graphs and see that there is a drop in sales - and they have no idea why. Was it the products? Was it the timing? Is it the financial crisis? All while marketing thinks they have been doing a good job rebranding the logo.

They would hire a research company to do a survey or maybe a focus group. The result would probably find that people do not like the logo, but not in any quantifiable way.

It would have been a disaster.

Because of the social feedback, Gap had an instantaneous reaction, and a study that point to a single problem. After only 7 days, Gap could act on the result, before spending an enormous amount of money, and before implementing it everywhere.

Social media worked so fast that it is unlikely that the logo problem will have any long term effect. It was gone before people even started to notice it.

Gap has experienced a slight drop in brand value, and they still have a big challenge ahead of them solving the real problem (the logo is just a distraction).

Gap now needs to stop pretending, and get real. Turning their logo red for the holidays isn't the solution. They need to create confidence through their actions, show people they have learned the lesson, and is determined to prove that they are better than that.

It is great that they listened to their fans, but they should have listened before they made the logo.

Scott Wilson's iPod Nano Watch Breaks Kickstarter Records, Raises $400K in a Week

And there's still over three weeks to go.

Last Monday, we had a breaking exclusive on a lovely new design by Scott Wilson: The TikTok and LunaTik wristbands, which transform the iPod Nano into a wristwatch. Initially, Wilson was hoping to raise $15,000 in 30 days, to get the watchbands into production. But guess what? The watch has become a bona fide Internet sensation, raising nearly $400,000 on Kickstarter in just a week, from over 5,000 backers -- and $180,000 in the first three days alone.

Those numbers make the project the second highest earning project of all time on Kickstarter -- not to mention breaking records for fundraising speed. And they also serve as proof of how much of a force Kickstarter has become in funding independent creative projects. “We are blown away by the support," says Wilson. "There are other options out there but Kickstarter is by far the easiest and most well-architected experience at the moment. This type of funding platform is a game-changer and just the beginning in shifting more power back to the individual creative entrepreneur. ”

For $25, you can pre-order the rubberized TikTok (which will be $35 at retail); for $50 you get the aluminum LunaTik (which will be $70 at retail). Wilson expects them to ship toward the end of the month. Check it out on Kickstarter.

4G is a myth (and a confusing mess)

By David Goldman, staff writerDecember 1, 2010: 9:14 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- You've seen the 4G advertisements from T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon, bragging about a much-better wireless network with blazing fast speeds.

Here's the secret the carriers don't advertise: 4G is a myth. Like the unicorn, it hasn't been spotted anywhere in the wild just yet -- and won't be any time in the near future.

None of the new networks the carriers are rolling out meet that standard.The International Telecommunication Union, the global wireless standards-setting organization, determined last month that 4G is defined as a network capable of download speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps). That's fast enough to download an average high-definition movie in about three minutes.

Sprint (S, Fortune 500) was the first to launch a network called 4G, going live with it earlier this year. Then, T-Mobile launched its 4G network, claiming to be "America's largest 4G network." Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) plans to launch its 4G network by the end of the year, which it claims will be the nation's largest and the fastest. AT&T (T, Fortune 500) is expected to unveil its 4G network next year.

Those networks have theoretical speeds of a fifth to a half that of the official 4G standard. The actual speeds the carriers say they'll achieve are just a tenth of "real" 4G.

So why are the carriers calling these networks 4G?

It's mostly a matter of PR, industry experts say. Explaining what the wireless carriers' new networks should be called, and what they'll be capable of, is a confusing mess.

To illustrate: Sprint bought a majority stake in Clearwire (CLWR), which uses a new network technology called WiMAX that's capable of speeds ranging from 3 Mbps to 10 Mbps. That's a different technology from Verizon's new network, based on a standard called Long Term Evolution (LTE), which will average 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps.

Seeing what its competitors were up to, T-Mobile opted to increase the speed capabilities of its existing 3G-HSPA+ network instead of pursuing a new technology. Its expanded network -- now called 4G -- will reach speeds of 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps.

No matter what they're called, all of these upgrades are clear improvements -- and the carriers shelled out billions to make them. Current "3G" networks offer actual speeds that range from between 500 kilobits per second to 1.5 Mbps.

So Sprint and Verizon have new, faster networks that are still technically not 4G, while T-Mobile has an old, though still faster network that is actually based on 3G technology.

Confused yet? That's why they all just opted to call themselves "4G."

The carriers get defensive about the topic.

"It's very misleading to make a decision about what's 4G based on speed alone," said Stephanie Vinge-Walsh, spokeswoman for Sprint Nextel. "It is a challenge we face in an extremely competitive industry."

T-Mobile did not respond to a request for comment.

One network representative, who asked not to be identified, claimed that ITU's 4G line-in-the-sand is being misconstrued. The organization previously approved the use of the term "4G" for Sprint's WiMAX and Verizon's LTE networks, he said -- though not for T-Mobile's HSPA+ network.

ITU's PR department ignored that approval in its recent statement about how future wireless technologies would be measured, the representative said. ITU representatives were not immediately available for comment.

"I'm not getting into a technical debate," said Jeffrey Nelson, spokesman for Verizon Wireless. "Consumers will quickly realize that there's really a difference between the capabilities of various wireless data networks. All '4G' is not the same."

And that's what's so difficult. The term 4G has become meaningless and confusing as hell for wireless customers.

For instance, T-Mobile's 4G network, which is technically 3G, will have speeds that are at least equal to -- and possibly faster -- than Verizon's 4G-LTE network at launch. At the same time, AT&T's 3G network, which is also being scaled up like T-Mobile's, is not being labeled "4G."

That's why some industry experts predict that the term "4G" will soon vanish.

"The labeling of wireless broadband based on technical jargon is likely to fade away in 2011," said Dan Hays, partner at industry consultancy PRTM. "That will be good news for the consumer. Comparing carriers based on their network coverage and speed will give them more facts to make more informed decisions."

Hays expects that independent researchers -- or the Federal Communications Commission -- will step in next year to perform speed and coverage tests.

Meanwhile, don't expect anyone to hold the carriers' feet to the fire.

"Historically, ITU's classification system has not held a great degree of water and has not been used to enforce branding," Hays said. "Everyone started off declaring themselves to be 4G long before the official decision on labeling was made. The ITU was three to four years too late to make an meaningful impact on the industry's use of the term."