The other day, I demonstrated it to a work mate. I asked for a dinner booking at a restaurant that serves duck in Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia. Siri came back telling me I need to book a flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne and asked if I’d like to look at some flight schedules!! However, it didn’t tell me which restaurant it had in mind for me. But then again, Australia is not flushed with businesses with an online presence and APIs to go with it (API – application programming interface – this allows software applications to talk to each other). For a lay person, what Siri does is recognise your voice request and inputs those details into, for example, an airline booking webpage and then presents the results to you for your decision.

It’s a shame Australia is so far behind to make use of Siri.

-TH

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the past six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

While they may appear overly simplistic, they are actually designed in a bottom up hierarchy that highlights employees’ needs. Being a relatively new manager at G Media, I had a go answering these myself and my answers were almost all positive. I assure you there was no bias, knowing that my boss – Garion Hall can read this any time. This is not particular news to me in any case, as I am fairly happy going to headquarters everyday with my to-do list and leaving with some sense of job satisfaction at the end of each day. For comparison purposes, I applied the same questions to my last position and needless to say, my decision to move on was the right one.

Firstly, the authors distinguish between skills and knowledge, which can be taught and talents, an innate instinctive skill set that cannot be learned but will determine ultimate success or failure. The reason being that talents are ingrained in an individual, impulses they’ve grown up developing their entire lives. When applied in the business situations will, not only come naturally, but always garner the best results, because it is the person’s speciality. For example, this talent is easily recognisable in athletes, they’re at the top of their game because they are the best, due to their talent – they can run the fastest, hit the hardest, quickest reaction time and so on. Whilst most of us will concur that this makes logical sense, the same theory is lost on most in the business world.

Staff are hired based on their resume, a piece of paper that lists their skills and knowledge, gained from their educations, whether it be in schools or past work experience. While the ability to learn quickly is a talent, it’s the application of those skills learned that matters. It is HR’s responsibility to find that talent in staff, both existing and new, in order to foster business success. To do that, we need to sniff out talents at the interview stage by asking open ended questions, allowing the prospect to showcase their talents, which may or may not be suitable to the organisation.

We at G Media, have not veered too far from the traditional forms of recruitment thus have had varying degrees of success in hiring and retaining suitable staff.

My love of using the typewriter began when I purchased my second-hand Olivetti manual typewriter. I would spend hours taking longhand notes for school assignments, and then typing them up. My typewriter always encouraged me to get the story right first time round. I would pound away at the keyboard, each letter typed  followed by a resounding ‘click’. I was mesmerized by the brisk action with which it’s hammers sculpted its letters onto the paper and the reassuring ‘bing’ when I had arrived at my manually set margin, then I would reach for the jabby little carriage return lever and move to the next line. I loved the portability, the lack of electricity, of not being “plugged in” to the wall.

I never ever had an accident where I pressed a button and accidentally deleted my work, never to be seen again. And no-one ever tried to hack into my typewriter! It was very secure and I didn’t need to remember a password. Typewriters are much more straightforward to use than computers as they only have one function – typing, it is the simplicity that I long for sometimes.

I am feeling particularly nostalgic about my typewriter as this week I ‘lost’ a document I spent a significant amount of time working on and wanted to present to Garion. Needless to say I was devastated when I couldn’t find it. This would not have happened if I had typed it up on my trusty Olivetti, black words on white paper rolling up in front of my gaze. I know, this may sound like an impossibly Spartan ideal, where cut and paste is done with scissors and glue, and deleted words remain on the page as angry little blobs. But today I am left jaded by my smarty-pants computer.

1. be armed and ready with a yellow highlighter

3. implement the lesson learned in our daily business decisions

Having completed almost 20 years of studying, it’s fair to say I’ve read about many management theories and “how to” guides, so I was rather dubious about rules number 2 and 3 above, when handed “First, break all the rules”. Luckily I had a 300 page guide on how to break all the rules in my lap.

Loathed to mark up a perfectly brand new book, this series of blogs will showcase the interesting bits I did find, somewhat to my surprise. Basically it’s a how to manage guide for managers. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman looks at staff management from a different angle, backs it up with empirical research spanning over twenty five (that’s right 25!) years, completed by the Gallup Organisation. Their comprehensive research includes interviews with factory hands, receptionists to senior executives across thousands of companies spanning all industries.

Will Chatroulette be the next FaceBook? I don’t think so if it doesn’t clean it up. My experience has been mixed. Chatroulette has proved one thing for me: that women are more evolved than men. The anonymity which Chatroulette provides emboldens people to say and do things that run against normal perfunctory politeness between two strangers. In the majority of cases so far, I’ve seen too many men enjoying “self-love”! Women on the other hand, can carry on a conversation. Well, for at least 2 minutes. That’s a bonus – at least I’m not “nexted”. Being “nexted” means the stranger has clicked the next button to jump to another stranger, because he, she (or even it) hasn’t liked the sight of me (well, I am not the most interesting or attractive looking person in the room, so they can be forgiven if that’s people’s criteria)

It’s not clear what Chatroulette’s business model is at the moment, but it has a key ingredient that would make it a commercial success: eyeballs! I’m sure marketing and advertising would feature prominently down the track. There are people starting to market their own product now by crudely (but effectively for the moment) focusing a webcam on a slide, banner, etc. with their moniker. As a marketing tool, it would be difficult to pinpoint your target market because the audience is random and there no demographic information. The later is easy to solve; require people to register before being given access. But that lessens the fun!

Give it a go, but be warned! Having a thick skin is required!

- TH

How often have you sat in a meeting where an idea’s been tabled and it seems like everyone agrees with it…except you? The best thing you can do is to voice your opinion. Differences that normally divide people, such as problem solving styles, can be used to fuel the innovation process within an organisation.

Recently, I proposed an idea. The economics made sense. It was a different approach and has potential to add value to G Media. There was lively and vigorous debate; however, the idea wasn’t shelved but required more detail. The inquisitorial nature of the discussion was a boon. It made me reflect on how people conceptualise formative ideas and I walked away with two fresh ideas.

Do yourself and your organisation a favour and don’t waste an opportunity to stimulate creative thinking among your colleagues by respectfully critiquing ideas in their formative stages.

- TH

Lovett’s disciplinary record was known to St Kilda before they traded away their first round draft pick for him. Only now the club has come to the realisation that he’s a problem? I question the CEO’s astuteness – he traded away a first round draft pick and his return on that investment amounted to zilch! But the more important question is: has St Kilda put its reputation before the presumption of innocence?

I wonder whether the St Kilda club would react differently if it was mid-season and the Lovett gamble was paying off? There have been many an occasion where clubs have stood by their player for both trivia and serious indiscretions. We live in a world where we all jump to conclusions too often. It creates a great story and sells more newspapers. At G Media, we know too well about people putting their reputation before the presumption of innocence.

If you research on the internet, you’ll find many articles about whether to buy or rent. The answer would generally be “buy” if the property market is in a boom, interest rates are low, lack of housing and so forth. But the answer would be “rent” if the general market characteristics were the opposite. The analysis between the two situations comes down to how much cash and capital appreciation you’ll receive from renting out an investment property. Then comparing it against how much cash you’ll make from investing your hard earned dollars in something of similar risk, such as a term deposit or government bonds (they pay you interest at set frequencies). But this analysis is not entirely appropriate for my colleague. She’s already got a property and should make use of it.

As an alternative, my friend could keep her current property and rent it out, use the value (equity) she gained from the property value increase as a deposit to buy another investment property. And rent the new property, too. It’s an attractive market at the moment. There’s a high demand for housing and we’ve been told there’s just not enough housing to go round. I’ve heard stories about people offering rents that are higher than what was expected! Plus, the “experts” are predicting the property market to continue to be strong this year.

So where is she going to live?! She should rent a property. What?? How does this make sense, you’re saying. It makes perfect sense if my colleague doesn’t care about not living in “her” house (which is contrary to the Australian dream). While she’s renting, she’s got two extra income streams (the rents from the two investment properties) which she should aim to be two-thirds of the total mortgage repayments (depending on her salary and how much debt she wants to have) and she tops up the remaining third with her salary. She gets to enjoy being in the property market with two properties that appreciate in value in a booming market and she can deduct the mortgage interest (not the principal repayment component) against her salary.

Anyway, this is my suggestion to her.