Bizosphere

Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category

Shocking, I know, but free coffee is a disproportionate perk. So are other, similar things…

The sarcasm comes from firsthand experience. When I worked at the original incarnation of Corporate Software, initially there was not only free coffee - good free coffee, if nothing gourmet like the article mentions - but also hot chocolate, tea, and even Crystal Lite. It was one of those places to work. They also had extremely low cost soda.

The primary business there was software sales, and they pioneered what would become common ways of selling software licensing packages. I was in their secondary business of tech support, which they’d gotten into with great success and massive hiring, if not high margins.

One thing led to another. Corporate Software became Strean International became three companies, of which Stream was the one that sold tech support only, without the higher margin elements.

Fewer things were free. The good coffee became awful, but lower maintenance and more likely to be available on demand, coffee. Then there was no more cocoa…

Not the same as free coffee, but there was near mutiny when the free hot chocolate went away. That for people there at the time was the dividing line between the cool company and the company that just didn’t care about its people anymore. Such a little thing. Yet I’d swear it was the beginning of the end of the business. Not that it ever 100% ended, but it changed hands and eventually emerged as a company that doesn’t seem to have any connection with the past, at least from a long since outsider’s perspective.

Clearly the linked article is touting results promulgated by a company with a vested interest in self-promotion and sales of coffee. Certainly there are company cultures that aren’t as tied to expectations of certain kinds of perks as, for instance, ones employing tech workers may be. The basic point remains: Surprisingly minor ways in which you treat employees can mean a lot, all out of proportion to the cost.

• #cotc Carnival of the Capitalists for 4/20/09: http://bizosphere.com/?p=167 #
• Not a post/article, but ExecTweets seems interesting: http://www.exectweets.com/ #
• Isn’t it always fun to blame Spitzer? http://tinyurl.com/dkw3wp #
• Party like it’s 1934: http://tinyurl.com/c8crw2 #
• Handling resume overload: http://blogs.bnet.com/bnet1/?p=1671 #
• Bandwidth Malthusians: http://tinyurl.com/chpla8 (Malthus lied, people thrived…) #
• 100 Free Useful Biz Courses/Lectures: http://tinyurl.com/cszy4u #
• Rob Sama Grand Plan - Taxation (Long, Cool): http://samablog.robsama.com/?p=4237 #
• Brief Atlas Shrugged review w/spoilers: http://andstillipersist.com/2009/04/atlas-shrugged-a-brief-review-wspoilers/ #
• Why is Venture Capital Under Assault? http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325207949387991 #
• Pirate Bay http://voluntaryxchange.typepad.com/voluntaryxchange/2009/04/a-primer-on-pirate-bay-the-conviction-file-sharing-and-torrents.html #
• Review “Talent Is Overrated What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else” - Geoff Colvin http://bit.ly/fzyoV #
• The Box: http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/04/the-box.html #
• Death of the General: http://bit.ly/ziOxM #
• Less expensive yet more effective leadership development: http://bit.ly/9lu44 #
• Branding and Twitter: http://www.vipvirtualsolutions.com.au/2009/04/what-does-your-brand-say-about-you.html #
• Is Citigroup Vikram Pandit’s Job Safe? http://banksavingsreview.com/is-citigroup-vikram-pandits-job-safe/ #
• Rearranging bank deck chairs: http://wenchwisdom.blogspot.com/2009/04/using-our-own-money-against-us-part-4.html #
• Brain Map for executive time: http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/04/brain-map-executive-time.html #
• The Walmart Question: http://blog.mises.org/archives/009846.asp #
• Bank lending games? http://everydayfinance.blogspot.com/2009/04/refi-rates-low-but-banks-arent-lending.html #
• How to invest in Cuba: http://www.darwinsfinance.com/how-to-invest-in-cuba-does-obamas-cuba-deal-spell-gains/ #
• Risk Management: http://www.iqi-sm.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/23/strategy/how-to-develop-an-effective-business-risk-management-strategy/ #
• Understanding PPIP: http://wallandmain.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/understanding-the-ppip/ #
• Rob Sama Grand Plan on Housing: http://samablog.robsama.com/?p=4304 #
• Going Postal: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=614 #
• That concludes this week’s entries. #
• Still looking for work, tech, maybe management, even blog-related. Resume PDF at http://bit.ly/5GxHh or LinkedIn at http://bit.ly/L8rkw. #
• Stay tuned for next week’s edition at http://bizosphere.com/, or read/follow http://twitter.com/CotC to catch them as they are tweeted. #

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Around these parts, this articlle sounds funny. Some of us have been driving less for a long time. To the point where atrophied vehicles are a concern, where they can just sit and decay by not being driven as intended.

Don’t miss Rob May’s final post as owner of BusinessPundit as controlled by Creative Weblogging: The Top 10 Changes In My Business Thinking.

Perhaps the most important one that I have learned yet still have trouble engaging is number 6, Do Stuff. This applies to looking for funding versus pursuing business activity that won’t depend on funding, right down to the business of daily life.

I think I learned plan and worry and undecide from my father. At the same time, he could make what appeared to be snap decisions about major things, as I often do, while agonizing for an hour about what to have for supper. In my case, probably his, those snap decisions are usually the product of much thought behind the scenes, or are more obviously logical and easy to make than they might appear to others.

Take the business that hosts this blog and thereby “sponsors” Carnival of the Capitalists. I had the basic idea sometime prior to October 1996 (oops, keep doing that) 2006, because in October I will have had the Blackberry for two years, and getting that was associated with the concept. I was stuck in a business partnership that was effectively just me, but if I fired things up, getting more work and making more money, partners who contributed nothing would profit. I was stuck with a large client that produced not enough to live well on, while being the 800 lb gorilla that could tie me up for days, call me in for an emergency at any time, and generally made it difficult to do anything substantive besides. I’m kicking myself for not pursuing harder a side income from blogging at the time, or other more passive income that would fit around what I was doing.

To be more responsive to them while trying to get side work as me, not the partnership, and be able to access e-mail anywhere, as well as have a better cell phone, I decided to get the Blackberry. It’s not quite my mental image of what I’d carry to be portable, but it would be a start.

I agonized over a name. I bought dozens of domains appropriate to the original name, which I was never fully comfortable with for the services in mind. It was last spring I realized a catch phrase I had created would make a better name, found the domain available, grabbed it and dropped the old name even as I had a site under construction because it was about damn time after fiddling for a year.

By that time the inevitable divorce with the large client and the partners was well underway, but then I agonized over whether to push that, get a job after things were settled enough, or what. I also wanted things to be both well settled and not to take off seriously until after the baby arrived.

Yet with the type of work - or side work even if I got a job - it would not have hurt anything to have gone around and said “hey, I am doing X and you can reach me here if you’re interested.” It was, frankly, stupid not to push it along hard, even if I wasn’t sure it was exactly what I wanted, even if I was shell shocked from being in business and dealing with that kind of thing, while not over being shall shocked from dealing with crazy employers and the logical kind of work I might still end up doing there. Momentum is everything.

His number 1 point is one I have recently realized is particularly important, along with number 3, though in my case staying angry rather than being vengeful. Well, no, I still stay angry, resentful, or hold onto earlier impressions, but I at least recognize it can be silly or counterproductive.

There’s more. I could write multiple posts, sparked by the one, depending exactly how frank I wanted to be. You should go read and ponder yourself, while I try to keep reminding myself “the perfect is the enemy of the good” to help me do instead of plan, refine and worry.