Can Managers Create Satisfied Employees?

In the book Organizational Behavior, the column “Managers Can Create Satisfied Employees” caught my eye. It’s a Point vs Counterpoint column that follows a chapter on job satisfaction and how it effects productivity, turnover, and even customers.

The Point read:

A review of the evidence has identified four factors conducive to high levels of employee job satisfaction: mentally challenging work, equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, and supportive colleagues. Importantly, each of these factors is controllable by management.

The Counterpoint read:

Unfortunately there is a growing body of evidence that challenges the notion that managers control the factors that influence employee job satisfaction. The most recent findings indicate that employee job satisfaction is largely genetically determined. … Given these findings, there is probably little that most managers can do to influence employee satisfaction. … The only place where managers will have any significant influence will be through their control of the selection process.

In my experience, I’ve found that both are necessary for an effective team; it’s not an either-or argument. By effective, I mean satisfied and productive.

There are people who naturally seek challenges, are always learning new things, and have a hopeful, positive outlook on their future. A rare few are even able to self-motivate. If you hire only such people (assuming they fulfill your other requirements), you’ll no doubt have a satisfied team initially.

But if you don’t actively keep them engaged with challenging work, appropriate rewards, and a supportive environment, a competitor will easily lure them away. As a manager, you have the ability to reshape the environment. If you don’t create a healthy one, a competitor will.

Effective organizations are the ones that can hire the right kinds of people -and- keep them satisfied & productive.

Conversations and Dialogue

You know how ideas sometimes seem to appear in two different places at the same time?

I noticed a case of parallel spontaneous idea creation today when my RSS reader included an entries from John Battelle and Seth Godin.

Battelle is doing a form of liveblogging (or web-enhanced writing as he calls it), where he’s adding to the entry throughout the day as a way to watch him think out loud. Today, he posted the third part of a series on Conversational Media & Conversational Marketing (part 1, part 2, part 3). This third post adds a new term: The Conversational Economy. To summarize:

There are two major forms of media these days. There is Packaged Goods Media, in which “content” is produced and packaged, then sent through traditional distribution channels like cable, newsstand, mail, and even the Internet.

The second major form of media, is far newer, and far less established. I’ve come to call it Conversational Media, though I also like to call it Performance Media. This is the kind of media that has been labeled, somewhat hastily and often derisively, as “User Generated Content,” “Social Media,” or “Consumer Content.”

Godin, on the other hand, posted a short but eerily similar thought:

Tony pointed out a neat idea to me. Some organizations are good at listening. Some are good at talking. A few are even good at both.

But having a dialogue is different. It’s about engaging in (sometimes) uncomfortable conversations that enable both sides to grow and change.

Two marketing minds having the same idea in two different places at the same time. Parallel spontaneous idea creation rocks!

CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge: Initial Picks

CNBC I just made my first trades on CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time yesterday to make them. This means I might have missed yesterday’s price movements. Though, according to a comment from B. Hopper, this may not matter, because the prices aren’t yesterday’s prices. Oh well.

My stock selection strategy here is not what I use for my own real-world portfolio. Since this contest is only measuring the total portfolio value up until May 25th, only short-term growth stocks matter here. So my entire selection is based on quick and (hopefully) big wins. They are mostly in the technology sector, where I have the most domain knowledge.

My initial picks:

  • Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH)

    CTSH is an IT consulting firm located in India and competes against IBM, Accenture, etc. They reported strong Q4 2006 earnings, just opened their 8th location in India, and are making successful investments in employee retention & recruitment (which is a key business driver for consulting firms).

  • Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS)

    AEIS develops power conversion & control systems used in plasma-based thin-film processing equipment, such as semiconductors, flat panel displays, and solar cells. Solar cells alone grew over 200% YoY in 2006. They have strong sales, high margins, and high insider ownership, all very positive traits.

  • Akamai Technologies (AKAM)

    AKAM provides Internet content delivery services, notably speeding up the download time of websites. They’ve been acquiring competitors and grew their customer base faster than expected. They now have the capability to serve applications and video (against YouTube’s provider Limelight).

  • ValueClick (VCLK)

    VCLK is an online marketing services company. One of their offerings is Commission Junction, their affiliate & search marketing division, which offers services similar to Google’s AdSense & AdWords.

  • Nam Tai Electronics (NTE)

    NTE is a China-based electronics manufacturing & design services provider for OEMs of telecommunications & consumer electronics. They have a low P/E, a high market cap, and is highly rated by many investors, despite being a little-known company.

  • Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (COG)

    COG is a natural gas producer with operations in the US and Canada. On March 30th, they’re doing a 2-for-1 split and raising their dividend payments. That alone is worth a buy, even though consumers don’t use as much natural gas during the summer.

  • Yahoo! (YHOO)

    YHOO is an Internet search and media company. I’m an employee at Yahoo, so hey, I gotta support my peeps!

The Battle of Buzzwords

Last month, Brian Clark over at Copyblogger, questioned the value of the term “linkbait“. Linkbait started out as a marketing term to describe “any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites.” The benefit of getting links from other websites is to increase your website’s rank in search engines.

The term has since taken on an almost derogatory connotation, in some people’s eyes. At the same time, a whole niche market as arisen to service this desire.

So Clark asked:

Link attraction is crucial. But is “linkbaiting” bad branding for an important skill? I prefer to call what I do viral copywriting, but linkbaiting goes well beyond the written word and can include blog themes, widgets and web applications.

It may be too late to change the tide, but let’s take a vote anyway. Let the people speak.

Leave a comment to this post with either:

  • Yes, I think the term linkbaiting is OK; or
  • No, I think the term linkbaiting is bad.

I saw this as a battle of semantics and buzzwords. The negative connotations of linkbaiting is certainly bad for copywriters and SEO specialists. It’s like being known as a “spammer” instead of an “email marketer.”

But as a buzzword to help describe it to people outside of the industry? It’s potentially good that way. I wrote as much in Copyblogger’s comments:

While buzzwords can be annoying, I think they actually can be a helpful semantic platform for describing concepts to people not familiar with the industry.

For example, I was a web developer and have been using a technique called remote scripting since 2001. Then the term “Ajax” was coined, which basically meant the same thing.

Scores of web developers were endlessly annoyed at the popularity of this buzz term. Everyone seemed to be using the term “Ajax” – and many times, inappropriately too.

But then I became an engineering manager and began working with product managers, marketers, and designers who were unfamiliar with this technology. And suddenly, “Ajax” became a useful term. I would correct inappropriate uses and wield it as a tool to help them understand how we could build better web products.

So I think linkbait, while annoying, is a useful buzz word. (But for professionals in the industry, “viral copywriting” is a much better term – just like “remote scripting” is a better term than “Ajax” in the web development industry.)

However, after reading Clark’s conclusions, I’ve changed my mind. Especially for a copywriter or SEO specialist. Or, as Clark phrased it, a social media marketer.

The disadvantages of having a negative connotation outweigh the advantages of having a buzzword that many people loosely understand. Since the majority aren’t familiar with, or may misuse the term, why keep it? Why not replace it with a more descriptive and positive term? It’s fortunate that this market is still relatively young; such changes in the lexicon hopefully won’t be that painful.

Linkbaiter vs social media marketer? Hmmm. Spammer vs email marketer? No contest there. Down with derogatory buzzwords!

CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

CNBC The email read: Do you have what it takes to compete in CNBC.com’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge? Ooo, a challenge!

This started when two buddies and I made a bet to see who could earn the most money out of one dollar, after one year. We started the challenge last December 2006. If I can appreciate that dollar significantly by December 2007, I’ll win!

(We’re just playing for bragging rights and are going by honor that each of us will keep track of just that single dollar’s earnings accurately.)

With all that talk of investing bets, entering the Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge was a no-brainer. Here are the rules:

On March 5th we’ll give you $1,000,000 CNBC Bucks to play with. Make your picks on NYSE, NASDAQ, or AMEX and see how big a return you earn on your portfolio. Make up to 50 trades per day.

Each week one player will win $10,000. After ten weeks, only twenty players will make it to the finals for a chance to compete for the Grand Prize – $1,000,000!

You can earn bonus dollars to grow your portfolio. When you register for the contest, you’ll have a chance to refer 5 friends. You’ll receive an additional $1,000 CNBC Bucks for each one that signs up to play.

Ah. So that’s why he referred me. Dammit, he’s already $1,000 CNBC Bucks ahead of me.

If anyone else would like to enter this challenge, let me know! C’mon, it’ll be fun! Plus, I get an extra $1,000 CNBC Bucks!

Every once in a while, I’ll publish my trades & holdings on BizThoughts, so you can see how poorly I’m doing. I’m an amateur investor at best (and am nowhere near as good as someone like, say, a Playboy Playmate). But, heck, it’s only CNBC Bucks. And who doesn’t love a good challenge?

Browser Wars II

Browser Wars II Yahoo! (YHOO) and Sillicon Valley Web Builder hosted a really cool event tonight: Browser Wars: Episode II The Attack of the DOMs. The speakers were:

After an awkward introduction, Douglas set the stage by explaining how complex the web development industry was: software bugs that live in one version of a browser don’t get erased by the next version. People may use those older versions for months or years to come. Newer versions also surface new bugs. What we get are essentially compound bugs. Know how compound interest is a great & powerful thing? Well, compound bugs are equally powerful, but very, very bad.

Then Chris and Mike spoke. (Håkon, who was flying in all the way from Oslo, Norway, was running late due to a flight delay.) They were surprisingly cordial and professional. Some members of the audience seemed disappointed by this; they expected blood. Instead, what they got was a lot of mutual respect & admiration between the two. I found this very positive, especially if it’s an indication of a stronger collaboration between IE and Firefox in the future.

When Håkon arrived, that’s when the jabs began. He discussed the Acid2 test and how poorly IE7 supports it. Again, they were professional, yet playful. All three are hillarious speakers. It was like three college buddies vying for the same girl – none wanted to totally trash his friends, but still wanted to make himself look better.

Håkon also added this piece of news: future versions of Opera will include a native <video> element and support the Ogg video file format because it’s a patent-free open standard. This means there will be no need for plugins to view video on Opera in the future. There may be a similar element for audio files as well.

Noticeably absent was a representative from Apple’s (AAPL) Safari team, even though they were invited. When asked about this, the official excuse given was that the Safari team was too busy to attend. “Two busy to take two hours out of your day?” asked Douglas. “Håkon flew twenty hours from Oslo to be here. They’re less than an hour away from our office.”

“I drove by them on my way here,” added Chris. See what I mean by hillarious speakers? Still, the absense of Apple was disappointing.

After their brief presentations, the speakers took questions from the audience, some of which included (all paraphrased):

Q: What are they doing to improve JavaScript performance?
A: All have made improvements to JavaScript’s garbage collection mechanisms, but admit there’s still much to be done.

Q: Will they support more interactivity with the operating system?
A: Not necessarily, since there are security issues to worry about. But there’s already some level of support, like Firefox’s extensions and Microsoft’s ActiveX.

Q: In light of new technologies like Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Platform (WPF), should we abandon Ajax?
A: Heck no!

Q: Will they support SVG?
A: No, because it’s not that easy to support; an SVG browser would mean a whole new kind of web browser.

Q: What are their strategies with mobile devices?
A: Opera leads in this area; Microsoft is continuing to improve their mobile IE browser; Mozilla admits it’s an important space but didn’t say anything concrete about entering it or not.

Q: What are their personal opinions on how they should innovate?
A: All agree that they’ll continue to strengthen their support for web standards, browser security, and other improvements for developers and end users. Mike added that standards organizations (like the W3C) are great for deciding how to propose flexible, interoperable solutions to common problems, but not for innovations.

There were other great insights & one-liners from the speakers. I hope someone else was able to capture them (anyone liveblog the event?). I’ll include them in this entry as I find them.

Fantastic event! Props to Chris, Mike, Håkon, Douglas, and all the organizers for putting this together!

UPDATED 3/5/2007: Here’s more coverage of this event.

Thinking About RSS

RSS icon Emily Chang will be speaking on a panel entitled, “Using RSS for Marketing” at this upcoming SXSW Interactive Conference. On her blog, she asks for feedback on insights & topics related to RSS.

This got me thinking (which, I know, is dangerous). Fundamentally, what is RSS?

Fundamentally, RSS is an XML-based stream of data. Or, as Wikipedia defines it:

A family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

Okay, that’s not helpful at all.

Conceptually, RSS is a free way to share real-time information with the world. Cool, okay, now it sounds more like radio waves or television broadcasts. Analogies are good.

How can RSS be used?

Currently, RSS is most commonly used to distribute updates from websites like blogs, vlogs, and podcasts. This information is time-sensitive and archives can be just as important as updates. Other real-time information that can be distributed are weather, traffic, and stock prices reports. These are also time-sensitive, though archives are not very important.

Conceivably, RSS could also share non real-time information, like dictionaries and encyclopedias. Or non-textual information like maps and technical diagrams.

RSS readers are currently built to display chronological information, so this would not be a standard way to use RSS. Arguably, it’s not an effective way either. There are other ways to retrieve static information, such as using web services. But possibly, the RSS format could also be used as a web service?

So what is RSS and how can it be used?

RSS is a way to share information, with some kinds of information being better than others:

  • Real-time information = blogs, vlogs, podcasts, news, weather, traffic & stock prices
  • Static information = dictionary info, encyclopedia info, maps & technical diagrams (maybe?)
  • Archivable information = blogs, vlogs, podcasts & news
  • Non-archivable information = weather, traffic & stock prices
  • Textual information = blogs, news, weather, traffic & stock prices
  • Graphical/video/audio information = photos, video, audio, maps & technical diagrams

As a marketer, are any of these information formats useful to your business? Or rather, would your customers find any of these information formats useful?

Perhaps. In my opinion, RSS isn’t just for blogs, vlogs, and podcasts though. With some thinking, perhaps you’ll find more uses for it too.

Thinking Like a Genius

“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”
– A. Einstein

You too can think like a genius. So says Michael Michalko, a “creative thinking expert” and author.

The non-profit educational public service Study Guides and Strategies has done a fantastic adaptation of Michalko’s article, “Thinking like a genius: eight strategies used by the supercreative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison“. It quickly summarizes how anyone can use the same thinking styles & techniques as Aristotle & Einstein to be more effective in everyday life. (Thank goodness for study guides!)

To whet your appetite, the eight strategies are:

  1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)
  2. Visualize!
  3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.
  4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.
  5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.
  6. Think in opposites.
  7. Think metaphorically.
  8. Prepare yourself for chance.