Google’s 8 Rules for Being a Good Manager
What makes a good boss?
Of course there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that. But tech-giant Google set out to answer that question within the context of their own company. They called it Project Oxygen, and last week the New York Times ran a piece about their findings. After sifting through enormous amounts of data, the Googlers behind Project Oxygen were able to identify eight key traits that all managers should have. The traits are by no means revolutionary or groundbreaking compared with similar studies done on the subject. But the big surprise for Google came later, when they prioritized and ranked the eight key traits by order of importance.
Laszlo Bock, Google’s Vice President of “People Operations” (read: Human Resources) and his team discovered that “technical expertise — the ability, say, to write computer code in your sleep — ranked dead last among Google’s big eight. What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”
Even at a technology giant like Google, all the computer programming skills in the world won’t save you from being a bad manager if you can’t wrap your head around the other seven traits of highly effective managers. “It turns out that that’s absolutely the least important thing,” Bock says of technical expertise. “It’s important, but pales in comparison. Much more important is just making that connection and being accessible.”
Here are Project Oxygen’s findings, Google’s “Eight Good Behaviors” of top managers, ranked in order of importance: Continue Reading
Startup Trends: Food Trucks
Young Entrepreneur recently listed their picks for the hottest startup trends of 2011.
The Top 6 Trends are: Mobile Commerce, IT Consulting, “Popup” Restaurants and Food Trucks, Social Shopping, Social Gaming and Green Consulting.
“Popup” Restaurants and Food Trucks stuck out to me as the least high-tech item on the list. But their argument for its increasing importance is interesting:
Food trucks have big advantages over brick-and-mortar establishments: low investment costs, no rent, low utilities, no real estate costs, and low marketing costs. The biggest indicator of their success? International restaurant consultants Baum and Whiteman report that restaurant owners are pushing for laws restricting them, and in some cases winning (Los Angeles is an example). Not only that, food truck rodeos, where giant groups of food trucks congregate in a festival-like atmosphere, are becoming more popular.
Food trucks are getting more and more ubiquitous, especially in big cities. Most events I go to in Los Angeles have food trucks of one sort or another set up in a parking lot or outdoor area.
Some of the companies who own these trucks also run brick-and-mortar restaurants, making their food trucks something like a catering extension of their business. But some of them exist solely by way of mobile food stand. And it makes sense. Buying a food truck is a lot cheaper than setting up and maintaining a restaurant with a dining room.
And what’s that old adage? Location, location, location! What could be better than being able to change your location daily? On my block, there’s a taco truck that sets up at the same spot six days of the week. That kind of consistency has benefits, for instance- I know they’re there, so I go back. But while more nomadic food trucks may not have that kind of repeat business, they have the flexibility to be at “the right place at the right time,” wherever that time and place may be. Continue Reading
Ernest Holmes and the First Tow Truck
This entrepreneur invented a way to help his distressed customers — and start a new industry — at the same time.
A modified 1913 Locomobile, one of the first tow trucks Holmes made.
It was 1916 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mechanic Ernest Holmes got a call from his old Business School professor, John Wiley. Wiley and his son had been driving when their Model T veered off the road and was flipped upsidedown in a creek bed. Holmes came to help. It took him eight hours and six men to retrieve the car from the creek bed.
Holmes decided there had to be a better solution, and he was determined to find it.
He modified a 1913 Cadillac, adding a crane and pulley system. The idea was that this modified vehicle could rescue other distressed vehicles and tow them to a mechanics shop for repair.
It didn’t work. Holmes needed something to stabilize the tow truck. He added a pair of outriggers to brace the tow truck while it was lifting and pulling other vehicles. This time, it worked, and the first tow truck was born.
Holmes did more than invent a product. He invented an industry. Consider the brilliance of the tow truck: a way to “capture” customer business by capturing the vehicle. Continue Reading
The Business of Ghost Towns
A month ago, on my way back from a weekend in Las Vegas, I got off the freeway in San Bernardino and followed the signs pointing towards a ghost town.
It was an unsettling, windy day. The sun was yawning, low in the sky as I drove for several miles down the desolate Ghost Town Road. Then, in the distance, the word Calico appeared on a hill. I knew immediately that Calico was the kind of place I should know about.
There are several reasons why Calico sounds so familiar. As I would discover later- Calico was an old mining community that had been completely abandoned in the early 1900′s, after the borax mines were closed in 1907.
For decades, Calico sat, abandoned in the desert, until one industrious man named Walter Knott bought up the entire town.
Calico had never been anything special. It was a boomtown in the early 1880′s and peaked shortly after being built. Around that time, “Calico had a population of 1,200 people and over 500 silver mines,” according to Wikipedia. It featured “the usual assortment of bars, brothels, gambling halls and a few churches.” Of course, by the time Mr. Knott got to it, the town was empty and run down.
So why would anyone want to own a ghost town? Other than the fact that it’s probably the coolest thing a person can own, Knott was fascinated with America’s early pioneer history. Even more importantly: he wanted to make a buck. He was going to turn this decrepit, defunct town into a tourist attraction.
But he wasn’t just buying a ghost town, he was buying an idea. The idea of a place frozen in time.
Knott would incorporate Calico into his theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm, while also rebuilding the town, making it an attraction of its own.
It’s still a tourist attraction today. You can ride a mining train around, buy souveniers, and watch cowboy-gunfight stuntshows. So advertises their website. On my brief visit to Calico, I encountered something quite a bit different. Continue Reading
The iPad 2
The iPad 2 is here, and it points to a better tomorrow for tablets. You’ve heard my complaints. We’ve been disappointed before. But with more speed and new powerful apps, the iPad 2 is a hint of what we can expect from tablet computers in the future. How machines like this affect businesses will vary depending on the industry. Tablet computers have long been an important part of the medical world, but there are plenty of other aindustries world that could benefit from more advanced tablets. Could yours?
Here’s my initial report of the iPad 2, posted Wednesday on my new blog, The Heated Forest:
It seems like it was only a year ago that I was sitting on Twitter, watching the details of Apple’s iPad roll in live. Come to think of it, it was only a year ago. And yet, Apple’s iPad 2 is already here, and ready for consumption.
Apple held an event today in San Francisco announcing the new product at 10 AM, PST.
So what can it do? How is the iPad 2 going to blow you away? Well, if you weren’t impressed by the original iPad, frankly, there’s not much here for you. It’s still a tablet computer based off of Apple’s (now updated) iOS mobile operating system. But it’s sleek, sexy, and it costs the same price.
The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s thinner. It’s 33% thinner than the original product. At 8.4 mm thick, it’s actually thinner than the iPhone 4. And it’s a little lighter too. It weights 1.3 lbs, compared with the original iPad’s 1.5lb weight.
As bloggers have long suspected, the iPad 2 comes with a rear and front-facing camera, so it’s ready for video-chat from the get go.
The iPad 2 also features dual-core A5 processors, meaning graphics will run up to nine times faster, without impacting battery life. A couple additional improvements include a gyroscope, the ability to use the slider switch for muting or locking screen orientation, and HDMI capability, so you can plug your iPad 2 into any High Def television. This, in my opinion, is the greatest thing about the iPad 2.
Oh, and did I mention it comes in white? Unlike the fabled white iPhone, the white iPad 2 will be available at the same time as the black. Both models are shipping on March 11th.
One thing that hasn’t changed at all is the pricing structure. The cheapest model still starts at $499. And, depending on how much storage you want (16, 32, or 64 GB, the same as the original iPad) the 3G models can cost over $800.
Here’s what I’m most excited about: video editing.
Speaking about the new iMovie app, one presenter said, “This is not a toy. You can really edit a movie on this thing.” Not a toy? Edit a movie? It’s like they’ve been reading my mind, or my blog. Just this week I was complaining that tablets were toys and that you couldn’t edit movies on them. It seems like the hardware is catching up with my awesome, unique imagination. Then again, the argument that iMovie is not a toy is in and of itself questionable. But this is a radical beginning. Maybe a little Final Cut Pro action is just around the corner? Maybe…
Since the iPad 2 has a camera, you can click a button and record video directly into your iMovie timeline. Now that’s what I like to see.
And lastly, the iPad 2 will let you share the music, movies, and TV shows that you have in your home iTunes library over Wi-Fi. #winning
Check out Apple’s website for more info on the iPad 2.
So what will happen to all of those original iPads? Might they go down in price? I don’t know yet. But while I wasn’t willing to spring $500 for the iPad, I’d gladly spend under $300 for an older model. Then again, I’m cheap. What about you? You willing to spring $500 or more for the new, thinner, sleeker iPad 2?
