Well, the news has been out for a few weeks and twitter has unveiled its plan to actually make some money!! Wierd, I was starting to wonder if Twitter didn’t like the taste of revenue or something. They obviously have a powerful platform and from the initial release, my immediate impression is that the route they are taking has potential and is a good one. It isn’t particularly innovative but it doesn’t have to be as long as it can maintain its service quality and experience.

They are calling it Promoted Tweets and are working with some major industry players to unveil it. Reuters described it as follows:

As Twitter broadens the program to include more advertisers, spokesman Sean Garret said, keywords on Twitter’s search engine will be opened to competitive bidding by advertisers, similar to the way that Google’s lucrative paid search advertising program operates.

Twitter also said on its blog Tuesday that the company planned to eventually serve Promoted Tweets ads beyond its search feature, offering the ads directly within users’ message streams.

I’d like to see twitter turn into a powerhouse but the snails pace has been discouraging.  Maybe I’m impatient (which I can be, coming from a bootstrapper’s approach myself).

I still think they ought to explore freemium more closely, offering paid accounts with more control, analytics, features, etc.  It could easily be done without degrading the experience, in my opinion…

Welcome to actual business, Twitter!!

Many systems of productivity exist today. Thousands of bloggers, experts, consultants, and organizations exist all with their own prescribed system of ultimate productivity.  But often, it is THEIR system and not one that works for you.  So what does work for you? Is it simply an excuse to say that it doesn’t work for me because it wasn’t designed specifically for me? Or are we simply failures for not being able to hold to every written rule within the system that dictates our breathing patterns? Well, to start developing YOUR system, your meMethod to productivity, you need to first understand yourself, and that is often simpler said than done.  Most people think they know themselves but when it comes down to it, they are as clueless as a stranger who just met them.  In fact, the stranger can be more accurate as they come in with no specific biases or desires or preconceived images of you.  Our own image often skews the perceptions we have about ourselves and this then affects our ability to design or operate within a system for personal productivity.  Once we understand where we are, we can move on to the next steps in designing our system or approach.

The following steps describe an approach to this design process:

1. understand yourself, your strengths, passions, and desires, your mode of operation, YOU.
2. Identify your responsibilities, projects, desired habits, etc… all the things you need to, or would like to accomplish
3. Analyze the current system or process you use. What works? What doesn’t?
4. Gather the information, tools, tactics, and possible strategies together that you have come across or thought up
5. Identify what fits within your “you” from step one. How do the current processes that are working fit?
6. Drop what does not fit or has not worked.
7. Identify the remaining areas of responsibility that are not taken care of by the viable tactics and strategies identified.
8. Delegate as many of these as possible. This may be through outsourcing, coworkers or other individuals internally (within your organization or family), or complete automation via technology.
9. Eliminate as many other responsibilities or tasks as possible since you likely will not do them anyhow.
10. Items that are left… well, you might just have to buck up and do them!  Have specific times and approaches to get the things done that need to be done but can only be done by you…even though they are no fun and don’t “flow” with YOU.

So, the question now arises… how can I understand myself more fully? There are many tools and exercises to assist you in doing this.  I will list and briefly describe a few of them.

Kolbe A Index – This index identifies your MO (mode of operation). It essentially identifies how you like to get things done.

StrengthFinder 2.0 – This test identifies 5 areas of talent which may be developed to become strengths. It is accompanied by a book that explains them in more detail.

VALS survey – This survey is short and sweet, designed to identify mindsets distinguished by 8 categories or types.

Myers-Briggs – Identifies personality traits such as habits of communication, patterns of action, and characteristic attitudes and values.

Each of these tests will reveal valuable insights into how you operate, where you derive passion and energy, and where you ought to explore or focus.  Remember this, it will be more valuable if you attempt to shed your ideal vision of yourself while taking these assessments and try to respond to each question as if in a vacuum.  Don’t over-think them.  For example, if the question states, “do you find yourself moving to the center of a big group or staying toward the edges of the group?” Don’t attempt to think where the question is leading and what the result might be one way or another, simply reflect back on past experiences in groups and realize where you gravitated or where you found to be more comfortable and where you gleaned energy.  Was the middle too stressful awkward for you? Did you feel alone when on the edge? Again, don’t over-think it.

With the results from these tests and some time spent contemplating them, you will be much more prepared to design your ideal system of accomplishment.  Take the steps above and discover yourself, then start designing!!

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Show Outline:

- a discussion on starting a business. Its probably time to just do it already!!

- Develop your business as you go, don’t wait for perfection to start since the moment you start will reveal how far off the mark you were through your whole planning process

- The value of bootstrapping, its better than you think and even recommended for those seeking venture money!

- Analysis Paralysis is a danger… start with something half-done and closely nurture any customer relationship to ensure a good experience regardless of your products beta-like shortcomings.

The experience around your business’ offer is a critical component to harbor sales and success.  We have been exploring the design of these experiences in previous posts here and here.  Check them out, if you have not, so you may be up to speed on the conversation.  We previously defined the key components that affect the experience one has with regards to your offer; now, we want to explore how these components interact and the different relationships within each.  All of this will amount to a much greater understanding of designing your offer and will simplify the process substantially as it is more fully understood.

Front Stage, Backstage & Component Interaction

Each component as revealed in the model must be well understood in relation to the value proposition and the intended experience.  Every business will exhibit a different relationship with the components.  One major factor with each component is the front stage/ backstage relationship.   Essentially, certain aspects of each component will be seen, touched, or handled by the customer while others will facilitate the experience without being seen.  The front stage aspects are those directly experienced by the customer. The backstage aspects include “behind-the-scenes” pieces that are critically necessary, however often not understood or recognized by the customer.  Many times, one does not even want their existence known to the customer as it may alter the experience in ways less desired such as over-complicating the experience or confusing a client.

Each component has this front stage/ backstage attribute, although in varying degrees depending on the experience design. In the service industries, for example, direct personal interaction may be more paramount, exhibiting a larger front stage than backstage.  That is, more people may directly interact with a customer than are behind the scenes in production and operations.  Individuals often fill a dual roll with certain front stage and backstage responsibilities.  With a product focus, you may have zero personal interaction before the sale, although you may have customer service afterwards.   In this case, nearly all teams are focused on backstage processes such as production, design, and administration.  We must be careful, however, to not overlook the intermediate experiences of the entire sales cycle including interaction with retailers and front stage interactions required to get your products on the shelf.

The other components also demonstrate a front stage/ back stage attribute.  Core processes will include the system or process a customer goes through to obtain the product or service on the front stage while production, creation and delivery processes all may be facilitated in the backstage.  Impact accelerators may include specific technology enhancements in the backstage or the packaging and look of the office on the front stage.

It is also important to understand how each component relates to and affects the other components.  What processes are involved with Teams or how do teams work within the processes?  How do impact accelerators enhance or detract from the performance of teams? This may include work environment and tools or production. How do these accelerators enhance the processes and how do the processes contribute to the delivery and production of the accelerators?  These are all important questions to ask as we continue developing the value proposition.

With your own offer, now that we have the components defined, answer the above stated questions regarding their interactions.  Feel free to share any insights…

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Special 30-min episode on the iPad and tablet PCs!!

The Show Outline:

- discuss the iPad and what I view as pros and cons.

- 2010 will shape up to be a year of tablets as 2008-2009 showed us many netbooks…

- Competing devices can be seen here. My favorite may be the Notion Ink Adam.  Its sweet… check out an iPad v Adam comparison here.

What is your take!?!