Andrew Lark

On Drucker...

Inc. captures some of the essential thoughts from Drucker... including some you might not have come across...

Zen: In 1998, when the writer Harriet Rubin interviewed Drucker at his home forInc., he showed her this passage from a book on Japanese art: "The Zen-inspired painter seeks the 'truth' of a landscape, like that of religion, in sudden enlightenment. This allows no time for careful detailed draftsmanship. After long contemplation, he is expected to be able to seize inner truth in a swordlike stroke of the brush...." Similarly, Drucker achieved enlightenment through quiet observation, waiting patiently until he saw an idea whole, then rendering universal truth in the swift space of a sentence. Thus was the essence of the master.

TRUST IN PERSON = TRUST IN ONLINE

Finally capturing up on some links and reading... a chunk of interesting research here about trust in social networks:

• Professional decision-making is becoming more social
  • Traditional influence cycles are being disrupted by Social Media as decision makers utilize social networks to inform and validate decisions
  • Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online; however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.
• The big three have emerged as leading professional networks: LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter
  • The average professional belongs to 3-5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are among the top used.
  • The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks
• Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools
• Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users
• Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person
• Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% - combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust)
• Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years
• Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions
• Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three years
• Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational
  affiliation
• Younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.
• There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet

There is more information here on Don Bulmer's blog: Everyday Influence: SNCR Research Reveals Social Media's Impact on Business and Decision Making

On Facebook

Best way to communicate with me is by email, here on my blog, or via twitter. If it is really important, text my mobile. Worst way is to send me a message in Facebook. I am really only following my Facebook stream via Twitter. Don't ahve to much interest in it as a communications platform.

For all you Demand Gen Pros...

Closing the gap between the lead and sales response is more critical than ever. Here are a few highlights from a recent study from Kellog:

Wednesday and Thursday are the best days to call in order to make contact (49.7% better than the worse day)
Wednesday and Thursday are also the best days to qualify (24.9% better than the worse day)
Thursday is the best day to contact a lead in order to qualify it (19.1% better than the worse day)
4-6PM is the best time to call to make contact with a lead (114% better than the worse day)
8-9AM and 4-5PM are the best times to call to qualify a lead (164% better than the worse time of day, which is 1-2PM)
The odds of calling to contact a lead are 10X if a call is placed within the first hour of receipt of the lead
The odds of connecting with a lead are 100X if the lead is called within 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes

Vindication

After all the whining and complaints about the All Black's game against Italy comes some vindication.

 

You don't just turn-up and beat an All Blacks scrum. Even a B-string scrum. Italy's scrumaging was clearly illegal. Dickinson knew it. I think he wanted to give Italy a chance. He illegally manipulated a game and should be booted from International reffing for it. I've never really had a gripe with Dickinson but this was ridiculous.

New Zealand's former top referee told coach Graham Henry when they met in London today that Dickinson got it wrong, and Italy's props were breaching the laws as they appeared to dominate the All Blacks' scrum in Milan.

"The best example I can use is in the last 10 minutes there were eight scrums, of which seven, the tighthead for Italy is purely illegal," O'Brien told Fairfax media.

"Up here they're crying that it should have been a penalty try. It should have been a penalty first scrum to the All Blacks.

And lets not forget - this much hyped spectacle of Rugby was played on a abnormally smaller field - about 6m narrower than it should have been. So, farcical reffing. A farcical field. And lets not forget the farcical presentation of the game to the International auidence. No braodcast in the US - not even delayed. Not even on the web. Instead, I tuned into sports radio in NZ. But get this. Not even they had quality reporting from the game - instead the reporters were dialed-in from a mobile phone. The IRB and organizers should be ashamed. They managed the trifecta. The game needs a serious overhaul at all levels - nothing about the Italy game was of an International standard.

 

New Dell Adamo

Is amazing… even if I do say so…

Dell Adamo XPS from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Rugby’s Pathetic Effort to Globalize

I’m constantly astounded by how broadcasters continue to prevent the expansion of rugby globally. Here we go again. Major games kick-off this weekend. Australia vs. England. New Zealand vs. Wales. Both are likely to be incredible games.

So, where to watch them in the US. They only shot for a quality session – it seems – is to head to a pub that might have a Setanta feed. Or, pay $19 and chance your luck with Setanta-i – a service I’ve largely experienced as unreliable.

Rugbyzone weren’t able to secure rights to broadcast on the Web. And Setanta on TV is all but dead in terms of the Fall tours. (They are playing delayed coverage on Sunday evening – and the point is what..? All the hot footage will have made its way to the web by then.

Aside from all of us that follow teams like the All Blacks and the Wallabies,there are over 60,000 players registered with USA Rugby; including over 20,000 high school students. The 570 clubs in the United States are governed by seven Territorial Unions and 37 Local Unions.

I get this isn’t probably a big enough audience to warrant mainstream TV broadcasting but come on… there’s this thing called the Internet. Why prevent rugby being broadcast there and reasonable prices across multiple sites? And its not like we are short on channels…

Critical Non Essentials

Every business has its share of CNEs – CNEs are small things outside the core business that add so much value they ultimately determine the success of the enterprise. What are yours?

But in the past five losses to the All Blacks, four of them have come after the Wallabies were ahead at half-time. Someone has suggested the Wallabies remain on the field and suck their oranges at half-time, as they did decades ago, to stay in the groove. More sensibly, Robbie Deans should use the ploy developed by Clive Woodward when he was faced with a similar problem with his England side. He got his players to change into new jerseys at half-time. The theory was that the pristine white jerseys gave the players a sense of invincibility. The All Blacks, apparently, have adopted the new jersey regime.

Woodward was a great believer in the Critical Non-Essentials business philosophy of a Brisbane dentist called Dr Paddi Lund. CNEs are small things outside the core business that add so much value they ultimately determine the success of the enterprise. The jersey-change is an example. The All Blacks came up with their own CNE that seemed to solve their chronic lineout problems. In the past they have gone to the lineout and sweated out what the throw was would be. In Tokyo, Tom Donnelly made the calls as the All Blacks walked to the lineouts. The ball was thrown in quickly before the Wallabies could work out from the body language of their opponents where the throw was going.

Erratic Whales

My mates over at J-World escaped a marauding pod of whales. They lost the boat but were rescued pretty quick. If the story isn't enough to send a shiver down your spine, it will have you shaking if you've had the opportunity to read The Swarm... to be clear, this is a big boat...

Here is Wayne's note in full and an excerpt below:

Here is what I know from the brief conversations I have had with the crew: about 10am, they came across a pod of whales. Their behavior was described as 'erratic.' One or more of the whales struck the boat repeatedly, and the boat began taking on water at a rapid pace. It sounds like, not surprisingly, most of the damage was around the rudder. They made an attempt to bail the boat and get a distress call out on SSB, but it was clear that the boat was a loss. They activated the EPIRB, boarded the liferaft, and the boat was reportedly gone within 7 minutes of the strike. As I understand it, the boat did not capsize in any way.

I was in contact with the the USCG from the time the EPIRB went off. They did an absolutely stellar job. Within four hours, they reported that they had safely lifted all five sailors into the helicopter and were returning to San Diego. Eugenie has a bruised hand, but there were no other injuries. I personally am in shock... this is the stuff you read about but you think will never really happen. You can make all the preparations in the world, load boat with experienced sailors, and still have unexpected consequences. A bit humbling, to be sure. We all need to remember that when we go sailing, we really go to sea in every sense.

Dingo Deans Ought To Stop Whining

Australia didn't deserve to win. Their lack of finishing kept them way out of the game - as did the All Blacks defense. Moreover, they were awarded a dubious try on the basis of the Ref getting frustrated with the TV officials. Pathetic.

At some point here the Australians need to face up to the fact that Deans isn't quite cutting it right now. They have some remarkable players who aren't coming together on the field.

While we are on pathetic - why cant the NZ Herald keep their site up. Down again from over here. I'm guessing routine maintenance. Do they understand they have an international readership?

Lets also stop the nonsense about next years game being in Japan. When you consider that the population of the greater Tokyo area is 33 million, a crowd of 45,000 or so is equivalent to a crowd of about 1400 people in Auckland. So, a good turn-out but there are other places that need a spectacle like this - the US being one. Denver would be a terrible location though. Play the game in a major metro like LA.