Today Mike is joined by William A. Adams. William worked for Microsoft for almost 3 decades. He discusses the culture at Microsoft and all that he learned there. He also discusses his own mission to create the Motown of Technology. William is a very interesting guy. If you want to learn about leadership in technology, this is the episode for you!

Welcome to Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge, a podcast that explores the latest trends, strategies, and insights in the technology leadership world. From emerging technologies to digital transformation and beyond, we’ll discuss the most important topics and ideas shaping the industry today. Join us to learn all of the juicy secrets of tech leaders – their biggest successes (and failures) – on our quest for gaining that all-important technology edge. Ready? Let’s get started!

I’m here all alone in the studio, so I figured we would talk about how to run productive and effective weekly staff meetings that won’t waste anyone’s time and will keep upper management in the loop.

To start, it’s important to know why regular staff meetings are important. It can help team members stay informed on what’s happening, feel included in decision-making processes, and ultimately create a strong sense of collaboration amongst the staff.

Now that we understand the importance of weekly meetings let’s dive into how you can ensure they don’t waste everyone’s time.

Setting an agenda ahead of time for a weekly staff meeting is crucial for ensuring it doesn’t turn into a waste of everyone’s time. Having a clear purpose and plan for the meeting allows everyone to know exactly what topics will be discussed, who will speak on each topic, and how long they have to speak. This provides structure to the meeting and keeps everyone focused on the task. Additionally, sticking to this agenda helps ensure that all relevant topics are discussed promptly and no one feels like their ideas or thoughts were not heard or validated.

It is important to focus on actionable items in a weekly staff meeting that are relevant to everyone in attendance. This ensures that everyone can contribute and understand the topics being discussed and how their role affects the team’s goals. Additionally, focusing on actionable items can help the team stay motivated and make progress towards reaching their objectives. Doing this also helps avoid non-essential conversations that can take up valuable time and distract from the main goals of the meeting.

Keeping a meeting well-structured by having a designated leader and ensuring each person only speaks when they have something relevant to add is important to ensure the meeting stays on track and efficiently. Having one person lead the conversation keeps everyone focused and on task while allowing for meaningful dialogue between participants. Additionally, suppose each person only speaks when they have something relevant to add. In that case, it prevents conversations from getting off track and allows for time for everyone’s ideas to be considered.

A manager needs to ensure that everyone understands their roles in the meeting by clarifying which tasks need to be completed by whom. Doing this helps keep all participants organized and accountable, as everyone will understand their responsibilities and what needs to be done. Additionally, it shows team members that their contributions are valued, as each of them will have a clear idea of how they can impact the meeting outcome. By doing this, it also helps foster an environment of collaboration and trust between the manager and team members.

It is important to record decisions made during the meeting and follow up with an email or slack message later if needed. Doing this will help everyone involved to stay on top of any action items decided in the meeting and provide a reference point for future conversations. It is also useful for clarifying agreed-upon points and ensuring that all participants are aligned. Recording decisions also serves as an effective form of accountability and communication, helping to ensure that tasks are completed promptly.

It is important to end each meeting with a recap and summary of action items for the following week. Doing this helps ensure that everyone involved is on the same page and understands what tasks need to be completed and by when. Additionally, it creates an organized tracking of progress and allows team members to be held accountable for their actions. Summarizing action items at the end of each meeting also helps keep teams focused and motivated, allowing them to stay on track with their goals.

I recommend using my proprietary system called PACE for meetings. The PACE meeting is a tool used by teams to increase their productivity and help them reach their goals. The acronym stands for Productivity, Accountability, Clarity, and Execution. These four elements provide the framework for effective meetings, helping teams stay on track and achieve their objectives. It also serves as a way to create structure within the team and ensure that tasks are completed on time. By utilizing this tool, teams can maximize productivity while maintaining clear communication throughout the process.

Every month, each team member will set monthly goals they want to achieve. These goals are reviewed and assessed at each meeting, allowing the team to track progress and offer support when needed. Bonuses are often awarded based on goal completion percentages, which means that it is important for all team members to agree with the goals set by each individual. Additionally, it helps to create a sense of accountability within the team, as members are held responsible for achieving their agreed-upon goals.

A key component of PACE meetings is discussing what is working and what isn’t. By doing this, the team can identify any issues that need to be addressed and develop solutions together. After identifying any problems, a task can be assigned, along with a specific stakeholder responsible for completing it. This helps to break down larger tasks into more manageable chunks while keeping all team members accountable for their part. By incorporating PACE meetings into your team’s workflow, you can stay organized and ensure everyone is working towards the same goal.

This is a very important and effective part of the PACE meeting system. By discussing what is working, you are celebrating the successes of your business. By discussing what is not working, you are staying on top of your organization’s problems. This keeps key trouble in the front, so everyone remains aware. 

The stakeholder will be responsible for sourcing who needs to work on the issue. They are the project manager for the process. This is how you get things fixed quickly and show the rest of your company that you take these things seriously.

It is the one thing I used as a CTO that always got results. It enabled my CEO to see exactly what we were working on.

The “PACE report to management” recaps the PACE meeting given to upper management. It is an effective communication tool, helping keep the team and upper management on the same page. This report helps the team get support from higher-ups and keeps them in the loop about any big issues or tasks that need to be addressed. It also outlines who is responsible for handling said tasks, ensuring that everyone knows their roles. The PACE report to management encourages collaboration between team members and upper management, allowing effective problem-solving and success.

So, that’s all I have for you today. Give these things a try, and you will improve your staff relations as well as your relationship with upper management

Thanks for tuning in to Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge! We hope you’ve had a great time with us, learning everything you need to know to stay ahead of the technology curve. Remember: be curious, be updated on all the latest trends, and show them who’s boss. Until next time, we’ll be back with plenty more techy tips and tricks so you can stay on top of your game. See ya!

Michael J. Mahony  0:01  

Welcome to gaining the technology leadership edge, a podcast that explores the latest trends, strategies and insights in the technology leadership world. From emerging technologies to digital transformation and beyond, we will discuss the most important topics and ideas shaping the industry today, join us to learn all of the juicy secrets of tech leaders, their biggest successes and failures on our quest for gaining that all important technology edge. So are you ready? Let’s get started. Our guest today is Dave Erickson. Dave has bootstrapped 12 startups, and is currently CEO and co founder of a digital development company and a content marketing company. He is experienced in digital marketing and development. Welcome to the show, Dave. Glad to be here. So tell us about your company.

Unknown Speaker  0:50  

Well, screen box is focused on digital development. And by that pretty much includes web mobile back end, even just trying to figure out how to use digital technology to solve business problems. That’s kind of the core of what screaming box has been for the last 10 years. And we are industry agnostic. We don’t care what industry the client is in. And we approach development a little bit differently. And that is, with a lot of the business experiences that I’ve had. My first question to a client is usually what’s your business problem? So a client may come to me and said, I need to do my website, redo my website? And I’ll say, Okay, let’s have a business conversation. First. You’re not just doing your website, because you just woke up and decided you’re going to redo your website. There’s a reason right there. There’s some business challenge you’re trying to address. And it’s much better to have a business conversation about that. And then we can figure out how do we use technology to solve the business challenge, right?

Michael J. Mahony  1:55  

Totally makes sense. So what what are some of the typical challenges? Well, okay, like example, you gave an example of someone coming to and saying, hey, I want to redo my website. And they obviously were inspired by something, what’s typically something that makes somebody decide that they want to change out their website?

Unknown Speaker  2:11  

Well, it could be several different things. I’ve had clients who’ve come to me and said, literally, we did our website about five years ago, we haven’t touched it updated or anything. And so we need to do that. Because it’s been five years, not because there’s any real business reason, but just It’s been five years, and we haven’t touched it. So we should update it. And then I usually have the conversational what motivated this? Or was there something in the background, you have some problems? Or maybe you’d like to get more business, you’re trying to grow your business? Or what’s really that that and I find that by having that conversation? It’s much better from us a client service position, because that question is really about helping the client. Whereas a lot of typical agencies are like, Oh, the client thinks they need a new website, great. Let’s just give a proposal to build a new website. And they’re not really, they don’t really care about what the real business challenges, because as far as they’re concerned, they already got the guy, they already got someone saying, I want a website. So why go into this other stuff. Let’s just give them a proposal for a website. And, you know, I’ve had clients who’ve come to me and said, I need a new website, and we go look at their website, we’re like, you know, your website’s fine. Right? What what’s really your problem, right? And what are you really trying to address? Oh, I would like to do this? Well, no, your website doesn’t have the ability to capture incoming leads and, and generate stuff from organic traffic. So we can change that. But that’s very different than rebuilding your website. Right. But I’ve also had clients come to me and say, I need to rebuild my website. And what they really needed to do was rebuild their entire back end. Right. Sure. And, and use the website to automate processes, right. But they don’t know that when they come to me. Right, they usually are thinking about some other issue. And once we kind of get into what are you really trying to do? What’s your business challenge, then that just opens up the conversation to provide a real solution versus what they think they need?

Michael J. Mahony  4:19  

Yeah, it’s like when people come to you, and they say, I need a mobile application. And then you ask them, Well, why do you need a mobile application? What is it you’re trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? Because I think that’s the thing that people don’t always grasp is that I’ve heard people say, oh, I need a whole new website, because I’m not getting conversions. Well, you probably don’t need a whole new website. There’s probably something wrong with your landing page copy or something. But there’s other ways to fix it without redoing your entire website. So what you’ve you’ve bootstrapped 12 startups, what are some other types of companies that you’ve started?

Unknown Speaker  4:58  

Well, I I had a publishing company in Europe for like, eight or nine years, I’ve had a solar company. I started out in contract electronics manufacturing, I’ve had a branding and licensing company in the gaming industry ran that for almost 15 years, we developed a gaming eSports brand. And I licensed that to large manufacturers in Asia. And I’ve had a lot of little startups that, you know, some lasted three months and nothing happened and others lasted a year. And then okay, it’s just not going in a direction, that means anything. You know, if half of what you start fails, you’re lucky, because that means that you actually learn something, right? Because you don’t really learn as much from the successes as you do from the failures. Right? And sure what the businesses that did succeed, they all succeeded on the backs of some failure that I had, right? Some lesson that was learned, and then I was able, Okay, the next business, let’s get it right. So for me, the process of starting businesses is really about, you know, finding a business that can fail in a way that I learned something or that succeeds, because it’s something I’ve learned previously, right?

Michael J. Mahony  6:20  

So what what from those experiences, can you give me the two things you’ve learned from those experiences that have helped you with screaming box?

Unknown Speaker  6:31  

Peep people, and the position of trying to help. So in starting a business, the key is really people. And there’s two sides of people, there’s the people who are working with you or working for you. And then there’s the people you’re working with. And understanding those people and understanding why they would like to work with you. And knowing who you are. That’s kind of the key. In some of the businesses that I’ve had, that didn’t work. One of the major reasons was that some of the people in the business were not the right people, or they didn’t treat me well, or I didn’t treat them well, or they didn’t treat the client, well, the client did treat them well. And, you know, in those situations, you really got to understand it, we approach that with screen box very differently, because we had that impression. We actually developed over the last 10 years a lot of personality testing and analysis. And we basically have like a 10 to 15 minute personality assessment. We don’t do it just for our developers, we do it for our clients, and our developers. And we, you know, the biggest problem that we’ve had in development is, the client may be like a marketing agency who needs you know, some worked on for one of their clients, and the agency is all full of creative types. And that’s what a good marketing agency needs to be followed. But those are not really the best type of people to be leading a development project, right. So if you have a bunch of developers who are very detailed oriented, and very, you know, operating, procedure oriented, and they have their way of wanting to work in a certain way, and then you put them with a client, who is all creative and not very organized, and you know, loosey goosey, there’s going to be a lot of conflict there. Right. And a lot of there’s going to be communication, conflict or workflow conflict. So we found that if we, you know, personality test and assess both sides, then we can kind of find the best people to work together. And it eliminates so many problems on the front end, right. And we have clients, we have team extension, where basically, they’re, they’re coming to us and say, We really need a developer to work on on a project for full time, and we’re going to manage them. Right. And they’re amazed that the developer that we find them just starts and is productive from day one. Right. And a lot of that is because we are analyzing the personalities. And you know, it’s a little bit more expensive on our side, because, you know, we’re not just finding the first developer who’s available and giving it to the client, we may have to go through three or four developers so we find a personality match that we know is really going to work well together. Right. And it seems like a lot of effort. It seems like a lot of issues, but I’ve just learned in business that the right people working with the right people make success. Right. And it really is very important, particularly in a service business, that you’re finding good people, that you’re working with good people, and you take that extra effort to understand on both sides, right?

Michael J. Mahony  10:03  

Yeah, I think your people answer is perfect to me. Because, you know, I’m a business coach. And one of the things they look for is patterns. And you, you find that if this problem exists, this pattern probably exists. And a lot of times, it’s, you know, too many tech, too many technical people, not enough creative people, or there’s so many creative people and not enough technical people. But by knowing those patterns, you can, like you said, you can plug the right developer in with the right client. I mean, it’s a big, it’s, if you take, because I’ve done I had a development company for years, and I followed a similar approach to you. And I feel like you’re here at entrepreneurship, you got to find the client that wants to work with you, and that you want to work with. All right. Now take that into a bigger development business picture, you’re working with a lot of different types of people, but it’s how you hook those people up with their resources is going to make you successful, right? Yeah, yeah. And I mean,

Unknown Speaker  11:05  

and you got to be, you know, you don’t necessarily get to choose the clients in a sense, right? Because, you know, you might work with one person to land the client, then you got the client, you’re working with somebody else to actually do the work, right. So it there is a flexibility that’s needed in the sense that you don’t always know who the clients are, you don’t always know who the personalities are. And you may not get to see the real person until you’ve worked with them for a couple of months. And then the pressures and the stresses start falling into deadlines, and then you get to see who the real person is, right. And that’s what kind of the second kind of rule is or not rule, but an observation I’ve had in businesses. And that is, treat everyone with respect, right? Go the extra mile to kind of be respectful, because you don’t know what’s happening on the other side, right? They may have you know, a wife who is sick. And that’s why they’re always stressed out. Or they may be, you know, on the verge of bankruptcy, they’re just trying to keep the business together, or their client is, you know, treating them in an awful way. And, you know, you got to really treat people with respect not just your people, but the clients. And you got to kind of let things that are said that aren’t necessarily kind or nice, go through, you don’t take it personally, and then try to build the relationship in a positive way where you can kind of get an understanding of why something was said or why they’re approaching you this way. And then you work with that. And you you, I’ve always been able to come back to a client who either mistreated me or mistreated our developers or whatever and work with them and say, Look, this was not positive. And usually, it’s some external issue that they just hung on to, and they didn’t realize that they were acting the way they were acting or they, what they said was meaning what it meant. And, you know, I’ve been able to turn around almost all those relationships into a positive relationship. And that’s one of the things I think is really important in business, especially nowadays, that treating people with respect and trying to understand where they’re coming from, it just makes for positive business. Right. And I hate doing business where it’s stressful, and I don’t like the other person, right? And usually that comes from misunderstanding, right? And so making that effort to understand the other person and where they’re coming from, it can turn business around and make it really positive. And like I said, I love getting up and feeling good about everyone I work with. And that’s, that’s, you know, life’s too short to be suffering, right?

Michael J. Mahony  13:54  

Well, yeah. And like, it’s something I tell my wife all the time, because she works with a lot of different companies. And she’ll say, I’m really surprised, you know, someone so super rude today. And I said, Well, you know, you’ve got to stop and think about like, what did they go through? What what’s I mean, it’s not just professionally, but you know, what are they going through personally at the moment, because, generally speaking, if someone’s successful, and then you can probably realize they’re not super rude people, because if they were, they probably wouldn’t be successful. That’s not always the case. There’s plenty of successful people who are rude, but for the most part, you find that to be the case. And if all of a sudden someone’s being rude to you, you kind of have to wonder like, well, what the heck is going on in their life? And I liked that you focus on that, I think, I think having the people touch is something that Miss is missing from a lot of businesses. And I know tech leaders specifically have that problem, because they tend to be more analytical, less capable of carrying on a good conversation. I mean, I’ve had clients tell me, Oh, you’re the most user friendly technologist ever. I love that phrase, user friendly technology. is because it means they understand what the heck I’m saying to them. That’s really what it means. And it gets me a lot of business and I get a customer and I keep a customer because of that. But I think one of the things I strive with my clients to do is teach them that like, okay, one of the number one pain points of every CTO is upper management, who doesn’t understand technology. And so when you say, Hey, I got to spend $50,000, doing X, they say what? And because they don’t understand technology, and you have to, but but it’s not their fault, as the tech leader, you’ve got to inform them as you’re going along about what are the problems? Here’s how we’re going to solve the problem, it’s going to cost this much money, here’s why it’s going to cost this much money. I mean, what if you need a very, very specific type of resource? I know I have a lady that she does a very specific thing with NetSuite. And as a result, she gets like $200 an hour. And other people can’t charge that, but she can. And when a client comes to you, and they’re like, Can we do this? That’s going to be like $200 an hour? They’re like, why don’t you explain to them why they tend to get it, you know? So so what, what is what, how long have you been in? How long is screaming books been around? This is our 10th year 10th year? And and what was the impetus? Like what started you down this path?

Unknown Speaker  16:22  

Well, I have another company called Rainmaker, which is more content marketing, digital marketing, I’ve actually had that since 2000s, has been 22 years or whatever. And, you know, I was starting to get clients who are having me do a lot of social media work and content writing. And they were coming to me with web projects and digital development, hey, we need this. And if I refer them to some agencies, I had a couple where they didn’t like the agency, it kind of didn’t feel good to me that I referred him to somebody turned out not to be very good. Sure. And then I started trying to work with some developers. But you know, just finding a developer on Upwork, or whatever. And working for them. People think it’s really simple and easy. It isn’t. So I had three other people that I was working with. And we kind of all were having the same problem write about working with. And we said, look, if we had a development agency, this is how we would want it to be this is our version of what a development agents who be like and so we said, Well, how do we make that? And that’s how we that’s how we started screen. Awesome. We were focusing more on how do we build an agency that is very flexible, that can handle a wide range and type of work. We didn’t want to have a buildings full of people who want to do something virtual. So we’ve been virtual and remote since the beginning, which when the pandemic came actually put us in a really interesting position, because we have all this experience working with people remotely, right, and keeping them motivated and keeping them organized. And you know, so I actually had clients coming to me saying, Well, how do you do it? Right? And I had some other agencies coming to me saying, I know you guys are all remote because they’ve used our developers for their agency, how do you guys do it? And so we actually did a whole bunch of training. And we actually earned some decent money, just teaching people this is how to do remote work with developers and how to have a remote team spread over three or four time zones and that type of stuff. So you know, that’s kind of how we started screen box. So it all worked out. Well, in that sense.

Michael J. Mahony  18:30  

That’s funny, because I had the exact experience. When the pandemic hit, I had a lot of, you know, I have about 12, remote development teams that I use. And I had clients contacting me saying, we net, we were never in favor of remote work. So we never did the legwork. How do you do it? I’ll pay you if you teach me, you know, how do you do it? In some cases, it required like changes to their firewall and things because they had it totally locked down. But but for the most part, it was just a methodology. You know, like, I could tell you a short little story, I worked with a group of guys who were good friends, and they were entrepreneurs. And they started a business. And then one of them broke off and started a similar business. And he was having we were both using the same development team. And I was getting tons of work out of these people. He wasn’t getting work done. He’d given an assignment take a week to get it done. So my CEO said, Can you go over there and see what the heck they’re doing? Oh, it was a simple fix that what they were doing was, it was five o’clock his time to go home that whip off an email to the team. And then they’d leave. And then of course, the next day, there’d be 10 questions, and they couldn’t start the work. And then they answer the questions. And the next day, there’d be five more questions. And then he I said, simple fix, have a meeting with them. Each day, have a stand up, be like, here’s a new assignment, who’s gonna do got any questions? Great. Now you can start working. And that’s all I was doing. But that’s the thing people people don’t know how to do things. And they think like you said, I love your comment about finding a developer on Upwork. I’ve heard that so many times, like I’ll just Go to Upwork and find somebody good luck with that. I mean, I even made money. I made money years ago, managing offshore teams for people who weren’t getting the work done, because they just don’t know how, but when you know how it’s not that difficult, but finding somebody on Upwork can be I mean, I’ve had, I’ve had them lie and tell me they’re in France, when they’re in Africa, you know, stuff like that. And you wonder sometimes, like, Luffy lied about that, what else are you gonna lie about?

Unknown Speaker  20:24  

Yeah, but I mean, Upwork, Fiverr, all those networks, they have some advantages. But they have real disadvantages, and that they’re, those disadvantages are really starting to come out now, not just for the people, hiring developers or people on Upwork. But for the actual developers, right, I, I have a bunch of developers in the last year who have come to me and said, I was on Upwork, and I was making good money. But, you know, I got stiffed by a bunch of clients, and they go to Upwork. And it’s just impossible to get your money and on and on and on. And so they’re really disappointed in that. And so they’re like, I want to work now, again, as for development, and I understand why you guys get paid, why you do and all that. And I’ve had clients who’ve had the same, you know, they hire some developers on Upwork, and it just falls apart. And they don’t know why. And so they’re like, I want to come to an agency, at least I know, you guys will hold it together and do the finish the project. So, you know, in some ways, it’s a boon to development agencies because of how poorly they operate. But some people do really well on not working on some developers find good clients on Upwork. And that sort of stuff. So, you know, that’s good and bad. And, you know, it depends on what your level of risk is, right? Yeah, it’s

Michael J. Mahony  21:37  

just another microcosm of society, you’re gonna find good, you’re gonna find bad, I actually had an experience. When I first started. By seven years ago, I first started my corporation, I had this gentleman working on a project. And thankfully, I kind of sensed that it couldn’t really trust him with certain information. And so I had him on like a virtual machine. That was that was clone a cloned environment, what the customer was using, and he had a copy of their database in there, and everything that needed to be encrypted, was encrypted. And then one day, he gave us a price on something, he did it. And then he said, but I’m not giving you the code unless you pay me double. And so you know, I’m like, that’s not gonna happen, you know, you’re not gonna get double, he started deleting things from the database, which kind of cracks me up, because, dude, you’re deleting stuff from from a virtual machine, go for it. But he really thought that he had us over a barrel. And he could have if you hadn’t if I hadn’t been careful and had had that gut feeling. So you’re right, like, you’re gonna meet the best people and the worst people there. So like, what? What is your process for finding developers? What do you do?

Unknown Speaker  22:46  

Well, several things. I mean, we have a network of about 150 developers at this point. And there are people that we have worked with, or have come to us and we have met through other developers that have worked with us. Everything’s kind of relationship told me, we’re not sitting out there throwing ads up on the various networks and trying to pull developers in, it’s usually all by personal reference. Then once when we get somebody into the network, we do a lot of testing, we have homework challenges, find out their tech skills. The personality assessments really let us know a lot about who these people are. And we we’ve weeded out developers who we could just say, okay, these guys are obviously not very firm, or their personalities are such that they just don’t fit our network. Sure. And that takes care of a lot of it, because they’re all tend to be known people. And they’re coming to our network from people that we trust and have worked with over time. Right. And we have developers, we basically mostly work with developers in Europe, Eastern Europe, but Eastern Europe now most of the developers have left Eastern Europe, they just live in Europe, right? Yeah, actually, a lot of our Hungarian developers are in Spain, or in Yeah, for whatever reason,

Michael J. Mahony  24:07  

they moved to different places, right? The Eastern European developers, say eight years ago, were top notch like

Unknown Speaker  24:17  

they are and even there, there’s differences in the regions, the education systems and the cultures, make them so that they’re different. We like multinational teams, because you get a variety of developers. So if we have to put together like for a project, somebody wants a, you know, a multi platform, mobile and web thing, and we’ll do something in React and React Native, right or flutter, right? And we’re going to need three or four developers will usually have like one developer in South America, if it’s a West Coast client, because they can have calls and meetings and they’re usually the point developer and Then we’ll have you know, a developer who, who’s in Hungary or somewhere and maybe pull in and they approach problems differently. Hungarian developers are very good at problem solving. Polish developers are very good at the technical nuts and bolts and having a team that you kind of have those on them, you can approach to a lot of different solutions and problems. And that that makes working in these kinds of time zones better because the South American developer will be having a lot of calls with the client. And then in his evening, he’ll sit there and work with the European developers and do the transfer of information. And then while everyone is sleeping, the European developers will do the work and coding and then the next day, they’re often something actually happened, right? And so you don’t get a lot of the stalls and a lot of that. So Right. That’s usually how we work with it. And the multinational teams are really good. We don’t really work with anybody in Asia, the timezones don’t work out very well. And, culturally, it’s very hard to find, like an Indian developer that just works out, well, we’ve had a couple, and we have them in our network, but it’s not the majority. And we get a lot of clients who are coming from Indian development companies, and it’s just like, you know, I’ve spent $200,000, and my project doesn’t work, and it’s a mess, and I can’t figure it out, and they’re hard to work with, and blah, blah. I can’t tell you how many clients we’ve gotten where we’ve had to clean that up. Right? Isn’t it

Michael J. Mahony  26:33  

interesting that people from different parts of the world present different positives and negatives to the overall equation? What do you think is the biggest struggle you’ve had with streaming box?

Unknown Speaker  26:47  

Well, it’s gone through different phases. Um, probably one of the biggest struggles we had was we had a partner, that just created a lot of chaos in the business. And that constant flow of chaos, just really created a lot of problems. We ended up having to move on. But you know, emotionally, I’m very loyal to partners. And when you start a business as somebody, it’s more like a family kind of thing. And that’s just what it is. So it’s really hard to have a situation like that. But that was one of the harder things to do. And, you know, the mechanical side of it sometimes will get a little bit overwhelming. You know, you’ve had different phases. Sometimes it was accounting issues, where it was like, how do we manage the accounting, this client wants something really special? And it just doesn’t fit the accounting structure that we have. So how do we deal with that? Now, we got a lot of experience in that and our accounting is is much more flexible and easier to work with. And then, you know, early on, it was, well, how do we deal with the timezone issues? And until we figured that out, and that was an issue, and now it’s we have, you know, 10 years of experience with that is not an issue at all. So during the business, there’s different phases, which are part of this learning process. Right.

Michael J. Mahony  28:13  

That, that that right there. The learning aspect is another thing that I think it’s why people have problems working with Indian developers or offshore developers, is they’re not, they’re not learning from their past mistakes on how to how to make make this smoother than next time around. And they just give up. And it’s really a big a big issue. So what is if you can say, what, what has been like your favorite project that

Unknown Speaker  28:42  

you’ve worked on? Well, I’ve had a couple, but we have a music company that we’re working with. And this is one of those where they came to us and said, We need to update our website. And I literally had, I would say about a month and a half of conversations with the business owner, before we even got into the project. And it was just what do you really need? Right? What are you trying to do? What are the business challenges that you have? And I would start having these business conversations, he had all kinds of issues. He didn’t have control of his domain hosting, or his web hosting, a previous developer had it. And so he had to go through a bunch of legal stuff to get control of his website and all that. So I was advising him on a business level. I never, I’d never even got paid for it. It’s just, let’s just build a relationship I need to help you out. You’re really in trouble. I’m just going to help you out. Once the dust is settled and you’re in a better position, then let’s have a conversation about what we can do for you. And so that’s what we did. And I helped him on several levels to gain control of his website to gain control of his business. And then we started having conversations okay, how do you want to approach this and I realized and talking to him about his business challenges that he’s like. He had a whole bunch of people in the back end doing a lot of manual stuff that really could be automated. And his back end was working on a old technology flat file database. And so once we he kind of understood the potential. We then brought in a UX team, who really started discussing with every stakeholder in his business. He introduced us to his customers, his licensees, his back end people, we probably spent four months just doing UX work, trying to understand what he wants to grow his business, and what are the tools that we can bring to allow him to do that, and reduce the amount of effort he needs to run his business. And so that was actually the project’s first four months was just UX work. And once that was done, we then were able to put together a plan. And we said, look, you were thinking of $100,000 website project. And really, it’s a $300,000 back end website business project. His cashflow is such that you can only afford so much a month. And so what we did is we said, Okay, if it takes us a year and a half to do this project, we’ll do it. And we put together a team that can burn at that rate, right? So everybody was part time, there’s a lot of flexibility in it. And yes, we could have had a full time team and just whip this thing out in four months. But he didn’t have the cash flow to pay for that. Yeah, right. So we just manage it that way. And after a year and a half of it, he now has a product is going to revolutionize his business. And he’s absolutely excited about it. And he has something that’s putting him a significant leap ahead of all of his competitors. And so for us, that’s like a great feeling project. And they were such nice people to work with really stellar people. And the team was great for them. And everybody just had a lot of respect for each other. And it was just one of those projects that went well, it had its issues, right, like any technology product, you run into something that you didn’t expect. And it was supposed to be easy. And it turned out to be hard. But like I said, everybody treated each other very well. And there was lots of understanding. And they’re in from the very beginning, on a very deep level. Everybody in their company knew exactly what we were doing and what they were trying to do. And it just made for a really great project.

Michael J. Mahony  32:39  

That’s a great story. I mean, I like stories where where you can help someone else out. And you did it in a way that it didn’t like risk your business didn’t risk their business. And I mean, I’m sure, in a sense, you probably have a customer for life at this point, with something like that. But this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you being here. But we’re kind of running out of time. So why don’t you let people know how they can get in touch with you if they’d like to reach you, you know, etc.

Unknown Speaker  33:07  

Yeah, probably the easiest way is just to go to our website, screaming box.com. And there’s a Contact Us form and on it. I’m in the process of redoing our website. But as you know, any website development company, the last thing they’re going to do is build their own website. But yeah, you can contact us through there. You can also find me on LinkedIn, at Dave Erickson one. And we have our podcast as well. Podcast dot screen vox.com. And you can contact us through any of those ways.

Michael J. Mahony  33:44  

Awesome. Well, I’ll make sure these get into the show notes and into the video description. And again, thanks for your time and everybody. Thanks for tuning in to gaining the technology leadership edge. We hope that you’ve had a great time with us learning everything you need to know to stay ahead of the technology curve. Remember, be curious, be updated on all the latest trends and show them who’s boss. Until next time, we back with plenty more techie tips and tricks so you can stay on top of your game. See you then

Welcome to gaining the technology leadership edge a podcast for tech executives. We provide strategies and tactics to help executives succeed, and further their career goals. With interviews from industry experts, leaders and innovators, this show will surely get you on the edge of your seats, with thought provoking advice on how to stay ahead of the competition. Welcome to gaining the technology leadership edge, a podcast that explores the latest trends, strategies and insects in the technology leadership world, from emerging technologies to digital transformation and beyond. We’ll discuss the most important topics and ideas shaping the industry today. Join us to learn all of the juicy secrets of tech leaders their biggest successes and failures on our quest for gaining that all important technology edge. Are you ready? Let’s get started. So today, there’s no guest. But I’d like to talk to you about stories from a CTOs perspective. And essentially, what I really want to talk to you about today is how you can better communicate things to the other corporate executives, because we all know that in a corporate environment, there’s generally an executive team and that executive team makes all of the decisions about where money is spent, how money is spent, how often money is spent, etc. And so one of the problems you have is that corporate executives do not have lots of knowledge about technology. So they don’t understand some of the things that go on in the technology world. And therefore, they cannot accurately approve or deny requests that are made from the CTO of the company. So one of the first stories I want to tell you is I used to work for as the CTO for a restaurant delivery service. And they had commissioned a software from another developer. And essentially what they did was they bought his source code. And then for a year for that price, he would modify the code, and then they would take theirs and branch off into their own, he would take his and branch off into his own. And that’d be that. Well, one of the weakest aspects of this program was the fax server. So there was quarters would get faxed to restaurants as they came in. And unfortunately, what was happening was Chinese food was ending up at a hamburger restaurant, hamburger restaurant was ending up a Chinese restaurant, because of the load that was being put on the machine that was running the fax server. So I finally decided it needed to be fixed. And so I had at the time had a contractor working for me. And we sat down and we each spent an entire 40 hours of nothing but coding different pieces of this fax server, he took some parts, I took some parts, and then we put it out on one of the busiest days of the year, Valentine’s Day, the dispatch team told us they did not have any faxes go to the wrong places. Fast forward about a week, and that story remains the same. They had not had a single fax go to the wrong place. So on a particular day, above my office was my boss’s office, and he called me up along with a contractor. And he wanted to talk about priorities. And I don’t remember what exactly occurred. But the contractor got a little annoyed and said, you know, Mike, and I just spent a total of 80 hours on a fax server, and it’s perfect. There’s not been a single problem, and I haven’t heard you once, say thank you for it. And this executive proving their lack of knowledge, I looked at the two of us and pointed at the light switch on the wall and said, Do you see that light switch over there? And we said, yeah, and he said, When I flipped that switch on in the morning, and the lights come on, I don’t call the electrician and thank him for it. Well, obviously a very different situation. That light switch had been there forever. Back server was broken. Point being he didn’t understand the effort that it took to make that happen. And it’s your job as the CTO to educate him on that. Now another example is one day, I CEO came to me and he wants to know why we couldn’t voice enable our website. He had seen it on a movie now. Guys, this was in the early 2000s. There was no voice technology that would work for a website, but he wanted this. And so I had to educate him on why that wouldn’t work. I had to show him articles that said that voice technology was at least five to 10 years off, et cetera. But the point is, he learned he didn’t ask anymore. Then the final big story that I have for you on this issue is the suggestion engine story. So of course, as a restaurant delivery service, we would we would deliver food for various restaurants and its various kinds of food. But it wasn’t always you know, we didn’t have just one genre of food that we used. But in any event, he saw our CEO saw Amazon’s suggestion engine and how accurate it was. And he thought, well, this is a way to boost sales. And so he came to me. And he wanted to know if we could do it. Now, yes, I could do this. But Amazon spent $2 million on the initial investment, and then a million dollars a year after that, to keep it maintained. And so I gave him articles on this. And I explained to him how difficult the process was, and that there really wasn’t a way to make a good suggestion engine without spending that money at the time, you have to remember that this was 25 years ago. Well, by educating him, he understood more about what was going on. And so that’s the key here, guys, educate your executives, to so that they gain an understanding forward them articles that are about things that you’ve heard them talk about, speak at meetings on a specific topic, pick a topic like email security, how to avoid viruses, and then talk about it, it gives you great chance to talk about the things you’ve put in place, what I would do is, I would have a meeting, like during a meeting, I’d get a segment on how to avoid how to handle spam and an email in emails. And then I would talk about our email server and how what kind of software we were running, what its capabilities were, what were some future projects down the road that we were planning on doing related to the email server. And at that point, I’m educating my team, my executive team on the topics that are going to come up. Also, when you when you have tech projects, get your executives involved as testers, let them see the process and how I mean, it’s very eye opening for an executive to see the process of how something goes from being an idea to completed project. And I want you to think about that as you as you go through these things. And as you listen to this episode, because executives, they only know what they know. And they don’t know what they don’t know. And that’s an obvious thing, right. So make sure that you’re constantly educating them, constantly looking for ways to educate them, invite your team members to come in and talk on a topic that’s related to their job, maybe your network security person can come in and talk about security concerns, and what he’s doing to protect your company. These are all things that executives are going to appreciate. But they’re also going to learn so much from it, that they’re going to give you less and less pushback, see people who trust you will listen to you. And that’s what you have to do is show them why they can trust you and how they can trust you. So the last part I want to talk to you about is, you know, how to show them things so that they get it. So like we said, a lot of people don’t understand the technology process. And so I was I was tasked with speeding up the client server application that we ran at the restaurant delivery service, and it just wasn’t going to happen the way they wanted. And so I suggested a complete rewrite into a web based application was going to cost $500,000. And they did not want to spend that they did not see the benefit. They kept saying that technology, people always say that things are going to be better, but then they’re not. So what I did was we had a dispatch screen that had all the orders pending dispatch, pending delivery, would constantly refresh because the colors would change to mean different statuses, etc. Well, what I ended up doing to sell them on this idea was I created a new screen, I dropped a web browser control on that screen, and I did this personally. And then I created a dotnet back end that ran the dispatch screen. It cost me about $1,000 to do this. And I showed it to them and I released it and they were like, Oh my God, what did you do to the dispatch screen, it’s so much faster. Oh my god, it’s so much faster.

In the end, we paid the $500,000. And we redid the entire application. Then there’s the court in California and source control. So I got brought in to this project to help them with a paperless document reader system. And they weren’t using Source Control. They were all going to a shared drive and editing the files right there. And a lot of the times they were having to edit the same file as someone else and overriding things. And so I just had to talk to them about source control and I had to show them how much more efficient source control is. And so I started showing them how when I use source control, nothing ever gets overwritten for me and I don’t overriding anything for anyone else. And in the end, they made the switch and they decided to use source control. So, always remember as we get to the end of this really short solo episode, always remember that as the tech executive, it is your job to educate the other executives. Do what you have to do to show them what it is you’re up to. Don’t be secretive, be transparent, be as transparent as you possibly can. Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. So thanks for tuning in to gaining the technology leadership edge and we hope that you’ve had a great time with us learning everything you need to know to stay ahead of the technology curve. Remember, be curious, be updated on all the latest trends. Show them who’s boss. Until next time, we’ll be back with plenty more techy tips and tricks so you can stay on top of your game. See ya

Today our guest is Ken Coyne from the award-winning outsourced business, OpsTalent. OpsTalent delivers multilingual customer experience and IT development services globally from Poland, one of the leading outsourcing hubs in Europe. He is originally from Ireland and started in finance but ended up in Poland with his brother who met a Polish girl on a blind date many years ago and moved to Poland shortly after. Ken has over 20 years of experience working in tech and is currently the Head of Growth and Technology for Ops Talent, where they have 500 people and growing.

Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge: A Comprehensive Guide to Product Success

Welcome to Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge, a podcast that explores the latest trends, strategies, and insights in the technology leadership world. In this episode, we have a special guest, David Fraidin, who is a renowned expert in product management and the author of several books on the subject. David shares his mission to help products succeed and provides valuable insights into the five keys to product success: Strategy, Process, Information, Customer, and Employees.

The Importance of Product Market Strategy

According to David, a solid product market strategy is essential for product success. He emphasizes the need to understand the customer’s problem and whether there is a tangible market for the product. David explains, “With that information in hand, you can then figure out the persona of your target customers, do your market research and your competitive research, and write your product positioning statement, which is used then throughout your marketing.” He also highlights the importance of considering distribution channels, pricing strategy, and support and service plans in the product market strategy.

The Power of a Repeatable Process

David believes that having a repeatable process is crucial for improving product development and increasing product success. He shares an example of a company that failed to have a repeatable process and experienced a culture of blame when their products failed. David suggests a process that involves observing prospective customers, conducting interviews, and sending out surveys to gather information about the target market. He explains, “The combination of observing, interviewing, and then surveying lets you build up what your potential target market size might be from the bottom up.”

Leveraging Information for Informed Decisions

Access to the right information is another key factor in product success. David emphasizes the need for companies to subscribe to market research services and have flexibility in the services they choose. He shares an example of a company that had to wait for over a year to access the market research they needed, which hindered their decision-making process. David suggests that companies should ensure their product managers and decision-makers are trained in accessing and analyzing relevant information to make informed decisions.

Understanding the Customer’s Needs and Wants

Innovation plays a crucial role in product success, and understanding the customer’s needs and wants is essential for driving innovation. David explains, “It’s far better to ask them what is it that they do, why they do it, when they do it, where they do it, and so forth. And from that, you can innovate and come up with a better solution.” He emphasizes the importance of understanding the customer’s desired outcome, the job to be done, and the barriers they face in achieving their goals. By understanding these factors, companies can develop customer personas and tailor their products to meet specific needs.

The Competencies of Successful Employees

David believes that employees play a crucial role in product success and need to possess the necessary skill sets for their roles. He highlights the importance of training employees in various competencies related to product management, market research, and customer understanding. David explains, “They need to have the skill sets to be able to go out and observe what people are doing, be able to write and interview and avoid the questions like, when did you stop beating your wife? To be able to write a survey and pick a sample that’s representative of the personas that you’re targeting.”

Implications and Future Outlook

The insights shared by David Frayden have significant implications for the technology leadership world. By focusing on product market strategy, implementing a repeatable process, leveraging information, understanding the customer, and developing employee competencies, companies can increase their chances of product success. These strategies can lead to improved customer satisfaction, increased market share, and ultimately, higher profitability.

In the future, the role of AI in product management and innovation is expected to grow. However, it is important to remember that AI is limited by the available data and cannot discover unknown unknowns. Companies must continue to rely on human insights and understanding to drive innovation and meet customer needs effectively.

In conclusion, product success requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses strategy, process, information, customer understanding, and employee competencies. By following these five keys to product success, companies can stay ahead of the competition and achieve their business goals. As technology continues to evolve, it is crucial for tech executives to stay informed and adapt their strategies to the changing landscape. With the right mindset and a focus on product success, tech leaders can gain the technology leadership edge they need to thrive in the industry.

Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge: Insights from Mark Hirschberg

Welcome to Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge, a podcast that explores the latest trends, strategies, and insights in the technology leadership world. In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Mark Herschberg, the CTO of Vodx and author of the book “The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You.” Mark shares his expertise on communication, leadership, and networking for technology professionals. Let’s dive into the key takeaways from our conversation with Mark.

Communication: Tailoring Your Message for Different Audiences

One of the most important skills for any tech executive is effective communication. Mark emphasizes the need to tailor your message to different audiences, taking into account their communication styles and preferences. He uses the analogy of pitching an idea to two different types of people: a left-brain thinker like Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory” and a right-brain thinker. Mark explains that you can’t present the same information to everyone in the same way. Instead, you need to adjust your communication style to make it more accessible and relatable to each audience.

“Imagine you have to pitch an idea to an extreme left-brain person. Think Sheldon Cooper from ‘The Big Bang Theory.’ How would you pitch the idea to Sheldon? You would write out a detailed plan, walk through step by step, and have a 27-point plan. But if you want to pitch the same idea to an extreme right-brain person, you can’t present the same information. You need to use different approaches, such as analogies or putting it into a context they can understand.” – Mark Herschberg

When it comes to training sessions, Mark suggests considering the complexity of the software and the different job functions within the organization. If the software is simple and everyone needs to know the same information, it may be more efficient to train everyone together. However, if the software is complex and requires different tasks for different job functions, it’s better to separate the training sessions by job function. This ensures that each group receives the specific information they need to perform their roles effectively.

Leadership: Inspiring Others and Making Tough Decisions

Mark believes that true leadership goes beyond positional authority. It’s about inspiring and getting buy-in from others, regardless of your level of seniority. He highlights the importance of recognizing that leadership is personal and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, he offers two key insights into leadership:

1. There is no one path to leadership: “What makes a great basketball player? It depends. Some are great shooters, some are great rebounders, and some have good court sense. Similarly, there is more than one way to be a good leader. It’s a personal journey.”
2. True leadership is different from positional authority: “True leadership is about inspiring and getting buy-in from others, rather than commanding through authority. Even the most junior people on your team can exhibit leadership qualities and contribute to the growth of your organization.”

Mark also shares a personal experience where he had to make a tough decision as a leader. He had a team member who was a perfectionist and constantly butting heads with other engineers. Despite his efforts to explain trade-offs and the need for suboptimal solutions, the team member couldn’t let go of his pursuit of perfection. In this situation, Mark had to assert his authority and make a judgment call, which ultimately led to the team member leaving the company. However, he handled the situation with empathy and provided a smooth transition for the team member.

Networking: Expanding Horizons and Gaining Different Perspectives

Networking is crucial for technology professionals to expand their horizons and gain different perspectives. Mark advises tech professionals to go beyond networking with other technologists and connect with people from diverse fields such as education, medicine, law, and finance. By doing so, they can gain insights and perspectives that their fellow technologists may not have considered.

“Meet people in other areas, not just technology. Connect with individuals from diverse fields such as education, medicine, law, and finance. This will not only lead to new opportunities but also provide you with different perspectives that can enrich your understanding and help you identify risks and opportunities for your organization.” – Mark Herschberg

Mark also emphasizes the importance of networking within your own organization. Building relationships with colleagues from different departments can help you understand their perspectives and collaborate more effectively. It can also open doors to new opportunities within the company.

Conclusion and Future Outlook

In this thought-provoking conversation with Mark Herschberg, we explored the essential skills for tech executives, including communication, leadership, and networking. Mark’s insights shed light on the importance of tailoring your message to different audiences, inspiring others through true leadership, and expanding your network to gain diverse perspectives. As technology continues to evolve, these skills will be crucial for tech executives to stay ahead of the curve and drive innovation in their organizations.

Remember, effective communication is not just about conveying information; it’s about understanding your audience and adapting your message to their needs. True leadership goes beyond positional authority and involves inspiring others and making tough decisions. Finally, networking with individuals from diverse fields can provide fresh insights and open doors to new opportunities.

As technology leaders, let’s continue to develop these essential skills and embrace the ever-changing landscape of the technology industry. By doing so, we can gain the technology leadership edge and drive success in our careers and organizations.

Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge: Strategies for Success

Welcome to “Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge,” a podcast that explores the latest trends, strategies, and insights in technology leadership. In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Bob Cotton, an experienced technology executive who has led numerous digital transformations and mission-critical programs for his clients. Bob shared his expertise on communication, work-life balance, and the importance of delivering value to customers.

Communication: Bridging the Gap between Tech and Business

One of the biggest challenges for tech executives is effective communication. As Bob pointed out, tech execs often get caught up in the details of making technology work and forget the bigger picture. They need to put themselves in the shoes of their clients and understand their expectations. Bob emphasized the importance of building trust and strong relationships with clients by clearly articulating the value of the technology solutions being delivered. He highlighted the need for tech execs to step back and think about how they can communicate in a way that helps clients make informed decisions and supports a better working relationship.

Bob also stressed the importance of understanding how different stakeholders prefer to be communicated with. He shared his experience of working with a CEO who only wanted to know when things would be done and how much they would cost. By tailoring his communication style to meet the CEO’s needs, Bob was able to build a strong working relationship and gain the CEO’s trust.

Work-Life Balance: Finding Harmony in a Demanding Role

Tech executives often face the challenge of achieving work-life balance. The constant connectivity and pressure to deliver results can make it difficult to switch off and recharge. Bob acknowledged the demands of the role and the need to create space for oneself. He encouraged tech executives to find smarter ways of working and to regularly reassess their approach to maintain balance.

Setting boundaries is crucial in achieving work-life balance. Bob shared his own experience of setting boundaries, such as not responding to work-related messages during personal time. He emphasized the importance of enforcing these boundaries and not allowing them to be crossed. By doing so, tech executives can create a healthier work-life balance and avoid burnout.

Delivering Value: The Key to Success

Delivering value is at the core of a tech executive’s role. Bob highlighted the need for tech executives to focus on the value they bring to their clients and their organizations. This involves understanding the client’s expectations and ensuring that the technology solutions being delivered meet those expectations. Bob emphasized the importance of being customer-focused and maintaining a strong customer-centric mindset.

In addition to delivering value to clients, tech executives also need to focus on delivering value to their teams. Bob stressed the importance of empowering and trusting team members to make decisions and take ownership of their work. By doing so, tech executives can build resilient and high-performing teams that are motivated to deliver results.

Conclusion: The Future of Technology Leadership

In conclusion, technology leadership is a challenging but rewarding role. Effective communication, work-life balance, and delivering value are key pillars of success for tech executives. By prioritizing these areas, tech executives can build strong relationships with clients, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and drive value for their organizations.

Looking ahead, the role of technology leadership will continue to evolve. As technology advances and client expectations change, tech executives will need to adapt and stay ahead of the curve. The ability to communicate effectively, maintain work-life balance, and deliver value will remain crucial in navigating the ever-changing technology landscape.

In the fast-paced world of technology, gaining the technology leadership edge requires continuous learning, adaptability, and a focus on building strong relationships. By embracing these principles, tech executives can position themselves for success and stay ahead of the competition.

Remember, the key to gaining the technology leadership edge is to be curious, stay updated on the latest trends, and always strive to deliver value. With these strategies in mind, tech executives can lead their organizations to new heights and achieve their career goals.