January 2009 Archives

I recently discovered a great website called Moo. Moo prints business cards in all shapes and sizes, sticker books, postcards, and sells other cool items like mosaic frames. What I like most about Moo is that everything is fully customizable; you can even print different designs on cards within the same set! Genius. Here's what they have to offer (and no, I don't get kick backs from Moo--I just love this site):

• They have mini cards and other items to help you stand out. If you're looking for a job right now (and sadly, many are), why not stand out from everybody else? Get a mini card instead of the "regulation size" business or "calling cards" everyone else hands out. If you can swing it, why not also create and send a follow-up postcard (printed by Moo) to say thanks for the opportunity to interview with a company/speak to a connection/etc.? No one sends anything in the mail these days, so why not take advantage of that and send a written thank you? In this job market, try anything.
• Import photos from social networks into Moo. Obviously, this wouldn't work out for those with incriminating photos on Facebook, but if you share photos of family or friends on any of these sites, you can easily bring them over to Moo for printing things like stickers and postcards. Your friend's new baby's face will look great on a sticker!
• Ease of use. I can't emphasize this enough. Sure, there are tons of companies on the internet that print business cards or make stickers, but Moo does it better. It also doesn't hurt that every card can have a custom image on it--what printer does that?
• The feel of personalized service. Moo makes it feel like you're working with a printer on an individual basis when you're really not (they're based out of London, but ship anywhere in the world). Their little checkout "bot" sends you emails to update you on your order status regularly, and even though it's a machine, it just feels like you have your own stationery butler.
• Not creative? Not a problem--the designers at Moo are. You can select from a bunch of very cool designs for holiday cards, personal greetings, etc.

This past weekend I got a letter from Amica. It sat on the table I have near the door to my house for a couple of days because I thought it was a bill. When I opened the envelope I found out that, much to my surprise, it wasn't a bill but a check with a letter enclosed saying I hadn't cashed a check Amica issued me from about nine months ago. While it wasn't a huge amount, the idea that a company would remind me that I needed to get my money is revolutionary. I've always been pleased with Amica, but I'm even more so after this.

The more I thought about it, I'm sure there is some accounting policy or year-end process that made this happen, but it was still pretty nice. I can say I have never gotten something like this before and the company really should have done more to use this as an opportunity to highlight exceeding expectations. I'm not sure how, but the fact that the company pays such close attention to situations like this needs to be promoted by Amica.

Do you go out of your way to return money to customers that you might owe them? Could the impact of returning the money be worth more than the money returned? It's something to think about.

At GotVMail, we make an effort to provide free, healthy snacks (that taste good) for our employees in addition to providing a wide array of beverages. Having better choices on hand makes it harder to pig out on bad stuff. We've had dried fruit in the past, but nothing beats the real thing. There's no other time of year when this is more evident than around the holidays, when we receive tons of fruit baskets. We always put these in our GotVMail kitchen, and the fruit is gone within minutes. Since it's clear our people like fresh fruit, last year I started to look for a good way to provide this year round.

There aren't a lot of options for fresh fruit delivery, and here's why:

• Fruit basket companies: Either include lots of non-fruit items or offer very expensive "branded" fruit (for example, Harry & David offers their special fruit that somehow needs to be vastly more expensive than the same kind sold in the supermarket)
• Supermarket delivery: Lacks selection and quality
• Famers' market: Requires time we don't have, and selection isn't consistently varied

While reviewing the options, I finally found a company that specializes in fresh fruit delivery for offices, The FruitGuys. Every Tuesday each of our offices (Boston and Austin) get a delivery of fresh in season fruit. It's a no-frills deal--just fruit, straight up. This has become so popular that by Thursday on most weeks everything is gone or sitting on someone's desk in the final ripening stages. Besides having a lot of nutritional value, having the extra fruit around means our people can supplement their lunches (along with our $5 lunch subsidy) or have an extra snack. Anyway you slice it, it's a good idea.

I recently found California Fruit Company who seems to be offering a similar service but limited delivery area.

One of our goals at GotVMail was to create a world class work culture. In order to achieve that goal, we need to create an outstanding employment brand. What's an "employment brand"? Similar to any other brand name, an "employment brand" are the recognizable attributes a company projects to prospective and current employees. It's essentially what people think about your approach to finding the right talent, and how you treat that talent once they're a part of your company.

There are two very important imperatives to GotVMail's employment brand: treat every employee and prospective employee better than you would treat your best customer, and make things radically easy for your applicant, from the interview process to benefits. Important to note: "easy" doesn't mean "easy interviews." It means creating a situation where expectations about the position are clear from the outset, and that part of doing well in that job doesn't consist of guessing what your personal objectives are as an employee. For this post, I'm going to talk exclusively about the impact of treating every who enters your office with respect.

We may be a growing start-up, but whenever a prospective employee enters our Boston office, they're greeted and made to feel at home right away. Candidates shouldn't feel like they're interrupting the flow of business or putting anyone out by arriving for an interview. I'd never thought about how powerful a personal greeting could be to a prospective employee until I received a thank you note from a candidate who explained its impact: he felt valued and welcomed from the moment he stepped in because he received such a warm welcome from our staff. It affirmed my belief that it was very important for every candidate to be greeted and given a personal tour of our headquarters when they arrive for an interview.

A workplace shouldn't be an alienating environment, regardless of whether you're a current or prospective employee. Employees should feel as valued and worthy of attention as the vendors you do business with each day. This is a crucial tenet of our employment brand; we want people to know we want them!

People are always asking me how we keep GotVMail's core values at the forefront of the company's collective consciousness. The short answer: any way we can. The emphasis on core purpose, core values and brand promise is very important to me, so we try to get the core values into email signatures or on the footer of our company wiki, or anywhere else that seems useful. We also work them into the performance management process so that these words are meaningful and visible to team members as often as possible.

In an increasingly "digital" world, it can be helpful to return to our old standby, paper, to keep our core values visible. Sure, that sounds odd coming from a CTO, but it just stands to reason that with most of our informational universe on computers and Blackberries, it stands out when you have a sticky note adhered to your desk. That's why we had custom sticky notes printed. At the top of the notepad is our brand promise, finished off at the bottom with core purpose and core values. Whether you're writing "buy eggs after work" or a customer's call back number, those core values pop up at you and hopefully entrench themselves subliminally. We think this mix of direct and indirect repetition is effective for keeping our core values top of mind.

Back in September I blogged about using two monitors to increase productivity at work. Seems like others are starting to catch on to this idea because just the other day, the New York Times ran a story about one reporter's switch to the two-monitor system. Farhad Manjoo wrote,

As every office worker knows, trying to get anything done on a computer that's connected to the Internet can be a test of wills. On my old desktop monitor -- at 19 inches square, it was the Honda Civic of displays -- the Web was a wormhole that routinely pulled me off track. I'd switch over to a browser window to look something up, but as soon as I did so all traces of my work would disappear from the screen and I'd forget about the task at hand. A half hour later, I'd wake up from a deep browsing trance, wondering how I ever got to, say, a page recounting the history of Adidas, or some other topic having nothing at all to do with my work.

A huge desktop didn't remove all distractions, but it blunted their force. Now I could keep my e-mail and the Web open on one screen while my Microsoft Word document ran on another. This kept me on task. Even if I did go off to the Web, my document was always visible, beckoning me to come back to work.

Having two monitors isn't just helpful for programmers (or CTO's like me), it's helpful for anyone who multitasks throughout the day (and really, who doesn't?). Manjoo brings up a good point about how useful two monitors can be for writers leaving their research and emails in one window, and then using another monitor for writing articles. The additional monitor serves as a physical reminder that duty calls--you can't "minimize" a 22-inch screen on your desktop, so there's nothing to do but pay attention to your work.

This blog post has been in my "tickler" file (I know, I know, odd name) since I started reading Getting Things Done by David Allen on a trip to Mexico. You'll understand what a tickler file is after watching the video or reading the book. David Allen effectively created a productivity industry around his GTD method, and many companies launched products based on the method; everything from online tasks lists to advanced filing applications. As Allen points out, it doesn't matter what tools you use, what's most important is that you are comfortable with them and trust them.

Personally, I use Outlook tasks, notes, and calendar combined with a Moleskine notebook that I carry around everywhere to take notes on anything that pops into my head--business ideas, ways to improve my current business, anything. My largest takeaway was getting everything off my mind to get to an almost Zen-like state where I'm most productive. For me this meant writing down everything I think of and reviewing it on a regular basis.

If you're like me, and reading seems to get pushed to the bottom of your list of priorities, then watch this video when you have some time (or watch it in 5 minute breaks you have here and there). It features great insight into the method I've just described, in around 45 minutes. I have shared this with a few GotVMail team members, and combined with Inbox Zero, one team member even purchased a notebook. This may not sound like a big deal, but he hadn't things down on paper for years, and he has since informed me that in only two days, he feels vastly more productive.

Every single day I see entrepreneurs, friends, and employees struggling with email and the related productivity challenges. I have to share with you part of my solution to this growing problem. In 2006, Merlin Man wrote Inbox Zero, a series of blog posts which have become very popular in certain circles, especially the getting things done (GTD) ones. The Inbox Zero concept that Merlin talks about is very powerful in dealing with the ever-increasing flow of email people receive each day. I cannot say I am an expert or have implemented the Inbox Zero concept exactly but I took what I felt was important and combined it with some techniques I had been using for years, such as weeding through my inbox and keeping it basically empty. As a result, my productivity increased. This becomes even more powerful when you use the tools provided by David Allen in the book Getting Things Done.

Just in the past few weeks, I have sent this video to three team members at GotVMail, two entrepreneurs, and my mom (seriously!). Everyone found it useful and saw immediate productivity gains. Very soon we will be offering this as part of our new internal learning program, The Academy, so everyone can take advantage of these helpful tools.

The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho

International best seller with substance. Very enjoyable story--finished the book during one long plane ride. All about following dreams, love and destiny, the book is really different for everyone; the message of following your true self is meant to give the story universal appeal (and I think it does). I was surprised how a simple story made me think about larger life goals.

Key takeaways:

• Follow your dreams
• The universe conspires to make dreams happen
• Personal legends are the reason for living