Category Archives: Helpful Hints

December 12, 2014 · 11:13 am

Finely Chopped Onions And Business

Foodie Friday, and this week it’s about chopping onions.  No, it’s not a screed on how cutting up onions relates to being in business without crying although that’s not a bad idea for some Friday down the road.  This week, it’s about a legendary chef – Marco Pierre White – and his technique for chopping onions more finely than you’ve ever chopped them before.  There are practical reasons for doing so as he explains. The video I’ve embedded demonstrates his technique, but it’s actually something he says in the video that’s our subject today.

First, the chopping lesson:

Did you hear what Chef White had to say as part of his demonstration?

‘Perfection is lots of little things done well.’

He picked that up from Ma Gastronomie by Fernand Point. He is the father of modern French cuisine. It’s a great business reminder too.  We talk a lot in this space about many “big” things but the reality is that we can’t ignore the most basic skills if we’re to continue to improve as businesspeople.  We might be focused on the big idea, but if our basic writing skills are inferior, the brilliance of our idea won’t be expressed.

Chopping onions is probably the most basic of cooking skills.  I’ve seen friends spend a full two minutes chopping an onion when had they learned the proper technique and practiced they would be able to do so in under 30 seconds.  It’s a little thing, but improving all of the little things is sometimes the only way to improve the whole.  As an aside, it’s a heck of a lot more fun when the tedious things go quickly and efficiently both in the kitchen and in the office.

Striving for continuous improvement is a noble goal.  Our focus should be on big steps forward.  The way to get our businesses to take those steps just might be through improving all the little things, especially when we’ve done a good job on the big ones already.  After all, a team that keeps hitting singles and not making many outs eventually scores a lot of ones, even without any home runs.

You agree?

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December 3, 2014 · 1:44 pm

Turf Burns

I read an article about a fine imposed by the FTC on an ad agency. Apparently what the agency did was to ask employees to promote Sony‘s PlayStation Vita on Twitter as if they were “regular” consumers. Agency employees then used their personal Twitter accounts to make positive posts about the gaming device. Obviously there was no disclaimer in each tweet that the person posting was an agency employee or had a financial relationship with the product.

Seal of the United States Federal Trade Commis...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This sort of thing is known as “astroturfing.”  It goes on in politics all the time and is “the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g. political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participant(s).”  Fake reviews are a form of this when they’re written by marketing or PR people on behalf of a company.

I’m not sure what genius thought that this could in any way be considered smart marketing but it’s an expensive lesson.  Especially when you put it in this context:

Almost 8 in 10 American adults read online consumer reviews for product and services before making a purchase, with this figure relatively constant across generations, according to a survey from YouGov. The study analyzes the use of online reviews from a variety of angles, finding that a bare majority (51%) of those who read consumer reviews generally read at least 4 before feeling that they have enough information to purchase a product or service…the YouGov survey also finds that among the 44% who post online reviews themselves, 49% (including 58% of 18-34-year-olds) admit to having at some point written reviews for products and services they haven’t actually purchased or tried.

So reviews are important to consumers yet consumers themselves sabotage the reviews’ value.  Add that to the astroturfing that goes on and you might say “oh, everyone does it.”  As the expression goes, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.  Get caught, as happened in this case, and you pay financially (the cost to defend a complaint even if there isn’t a fine) and with your reputation (it doesn’t matter if “everyone” does it – you got caught).

There is very little upside to posting fake reviews and a lot of downside.  That spells bad idea in my book.  Yours?

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November 26, 2014 · 11:43 am

Timing Is Everything

Today is prep day for tomorrow’s feast.  Since I’m busy doing many other things (including praying the pending snow storm misses us), I’m reposting my Thanksgiving screed from 2008.  Not much has changed in the intervening 6 years about my approach to the task at hand.  It’s also a decent observation on the value of planning and attention to detail.  Happy Thanksgiving!

I had an assistant once who developed the concept of “the Ritter factor” when estimating time.  The basic concept was that if I said something would take a certain amount of time, that amount needed to be multiplied by 4.5 to determine the actual time required.  While not admitting to the accuracy or even existence of this factor, I can state that Thanksgiving‘s biggest challenge is time. “Time?” you’re thinking, “that’s the biggest challenge?  HA!  This idiot has really lost it!”  I’m sure you could put together a list of this week’s challenges which would contain items such as where to stash all the coats, how to fit 25 people around a table made for 12, and how to step over Uncle Elmer to get to the bathroom without waking him up.  However, as the conductor of the Thanksgiving orchestra around old Rancho Deluxe here, let me assure you that the primary challenge of the day is delivering all 39 items on the menu to the table at the same time, appropriately hot or cold as required.

The key to the entire day is a timed checklist.  Seriously.  I take enormous amount of crap from everyone who sees mine each year until they realize that the meal is being served at exactly the time requested by the Mrs. which happens to coincide nicely with halftime of the football game.  This list is created by using back timing – something TV and radio producers do all the time.  Beginning at the desired end time and factoring in the availability of necessary facilities (ovens, stove burners, etc.), you work backwards and piece together the time required for each dish until you have a road map.  Anything I can knock off ahead of time (baking, prepping all the dressings, parboiling vegetables) is done up to 24 hours in advance.  It even gets down to resting time for the turkeys before carving and the time it takes for the oil to heat up in the fryer.  In fact, we’ve started frying a turkey in part because it frees up an oven late in the process.  This sounds like a silly bit of overkill to get the meal ready, but it prevents you from leaving the soup in the refrigerator or forgetting you were serving carrots and finding a 20lb bag the next morning.

I’d be happy to share my list with you but it really would only help you a bit.  The cooking facilities here are pretty damn good although we spent the money on them instead of indoor toilets (kidding).  You have to tie your back-timed list to the menu, the facilities you have available to you, and your cooking skills.  Even though my former assistant (who comes most years for the Thanksgiving meal) thinks I’m chronologically challenged, I’ve got 25 full bellies Thursday evening that think otherwise.

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