Like many of you (well, 38 million of you anyway), I watched the debut of Undercover Boss following the Super Bowl broadcast. Interesting premise – a CEO goes undercover at his own company to see how the “stuff” rolls downhill until it lands amidst the workers we see on the show.
On the show the CEO of Waste Management, a seemingly nice enough guy, got a taste of how the policies he sets forth get implemented. It’s like a big corporate game of telephone and he was looking to understand what came out the other end. What he found out was that even with the best of intentions (and we can debate for hours what came out in the editing room), policies often get screwed up on the way to reality. And that’s what hit me throughout: Continue reading
Tag Archives: Reality checks
Undercover Boss
Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks
Avoiding Pink Discs
We went out for dinner Saturday night with another couple. They, like me, are big carnivores and since I don’t get a lot of support on that here at Rancho Deluxe, the chance to hit a Brazilian Rodizio place is a big plus. If you’ve never been, most of these places, sometimes known as churrascarias, feature people walking around with various grilled meats on large, sword-like skewers. They come to your table and slice off whatever you want. In addition, most of these joints have fantastic salad bars which can serve as meals all by themselves (and in the case of the vegetarians in your party, do!).
As I was at the salad bar, something stuck me which I’d like to share. No, someone didn’t toss a roll at me – it’s more about one dish that was there. Continue reading
Filed under food, Huh?, Reality checks
Set It Free!
Another late post, I know. It’s this pesky business of trying to do some work. I particularly like it when the work is the stuff I do for free. Yep. I think everyone should have at least one pro-bono account in their roster and I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid on that.
My client is in the process of building and launching a new website. This has been fun – a white sheet of paper, SEO built in from the ground up, lots of open minds (OK, maybe that’s not your idea of fun but I’m digging it). But the real fun is yet to begin since we’re just starting to populate the site with information.
“Where is this all going to come from?”, she wondered on our call. That’s when we talked about a pretty significant paradigm shift she, like most people in digital, was going to have to make.
I told her she had to stop thinking of the site as hers or her organization’s. Instead, realize that it belongs to your community – your users, your members, and those who you want to become part of either of those two groups. We went on to talk about link-building, guest-blogging, and how “viral” doesn’t mean vaccinations.
The important thing here is all businesses have to embrace the Chinese proverb on setting things we love free to see if they return. By opening up your site to the conversations, you don’t lose control – you gain engagement.
Thoughts?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png)
Filed under Consulting, digital media
Consult Keith 