by Scott on April 28, 2007
37Signals’ blog made mention of a post about the counter-productivity of multi-tasking.
Scott [Berkun] brings up the latest research that casts multi-tasking in a counter-productive light. He ultimately suggests that if we want to achieve greatness that we should pay attention to how the great people who came before us paid attention—by blocking distractions out and focusing on the task at hand. Given all the focus on attention today on the web, this talk is timely.
Former micro-ISV owner turned Personal Development Coach for “Smart People” shared similar insight in Triple Your Personal Productivity.
The 4 Hour Workweek
Recently, John Jantsch wrote in his Duct Tape Marketing Blog about Tim Ferriss, lifestyle and productivity guru and author of 4 Hour Work Week book
and blog. Tim is a huge proponent of single tasking. And it’s worked well for him. A self-described “professional polymath”, Tim has built a lifestyle around accomplishing a wide variety of interesting feats worldwide by single-tasking for top performance combined with “outsourcing” many aspects of his life.
Check out fourhourworkweek.com for some interesting insight, including two recent articles: one on the study of the distracting effects of e-mail and ringing phones compared to marijuana and another one on how to firewall out distractions.
John’s words: Tim is an engaging guide on the journey to design a life around your plans and dreams using work simply as a way to live passionately. ... Tim coaches you to go on an information diet – don’t just filter information, eliminate it.
In Praise of Single Tasking
As an experiment, I started forcing myself into strict single-tasking last week. Here’s what I found.
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by Scott on April 24, 2007
In the last entry I shared why Synap Software chose to produce hosted software solutions often referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS). One reason mentioned was benefit for subscribers. SaaS is really a win-win and an example of what I mean when I advise folks to consider marketing efforts from the very start of a new company or product.
Ongoing Opportunities to Exceed Expectations
My favorite benefit to LeadsOnRails users warrants another posting. It is the implied commitment that we will consistently deliver a quality product and service in order to retain satisfied subscribers. Each month is another opportunity for users to decide if we have met or even exceeded expectations. Each month is another opportunity for us to try to exceed expectations.
As a business owner, you should be looking to your current customers first for new business. It is usually more productive to seek new business from a current customer than to bring on a new customer. Whether you have “subscribers” or not, think of ways to keep your current customers coming back for more.
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by Scott on April 19, 2007
In The Business of Software, author and MIT professor Michael A. Cusumano identifies four main questions that a software company should answer when developing a target market product strategy. Asked from the perspective of the software company:
- Do you want to be mainly a products company or a services company?
- Do you want to sell to individuals or enterprises?
- How horizontal (broad) or vertical (specialized) is your product or service?
- Can you generate a recurring revenue stream to endure in good times and bad?
Cusumano’s was one of several frameworks we used in planning Synap Software. In the next few Business Decisions blog entries I’ll share my thought process behind these decisions. Some worked out fine, some not so fine, and some are an ongoing story. Today’s entry is my answer to the first main question: Do you want to be mainly a products company or a services company?
Products or Services?
Services Provide More Chances for Recurring Revenue
Cusumano states that he used to believe it was better to be a products company but as of the writing of the book (2004 – which I know is an eon ago in tech years) he says he “no longer think(s) this is true”. Why?
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by Scott on April 16, 2007
Technorati Profile
No need to click the above link – there is nothing interesting there.
I finally took the two minutes it takes to claim my blog on Technorati. This post can be safely ignored. Creating a post with a link like above in it is one way to verify ownership of the blog. Here goes…
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by Scott on April 14, 2007
There is a new social bookmarking website out. If you have not seen it yet, check out Dharmesh Shah’s Daily Hub. You might wonder – do we really need another social voting site? Dharmesh readily addresses this question here so I won’t repeat the whole background except to say Daily Hub is different, it is focused on more “professional”, “useful”, and “informative” content than you will find at Digg, Reddit, etc. It is designed for “business geeks”. Daily Hub also has a different ranking formula that favors value for you and gives less emphasis to “what’s new”.
Considering the good content and history of the sister sites Small Business Hub and On Startups, I’d say that DailyHub is worth a look and will hit a chord with its intended audience.
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