We've enhanced our blog to provide valuable content, follow up on workshops or speeches, foster discussion, and keep you informed of our evolving offerings in the area of Technology Leadership. The categories shown on the left should help you to find the information you're looking for. Some of the content on this blog is visible to any visitor while some is for specific audiences and requires a password. We're currently expanding our list of blog authors to include our growing team of Visular Associates and other experts to provide additional content on various areas of technology strategy and management.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
When I found out my friend Dan Neely was launching a startup I wondered about what his new company would be. I only knew it had a marketing and technology aspect to it, which made sense knowing Dan's background and dynamic style. Several months ago I got my first e-mail newsletter from his company Networked Insights with an example of what they do. I'm generally not a fan of e-mail newsletters only because there are now so many out there I can't keep up. I have to say this one boldly stood out and I've never seen a single marketing publication so clearly demonstrate a new type of offering. It perfectly explained what Dan and his team have been up to and I think their analysis of social trends is fascinating. Check out what I saw in their newsletter looking at new vs. traditional ways of looking at TV ratings on their blog: Social Sights. They have since done many more examples from measuring super bowl ads to the music charts.
Posted by Tom Wolf on Feb-12-2009 10:28 pm
marketing •
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Friday, February 06, 2009
Attached to this post is a tool I designed to quickly assess the strength of any team I'm managing. As a leader there is nothing more important to your success than building up a winning team.
Download Visular-Team_Assessment_Tool_v02
This tool is strongly influced by the GE leadership approach to managing people - focusing on A players and exiting C players. It is NOT a substitute for a full employee management process (role documents, goal setting, performance reviews, merit-based bonuses, etc.). Instructions for using the tool are included in the file.
Posted by Tom Wolf on Feb-06-2009 10:32 pm
people •
leadership •
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Friday, January 30, 2009
When you think of the salary (or hourly rate) of every person sitting in a meeting, even the smallest are quite expensive to any organization. Why is it then that so many meetings happen with no stated objectives or even a simple written agenda?
Attached is my basic meeting agenda format that I try to use for all my meetings. Many of my colleagues have found this template valuable. Feel free to customize it as necessary for your needs.
Download Visular-Meeting_Agenda_Template_v03
The most critical elements for an effective meeting are clear, documented objectives, a detailed, timed agenda, and the right attendees in the room. I also find it helpful to identify the key inputs required in advance so you're not all sitting around saying, "why didn't anyone bring the sales figures?".
Objectives - Many people will jump to preparing an agenda without first thinking through the actual objectives of the meeting. This can lead to a meeting that finishes on time, but doesn't accomplish what the owner wants to get done. Worse, participants can end up sabotaging the meeting because they have their own objectives that are different from yours. The very worst cases end up in a complete breakdown with arguments because there is no group buy-in to just what you're all doing there.
Posted by Tom Wolf on Jan-30-2009 10:45 pm
leadership •
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
My colleague Steve Ely recommended I check out David Meerman Scott an expert on modern "Viral Marketing" techniques. I rarely send out unsolicited advice or "check this out" e-mails to colleagues unless something really impresses me. I'm passing this one on to a bunch of people.
I highly recommend reading David's e-book The New Rules of Viral Marketing. It's free and very quick to read and digest, yet very valuable to help understand and brainstorm ways to leverage this fascinating new trend in marketing. It's also introduced me to this new style of book - an "e-Book" which to me is like cross between a great PowerPoint presentation and a white paper. MUCH easier to get through and more to the point than typical business books. Very dynamic and fun to read.
At first I thought the concept of Viral Marketing would mostly apply to small companies with limited markting budgets. But the examples Scott uses, such as IBM using YouTube and getting a huge response, helped me understand this new approach can be used in many ways.
Posted by Tom Wolf on Jan-29-2009 10:39 pm
marketing •
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
I've consulted with many people who were either considering starting their own business or had already done so recently and were planning their next steps. I realized that I end up having the same conversations with potential business owners over and over again, so I began to capture all the questions I'd ask to help them plan in one document. I've shared this with many people over the past 5 or so years and it constantly evolves - I'll keep the latest version posted here. Comments are welcome and I'll use them for future updates.
Download Visular-Startup_Planning_Overview_v05
One caveat - I'm not a multi-millionaire from my own high-tech startup that I launched before Visular, or I probably wouldn't be working as a consultant or writing this blog, so alot of this is in the spirit of "learning from your mistakes"!
Posted by Tom Wolf on Jan-25-2009 10:42 pm
strategy & delivery •
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