As one employee put it,

Today was not a good day in the Hive.

Due to economic conditions, we decided to do a proactive staff reduction.  Even with Q3 being the 4th best quarter in company history, October delivering more bookings than any other month this year, and our cash position extremely strong, we remain fearful of what 2009 holds in store.   So, we did a reorganization that resulted in laying off some staff.  Some of my very favorite, insanely talented, dedicated people.

As a CEO, this is perhaps the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do.  Traveling too much, dealing with demanding clients, working long hours - that’s all nothing compared to having to change the fate of people who have put their faith in you.

But this is the job.  I have an obligation to shareholders and investors; I have to develop the company so that it can weather the bad cycles as well as the good; and I have to reshape the vision to match what the market demands.

We did everything we could for those employees who found themselves no longer an employee at BzzAgent.  We left on email for the day, set up COBRA (and covered health care through Nov 30), allowed for equipment purchase, provided outplacement counsel on site - and tried to be as clear, compassionate and thoughtful as possible in our last one-on-one meetings.

Yes, there were tears (from both sides of the equation) and yes it was perhaps the most uncomfortable day we’ve ever had as a group.  And so all of the gains - the employees who now have an opportunity to step up into new roles, the ability to add talent for some of our adapted vision, the ‘leanness’ of the business to grow much more effectively - come with the bittersweet knowledge that for some people, tonight is full of anger, fear, anxiety and sorrow.

What now?  Well, without being overly sentimental, I suppose a wonderful way to send out the BeeLog in style would be to have anyone and everyone - staff, (separated and retained), clients, agents, friends, investors, whomever - add their thoughts on the situation.

One last jog around the track of transparency.  That would somehow make today just a tiny, tiny bit better.

It’s just time to move on to new organizational behavior initiatives.   Thanks for being a part of this experiment. (And remember to check out 90 Days of BzzAgent & The Bento Box)

More to come…but not here…we promise…

Dave

This is for all my homies on the phone and PTO…(and thanks to Keith who also took notes and collaborated with me on this, he is the T-pain to my “insert name of artist here”)

Rocca $5 Apps tonight and possibly every night, or every Thursday, although, by the time you’re reading this, it’s probably over.

CAT G.– Gets the awesome job trophy, for her work on Modular Sign up, House Pay to Play Campaigns (on top of her normal duties as Producer extraordinaire)

Birthdays

• Sandhya: 10/3
• Katie: 10/5
• Rob: 10/11
• David (W): 10/16
• Ryan: 10/18
• Megan (D): 10/22
• Carla (E, not B): 10/28

New Employees: (Welcome)

• Peter T.
  
• Kelsey M.
  

Leaving Employees:

• Cheyanne (http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/cherish/shesgone.htm)

Welcome Back/Congratulations:

• Louisa (W not C)

ADVOCACY PLATFORM (Code Name: Goose)

Goal is to launch prototype on 11/4 and then launch for realz sometime in Q1

The Premise: [**sorry, can't let this cat out of the bag yet...]

There were a million questions about this…

• Monitoring: Extranet
• UK: Hopefully
• Negative WOM: Bound to happen, an acceptable risk
• Policing: Self Policing (so, your blog www.GunPorno.com/politics_cigarettes ) will be promptly 86-ed by our community)
• Honeycombs: Yes
• If you have more questions talk to Dave/Malcolm or Kurt

Anonymous Questions

Q: Recycling is the law these days, so can we finally get one of our trash folks to allow us to recycle more:

A: Yes, but it doesn’t take effect for a while, but we’ll be on it

Q: Honeycombs board: Understandable that we want people to participate, but public humiliation is lame

A: We had to do something as this is a big problem in the company, and this was the best way

Many people are new, or don’t get invites, some don’t want to participate, some think clients should want us in the Campaigns, there was much discussion about this, to be honest, I’m not 100% sure where we ended up, I think the consensus was: Please participate when you can and it makes sense to do so, but if you’re forcing yourself, don’t steal a spot from a deserving/excited Agent.  You can also participate and frog, if you don’t know how to gain honeycombs check it out at http://www.bzzagent.com/member/bzzperks/BzzPerks.do?action=howstatus

Q: Holiday Party

A: Save the date is sent, invite coming soon

Q: What’s going on for Halloween?

A: People are going to dress up; there may be a costume contest

Q: Goals for the year, how close are we?

A: Q2 Was tough, but Q3 was great and Q4 is shaping up to be strong.

• Q1 – largest quarter in company history
  
• Q2 – 92 day sale cycle went to 142 days.  Yikes.
• Q3 – 4th largest quarter in company history. We’re back.
  
• Q4 – pretty darn good (so far)
  

Things in the market are tough and erratic, and it shows but we’re weathering pretty well (thanks to our kick ass sales team, a focus on high quality programs and a revenue-focused model)

Q: Partnerships

• Rogers, going well
• My Points, has exceeded expectations
  
• Attensity: Implementation going well
• WPP/Group M/Ogilvy – All going smoothly
• ChatThreads
• Discussions w/ the big social networks (shhh)
  

Q: Why do we only sell (Via Netquote) what we’re comfortable with? If we sold 10%/20% above what we’re comfortable with wouldn’t that be better/grow the network/etc

A: Netquote numbers are a stretch as it is, so 10%-20% more would put us in a lot of tough spots, and possibly end up with us spending AOD money, however this is something that we discuss often, and we’re working to new products that will allow us to run campaigns beyond our “agent-means” without resorting to money

Q: Seriously, Cheyanne is leaving, that’s the worst right?

A: Yes

We’re throwing out all sales decks…this makes much more sense (plus we’ve clearly found our new logo).

It is my opinion that most early applications on Facebook (portions of the screens, widgets, where third party can interact with you and your friends) were game oriented or gimmicky.  Soon thereafter many started to focus on sharing, from virtual gifts or other gimmicks (but a gigantic industry, apparently) to sharing opinions, new videos, web sites, products, brand. Bzzzing, really.

When thinking about building a Facebook application, we wanted to create something practical.  This is what went through our mind:

• Facebook has a large North America but also international user base. So do we (albeit not as large).
• Many applications on Facebook are fun but rarely useful. We’d like ours to be useful. But we also need it to be fun.
• While agents spend a lot of time in Facebook, we don’t want to re-invent BzzAgent in Facebook but we should give them access to the basics
• We need to showcase BzzAgent and agent activities within Facebook, weaved into its social network in a native, natural manner.
• Create a web service based framework to build such remote applications in the future (portable campaigns, MySpace, …)
• Build a beachfront for future (key social networking endeavors such as targeted recruitment, embedded Campaigns)

In June, we were happy to welcome our first three co-op students from Northeastern University. After a couple of month spent learning about the business and how to build features on Bzzagent.com, I trusted them with the ambitious task to build our Facebook application. So Ken E. and Jacob C. started building the application while Ryan M. acted as the QA (Quality Assurance) engineer on this project. In about 350 hours of work, with the help of Keith L. (Copy), Shawn S. (Web development), Sam C. (Product Management) and myself as acting business owner, they built a great app which we’re introducing today.

Here is what its main screen looks like (test account):

Our Facebook application includes many features beyond displaying and sharing information about your current status as a BzzAgent including:

• Profile Box
• Notification
  • Status Change
  • Campaign Invite
• Newsfeed
  • Campaign Join
  • BzzReport
  • Status Change
  • Frog
    • Frog Review written
    • Frog Review shared
    • Frog created (User generated frogs)
• Actions
  • Associating your account on BzzAgent.com with Facebook Connect, offline access
  • Submitting a BzzReport (optionally selecting the friends or family you bzz’ed)
  • Inviting friends to use the application, register with BzzAgent

We have many many other things planned for this application but in the meantime, try it out today !

Here’s what to do:

1. Add the BzzAgent application (or this one in the UK)
2. Explore the features (Submit a BzzReport from within the app, interact with the FrogPond on BzzAgent.com and see newsfeed items posted on your Facebook, …)
3. Share your feedback with us in here

Happy Social Bzzing!

I’ve left in typos that were a result of temperatures in the high forties with a 20mph wind in my face as I typed on my blackberry with icy thumbs in the right field roof grandstand. I never knew what it was like to hug complete strangers at a sporting event- now I know. The Sox are back and we’ve got a series again- spread the word…

Andy Roebuck:: You gotta be kidding me…

Aaron Cohen: Right where we want them.

Jamie Gannon: Unbelievable.

Andy Roebuck:: Not gonna happen dude- you can feel it- the rays are destiny this year- just llike we were last year- it cant be our year every year…

Aaron Cohen: It’s going to get to be 7 or 8 nothing and the Sox are going to come roaring back only to fall short.

Jamie Gannon: Sad but true.

Andy Roebuck:: There is literally no energy here- none.

Jamie Gannon: Start the wave then Andy.

Andy Roebuck:: They need a coiuple of runs this inning-

Jamie Gannon: They just said that the Sox have never lost 3 in a row at Fenway in a playoff series. So I guess that means we are going to win?

Aaron Cohen: I read the other day someone said the Boston fans have the loudest audible “ohhhh” after something bad happens. You heard it after Varitek. The fans wanted that SO bad. 1 year $8M with an infinite vesting option is what I’d offer him, I think.

Andy Roebuck:: Kudos to the crowd- tek said that they need the help from the crowd tonight and thats why they stood up for him- and what does he do? Strike out. Last game for him in boston…

Aaron Cohen: Maybe if the game is over in the 8th they’ll let masterson hit some folks?

Andy Roebuck:: That was a bomb

Aaron Cohen: *$#!, now they’ve pulled us back in.

Andy Roebuck:: Utter madness…

Jamie Gannon: Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!

Andy Roebuck:: Madness- &$^@*!& coco out at second but we got to hold em here and get petey, papi and bay to win it. $#@*!, they cant lose now…

Jamie Gannon: Best at bat ever!

Aaron Cohen: Also, Coco cut his hair?

Jamie Gannon: Only the 3rd double play he has hit into all season - wow

Andy Roebuck:: We cant lose this game- i will just die

Aaron Cohen: The champagne is chilling!

Andy Roebuck:: Was that a misfire or intentional…

Aaron Cohen: Obviously!

HOOOOOOWWWWWEEEEELLLLL HOOOOOWWEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLL

Aaron Cohen: Does JD Drew have a pulse? It’s unclear from this interview. Did Sager just reject him?

Andy Roebuck:: Holy %&*@, guys. Beckett and lester for 6 and 7- this &#$% is not over.

Bedlam…

Jamie Gannon: Frame that ticket Andy. I still can’t believe that just happened.

From: Erik D.
To: Dave D.; Dave Balter; Michele P.; Barbara C.; Kurt O.; DW; Sam C
Sent: Wed Oct 08 18:29:35 2008
Subject: Re: Preliminary FB numbers

Pulled a Balter and went ahead with sending to 1000 more today at 4:30 PM or so. By 18:30, we were at 640 total users [from the 500 original beta testers!].

Erik

This was Dave’s answer:

I once pulled a Balter. I still haven’t gotten over it.
————
Dave Balter
CEO
BzzAgent, Inc.
+1-617-451-2280

Funny guy.

Yesterday over lunch a couple of people started discussing the motive behind the board. Was it to motivate us to be involved in more programs? Was it to public ridicule the people who were not actually part of the BzzAgent community (which I am somewhat guilty of and what I thought this was). Being the smart ass that I am (and the fact that our names were attached by magnets), a colleague of mine and I moved ourselves to a newly created category called “Amazing People” above everyone else.

Of course the hard working people that had to go through and pull the 80+ employee names were less than impressed with my complete disregard for their work (Sorry Guys, wasn’t my intent).

Yesterday, we finally got an e-mail from Dave finally outlining what this all was about.

Dave’s e-mail as follows:

I’m guessing that by now some of you have noticed the list of groups on the wall near the kitchen. What gives?

Well, it’s simple: this business is built on the fact that we want Agents to be active and effective. Every element of our business has to do with keeping these folks engaged. Everyone in the company used to answer reports. We took part in every campaign. We immersed ourselves in the very thing we were preaching to others.

Yet some of us have forgotten just how important this is.

• If you create programs for Agents, how do you know what’s going to be great if you don’t experience them yourself?
• If you sell programs, what’s going to help you understand the Agent psyche?
• If you develop technology to run programs, how do you know what’s going to work?

We must practice what we preach. If you’re in the bottom bucket (shame on you!) or low on that list, change something now. Join a campaign. Report some WOM. Get to know what we do so you can make informed decisions about the business. I fully expect every person in this business to have had first hand experiences that help inform their decisions.

Remember, without the Agents, we have nothing.

While I agree that if we don’t practice what we preach, how can we effectively improve, sell and better understand our products capability and what it’s really like to be an Agent. What I’m not sure I agree with is whether employee’s activity on the front end of a BzzCampaign is the right approach.

Being an employee, you have admin access to programs. Often times you don’t qualify for the programs that you see on the admin side of things (like an upcoming Gas campaign shows up on my homepage even though the program isn’t running anywhere near boston shows up in my campaign homepage). Most importantly I don’t want to take slots away from Agents.

Here is my recommendation:

• Agents always have first choice at programs (obviously).
• If a program is struggling to fill and if a certain employees fit the target, sure we get a campaign invite to staffers to join but only after all other qualified Agents have been invited
• No BzzKits can be sent to employees unless there is overage (cost being accrued by BzzAgent, not client)

I agree with Dave it is important to always be connected to the business and our product but maybe there are other ways outside of joining campaigns. Maybe this was Dave’s goal in the first place to just get the subject out there and get people talking about how to really do it…

]]> http://blog.bzzagent.com/?feed=rss2&p=1153 http://blog.bzzagent.com/?p=1153 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BzzagentBee-log/~3/DS97h1FbRUQ/ http://blog.bzzagent.com/?p=1118#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:39:54 +0000 Allie http://blog.bzzagent.com/?p=1118 I’d like to think that I am fairly adept when it comes to technology. I inherited the tech-geek gene from my dad: I love computers, I (almost) stood in line for the iphone, and I can hook up the DVD player and cable box to the TV with my eyes shut.

However - every once in a while my computer turns on me, and I have to turn to our technology help desk. I wish I could send S.O.S. emails that say “Hi guys, smoke is coming out of the computer screen and the keyboard is shaking” but instead I have to send something ridiculous, like “Hey, I can’t move the excel window” (see below)

Minutes later, the help desk comes over, pushes less than three keys, and solves the problem. So thank you, IT help desk, for fixing my computer at least once a week without making fun of me (at least to my face).

Claude Dugas, General Manager of REDUX Media in Canada wants you to call him.

(be forewarned: terribly fuzzy cold call upon click)