Emu Bob

2009-04-18T07:36:32-07:00

Bulldog sighting: 'Biff' on Portobello Rd

Newspapers reduced to Twitter-sized articles

2009-03-06T01:07:11-08:00

Is this a trend of the future? The Australian publishes an article online with a whole 85 characters. I think republishing their ENTIRE article might constitute a breach of fair use ... but seriously where is journalism going?

GOOGLE chief executive Eric Schmidt says the US economic situation is "pretty dire".

With the economy so "dire" will all newspaper articles be less than 140 characters soon?

Quick and Easy Surveys

2008-12-18T15:08:55-08:00

Let me start by saying that at Ephox we have never really used 'employee surveys'. Whether it be to figure out buying decaffeinated or full strength coffee, gauge employee satisfaction or do 360 degree reviews we have relied on good old-fashioned communication: phone, email or a face-to-face chat.

The closest we have come is a self appraisal form that we use for annual reviews. The form asks questions such as: "What do I feel are opportunities for growth and improvement in this position?" and "Are there any changes I would like to see made in my job that would improve my effectiveness?" As a manager I know that I value the feedback and constructive conversations it prompts.

To try and take this adhoc review process to the next level we signed up for SuccessFactors. They offer a performance management solution which incorporated goal setting, performance reviews, compensation management and a lot more.

But... the complexity of SuccessFactors got the better of us. 18 months on and it still goes unused. In fairness, our company is still recovering from Post-NetSuite Implementation Stress Disorder. At this stage I am unwilling to unleash another difficult-to-use system. I came to the view that the system for managing quarterly objectives, bonus setting and performance reviews can, and probably should, be done in Word or Excel files in a company of 25 staff.

Lately I have run into some more lightweight approaches that might work just that bit better than good old MS Office.

The first was the realization that our survey software tool SurveyMonkey has a range of pre-canned surveys that might be a useful starting point. They offer 360 degree reviews, performance appraisals and more. At first glance the surveys looked quite good, can be customized and would be very easy to setup. For a laugh, feel free to fill out a survey I prepared in about 3 minutes.

The second tool I stumbled on was an interesting service called Rypple. Rypple is the Twitter of 360 degree reviews. It lets you ask 100 character questions of contacts who reply anonymously. It seems like a great idea for adhoc queries of coworkers. Like "decaf or full strength?"... although I suspect I know the answer to that one already.

The final tool I have seen but not used would be the ability to easily create forms that submit Google Spreadsheets.

I look forward to seeing which, if any, of these approaches offer an improvement.

Digg was Elanced

2008-12-16T02:09:03-08:00

Interesting tidbit...

We have used Elance from time to time on projects although not much in the past few years. Like all remote work and outsourcing we have mixed success.

Apparently Kevin Rose used Elance to find and pay a freelancer to help build the first version Digg. I guess his project worked out just fine!

A tip from the projects that we were successful on is to make sure you allocate the time to spec the project out in fine detail. In a programming project we went so far as to define a very specific test plan that the outsourcer - based in Singapore - had to pass.

An Obama Aussie Connection

2008-12-04T13:12:24-08:00

An interesting article from Robin Urban, an Aussie in the US who says Obama is the real deal:

As a very proud fifth-generation Australian and dual US/Australian citizen, I am the only native Australian member of the Harvard Law School Class of 1991 and, I would venture, the only native Australian Barack Obama befriended in his days at Harvard Law School.

The stateless micro-multinational

2008-10-02T05:01:37-07:00

Last week's Economist had an article praising the stateless multinational. The article's perspective on the new breed of global company was worth noting.

The conventional wisdom is that a global business is a bad thing as it pursues a race to the bottom for lower taxes and costs. Clearly a rational business does this but the Economist points out the alternative is no better:

The real threat comes from overly chummy links between a state and its multinationals. Although politicians may have been more comfortable in a world where what was good for General Motors was good for America, that tended to lead to protectionism and antiquated working practices. Firms in which loyalty to the state goes beyond the economic value it offers usually expect something in return—soft contracts and subsidies, perhaps, or standards conveniently set in their interest. In fact the sorry story of GM itself highlights the dangers of being a national champion. Rather than fear the stateless corporation, people would be wise to do all they can to make them feel at home in their country.

At Ephox I perceive us as a small example of a "stateless multinational." We have our engineering team in Australia, our HQ in the US (including VP Sales & Marketing, COO) and now a growing operation in Europe (including CEO and CTO).

The challenges for a global company are clearly present. Communicating ever changing priorities takes work. Our US and European team have a sales-driven perspective and our Brisbane team tends to have a more engineering-driven perspective. Getting them on the same page is, well, not easy at times. Time zones and frequent long haul travel drives us crazy.

Despite all of this the opportunities for a global company are also evident. These opportunities are also one which our Australian heritage seem reasonably well equipped for.

Australians, on the whole, tend to be tolerant and welcoming of different cultures ("I am, you are, we are, Australian"). We work hard at not wasting time and energy on conflict as conflict is 'bullshit'. Empire building and being 'too big for ones boots' is frowned upon. Australian prime minister Bob Hawke probably summed up this spirit when, on a trip to Japan, he said that we weren't going to "play funny buggers" (apparently that didn't translate well.)

Embracing a global culture whilst retaining key elements of our heritage is an ongoing project at Ephox. I guess the ultimate is to take the best elements from all of our locations and people. As the Economist article says, a "globally integrated company needs a single culture, and that the best way to foster this is to make the highest ethics anywhere in the firm the norm for everyone, wherever they are working. Anything less tends to corrode the culture."

In my experience bringing out the best, and discouraging the worst, of our cultural tendencies has to be a cornerstone of any company with operations all over the world.

(For more reading The Economist has a whole series on the topic.)

Recessions are the Brick Walls We Need to Climb Over

2008-09-01T23:35:03-07:00

This weekend we were busily packing up our house for an impending move to London. I am moving over for 12 months to help grow Ephox in Europe.

At first glance this may seem like a stupid thing to do given that Britain is facing its worst slump in 60 years. Why on earth is this a good time invest time and money in developing the market there?

The main reason was that brick walls present a challenge that is highly motivating*. I have also had an unshakable belief that great companies are built in difficult times. Warren Buffett has it right when he says to be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.

My wife and I moved to Silicon Valley in August 2002. In the week of October 8, 2002, the NASDAQ composite touched its lowest point of 1,114 and completed its ride down - way down - from its all-time high of 5,132. Over $5 trillion in market value of technology companies had been wiped out.

Was coming to the US at that time a good idea? In hindsight yes it was. The tech market wasn't any easier in Australia at the time and getting a foothold in the Valley was much easier on a shoestring in 2002. We were able to hire staff, rent premises, rent accommodation and much more without resorting to the ridiculous premiums of the dotcom era. My wife was also very lucky to get a job with Qualcomm and had stock options priced at the lowest their stock had been in 10 years. Talk about timing!!

Building a company in a recession can be a good thing for a range of reasons. Many great companies have had their formative years in tough times. I have often said that if we had arrived in the Valley a few years earlier we could easily have raised a ton of VC and long since flamed out. Getting going in the recession really focused our energies on the important things and instilled a profitable growth mentality that most start-ups never get.

Will increasing our investment in Europe - and in the US and Australia - pay off during this recession? Time will tell :)

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*Yes, I have been reading Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture.

Aussie Get Together in Palo Alto

2008-08-21T14:47:56-07:00

The Aussie expat organisation, Advance, is hosting a shindig for Australians in Silicon Valley next Wednesday August 27th at Bistro 412 in Palo Alto.

Obama Spells Baa

2008-08-19T15:51:00-07:00

Apparently, Microsoft Word now knows the difference between Obama and Osama.

This got me thinking - what does EditLive's spell checker think? Not a lot better than Word used to... the suggestions for Obama were

Baa
Bam
Badman
Bagman
Barman

Can we please add Obama to the dictionary for the upcoming EditLive! 6.5 release?

Oh, and is it too early to add Obama as a suggested synonym in the thesaurus for the word President?

Good Buzz, Expensive Healthcare

2008-08-14T10:56:06-07:00

I stumbled upon the web site for Oregon health insurance company Regence and I was immediately impressed by its clean almost Web 2.0 design. Remember this is a big, boring corporate collecting over $8 billion in premiums per year. Then I noticed their section 'The Buzz' and I was even more impressed.

Regence have done an outstanding job with a very plain English description of the challenges facing the health care industry in the United States and what we can all do about it include:

Treat your doctor like a partner
Double your motivation (to improve your own health)
Make wellness a daily to-do
Know your health risks
Safeguard your good health
Watch your wallet

Their solutions are clearly only part of the answer as healthcare in the US is a hornet's nest of problems. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see a 'big corporate' use such simple, authentic communication.

Today the news is aghast that consumer prices are up 5.6 percent. This is bad news clearly. But the news yesterday was a sense of relief that healthcare costs are up only 10.6 percent.

If a 5.6 percent increase in the CPI is viewed as shocking and 10.6 percent increase in healthcare is viewed as a relief there has to be something wrong with healthcare costs in the US!