eCommerce and

I came a cross an article in The Wholesaler about time management and thought that I would share some thoughts on a few of the points that Peter Schor listed in his article. First, here’s a link to the online version: The Wholesaler, page 32. Most of his points are pretty obvious, but some of them really stuck out to me.

The Never-ending Inbox

In the article he states “E-mailing — Block off times to process your e-mail. Twice per day should be sufficient. Avoid the temptation to check e-mail frequently.” In an eCommerce company I know the first thing I thought about this suggestion was “Pft, yeah right…twice a day my eye.” My email is ALWAYS open. Heck, I dedicate a screen to my email..., but I do see the value in this idea, especially if it is “fused” together with this suggestion: “Quickly process the paperwork that hits your in-box.” This works perfectly for me.  Schor recommends using “R.A.F.T” to help you file through you inbox in a timely fashion wherever it may be.  “R.A.F.T” is an acronym the author uses to file and process paperwork. R=Refer to another person.  A=Take Action. F=File it. T=Trash it. My “hybrid” suggestion, for eCommercers in a predominantly paperless environment is to quickly process emails that hit your inbox, and restrain yourself from checking your personal email to no more than twice a day.

Breaking Bad Habits

Another Point he makes, “Identify bad habits" — Make a list of bad habits that are stealing your time, and sabotaging and blocking your success. Then work on them one at a time to systematically eliminate them from your life. Remember, the way to eliminate a bad habit is to replace it with a better one.” My bad habit and worst enemy: Procrastination. It’s followed me all though college and still sometimes effects my daily work, though not on the same level as it affected my schoolwork. I’m sure there are other bad habits that I have, but I’m also 99% sure they stem from my ability to procrastinate like no other. Some ways that I have tried to overcome my procrastination in the past is to make a list of things that must get done in that given day, which Schor mentions earlier in his article.  It really does help to see everything that has to get done and it gives you a goal to work toward. I will also be using “RAFT” to further combat the never ending battle with my nemesis.

Just say No

And my personal favorite: “Say No” — We say “yes” to others because we want to please others. But when eventually we can’t continue, we let them down and feel guilty. Both parties suffer. Recognize that a genuine desire to please often prevents us from saying “no.” FINALLY! Someone said it.  I know that there are not enough fingers and toes in the world, ok that might be drastic… but there are definitely not enough in Gordian Project to count how many times I have said “yes” when I’m screaming “no”.  I don’t have a good solution on how to say no without the other person being upset, but I do have a reasonable recommendation (provided the person you are dealing with is "reasonable"). If you are confronted with this situation and a co-worker is asking you to do something that is in line with the company’s goals, add it to your list of priorities where it makes the most sense. If the request is out of line with the company’s goals, tell them no and explain your reasons.

Don’t forget: We will never get caught up, but understanding that alone can help reduce your stress and increase your productivity. It’s a weird thought, I know, but there is always tomorrow, and we all know that if it doesn’t get done today it will be there tomorrow. So why stress?

---

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

You have to love a day of the year when it is pretty much a requirement to dress up. However, that day becomes so much better when your place of work cuts back the dress code and lets all of the employees dress up to their hearts content (work appropriate of course). Wearing your Halloween costume to work has become a staple of life at the Gordian Project, this year being no exception. Over half of the office dressed up to celebrate, Zach barbecued, all the Michael Jacksons danced, Vanessa roller skated, and there was no shortage of hot dog jokes. Needless to say some hilarity ensued, pictures below.

 

The managers meeting hit an all time high for creativity.

The data team all participated. From left: Edward from Twilight, Batman, Spock, and a biker.

 

Tribute to Michael Jackson featuring different years of his life.

The marketing team in full swing.

The whole team.

Until next year... Happy Halloween!

 

---

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

If you’ve spent any time reading though the eCommerce and Entrepreneurship blog, you’ve seen the difficulties the company engages in. These “journal entries” of sorts, are an opportunity for our employees to express what hardships they’ve gone through and what positive and negative outcomes come from their experiences. The blog is a legitimate forum for venting, learning, growing and sharing; aka an HR manager’s best friend. Everyone’s blog entries have enough of their personal stories laced through them that these entries become a useful means for HR to check out what lies just under the surface at the company. Under the surface is where you’ll find people’s motivations, perspectives and a look at how they view themselves in comparison to others. What better way for me is there to find out what is going on at our eCommerce business than to read the online commentaries detailing employee’s experiences?  Of course there are details and extreme circumstances that should not be displayed publicly and should be treated with the upmost confidentiality, but when it comes to the company’s everyday lifestyle, the blog is a great tool to use when figuring out where the Lifestyle Pillar meter should be rated.

Gordian Project’s eCommerce and Entrepreneurship blog of course has its intended strategic business purposes, but it is not there just so we can share with the world what mistakes we’ve made and what successes we’ve mastered.  The blog lets us look at ourselves to see how we’re doing, what frustrates us, how we can make our retail websites a better place for us to be productive and enjoy coming to work. If there is anything we can do to make our employees just “not hate coming work”, but look forward to going to work everyday, it will be better for the employees and better for the company. 

Take for example those who have been involved in our OutdoorPros Adventure Team, activities outside of the office have sparked relationships and growth inside of the office.  I’ll let some of the pictures speak for themselves:

But I know what you’re thinking…. “We’re here to run a business, not a daycare”. Of course I understand the extremes associated with letting employees be “happy”. I am not advising for a lack of structure that ends up with work becoming a video game palace and online shopping café, but rather, I’m promoting growth of employee ownership and self-investment in their everyday work. Making work enjoyable allows employees to build commitment in their intimate relationship with the company. Happy employees equal productive employees and if they’re unhappy, I guarantee it will end up on the company blog.

 

---

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you look at the history of work we can see that the way wages were calculated has changed quite a bit. Before the invention of the assembly-line production people’s pay was determined by the amount of work done. After the great restructuring, pay was measured by the amount of time or hours it took to get work done. As of recent there has been talk about whether the End of Time-Based Management is near. Before we determine whether work environment will be going back to its roots, we need to understand what ROWE (Results-only Work Environment) is.

ROWE was developed by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, Best Buy HR Managers. ROWE is a management view which believes that trusting employees to manage their time will increase productivity in the workplace. Departments that have been using ROWE have reported increased amount of productivity, Best Buy alone had a 35 percent increase. Recently, Gap Outlet migrated 137 Corporate Headquarters employees to Results-Only Work Environment and their success has been amazing; according to Cali and Jody’s blog “voluntary turnover rate dropped by 50 percent and employee engagement rose by 13 percent”.

How it works:
“In a Results-Only Work Environment, people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.” This isn’t just time flexibility, according to Cali and Jody a true ROWE has unlimited paid vacation time, no set schedules, no mandatory weekly meetings, and no judgments from co-workers or bosses about how employees spend their days. Trust is one of the key elements of ROWE, managers must trust employees to get their work done so that their performance and pay can be evaluated based on what they accomplished, not how many hours they spent looking “busy” at work.

Why it works:
ROWE forces all employees and managers to be clear about their job descriptions and expectations. Teams learn how to work together more effectively while motivating and retaining employees. Though ROWE can also expose underperformance, the end result provides a company with stronger teams that can make the company grow.

Who it works for:
ROWE would work for anyone whose work revolves around projects or tasks. However, in order for ROWE to be effective, there needs to be a strong goal-oriented manager that can provide employees with a clear understanding of what is expected of them. ROWE is a bit complicated when it comes to hourly employees or those whose jobs do not entail completion of projects; but the shifting from thinking about work in terms of time to thinking about work based on performance can still be effective.

Moving a department to ROWE is a drastic change that companies might not be willing to make. However, though the complete program might not be a feasible option, adopting new habits that can refocus your team on results instead of time-based, can be of a great benefit as well. Whether you decide to make the big change or not, I suggest that you first read Cali and Jody’s list of 10 ways to get ROWE working for your team.

 

---

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

Our Supply Chain Management department has been not only growing in size, but also in responsibilities. Our team has literally tripled in size over the last year, but along with that we have more projects and actual deadlines. As scary as that might sound our team is in the process of not only knowing what team work is all about but truly understanding it. I am, like many of you might be, the kind of person that agrees with the statement “If you want something done right, do it yourself”, but there is a point in which one person can’t do all things and delegation is about handing over authority, projects, tasks, etc. This is a scary concept for many because a person can’t know 100% of what will occur once responsibilities are handed over.

Delegating has been one of the hardest things for me to learn and a recurrent process.  There is continual room for improvement in the effectiveness of how, where and who you delegate to.  If there’s anything that I have learned thus far about delegation is that it’s a two-way process. If the individual assigning responsibilities are competent in delegating to the department but the employees receiving the tasks don’t understand what the process should be or what is being asked of them, then the process will break. The same goes if the situation is reversed.  These four suggestions will help you begin to develop your delegation skills and avoid potential errors in the future:
 
Choose the Right Person
Consider what that person can bring to the task and how the task will impact that person. One of the rewards of delegating is that you allow that person to grow in the experience and perhaps even in the company. In other words, your reason for considering a person should be more than “I like this person a lot – they laugh at my jokes all the time”.

Explain the Task
Always provide the “what” the “when” and if possible the “how”. Assuming that the person will know exactly what to do and what you expect is an unfair expectation. Please note that picking up your dry cleaning, making coffee, and getting you lunch, are not appropriate tasks to be delegating.

Provide Support
It is important to be available for any questions or concerns that the person may have. The fact is that people learn with experience; there will be times when a person might complete a task perfectly with little to no guidance, but the truth of that matter is that everyone needs a little direction and support. Check in with them often and do not discourage questions – the more questions they ask the better they will understand the project.

Give Feedback
Constructive feedback is the most valuable way to improve performance. Note exactly what it was that the person did that blew you away. Once you tell them what they did well, then you can also give them advice on what they can improve upon.

Businessballs.com has an easy to use SMART planner template which can help you dive right in to designating projects to your team. Once you feel like your expertise in delegating has advanced you can remove tasks on your own “To Do List”; giving you the opportunity to focus on larger projects that can more effectively impact the company. I leave you with this quote by Robert Half “Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too”.

---

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.

You may already know that Gordian Project users are in the cloud.  Well, on Tuesday, we hit our second bump in the road with Google Apps. An outage. You may say to yourself, "An outage? With Google Apps? Really?" Well. Yes. Really. Totally freakin' down. Apparently, Google had an issue Tuesday morning that brought down the email interface for apps users.  Déjà vu?

Here is the error I got in Chrome:

 

At first I thought to myself, "Hmmm. That's weird." So I literally waited 30 seconds and tried again. Same thing. So I asked the person next to me to try. Same thing. So, I tried my iPhone and got:

 

OK. Seems likely to be a global problem. So, I alerted users on our network that I was aware of an issue with Google Apps and was looking into it. Because the error says, "Please try again in 30 seconds.” I figured it would be a temporary outage and waited only a few minutes. The problem persisted. So I checked Google News and, sure enough, there's a widely recognized outage. From the news, I noticed two things that were particularly interesting:

1. I wonder if the "tip-toeing" of wave into apps created yesterday's havoc.
2. Google has an Apps Status Dashboard

So, after I found out that there was an Apps Status Dashboard, I checked it out and here's what I got:

Google, why didn't you show this to me on the 502 error page? Instead, you told me to try every 30 seconds. I can't imagine how many people wasted hours of their day refreshing every 30 seconds to try to get to critical email. You may remember this article highlighting good custom error pages.

After the incident was stabilized, Google posted an incident report here. According to the report, Google "underestimated the increased load that some of the new updates placed on request routing." Not sure what the "new updates" were, but it doesn't seem like Google should underestimate the anticipated load.

Noting the red "X" by Google Mail, I clicked on it at 1:48 PM to find:

 

It says there will be an update at 1:53 PM, so I waited until 1:58 PM and clicked again:

 

Hey! Wait just a second! Ten minutes ago there was not an update at 1:02 PM. What gives Google? Don't you know that 45 minutes after I announced it to everyone, people are still coming to my desk to say "Hey Josh. My email's down."? Please, just tell me what I need to know when you know it! Also, I love that there is a link to the "How to use IMAP or POP", where the first step outlined is to "Enable POP or IMAP in your Google Apps email account". I can't get to my apps account! Then I realized, I already had IMAP enabled on my account and had it set up in Outlook. So, I started up Outlook... only to be woefully reminded of why I wanted desperately to switch to Google Apps to begin with. I quit Outlook before I even used it, as it was either Outlook or every other application, and a choice had to be made. Instead, I waited for the Google update. At 2:40 PM I refreshed the Status Dashboard to find:

 

Hooray! We're back up! Not without a few lessons.

1. Google, or any other cloud service provider, when a critical service goes down, don't show me an error that tells me to retry every 30 seconds; especially if that's not really what you want me to do. Send me to the place with the relevant information. I know, based on your incident reports, that you "published ongoing reports to the Google Apps dashboard, Gmail Help Center, the Enterprise and Gmail blogs, and the GoogleAtWork and Google Twitter feeds, to help provide customers with the latest status and available workarounds.", but the error was unhelpful. Please don't make me Google it.


2. IT managers, if you're going to start using SAAS and cloud enabled services, find out, in advance, what the notification mechanism is for outages. In this case, it would have been a simple thing to have added the Apps Status Dashboard to one of my feeds.


3. Don't count on Google Apps, or any other cloud service being available 100% of the time. If you have a critical meeting or a conference call that requires you to have a cloud stored document or email or presentation up and ready to go, make sure it's ready and pulled up long before your event, or make sure to store it locally, as well. Also, based on Google's comments, it may be good to enable IMAP on your account just in case you can't web-surf your email; at least then you can get to critical emails with Outlook or Thunderbird.
   

---

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

I recently moved into a new role at the Gordian Project, and as I was trying to wrap my mind around my new responsibilities I had a rather candid conversation with my manager about how as a team leader I should be making decisions on a higher level, and that those decisions should be based on “the big picture” for the company.  I realized, that in my previous position I didn’t really allow myself to think critically or pursue ideas that could help the company as a whole because I felt like there were too many other daily tasks that I had to accomplish.  I had a job to do, a task to complete, and that was my role.  I was finally able to take the blinders off and see the bigger picture for the first time.  But how do we lose sight of the big picture in the first place? Is it really because of the position we hold or is it a habit we get ourselves into?

We all have our own opinions on the questions above, but I think it would be helpful (for me at least) to make some of the solutions visible so we don’t “put the blinders” back on.

1. Keep a list of your high-level ideas.  Keeping a list of your ideas can help in a number of different ways.  It can help with organization and focus, especially if you are directly working on one of those ideas, because we all know interruptions are going to take place at some point.  It can be a self-esteem booster when the idea well seems to be dry; and it can be a great tool to show what you’ve accomplished and what can still be done.  It may also be useful to organize your list by short term and long term ideas.  This way you are able to see what can be accomplished quickly in order to jump start improvements and capitalize on any low hanging fruit.
   
   
2. Ask yourself “How will this affect the company?” Ahh... those that don’t enjoy their jobs are thinking of Office Space right now; I happen to have a different opinion but can enjoy the humor none the less. By asking this key question you should be able to determine if the idea is something that will be helpful or something that could be put on the back burner.  When asking yourself how the idea will help the company it will open the door to a number of other questions, including but not restricted to: How it will affect the bottom line? How it will affect a process currently in practice?  How it will burden or improve other departments?  How it supports or hinders current or upcoming projects or paths? These questions can help determine if you put your idea on the short term or long term list or toss it out all together.
   
   
3. Keep thinking forward.   Continue to research and think about new and inventive ways to help your company improve.  Thinking forward will keep you stay fresh and relevant in an ever-changing business climate.
   
   

These tips can be used regardless of the position you hold in your company.  The bottom line is that we all have an effect on what happens at our workplace.  Sometimes we feel useless and unable to help, but this is simply not true.  It’s really easy to go to work and do what you have to do, but wouldn’t the work experience mean more if we remembered that we can make a difference in how our company performs?  I hope the blinders come off earlier for others, we spend a lot of time in the workplace, we may as well gain visibility and make it worthwhile.

 

---

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

I recently took a trip to the Philippines where I had the opportunity to help out at an orphanage as well as working on some philanthropic construction projects. Although the work I was doing was hard and repetitive, I had a great time and was able to maintain my energy and enthusiasm throughout the trip. Once I returned, I started thinking about the causes and effects of that experience, and how they could be applied to a business environment.

Most people want to do something worthwhile with their lives. Few people are content to simply work for a paycheck they spend on themselves. Many people choose to donate their money or volunteer their time to a cause they support, and even those who don't, often feel they should. Doing good makes us feel good, and helps us stay enthusiastic and focused. In the same way people spend their personal resources, they also react to their jobs. People want to do a job that's personally fulfilling, a job that accomplishes something worthwhile. Of course, not all of us can work at a philanthropic organization. However, we can still be doing something meaningful even if that's simply making the world a better place by leaving our customers satisfied. In college, I was the leader of a team of people who did, essentially, janitorial work. This was not a glorious job. However, I emphasized to my team that our job was to perform an essential service with superior quality, and the policies and goals I set reflected that. Because of that, my team maintained consistently high morale and an excellent service record.

Another phenomenon both experiences taught me was the benefit that doing good gives to team interaction. People that work together on a project they believe in tend to have higher camaraderie and work together more efficiently. This probably has several causes: they are inevitably like-minded people drawn to the same cause, and they receive positive reinforcement as they see each other playing out the individual benefits I mentioned above. People who are enthusiastic and enjoy what they do tend to like and work well with others who do the same, additionally gratification in assignments will drive focused attention to the project, all of which increase efficiencies.

All of this is fairly straightforward: it's no secret that we want our team members to care about what they do. But it is one thing to want something and quite another to have it. How do we instill this atmosphere in our business? The first and most important step is to have a business worth believing in. That means your goal has to be to provide superior goods or services that actually help people, not simply to make money. Secondly, you must clearly show your team members how your business does that. Third, they need to know their place in the system and how they contribute. Finally, they need to have active participation in improving the process. When team members believe that their active participation has a real positive effect in the world, they'll naturally gain that enthusiasm that helps them do the best job they can.

---

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I’ve been thinking about something lately and I need your help. Can someone please tell me why every article, blog post, news report, or ANY informational piece in our space has had recession tunnel vision?  Entrepreneurs in eCommerce have quickly shifted focus from the latest fads and trends in user interfaces and vendor partnerships to best practices in hiring, strategic cash plans, etc. and all as a result of the recession.

It seems that the recession is the driving factor behind the influx of attention made on best business practices.  This just cracks me up – as if these things should not be a major focus in BOOM times.  We should be doing this (concentrating on efficiencies, market share, employee retention rates, etc.) all the time!!  I have to admit, I am guilty of writing posts like this myself.  Just imagine if all of the business owners, politicians, whoever should be named, crunched these same numbers when the economy wasn’t forcing everyone to pay attention and do so?  What if we were motivated and “entrepreneurial” enough to make these meticulous calculations when things were going well?  If we all acted as if “economic Armageddon” (as we all like to call it around here) was just around the corner, just think about how much leaner and meaner our businesses, industries and economy would be as a result.  Those that are successful, those that survive and move through these difficult times are those that are proactive, those that are prepared and ready for what’s next, they create their own competitive advantage in doing so.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand that different times call for different strategies, but it just seems like strategies such as particular hiring, sensible cash plans and market share maneuvers are important regardless of what the economy is doing.  How about from now on, don’t just ride the market cycles, drive them.

---

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

I recently read Jason Calcanis’ newsletter regarding the current hiring environment entitled, "How to Hire – and Get Hired – in a Recession".  This newsletter spoke mostly of how important it is to be a hard worker and how important it is to hire someone who is willing to work hard. He admitted that it sounded a little obvious, but still had many legitimate and important suggestions regarding the subject. I would like to advise readers of Jason’s newsletter that our economic position can cause a lax attitude when it comes to the subject of hiring and reply with a few things to consider before making any drastic changes.

1. Understand what the unemployment numbers are really saying:  Yes, the overall unemployment rate might be 10%, but that doesn’t mean the employee you are looking for necessarily comes out of that unemployment pool. High school grads have the highest unemployment rate at (10-15%), while college grads are in the middle (7-9%), and graduate degree earners have little unemployment problems at all (2-3%).  Jason said he received 200 resumes for one $10/hr job posting. That would make sense considering that the $10/hr job would most likely (not always) be picking from the high school graduate pool with the highest unemployment rate.  So the next time you’re thinking, “I know the pickins are good and I can just replace that person”, think of what group that person comes from and how hard it might really be to replace someone. This leads to my next warning…


2. Don’t let your attitude turn into “my employees are dispensable”.  Remember that your employees are the people that you have entrusted to run the day to day functions of your business and these responsibilities shouldn’t be taken lightly. They can mean the difference between profits and losses. If you treat your employees as if they are dispensable, they will treat your business as if it was dispensable. This leads to my next point…


3. Pay the Price: Jason talks a lot about hiring someone who is obsessed with work and who is willing to work late, extra hours etc.  Remember that type of employee comes with a price and you better be willing to pay that price for that type of commitment.  This doesn’t mean that you have to pay more money necessarily. Really, paying the price can be as simple as recognizing that your employees are working hard.  I’m not sure any staff member would appreciate being told that they are replaceable let alone the “work-a-holic”.  Rarely being recognized for the hard work that they do can be a larger detriment than monetary compensation to some.  Individuals that are that dedicated to their work, who spend their personal hours to improve your business, look for recognition.  A little encouragement goes a long way.

Jason is right; I agree that hiring the hard worker will be the best for your business.  Please remember however, not to take advantage of these people or let the unemployment rate change your appreciation of your employees.  Your employees are the ones running your business. Treat them with respect and they will keep making your company a profitable one.

---

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.