dispatches from the new world of work

100 Ways to Succeed #38:

Re-visit/Re-imagine Your VA Proposition.
Due date: 15 January.

Hyundai. Home Depot. BRANDsense (BRANDsense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, by renowned futurist Martin Lindstrom). And another wonderful little manuscript-book I received, BEYOND CODE, by Rajesh Setty. Mr Setty, founder of the IT services firm CIGNEX Technologies (and a published novelist at age 13), makes an impassioned plea for each & every IT professional to pursue dramatic difference in his or her approach to projects and career. Hence my "demand": Before you tear off (electronically erase, no doubt) 2005 calendar page January 15 ... mercilessly (alone or with one or two close pals and/or, say, a Client) examine-challenge-evaluate your Value-added Proposition. Is it ... Compelling? Does it represent ... Dramatic Difference? And remember: "If you can't state your position in eight words or less, you don't have a position"—Seth Godin. (Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore is even tougher: "I make all the launch teams tell me what the [new] magazine's about in five [!!] words or less. You cannot run alongside millions of consumers and explain what you mean. It forces some discipline on you.")

A paragraph.
8 words.
5 words.
By 15JAN.
Dramatic Difference.

Okay?

Tom Peters posted this on 01/07/05.

Comments

Tom,

I am reminded by one of the quotes you posted a few days back...

"In classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, 'Let us march.'" â€” Adlai Stevenson

Your post today definitely makes me want to GET UP & MARCH !!!

Thanks.

Posted by Dennis Balajadia at January 12, 2005 12:33 AM

"Software that helps your business work better".

I'm trying to sum up that we don't just want to deliver something based on a specification, we want to know that it's going to REALLY WORK in your business with the rest of it and will REALLY DELIVER savings/improvements.

It's not enough that a senior manager signs it off as working. I want to go back 12 months later and see people on the ground are still using it, that it delivered a benefit and the users are happy using it.

Posted by Tim Almond at January 14, 2005 5:17 PM

My VAP is: Personalized coaching to create the wow experience!

Only 7 words. I did it. To elaborate further:

It is personalized. I will take a holistic approach to the person. For example, I will consider the athlete as part of the whole person. Consider the problem as part of the company, or industry, or economy within which it operates.

It is coaching because bottom line, you, or they, need to do it. I am not going to do it. I will provide advice, encouragement, whatever is required and appropriate for the moment.

It needs to be a WOW. Anything less than that today is missed, ignored, ho-hum, not valued.

The experience is the thing. What is it that you need to do?
Improve your technical support, reduce cost in the supply chain, maximize value in the product lifecycle, or improve your individual performance.

I will bring my experience in teaching, coaching, customer service, project management, change management, process reengineering and communications skills to the table. The effort will be easy if there is passion or a playful attitude involved.

The value add I bring to this table is more than "my two cents". I have attitude of a 19-year-old but with 32 years of experience. Peter Pan is one of my heroes.

If you would like to utilize my value add, please let me know via comment or email.

Posted by Steve Sherlock at January 15, 2005 7:15 AM