Comments

I think it worthwhile to revisit Pareto on the heels of Tom's comments here. What one quickly discovers is that Pareto is alive and well: 80% or the results will come from 20% of the efforts. So what about the 80% of the efforts that APPEAR to be wasted? Those are the experiments that don't work out. I'm totally with Tom. Try LOTS of things. I love his idea of "screw around vigorously." Remember that Edison didn't create a light bulb in one try -- he tried THOUSANDS of things to create the filament. But in the end, he achieved it. His take on the supposed failures was that along the way he simply proved that thousands of things would NOT work to make a lightbulb. And you won't find in bold text in a history book "Thomas Edison PROVED that a rubber band doesn't work for a lightbulb filament." Nobody cares about Edison's "failures." But the world sure changed when he ran out of things that failed, didn't it?

As always, thanks to T.P. for "nudging" all of us and reminding us that no matter how hard you work at achieving the BIG things, it will ultimately be attention to the little things that gets you there. A point I think he and Waterman made very poignantly in "In Search of Excellence." You would think that after (sheesh) years "management" would wrap their heads around the notion. Unfortunately, that still doesn't seem to be the norm for far too many. But in a nutshell, you have a much better chance of seeing 100% improvement if you start by finding 100 things you can do at least 1% better. I'm certainly not too proud to admit that I could. Every day. I'll share my own example/proof/self-lesson.

My key client at this time is a dermatologist. I took over his website back in January. Despite the fact the site had existed for about six or seven years, he was seeing between 400 and 600 page views for his site per month as of December 2008. Since then, through a lot of sweat and pencil gnawing, I've brought that up to almost 7,000 page views per month as of March. An over ten-fold increase.

Did we do that with major, sweeping changes, searchlights, and a lot of fanfare? Nope. While we did expand the content and freshen things up greatly, the biggest improvements to the success for his website have come from thousands (literally) of seemingly tiny tweaks. Changing just ONE keyword here, altering a word in a page title metatag there, one more or one less appearance of a keyword on a single page... all geared toward making the site more search engine friendly while at the same time making sure that once a visitor finds the website, it's actually worth looking at. Sort of a variation on Tom's "Work Worth Paying For" theme. As I see it, a person's time IS valuable, thus the time they invest viewing the site had better have some R.O.I. of some sort. And apparently it does, as it has all translated into calls to his office and new patients.

As any other S.E.O. person will tell you, the adage "the genius is in the details" could not be more true than it is with website optimization. A few t-i-n-y changes can equate to results worth popping a cork over. We have.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 15, 2009 9:22 AM

"A few t-i-n-y changes can equate to results worth popping a cork over."

Dan, absolutely--the Web is Exhibit A of this approach!

Posted by tom peters at April 15, 2009 9:31 AM

Dan - You the man! Thanks for your comment. I'll pop over to your website and drop you an email. Perhaps you can assist us with a few websites. That would be good.

Posted by Judith Ellis at April 15, 2009 9:53 AM

Judith,

I didn't comment in order to solicit business by any means, but I will humbly be glad to help if I am the right person to do so.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 15, 2009 1:31 PM

Nice set of slides. I take exception to the philosophy of Craig Johnson, though. Sounds too much like he wants to run the operation because he has invested in it. I bet he has lost many opportunities by his 20 mile rule over the years.

Dan--has this increase in website visits equaled an increase in patients for your doctor client? I think that would be the more appropriate metric wouldn't it?

Posted by Useless Sam Grant at April 15, 2009 2:17 PM

Very valid question, USG, and to answer it, yes, it indeed has. That is ultimately one of the major goals, although providing valuable information online for existing patients is also part of our mission. As I mentioned before, his website was not accomplishing much of anything for this client before. For a couple of years, he had been pondering the idea of learning web design for himself and trying to take it on. But he also knew he wanted to remain focused on patient care, meaning he didn't want to get bogged down trying to learn what other people know and do on a daily basis.

According to the front desk staff, numerous new patients are telling them that the website was the "referral source." And as I told this client from the beginning, my objectives are to (1) provide him very high quality, effective web design & SEO services -- exceeding his expectations -- and (2) always maintain a high level of trust between the two of us. Goal #2 is absolutely necessary, as the achievement of goal #1 (defining "effective") means increased business... intentionally to the point that he doesn't have TIME to sit around and ponder his website and marketing efforts because he's too busy taking care of patients. It is working.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 15, 2009 3:08 PM

Dan G.--Cool. Too many make the mistake of the "hits" being the metric and not realizing that hits have to turn into business somehow.

Posted by Useless Sam Grant at April 15, 2009 3:59 PM

Hits is not a bad starting point!

Posted by tom peters at April 15, 2009 4:02 PM

LOL. Very true. Just because you build it, doesn't mean they will come. The web is the new "shingle" that you dangle out there for your business. Only thing is, you better know exactly how and where to position that shingle to make it seen. Otherwise, you've got yourself a pretty looking piece of work that ends up in the "Gee, sure would have been nice" category.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 15, 2009 4:20 PM

Dan - I did not get that impression at all. But it's all good. I appreciate your tone and words here and in other posts. I'll drop you a note sooner rather than later. We can go from there. Perhaps you can assist us. Later...

Posted by Judith Ellis at April 15, 2009 5:51 PM

Tom,

Just finished going through the slides you were kind enough to share with this post, and thought I'd in turn share this with you. Indeed, the "parking lot" experience at Disney does leave an impression. I have been to DisneyWorld numerous times. But I can still -- to this very day -- remember something one of the tram drivers spoke over the P.A. as we approached the park entrance: "As you exit the tram, please lower your head and watch your step. If you DON'T lower your head and watch your step, then please lower your voice and watch your language." Whether or not such humor makes you grin a little, the amazing fact is that he said this as we were about to exit the tram -- 31 YEARS AGO.

Little things. Lasting impressions. Perhaps there isn't much "space" between the two.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 15, 2009 8:23 PM

"Little things. Lasting impressions. Perhaps there isn't much "space" between the two."

Dan, that reminds me of one of my "Top 10" favorite quotes, from Henry Clay: “Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.”

Back to Blogs, I'd add that my other "rule" is: IT MUST BE PERSONAL! Not meaning the likes of brainless tweets on toilet paper quality at the airport loo, but you must give of yourself. (Robert Scoble taught us that at Microsoft.)

Posted by tom peters at April 16, 2009 8:00 AM

Tom, thanks for the quote. Quite simply, there really is no such thing as "a little thing" when your business involves people. I always keep in mind a derivation of what you've tried to so diligently to pound into our brains: if your business involves people, then you have to pay attention to the details. And EVERY business ends up being about people, even if on the surface it seems to be about a "lumpy object." I'm certainly not in the business of trying to please or satisfy a computer or television screen. It's the person using either that has a need that's begging to be addressed. And it feels great to be able to do so. Technology is cool. It's really rocking these days. But what we can ACHIEVE with it -- that's WAY COOL!

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 16, 2009 9:13 AM

Dan/Tom – great exchange – thanks. I’ve written 950 Blog postings on my own Simplicity Blog in 51 months. I have responded personally to every comment. I average around 12 comments per posting. I love the technology and it facilitates an opportunity for me to engage in relationship building through my Blog. I love the exchanges; I love making friends through it; I love the learning; I love using it as a platform for expressing my views; I use it to test out my thoughts and change them on reflection as comments come in. My Blog is simply a technology assisted conversation. But I have absolutely no doubt – the technology is merely the servant and not the master. To me Twitter is very poor in comparison to Blogging - it feels like a cheap form of instant gratification - but hey - what the hell do I know?

Posted by Trevor Gay at April 16, 2009 10:49 AM

Ironic that you mention Twitter. I broke down last weekend and activated it on my mobile device. I'm about to either deactivate it on the mobile, or go block all but a couple of folks, because I'm getting a ton of "noise," so to speak. Information overload. When the television station's news team Tweets an actual news headline = okay. Sending just a "Good morning" = annoyance. Tom was talking earlier about the differences between those details and little things that make a difference or don't. Here's the third possibility: the little things that actually become irritating to people. This one just backfired on the TV station because they now lose the opportunity to serve me and tease me into watching their news. I rarely watched them before this week, but they were doing well at stirring my curiosity. In the last 24 hours they've gotten carried away with it. Oops. Experiment gone wrong. On both ends, perhaps.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 16, 2009 1:04 PM

Dan – thanks for that. I'm still trying to work out whether Twitter can help me in a business context – I’m not convinced. We are all different of course but my style is to get to know a few people really well and from that to develop relationships. This is better for me than having hundreds of people as following/followers. That just feels like ‘spreading the butter too thin’ as my 80 year old Mum might say. So what if you have 1000 followers or if you are following 1000 people? I just don’t think that is a productive use of my time. I would much rather have 30 regular contacts with whom I can develop a relationship. This is what I achieve through my Blog so I guess for me (so far at least) Twitter offers no added value. Interesting times.

Posted by Trevor Gay at April 16, 2009 1:51 PM

Trevor, I agree wholeheartedly. I went over a little while ago and looked at who I was following on Twitter. Culled the list that actually comes to my cell phone down to an enormously large list of TWO. As for who's following ME? There are 33. And I only know who maybe half a dozen or so of them are. With the exception of shooting and producing videos for AT&T YellowPages.com's (I do those on a subcontract basis, which means lots of different short-term projects/clients) my core business consists at any given time of four to five clients who get a LOT of attention.

I'm not just saying this for effect, but I vividly recall sitting in an auditorium in Atlanta, Georgia in September 1999 while a man named Tom Peters was speaking very sternly about practicing "serial monogamy." And I stood up that day and swore that I was going to cull the list. And I did. If I didn't take away anything else from that day that one idea alone was worth tons.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 16, 2009 3:07 PM

BTW, Trevor,

Have you seen Google's latest brainchild? It's called "Latitude." If you have and your "friends" have mobile devices compatible with the service, you can actually upload your position (by GPS capability, I assume) along with your status information, and everyone can see where everyone else is on a map, complete with profile pictures and status info, right there on the mobile devices. I think that if I want so badly for someone to see my face and where I am physically located that badly, I'll load 'em up and take 'em with me to start with.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 16, 2009 3:33 PM

“my core business consists at any given time of four to five clients who get a LOT of attention.”

Ditto Dan – I like that

Small is not only beautiful but also manageable. It makes me smile when I hear certain celebrities over here boasting on radio or TV about how many thousands of 'friends' they have on ‘My space’, ‘Facebook’ and the like. These are not ‘friends’ – it is an abuse of a special word. It is merely an ego trip for the person boasting.

I haven’t heard of 'Latitude' and I don’t think I want to find out too much about it. I just received my friend Tom Asacker’s latest newsletter and found this hilarious entry:

“The McInnes family of Hungerford, U.K., discovered that their teenage son Rory had painted a 60-foot penis on the roof of the family home to see if it would show up on Google Earth. A helicopter pilot noticed, and when flummoxed father Andy McInnes asked Rory why there was a giant penis on the roof, the teen said, "Oh, you've found it, then."

Don't you just love it?

On a slightly more serious note why the hell are we now so obsessed with knowing everything about everything ..... and not only that we demand to know it NOW! :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at April 16, 2009 4:21 PM

Trevor, I'm still busy just trying to figure out what it is I don't know and need to know. Seriously, sometimes I think we get so doggone wrapped up in trying to have all the answers that we deny ourselves the chance to explore new questions. Would you agree that a crucial part of experimenting, as Tom recently got us to thinking about again, is a willingness to do that?

Suddenly, I'm recalling a bit of a poem (hopefully I'm not pushing copyrights sharing this much of it, but I feel compelled to share it, and hope those of a non-poetic bent will forgive the brief aside.) It's from a poem called "The Art of Catching Trains," by Rod McKuen:

"Sometimes I feel I've always been
just passing through.
On my way away, or toward.
Shouting alleluias at an unseen choir
or whispering Fa-do's down beneath my breath
waiting for an echo
not an answer.
Everybody has the answers
or they'll make them up
for you.

Just once I'd like to hear
a brand-new question."

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 16, 2009 6:06 PM

Dan - I agree 100% about exploring new questions. I recall in my corporate healthcare career I once suggested we all move desks in HQ every six months so we sat opposite someone new from a different team. My rationale was I felt we would all learn something new and therefore the whole organisation gains. Unsurprisingly (to me) I was the only one who moved. Most of my colleagues probably thought I had gone a bit crazy. We all get stuck in our 'institution' – that might be just a chair – or a certain part of the office. It is our comfort zone and we all need that sometimes. I found moving out of my own ‘comfort zone’ after 35 years in a secure career the best thing I ever did four and a half years ago. Seeking out new questions is a wonderful journey and often takes us to destinations we could never have imagined.

I love the poem by the way.

Posted by Trevor Gay at April 16, 2009 6:20 PM

Trevor, we're kindred spirits, in a way. I spent years in the healthcare biz, too. First as an R.N., and eventually in hospital risk management/quality improvement. That said, I'm sure you know what I'm referring to by "root cause analysis" in regard to sentinel events. Yes, we used the Ishakawa diagrams and all the fancy-shmancy tools. But the best "tool" I ever found was actually one of the quite simplest. Peter Senge, Rick Ross, et al, referred to it simply as "The five why's." Each time you ask a "Why" question and THINK you have the answer, try asking "Why" that underlying issue exists. Unfailingly, by the time we dug down dive five layers deep, each of us leaving my conference room had nearly a briefcase full of things to go to work on.

Solutions don't always involve high technology and sophisticated means of finding those "answers." Sometimes the best solution is to dig for the underlying issues in a way that truly amounts to "digging for questions."

You probably have read them, but I highly recommend "The Fifth Discipline," "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook," and "The Dance of Change." All by Peter Senge, et al. Most of my healthcare colleagues never CARED to know how I arrived at my methods and ideas. They just cared that they worked. Many came from those three books.

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 16, 2009 7:20 PM

Dan – We do indeed have a lot in common. My career was in healthcare management from a junior clerk in 1969 when I was 16 until 2004 when I left to do my own thing. I have come across the ‘5 Why’s’ and have tried it a few times and sure enough it does get to the fundamentals of the issue under discussion. I've come across Peter Senge though I’m ashamed to say I have not read his books!

Like you, I love it when simplicity triumphs over jargon and complexity.

Posted by Trevor Gay at April 17, 2009 9:59 AM

We do sometimes learn the hard way, don't we? Tom's teachings are a good example. It ain't rocket science. But it never fails... after a company spends $thousands ($millions?) on customer surveys, consultants, focus groups, statistical analysis software, yada yada yada... the solutions tend to make you pop your forehead with your palm and say "D'uh." Because they were right in front of you. I hope Tom won't be upset with me for bringing this up, but one of the things I've heard him say that really sticks in my mind is his definition of what a consultant does: "He borrows your watch then charges you to tell you what time it is." Really good consultants -- in any field -- rarely "invent" the solutions. But their work is priceless when they bring you to that "A-HA!" moment and see the solutions that were available all along.

"I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on the near side of complexity. But I'd give my right arm for the simplicity on the FAR side of complexity."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes --

Posted by Dan Gunter at April 17, 2009 10:16 AM

Great analysis Dan. All the problems I ever saw in my career in healthcare management were never solved by a consultant’s magic wand. The consultant merely tells the managers what they should/do already know – it’s just that they had not stopped the world for a while to look for the solution. The real skill of a consultant is to make himself/herself credible with the senior team; get them to see the problem through a new lens; and then just get on and implement the change. I love your quote by the way – this is one of my favourites.

“Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple” – C W Ceran

Posted by Trevor Gay at April 17, 2009 4:35 PM