fbpx

Time Management

How C2I Intel Overcomes the Knowledge Gap to Deliver the Lowdown

by

Knowledge is power, and when you’re an entrepreneur and running a small business, it’s a challenge to get sufficient people-power to catch all the relevant information and news out there. We talked with Michelle Frome, president of C2I Intel, which solves that problem by delivering that knowledge directly, providing competitor and industry intelligence to help companies gain a leg up.

image

Michelle’s path to providing the business scoop was indirect. Brought on by a company to help build an electronic medical record product, she found that she needed a way to keep track of confusing and evolving regulations, as well as keep up with competitors. She worked with programmers in Vietnam to create the technology that would automate much of that work. With the medical records project up in the air, Michelle and her team decided to focus on developing the software for business intelligence instead, bringing in review teams to help target, tailor, and finetune the research.

Read more

8 Expensive Lessons in Project Management, for Free!

by

When it comes to project management, it’s so much cheaper to learn from someone else’s mistakes. So here are a few of mine!

I’ve been running projects for my whole adult life. I started with computer games at IG. After ten years I switched to marketing and copywriting projects at Articulate Marketing, which I still run. On top of that, I’m now also CEO of Turbine, an online app for purchases, expenses, time off management and HR record-keeping.

image
Photo: Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig

Project management is the art, craft and science of getting stuff done by teams. And it’s also like walking through a minefield. These tips – based on my own experience over 20 years – will help you find your way through it.

Read more

If Money Were No Object: The Best of the Internet

by

Happy Friday! Catch up with the best of what we’ve shared on the interwebs this week! 

Chart your own path but slow down along the way.

What would you like to do if money were no object? What do you desire?

Turns out there’s something between extroverts and introverts. Dan Pink on the benefits of being an ambivert.

Communicating through the inverted pyramid.

5 things to be more effective at work.

3 Tools to Speed Up Customer Service Traffic

by

Great customer service requires great communication. LaunchBit, an ad network for email newsletters, manages a ton of communication with their publishing and advertising partners. CEO and co-founder Elizabeth Yin shares LaunchBit’s secrets to speedy, efficient customer service, dealing with high volume while maintaining high quality.

When my co-founder and I first started LaunchBit, we were working with just a handful of publishers and advertisers, and it was easy to respond to everyone. As a small startup, speed was our advantage in winning over new customers. Losing momentum with a customer was a real risk, because it was hard to gain back their interest in our product. In those beginning stages, each customer is critical.

image
Photo: Biscarotte

Very quickly, business boomed, and we found ourselves struggling just to maintain our individual inboxes. Yet, our priority remains to respond with the same high level of speed and service in order to stay fresh in the minds of our customers.

In a given week, the emails number in the low thousands. So how do we get through them all with just four full-time employees? We found that staying organized and finding tools that can fill the role of a good traffic cop, helping to direct email smartly and efficiently, work best to deliver quality customer service.

Here are three key tools we use:

Read more

Why Logic is an Unproductive Way to Address Illogical Behavior

by

As Chief Happiness Officer, Ginni ensures that iDoneThis is helping teams and companies stay connected, enhance productivity, and improve their inner work life. Every so often, a team leader will reach out to ask why some team members just aren’t getting on board. It hasn’t been a straightforward question to resolve, so Ginni reached out to friend, time coach and productivity expert Elizabeth Grace Saunders, for some help. (This is the 1st of a 3-part “Manager’s Series”.) 

Does this sound familiar?: You’ve been trying to implement a change on your team that will lead to increased productivity. Although you’ve explained why the new behavior is important and saves time, certain people won’t budge. And no amount of explaining—or even coercing—seems to bridge the disconnect between what people should do and what they actually do.

The answer to the puzzle of why people don’t do what is logical and beneficial for the individual and the team, lies deeper than you might think. In such cases, you most likely have a logic-resistant emotional issue to address.

As a time coach and trainer, and author of The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment, I’m acutely aware that addressing underlying emotional issues plays a foundational role in shifting people’s habits. That’s why in Chapter 2 of my book, I go through six crippling emotions—and how to overcome them. To get you started empowering your team in 2013, I’ll cover one of them here.

Read more