Opp Biz Dev

Making Virtual Teams Work

Interesting article.  Probably should have posted it to my Life and Technology blog, but it's kind of appropriate to opportunity and business development too. 

Link: The Future of Work Weblog.

Professor's Gratton's article reports on a research study she and her colleagues recently conducted to identify "best practices" that contribute to the productivity and performance of distributed teams. In brief, she offers eight specific guidelines:

1. Invest in an online resource where members can learn quickly about each other.

Meebo: Should Tech Start-Ups Begin In The Valley?

Here's an interesting POV on the value of booting up a techno-startup in Silicon Valley from the folks at one of my favorite online tools, Meebo.

Link: meeblog » meeblog.

From time to time, someone will call or write about turning one of their ideas into a startup. It’s always really fun to chat with folks like this… you get to hear some pretty nifty ideas, see what folks think are emerging areas, and just get to know someone new. One question that always comes up in these conversations is “do I need to be in Silicon Valley?”

Are we just being distracted these days?

These are wise words.  The Distraction Factor is so high these days.  Are we getting anything done? Turn some of the gadgets (cells, personal digital assistants, etc.) off and go after those goals with uninterrupted time.  It can't hurt!

Link: Marketcircle Blog.

I was recently re-reading ‘The Effective Executive‘ and it was like I never read the book in the first place.Effective Executive

That book is a veritable gold mine! It has such pearls of wisdom. I mean it’s a book that was written before I was born and the principles still apply today. It is incredible that someone can write a business book in the 1960’s and it’s still very applicable today in 2006.

Just amazing!

Anyways - there is one thing that really caught my attention this time around. It’s his concept of concentration. He basically says that without concentration and allotting a significant amount of time to an objective - you can’t accomplish anything.

In this day and age of emails, blackberries, instant messaging, phones and whatnot, that concept is even more relevant. How many times do you hear that ‘bing’ of new mail or that ‘ping’ for a new chat. We have an incredible amount of distractions these days.

I remember hearing something a long while back. It went to the effect that every interruption costs you 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes to get back into the same mind frame as before the interruption. So theoretically, 3 interruptions kill an hour - yikes!

Other people have talked about ‘being in the zone‘ and ‘being in the moment‘ and that is when you accomplish the most. Guess what - with interruptions - you just can’t be ‘in the moment‘ or ‘in the zone‘!

Even before I re-read the book, in frustration, I started turning off my wireless connection off on my laptop and leaving my mobile phone in another room. This way - no new emails, chats, calls etc…

This book re-affirms that practice and I think a lot of people would benefit by applying this concept of concentrated time.

So my question to you is: Are you cheating yourself by letting yourself be distracted too often?

Thoughts? 

AJ

Iron Out The Process

My role at work (and often my contributions in life) seem to comprise a collection of things.  They are part:

• Entrepreneur
• Business analyst
• IT guy
• Enterprise architect
• Business process modeler and
• Project manager

Considering the business process side of it today gave me some cause to ponder.