b.cognosco

How To Experience Abject Failure

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:15:03 GMT

I know when I'm beat. I know how to cut my losses and get out. There's a lot to be said for perseverance, but even more for not throwing good money after bad. What am I talking about? My outsourcing attempts with GetFriday.com. My God, what a disaster.

After 2 1/2 months I had exactly one - that's 1 - single success with GetFriday. Every other task I assigned was a miserable failure. Even after getting a replacement PA who was, supposedly, experienced in web search and basic web skills I could not get even marginally relevant results when I asked for search data on specific topics.

Worse, when it became clear to me that this wasn't going to work out it took nearly an act of Congress to get them to cancel my account. The entire affair was a disaster.

What I learned is simple - if this is the best the Eur-Asian nations can offer then we are in no danger of being overrun by a low-wage workforce. They demonstrated a lack of understanding, competence, response, and adaptability that was hard to comprehend.

I went so far as to start running my task descriptions by two of my colleagues to try and ensure I was being both clear and reasonable in my requests. The results I got were still stunningly inept.

In fairness, most of my colleagues asked the very basic question, "Well, what did you expect?" I don't know, maybe something a little above abject incompetence? How about someone with enough self awareness to recognize when they did not understand a task and ask for clarification until they did?

If you read my experience with BellSouth tech support from 2006 you'll see my GetFriday experience is neither my first encounter with such incompetence, nor is it any real surprise. I suspect the cultural and language barriers between a third-world workforce and US-based expectations are just too great to overcome. Or maybe it is something else. I do not know.

What I do know is that from now on I will stick with North American (and possibly European) sources for anything I want done. Given my experiences I do not think there is any non-repetitive task requiring foresight, intuition, or judgment that can be effectively outsourced to a third-world workforce. It may well be that if you can 100% script an activity, and spend enough time to get the workforce to actually read the script, and have enough patience for them to practice and fail repeatedly until they get it right, that you might eventually have some success.

But as a small business my tasks are not repetitive. At least not now. And they do require thinking - which entails all those things mentioned above. The third-world is simply not the place to get these things done.

Outsourcing The Big Tasks

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:52:02 GMT

It's been a while since I updated my outsourcing efforts. I've been head-down in trying to get my major task - bookkeeping and accounting - under control. I have been trying to find the right solution for this for over five (5) years.

I am, apparently, unique in my requirements. I just fired my second accountant for failure to help me do what I need. But I can't imagine that I am alone in what I want. I have a small service business. I am a consultant. I travel extensively. I am a sole operator. I have no employees. I need, and have needed, someone to help me setup a bookkeeping and record keeping system that I can understand, that meets all the requirements of the government for taxes, and for which I can outsource the day-to-day tasks of data entry, filing, etc.

Because I focus on my clients I do a very poor job of keeping my own paperwork in order. Oh, I invoice everything right on schedule. After all, I don't get paid unless I do. And my client and project records are first-rate - that's what I get paid to do. But taking time to do my own data entry, organization, filing, etc on anything like a regular basis just never seems to be a priority until there is a crisis. So I repeatedly end up at the end of the year with boxes and piles and stacks of stuff all over the place. And I know, I know, I am not alone in this.

So why is there apparently no one who offers this kind of service? How in the world do all the freelancers and free agents survive? Do they just do like me and spend two months a year under incredible stress trying to get it all together and spend the other 10 months dreading the process? Maybe. But I am done with that.
Previously, my VA helped me locate a very nice young lady with a nearby Staffing Solutions business. Christi has turned out to be a very good find. She took on the first part of my organization project and did a good job. We are now moving to the second phase - getting an accounting system established. For that I have gone through a rather strenuous research and screening process to locate an accountant who specializes in doing what I need.

For this I found the people at Intuit to be invaluable. I started with an online chat with a sales rep there, who gave my name to one of their sales advisors. Kelly turned out to be great. She helped me understand my options, the limitations of each, and what I needed to be looking for. She also made herself available to answer any additional questions and volunteered to help my (former) accountant setup my new system using QuickBooks Online Edition.

When that didn't work out she helped me locate several more that were certified QuickBooks Advisors. That's when I began my interview and screening process. I found two that were very helpful and knowledgeable. Both took the time to explain what they do, how they do it, and talk to me about my particular needs and the limitations therein. This past week I selected a provider to get started. He is former consultant who worked much as I do now, so he understands (I hope) my requirements better than my previous providers.

This next Friday we will meet - me, Christi, and the accountant - to go over the setup and processes for getting all the data in and keeping everything up to date. Of course, I still have to get all the back data entered, and that will be a challenge. But Christi is going to tackle that as soon as we're ready. This feels like progress.

I am also on my second Virtual Assistant. As mentioned previously, I'm using GetFriday - an India-based service that provides virtual assistant services. My first VA simply did not have the skills - either technically or language - to meet my needs. GetFriday was good about getting me a replacement as soon as I asked. I spoke with Venkat on the phone prior to his assignment to make sure I was comfortable with his English and we are working through some early tasks to see how it goes.

Working with a VA is as much a learning experience for me as it is for them. It is a challenge for someone like me who has done everything alone for so many years. Finding the right tasks, communicating them clearly, doling them out in the right amount, etc, are all things I'm having to learn.

It's also different in that my project work is conducted with a team of highly-skilled specialists and we all work to a common methodology. That means we all know what the other is doing, how it's done, etc. That's just not the case when you start using a VA. The type of tasks, and the level to which they can be done, are different. I want my VA to do all those sorts of routine, mundane, non-client tasks that must be done, but which I have neither the time nor inclination to do.

This might be keeping up with my personal calendar, sending reminders to me about friend/family things, or doing preliminary research on new car models for my daughter. It could be all kinds of stuff. I'm still learning.

Paying For Outsourcing

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:10:13 GMT

Outsourcing my burdensome tasks is very appealing, and I have already begun to make inquiries about a couple of specific tasks I want done. But even though the Indo-Asian outsource firms tend to have lower labor rates than comparable US firms, they still don't work for free. So I need money to pay for them.

I don't yet have products or services that generate regular, dependable income that can pay for these projects, and I don't want a net add to my monthly expenses. The idea is to make things better, not worse. So what to do?

I started with a review of the monthly charges for business services I already use. There was plenty of fat in there. I immediately called Sprint and knocked $90 off my monthly cellular bill. I contacted my shopping cart service (for another site I run) and downgraded the service to a Basic package for a savings of $40 per month.

That $130 will get me a Basic-10 package at GetFriday.com, which includes 10 hours of labor per month for whatever tasks I need. I've identified another $99 monthly fee that I can probably eliminate outright, but I'm not sure just yet. And I think I can move a couple of small loans to one of those 0-interest-for-a-year credit card deals to free another $40-$50 per month,

With about an hour of effort I've freed $130 and identified another $140. That's enough to get me 20-25 hours of labor per month for various projects. That's a good start.

Steve Hannaford Tells Us Why Chrysler is Dead

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:00:13 GMT

The US auto industry is in turmoil - rising gas prices, changing buyer tastes, stiffer environmental laws, and massive labor costs, among other things - have cost US automakers tens of billions in losses in recent years. And now the pompous jackasses at Daimler-Benz have killed Chrysler. It's bad enough that my beloved IBM ThinkPads have been sold to Lenovo - I can't even imagine buying a Chinese-made Jeep! Chrysler was in trouble when Daimler bought them in 1998, but the Germans were supposed to make it better, not spend $40 billion to make it worse.

Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” may well be at play here. In fact, then entire auto industry may be heading for fundamental change not only in product design, but in who it sells to and how [see Shaping the Future by Charles Stross.] What Hannaford describes is very much a “Barbarians at the Gate” scenario. Pay particular attention to his analysis of what Cerberus Capital (the distasteful but quite necessary carrion eaters of the capitalist world) will do with the decaying corpse. Oh, and you can be sure that somewhere the government (that means you and me) will get pegged to pickup the tab for some significant portion of this fiasco.

The Chrysler deal

What to say about the Chrysler deal that already hasn't been said. A few thoughts:

The deal was even worse for Daimler than the putative $7.4 billion that was announced. That sum was just for show, a pitri enough remnant of the $36 billion Daimler paid for Chrysler. What Daimler will receive for the Chrysler division when all is said and done is nothing - in fact it will pay over half a billion dollars for Cerberus Capital Management to take the US automaker off its hands. As we've said before, this makes the merger the 1998 Daimler-Chrysler "merger" in year the worst deal ever. As one commentator said on NPR, "It like when you have a broken down car in your front yard, and pay someone to haul it away."

The deal is likely to end up in the chop shop. The valuable bits will be sold off eventually, and the brand names (especially Jeep) may be attractive to, say, a Chinese company. Cerberus will be ruthless in cutting pensions and healthcare costs. It may operate a much reduced business, with SUVs and pickups as the main assets, at least for a while. It will dump dealers mercilessly, lay off workers, and move more operations overseas. And, like the airlines, it will plead extreme duress to outflank the unions.

Meanwhile, Cerberus will suck the company dry, so that the investors get their money back with a hefty profit quickly. It set up a labyrinth of holding companies to preserve the good assets from an eventual bankruptcy, much as was done at Kmart.

It will be curious to see if the company has any development in the pipeline, now that Daimler will have all the R&D assets. It's hard to believe that, for example, a hybrid or electric car, or even a cool sports car or luxury vehicle could originate form a stripped-down Chrysler.

buying a company that looks like it is in freefall. What value will a five-year warranty have, for example, if the company could close its doors at any time. And how motivated will workers be to make dependable cars when their health benefits and pay are threatened?

It's hard to imagine a renaissance, especially in new product areas. And it seems clear that with $5 gasoline looming, auto companies are going to have to adapt quickly in the next decade, something Chrysler is certainly not ready to do.

As for Cerberus, it's interesting to speculate on their motivation. They have been make increasing bets in the auto industry. Lat year they bought 51% of GMAC, General Motors' financing subsidiary. They recently bought Tower Automotive for $1 billion. They also one auto parts suppliers CTA Acoustics and GDX Automotive, and were in hot pursuit of Delphi, the parts maker spun off from GM. Do they think they can derive some synergy form these vaguely related firms and weld them into a new auto empire? Call me a skeptic on that one. These guys are investors, not "car guys."

For Daimler, it's a retreat from an attempt at world dominance. Like Ford and GM, Daimler's dreams of profitable investment in other companies have become a liability. No synergy, but plenty of culture clash and inner turmoil, has made both brands-Mercedes and Chrysler- weaker. Meanwhile, the single-minded, organic -growth approach of Toyota and Honda seems to be the winning one.

IBM Rumored to be Planning Unprecedented Offshoring Switch for 2007

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Fri, 11 May 2007 02:17:26 GMT

I worked for IBM from 1995 to 1998. During that time I met some great people and had the privilege of working on more than one world-class project. As part of the benefits package I was allowed to buy IBM stock at a discount, and I did so. A few years ago I sold the stock off, as it had stagnated for a while and my general fondness for the company had dwindled. I still have friends there, many of them working for IBM Global Services. Now Robert Cringely reports that Big Blue is planning to axe more than 100,000 people from IGS, moving all the work offshore:

I, Cringely:The Pulpit - Lean and Mean
[...]
The IBM project I am writing about is called LEAN and the first manifestation of LEAN was this week's 1,300 layoffs at Global Services, which generated almost no press. Thirteen hundred layoffs from a company with more than 350,000 workers is nothing, so the yawning press reaction is not unexpected. But this week's "job action," as they refer to it inside IBM management, was as much as anything a rehearsal for what I understand are another 100,000+ layoffs to follow, each dribbled out until some reporter (that would be me) notices the growing trend, then dumped en masse when the jig is up, but no later than the end of this year.[...]

This cannot be good. As Cringely notes, offshoring of this scale creates massive communication and support problems - at least if the customer is in the US. My experience with BellSouth's lame, dysfunctional, globalized tech support has been a disaster. Dell, same story. In fact, if you have ever had a good experience with offshore tech support I'd like to hear about it. But more importantly, if Cringely is right IBM management is going to axe 100,000 jobs knowing full well that it may cripple the company. I don't care if the stock price rockets upward for some brief period. I'm glad I no longer have any financial stake in Big Blue.

Don't Plan a Vacation in Nigeria

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:15:34 GMT

Not that you would, but don't make travel plans for Nigeria any time soon. Via Jeff Vail at Energy Intelligence

Nigeria Escalation
Energy Intelligence Note: 9 May, 2007

The situation in Nigeria is escalating--as expected, geologically-driven declines in oil production are spawning geopolitically-driven increases in disruptions from "above-ground factors." The recent attacks on major oil pipelines in Nigeria cut all oil flow to AGIP's Brass Export Terminal, taking a further 200,000 barrels per day off the market. On top of that, take a look at the latest unclassified figures on kidnappings in Nigeria, courtesy of the CIA:

2006:
Total Hostages (Unresolved): 66 (0)
American Hostages (Unresolved): 0 (0)

2007:
Total Hostages (Unresolved): 106 (17)
Amercan Hostages (Unresolved): 17 (5)

And 2007 is only half over! That represents a rougly 200% year-on-year increase in total hostages, and a huge leap in the "value" of these hostages, as reflected by the sudden shift toward higher-skill and western workers, as shown by the sudden prevalence of American hostages.

The Road Ahead

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 18:31:49 GMT

A group discussion on what trends will most shape our lives in the future. Participants include the usual suspects - Tim O'Reilly, Esther Dyson, Moby, Malcolm Gladwell, Mark Dery, Clay Shirky, David Brooks - but it's still interesting. Some excepts (out of context):

TIME Magazine - The Road Ahead
We assembled some of the smartest people we know to identify the trends that are most likely to affect our future. What we got was a fascinating discussion about religion, technology and politics and why no one's golf scores seem to be getting any better.

[...] MOBY: I know a guy in Barcelona who has started a company to develop algorithms to determine whether a song is going to be a hit. It analyzes music to figure it out--and they're selling it to the record companies, and it's quite effective. If you expand on that, there's no reason you couldn't have your own personal search engine that understands your taste and can instantly analyze music based on a whole bunch of different, very subjective criteria to determine whether you might like it. [...]

[...] GLADWELL: One of the big trends in American society is the transformation of the evangelical movement and the rise of a more mature, sophisticated, culturally open evangelical church. Ten years from now, I don't think we're going to have the kinds of arguments about religion that we have today. [...]

[...] DERY: The democratization of available avenues of possibility is always phrased in market-friendly terms. It's about purchasing power--the cornucopia of options available to those who can stuff their shopping carts and proceed to checkout. How many options were available to those who were marooned in New Orleans? [...]

Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society

terrywfrazier@gmail.com — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society
Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers
2005 Currency Doubleday 0-385-51624-X

The central tenet of this book is the presentation of a new theory, the Theory of U, which consists of the three principles of Sensing, Presencing, and Realizing. As the authors move, disjointedly, through the book they expose the seven core capacities and activities they claim make up the three principles.

Suspending
Redirecting
Letting Go
Letting Come
Crystallizing
Prototyping
Institutionalizing

I have not read every change and organizational learning volume ever authored, and there is occasionally a quote or idea I do not recognize. But I have read enough on Buddhism, talked at length with enough Buddhists, and visited enough temples to recognize Buddhism when I see it. Thats what this is, wrapped in enough in modern quotes, cultural references, and soft-science to possibly confuse the uninitiated. But thats what it is.

There are a number of unfounded assertions and unsupported propositions, such as author Betty Sue Flowers statement that the economic myth weve been in for most of the past century isnt serving us well either. Such global indictments are not self-evident, and need to be supported. How does one claim that the incredible advances of the 20th century in productivity, purchasing power, life span, health care, and leisure time for example experienced by 100s of millions of people, in market-based economies, over a 100 year span of time is a myth?

If such claims are going to be taken as anything more than fanciful flights to La La Land you need to offer substantial support, including your criteria, your reference points, and whether there are any valid counter positions. This book never offers any of the above, providing only anecdotes and/or random quotes to support its global assertions. One such example a regional health care system in Germany offers a model for doctor-patient communication that only academics will find meaningful. The rest of us will find the demarcations rather trite. Doctors can talk to you about:

what is broken
why its broken
how your behavior may or may not contribute to the break
and then the fourth level, where they become your psychoanalyst, best friend, and spouse.

If you are not already getting levels 1-3 you should find a better doctor. How the authors get from level 3 to level 4 is beyond me, as is why they think this sort of relationship is something everyone wants.

This is just one of many examples of underlying assumptions the authors have made which have no basis in reality. Yet its difficult to argue with much of the book because it is so experiential. The authors who are all highly intelligent, highly educated academics genuinely feel they are on a journey of deep personal transformation. The book is rife with their emotive insights as they weave fragile webs of connectivity between tiny slivers of thought, philosophy, and (minimal) data.

But what the book ultimately proposes is far from original, and the authors conceit in claiming invention of a new metaphysics around the Theory of U is a sign that they have gone too far down the rabbit hole of academic delusion (usually brought on by infinitely deeper research into infinitely smaller ideas.)

The reality is there is nothing here with which to argue, nothing of substance with which to take issue. In the true spirit of the authors learnings, Im not even sure this book exists. If you think Buddhism, or its myriad new-age variants, will save the world then you may find some value here, but you can find much better volumes with a little effort. If you are not already convinced of such things this book offers nothing that will change your mind.

I bought Presence based on a single, rave review by a weblog author and the credentials of the books four authors. Had I put in even a little effort to read the Amazon reviews before buying I would have saved myself $30. Still, I should have known better when the opening anecdote of the book is the story of a group cry at a South African management retreat. There is lots of crying in this book, like author Joseph Jaworskis story of going to Baja, becoming one with a whale, returning to share the story with his three colleagues, and then having a good group cry over the profoundness of the moment. None of this was inherently bad, but it was quite disappointing. Do yourself a favor. Dont buy books based on a single review of a biased (and we all are) weblog author. That is doubly true if the biased weblog author is me. You've been warned.