deal architect

More on Salespeople and Accountants

Courtesy of`Charlie Wood I saw this  BusinessWeek article on salespeople.

"The problem is the same qualities which make salespeople so successful out in the marketplace can cause them to wreak havoc when they return to the office and interact with the rest of the staff.... To succeed, a salesperson must have (a) The hide of a rhino, to withstand constant rejection, (b) the stamina of a cheetah, to keep chasing a deal after all the others have given up, and (c) the persistence of a hyena, to never take "no" for an answer...Almost by definition, a great salesperson is going to try your patience...Instead of complaining about it, why not become a student of this rare but valuable species—and learn how to handle them effectively? ..the six common types of salespeople—folks like Negotiate-to-Death Neil and Throw-It-Over-the-Wall Wanda—."

Accountants of the world should breathe easier - it's not just you the salespeople grate on!

I agree good salespeople are worth pampering (after all I am one for my company, heh, heh)....but why do they need an entourage  to support them? Especially in software, as I wrote here the marketing, business development, inside sales etc. are a) expensive and b) mask the really good salespeople. Now, I sound like that accountant...

A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....Charles Dickens

Erik Keller describes Sarbanes Oxley in French Revolution terms. In a comment he says "the rage that the average person has had for the cascade of examples trotted out over the years." I have heard others defend SOX in similar "justice" terms. Big is bad. We are making Immelt and McNealy and other CEOs look as guilty as Lay and Ebbers.

But that street justice is costing plenty as I write in this recently published article - Sarbanes-Oxley - $ 10 billion a word?

In Dickens' book, England became a safety valve for various people wanting to escape the Bastille and the Guillotine. The London Stock Exchange has similarly benefited from our version of the Bastille. Of course, we could export the revolution. With Nasdaq  trying to acquire the LSE and  Europe's own often aggressive compliance initiatives, the possibility is not remote.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Even if we promise the masses they can eat cake.

If I were a rich man...

I am not - so I fantasize like Tevye   -though not sure about my wife with a double chin.

But if I was, I hope I could be generous like Warren Buffett. If my kids wanted double chins, they would have to earn those, not just use an inheritance!

"Novell: Boat Missing on Heroic Scale"

As Novell tries yet another transition - this time with a new CEO, I thought Chris Mellor did a nice job summarizing missed opportunities - huge ones - over the last decade. Instead of fighting Microsoft or Red Hat, sounds like they should been focused on EMC. The company with great brands over the years like Netware. WordPerfect, Cambridge Technology Partners and SUSE certainly knows about transitions. It just needs to stabilize the next one.

The Dance Buffet

I will take a little Salsa with my Jitterbug and Flamenco. The Frank Rey 50th anniversary show tried to showcase just about every dance genre on this list.

My daughter was in jazz, ballet and hip hop numbers - and there were another 50 numbers jammed in to a 3 hour show.

What a bargain at $ 18 a ticket!

My favorite - a medley of Spanish moves and 40+ dancers to Bizet's Marche Du Toreador. Did Tampa's and Frank Rey's Spanish roots proud.

The way technology is helping, innovations in dance will continue to emerge at breathtaking speed.

Purists may frown at that, but I know lots of young and grown up kids who just cannot wait to add it to the buffet.

About my daughter - she's done pretty well for someone whose mama don't dance and whose daddy don't rock and roll....

The Physics of Beckham

No question the ladies like the man. Indeed when he shows up to play, the police worry as much about crazed lady fans as they do British hooligans. But there is no man law which says you cannot admire David Beckham's ability to bend the ball as he did today against Ecuador.

Expect more movies about his spectacular and topsy-turvy career. And at least a few Motorola commercials.

Country Corruption Index?

Paul Kedrosky finds this link between unpaid tickets by a country's UN reps and corruption.

Let me propose a few more indices:

Number of lobbyists per politician (US would lead)

Number of hangers-on per politician (India would be high up)

Amount of budget directly influenced by a government official (China)

Amount of foreign aid which shows up in individual Swiss bank accounts (various African countries)

Transparency International does periodic surveys of perception of corruption. According to the 2005 survey, Iceland is perceived to be the world's least corrupt country, and Bangladesh and Chad are perceived to be the most corrupt. It draws on surveys  of businesspeople and country analysts.

The US is ranked 17th, China 77th, India 88th in that survey.

Mark Twain once said the US "is a nation without a distinct criminal class with possible exception of Congress". I am pretty sure you could easily substitute US and Congress in most countries around the world and come up with the same conclusion. You just have to be ready with bribes, graft, bakshish, payola, dash, cadeaus, mordida, tea money, lap dances, soft money...

The Snarky Top 10 List

Business 2.0 lists 10 people who DON''T matter - including Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Arun Sarin of Vodafone.

Fortunately, it also lists 50 people who do - not all you would expect or in technology...

How does the other half live?

Zoli points to the continued expansion of the Zoho Office Suite = "Microsoft Office for the rest of us"

NetSuite which offers a SaaS ERP product has a campaign = "SAP for the rest of us" (actually it could also be Oracle - the apps and the database, but Larry Ellison has a stake in NetSuite)

Compiere which offers Open Source ERP and CRM raises a nice financing round. Open Source is creeping in to the application layer, after impacting operating systems, databases, web servers - other layers of the stack  = "Open Source for the rest of us"

This "industry consolidation" phenomenon has been good for the "rest of us"

Technology Innovation and ...

Read on my New Florence. New Renaissance blog posts on how technology is impacting:

Travel Conveniences

Patient Monitoring

Comedy

Soccer Balls

Dry Cleaners

Book Publishing

That was in last few weeks - plenty more posts on innovative CIOs, products, processes...