A Day Out

My employer had me over to visit recently for meetings and during one of the days I was there, we had a "day out" for our department. About 25 of us packed into a bus and drove to a small English town to visit the Gainsborough Museum and a print shop. We spent a half day doing etching and printing the results on paper and a half day in the museum. I have to say that it was rather enjoyable, and it was definitely a bit of a bonding time for me with people that I see once a year (or less).

I have to admit. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, and grumbled a touch. The museum wasn't terribly interesting to me and I didn't want to spend the time there when I could have been coming home a day early, but I did see the value in there. I got to know a few people better, and I think the bonding that occurred in the common experience will help some of us to work a little better in the future.

It reminded me of other events at places I've worked. One 20 person department had a monthly event of some sort for a few hours (lunch, a baseball game, a movie, etc.). Another had a large cookout 3-4 times a year for hundreds of employees.

Perhaps a waste of money, but none of the events was extravagant and all provided employees with the chance to let loose a little and get to know each other. I have to say that the places that did have some out of work bonding were the places I most enjoyed working. It's something I might recommend to small businesses, and something I'd do if I get another business going.

Treating Employees Well

I have had very few employees in my businesses, mostly just partners, so I’m not sure how I’d handle most issues, but I have worked for lots of people and seen relations between an employer and employee handled great, good, fair, and poorly. Unfortunately the latter seems to dominate.

I found this post from Reed Hastings on setting employees free very interesting. The idea that you value work, that you want employees to be happy and excited is a great one. In small companies, I can see this working well, and helping the company to grow and people to bond.

One thing in the post that strikes me as a better deal is the idea of compensating employees fairly now. Don’t do vesting, don’t do delayed compensation. Pay people a fair wage, and give them outright option or stock grants when appropriate, and vest them immediately. Delaying the grants makes it seem like you really don’t want to give them out, and you’re basing the reception on time, not work done. Not the message you want to send if you want motivated people.

I don’t know how well it scales, but it would be nice to see how a larger company could implement some of these ideas, and perhaps build a better culture.

Interns

I served as an intern in high school, and I thought it was a good experience. I had the chance to work for two different industries, computer science at a bank, and an assistant to an orthopedic surgeon. In both cases I didn’t really do any work that matters, but I had the chance to see how the businesses worked, and it helped me to decide how I wanted to proceed in my career.

In college I actually had a paid internship, alternating a semester of work with a semester of college, and that was more like a real job.

I think internships are a great way to teach someone a bit about your business, and also to find potential employees down the road. It isn’t a direct investment, and I’d guess that for every 10 interns you had over time, you might find one or two that would make good employees, but it’s a good service to the community and for younger people, and it gives you a chance to see how interesting your work is to others. You might even learn a thing or two from a fresh set of eyes.

However be careful, and don’t treat interns as free labor, to be exploited. Make sure you follow the guidelines from the US DOL.

Service is part of the product

Not everyone runs a business the way Apple does. Plenty of people build products, expect them to fail, but sell them so cheap that they don’t want service to be a part of what they do. Think Dollar Tree and the manufacturers supplying those goods. Service is not part of anything.

However if you are a small business, you can take a lesson here. You can build and grow, and retain customers by making sure you have a way to provide good service.

Should you start a business?

As I write this, I'm laughing inside. I'm avoiding starting another one right now, just because life is a little hectic, but read this post with the same title and decide for yourself.

If you have the inclination, or even have thought about it, I'd encourage you to try. If you're under 25, not married, or have no kids, give it a go. We need more small businesses.

How Foursquare Grew

An interesting look at how FourSquare grew so quickly. It's an interesting look at using your customers to help you grow by building a platform.

Where do I tweet? My personal account or a company account?

This is something I’ve been asked about blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. My advice is that you ought to keep a professional brand out there for your company.

I have two accounts, one for me personally (@way0utwest) and then one for my site (@SQLServerCentrl). The company site definitely gets less time from me than my personal account. I rarely sign on to the company account away from my PC, so it’s hard to maintain.

What I suggest first is that you use the company account to talk about the company, but make sure that someone is watching them. I would share this account with multiple people, and get them to spend a little bit of time each day posting items.

Feel free to retweet to/from your personal account and business accounts to the other. When appropriate. The important thing to remember is that the business account is based on your business and should match your business.

The personal account is for you, and you can get away with some tweets that aren’t business related, but if you are closely associated with your business, be careful about what you tweet. Remember it’s still your brand.