Evan Burfield Keynote at DevFestDC 9 28 12

Evan Burfield, Chairman and Founder of Synteractive. Chair of Startup DC. Co-Founder of the National Piggy Bank. Social and technology innovator. http://www.synteractiveingenuity.com/wordpress/author/eburfield/  gave the closing keynote at DevFestDC. 

(Dick’s notes, Dick’s fault) We have two interconnected problems. National – deep crises on many levels. The country’s broke, depending on your facts, $350K to $1.7 million per household. Cost of energy in this country is increasing, education costs 3 times comparable countries, medicine two times (at least), 25% of our Iraq/Afghanistan veterans are unemployed. 
 
We are at a junction. In the Collaborative Age, knowledge defines your value. 
 
At the same time, our institutions are Manufacturing Age mastodons. They persist for years, eventually the bubble will pop. We have an opportunity to reinvent those institutions. 
 
The last opportunity to upgrade our institutions was at the end of the Cold War, The Peace Initiative. 
 
9/11 and the dotcom bubble killed small business DC. We have a huge opportunity. 

DC Region advantages –
1.      Every corporation and NGO has a presence in this city.
2.      Unbelievably high data manipulation demand and skills.
3.      Highest density of developers in the world. 

As Chair of StartUpDC, I want to knock down barriers to this growth. I see three challenges.
1.      Latent Capital – Harder to raise capital now. Some solutions:
1.1.    K Street Capital Initiative - Lobbyists traditionally invest in real estate and restaurants. “A place to store my wine.” Introduce appropriate technology to lobbyists.
1.2.    Crystal City Capital Initiative – Introduce Defense Contractors to appropriate technology.
1.2.1.      Development programmers and government programmers don’t like each other because they don’t know each other.
1.3.    Diaspora Capital – Introduce Immigrant Capital to appropriate business opportunities. 

2.       Corporate Engagement – Google buys a company, founders leave, create a new company, Google buys new company. It’s a well-known left coast model. What about here? 
 
3.       Talent – Government technologist and Startup technologist don’t like each other. They don’t KNOW each other. Mix ’em up and solve some problems. 
 
Who other than entrepreneurs are going to tackle these problems? 
 
Look at where we were in 2002. No smartphones, no Facebook, little Google, good Prodigy. Where are we going to be ten years from now? 

DC is the most powerful city on earth. Must be the leader. 

Someone will be replacinng the mastodon ecosystem over the next 3 – 5 years.

The Hot Dog Stand – Customer Service?

At the game I went to the concession stand for some snacks and drinks, to be greeted by a long, slow-moving line. While the second quarter evaporated and the line inched forward, I looked at the hot dog stand operations to see why there was such a delay.

Here's some highlights:

• 8 enthusiastic people - 5 at the counter and 3 doing prep in the back
• the counter folks reminded me of a demolition derby, bumping each other and constantly crossing paths
• the preparation folks were paying no attention - standing and talking
• supplies (napkins, plasticware, cardboard trays) were on the right end of the counter but condiments were on the left end
• the menu and prices were on a banner on the back wall of the stand
• finally, the line was amorphous and confused, people lined up on a server but some also thought it was next available server

If a transaction takes an average of 4 minutes from order to payment per customer per server, a back-of-the-envelope calculation of service capacity is about 75 customers per hour. A person joining the end of this line at its peak can expect about an hour before heading back to the seat, partially due to the absence of training and flow.

From this experience, I saw several general guidelines for improving customer service, based on the pinch points and frustrations of the patrons at the hot dog stand. Consider these 5 items (the examples tie back to my quest of food and beverages):

• inform the customer what you expect from them – in our example, how to navigate the line was unclear and the menu and prices were not visible until at the counter
• design flow for efficiency – the servers bounced around to fulfill orders and customers had to cross the line and go to two locations for supplies and condiments
• train staff on role and assignments – servers were swamped while preparers ignored the chaos while chatting – alternative roles for all staff are required for peak demand periods
• manage customer perceptions – customers get angry while waiting when they see staff standing around - regardless of the reason
• create as positive an experience as possible while addressing the customers' needs – smile, be upbeat when serving the customer and remain focused on addressing the customers' need, NOT on why it can't be done.

It is not unusual to be too close to this issue to see the gaps and over-servicing areas clearly in your customer service operation – and an outside advisor will review and assess how things are actually done, not influenced by how insiders think things are being done.

Customers want to be heard and receive accurate, timely answers to their questions or concerns. Preferences aside, there are several channels to reach the customer – web site information, interactive topic search, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), employee blogging, telephone tree with simple questions answered by automated systems with an opt out for a real person who can do more than simply read the same web site screen to the caller. For the complex problems, one-on-one service by phone, in person, or by video call gets satisfying results.

The best approach to customer service is to put yourself in the customer's shoes and proceed the way YOU would like to be served.

Don't come to the game hungry is NOT a solution to the hot dog stand problem, even though you may see the second quarter.

Your thoughts?

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User, Maker, Prototyper

Dark. Parking lot. I’m with a really smart research scientist, and we’ve been talking long enough we’re getting into new areas.

“Have you ever finished a prototype on time?”

He laughs, “If it’s controlled by time it’s a project, not a prototype.” Aha!

Many watchers try to judge the value of prototype work as if it were production work. Whether due to placement on some theoretical organization chart, or just our inalienable self-given right to sprout an opinion, most default to Tommy Smother’s dictum, “I’m an American, I don’t have to know any facts.”

Should prototype work be optimized? Always. But that seems more in the province of leadership than management.

Kevin Kelly’s Found Quotes 6 posts: I confess that, in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that men would not fly for 50 years. Two years later, we ourselves were making flights. This demonstration of my inability as a prophet gave me such a shock that I have ever since distrusted myself and have refrained from all prediction. -— Wilbur Wright Speech at Aero-Club de France, 1908

Clearly, Wilbur was demonstrating the hard-won skills to lead development.

There is even an award for valuable original work that was not understood when it was done.

Years ago, I was a master carpenter at a Fortune 20 Industrial when the chairman announced the company would no longer invest in basic research, just applied research. This was so long ago I had to go to the library to find out that basic research was defining properties and applied research was solving specific problems. Since that announcement they have shrunk. Or perhaps rightsized.

A user takes something already made and gets value from it. Ordering a book from Amazon, making holes with a drill press, cleaning up around the house, users use tools to create value.

Makers create tools that users use. It’s the next step up in understanding. When you can’t decide if someone is a luthier or a mean picker, luthier, the maker, takes precedence...and I would figure he has some important insights about playing.

In Keith Richards” autobiography, Life, he details his search to understand how the blues developed. He learned the story of how Sears offered an inexpensive mail order guitar to musicians who played homemade 5 string banjos, so they played their new guitars tuned like a banjo. Keith tried it, mastered it, put it on a Telecaster, and that’s why a bar band can’t quite get Honky Tonk Woman.

So prototyper, maker, user, where does a cost conscious manager put the guys who don’t want to pay attention, don’t want to improve their work? Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Somewhere else!

At each level there is a need for constant improvement, which comes from the people doing the work.

In the construction trades, one who has mastered the craft and continues to get better is called a mechanic, a term of admiration.

Join us at DevFestDC September 28^th, for awesome new technologies and resources for building projects and companies!

Importing Best Practices

I no longer think different ways of working are inherently better or worse. I find the most productive workers in any task group have found an optimal process. Often that structure can be improved by adding processes from outside the environment.

That’s harder than it looks, as Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t have to do it.

Yet, I have seen several times when importing a little knowledge from another discipline made for great gains.

My second tour selling COBOL, we started changing our offer every six weeks, borrowed from something I had read about cosmetics retailing. Prospects were meeting with us just to be entertained, but as long as we were there, would we take a look at...

Wasn’t too long before senior management wanted to renegotiate commissions if it was that easy...

Building a cellphone empire, we had enough hard partiers that we used parts of the 12 step approach to improve our global scalability. They understood the need for weekly meetings, for having everyone define their reality, for finding individual solutions. The level of managerial opinion went way down, and we set industry records for five years.

More frequently, I’ve seen best practice candidates that appealed to someone’s ego or how they THOUGHT the world should be. I wasted six weeks once because my boss kinda read a book on an airplane and thought he had found the silver bullet. My tribe thought I’d lost my mind.

Years later I learned Best Practices Better Be Blatantly Obvious, Otherwise They Are Not Best Practices. Wish I had figured that out.

Just when we’ve optimized all we know, that’s when we get to participate in disruptive innovation, ready or not. Just when you perfect the carburetor, you get fuel injection.

Stewart Emery says there are two requirements for growth, an absolute commitment to telling the truth about reality and surrounding yourself with people who are committed to growth.

Isn’t that the real secret of best practices?

Join us at DevFestDC September 28^th, for awesome new technologies and resources for building projects and companies!

Fantasy And Reality

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth – Sherlock Holmes. Holmes never wavered from his rule, no matter how bizarre the outcome appeared. No speculation; no projecting an easier path; no daydreaming or fantasy about what would have or could have been.

I recall as a kid, pounding the pocket into a new ball glove (they were made flat back then) and daydreaming that I would be playing like Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, or Ted Williams. Reality set in with the very first play on the field, new glove on my hand – it would take more practice (much, much more) to get there - there's no shortcut for pounding in the pocket.

Sometimes a leader, manager, or collaborator fixates on a vision or desired outcome instead of addressing an issue head on.

Do you know of an incidence where a problem was ignored while the trivial and mundane were given priority? Or the 'let's wait and see' procedure was invoked? How did it turn out – did the problem self-correct or fester, getting worse?

Individuals rarely follow the Ostrich Model of head-in-the-sand, knowingly. However, they can be seduced by self-talk. This can be very persuasive, sound logical – even innovative – and offer a more desirable (and less painful) fantasy alternative to what's facing them right now.

Ever dread making a phone call or meeting – finding many ways to put it off? Then, the result of the call or meeting is nowhere near the disaster you had anticipated – in reality positive results happen most of the time.

I have found over and over that nothing is more effective than a direct approach. And yet, we still seek to take an indirect path or delay taking any action.

This is human nature – BUT – it is not a positive leadership trait. As with the boy and a new glove, or an adult facing a complex problem, it's not too difficult to slip into a fantasy to avoid reality.

To return to reality, I find it helpful to say the thoughts and plans out loud – to a trusted advisor. Not only will this help to better focus the ideas, it also churns up new ideas as well from both people's viewpoints. The outcome is more in tune with reality, since it is quite difficult to enroll your external self and your advisor in a fantasy. Perhaps that's why people say a good conversation is 80% listening!

As we wrestle with the gap between fantasy and reality, John Adams' words are a useful guide:

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

John Adams,'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,'

How do you see fantasy and reality?

Join us at DevFestDC September 28^th, for awesome new technologies and resources for building projects and companies!