Monday, October 06, 2008
As a business owner, there is nothing like a sale. Revenue, income, the chance to pay yourself! When we make those sales, however, how often are we thinking of the person on the other side? As well, when we buy something or make a business deal, how do we feel? It is in this thinking that I strive to seek win-win situations in business.
To begin with, I truly believe win-win situations can exist. This does not necessarily mean each side is 100% in the same position as the other, but there is no reason why a business deal cannot benefit each side. Such a win-win situation can exist for a mere transaction or a long-term business relationship.
First and foremost, the business deal should be a win for you and your business. If not, you’re already down one win. The win is determined by the particular point in time – if it works now, great. But if you may not think it may work out later, plan that into your negotiation and contracting. Many times business decisions are made due to a behind-the-8-ball situation. Proper structure can help you in either renegotiating your deal later, or for moving on.
When thinking about the person or business you will be doing a deal with, how can you know for sure it will be a win for them? One is to outright ask them, or extend your due diligence to see if it is. A true win-win can be very positive for you, in additional business down the road, a great reference as well as referrals for business from their network.
When I started Dunkirk Systems almost 4 years ago, I was looking to get any client I could. Ever heard of doing something just for the money? Yes, I did some projects for that reason. But as I networked with others over the years, I found I was not alone in this. Today, I have a more formal evaluation process in place when it comes to taking on a new client or project. Many factors play into the decision, and overall they center on one – will it be a win-win?
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 10/06/08 at 10:11 PM
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Though it was a few weeks ago I was in Helsinki, Finland for the Nokia OpenLab, it is still fresh in my mind. It was a social media event where about 35 people from all corners of the globe were flown into the Finnish capital, which just so happens to be the home of the mobile phone giant Nokia. I had mentioned previously how I heard about OpenLab and was invited and once I got through airport customs it all came together. It was a fast few days, action packed with a lot of unique experiences, all of which I will be chronicling below. Follow along and look at my photos here on my ovi channel.
OpenLab took place in the Rake-Sali ballroom of the Klaus K Hotel in downtown Helsinki, where the old style of the room was in the background to modern staging and lighting. The room was divided into 4 areas – a lounge with sofas, a bar with tall tables, a standard round table and a section with Fatboy beanbag chairs. People naturally gravitated to 1 of the 4 areas, and from there people counted off and redistributed for each workshop. In the center of the room was a raised platform, where speakers and facilitators stood, and hidden behind the bar area was a temporary video production studio, which I didn’t realize until it was all over and saw the final video presented.
Over a day and a half, myself and the others participated in various workshop sessions and listened to a few speakers who were Nokia staff or consulted for them. The workshops were on the topic of social media, location-based services (or LBS, my new acronym for the event, thanks to Glenn Letham), media, work and the environment. The name OpenLab did not come to our attention until about a week before we arrived. The official Nokia Open Lab site has a lot of the logistics and links to the media captured during the event. There is also a link to the Second Life room, which will come as a thrill to my friend the virtual worlds guru.
The above lays out the tactical of the event, and now about the emotional. I have been fortunate in the past to have been part of amazing exchanges and dialogues with people from around the world, and this too counts as one of them. Where everybody was their own unique person, they were also extremely civil (to me at least!) and very engaging. As the workshop brainstorming sessions were pretty much self-policed by us participants (something to correct for future events), everyone was very accommodating and wanting to hear what each other said. Where I hope I added something to the mix, I feel like I took away quite a lot from it – even if it was something I already knew, hearing it from someone else with their own unique nuance was extremely worthwhile.
Why Me?
Nobody who attended OpenLab received a notice saying, “you were selected because of X” and where at first that was an issue with me but eventually it wasn’t, as I was getting a free trip to Finland. However thinking about it more, it probably had to do with some of the writing I have done on The Hot Iron about mobile phones, namely how in the US we have inferior service and phones as compared to the rest of the world, locked vs. unlocked phones, and about my own Palm Treo 680. As I met other attendees, some had also asked themselves that question, but in the end everyone was passionate about mobile technology and social media at some level.
Meeting and Greeting and Partying
Upon arrival at the hotel from the airport there was the opportunity to meet people as they arrived, including the folks from 1000 Heads who run the WOM World blog. We had name tags, which helped me in remembering everyone’s names. Upon checking in we received a box from Nokia, complete with a toothbrush, case, luggage strap, notebook and pen… needless to say, I was a little disappointed in the schwag.
That afternoon we had the opportunity to visit Nokia House, the corporate headquarters. It is a beautiful building of steel, glass and wood. We stayed mostly in the first floor common areas, and our main destination was the Nokia Lounge, which is a showcase for visitors and dignitaries. On display were everything from old phones to current models to concepts, such as a phone charger that doesn’t drain power if left plugged in and phone parts made from corn.
The first night’s party was at Blak. I only offer the URL link as it is a private club and there is nothing on the Web site. It is so private that there is not even a sign – only a guarded unmarked elevator that took you to the top floor club. We had the place to ourselves that evening, complete with very good food, an expatriate New Yorker comedian and live DJ. I found out about the rooftop deck the next day as I was dog-tired from the flight. I did visit the co-ed bathroom, complete with cheesy 80’s soft core porn playing on the plasma screen.
The second night’s party was in the club in the Klaus K – Ahjo. There was a lighter fare and drink coupons as compared to the previous night’s soiree. These 2 events should have been swapped, as it would have been nicer to have been more awake at Blak. We got a sneak peak of the new Nokia viral marketing campaign, Legends Telegraph, and heard from Nokia’s head of strategy, Heikki Norta. I had a chance to speak one-on-one with him afterwards as well. One thing he said was that Nokia today was already 5 years down the road. It will be interesting to see what else is coming out, which was planned for years back.
The Nokia E71 Phone
Prior to the trip, I received a Nokia E71 phone. As I was out of town when it arrived and only had a day to unpack and repack for Helsinki, I only had time to charge it before I left. As I knew I would not have time to put into it before I left, I went to the Nokia Store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago the week before. I told the staff person I was helping a friend evaluate the phone, as I didn’t want to say anything about my trip as I didn’t want to come off as someone bragging. The staff person was very helpful in pointing out many of the features of the Symbian operating system and how to navigate it. That was helpful for me when I finally got my hands on the phone, which happened on the flight over.
Thanks to my prep course at the Nokia Store, I was able to navigate the phone fairly easy. That being said, I did not even scratch the surface of all the phone could do. Once we arrived we got a Finnish SIM card so we could make calls and connect to the Internet. I entered a few numbers into the phone, configured my email accounts, and it was my primary device while I was there. I took several pictures with the phone and they came out ok – many people said the phone isn’t its strongest attribute. But compared to my Treo, they were awesome (yea, the Treo’s camera is poor).
Though the phone was sent ahead of time, it was not integral to OpenLab as I thought it may have been. Those who had other Nokia models of their own were using them for everything from live video streaming with Qik, Twitter, etc. As my archaic Vaio notebook could not pick up the WiFi signal in the ballroom, I use the phone for checking email and surfing the Web. I did not tweet while there, and in general did not even take a lot of notes – as everyone else was capturing photos and videos, I am going to go back over that content.
There is a lot to try on the phone, and I am now putting it through a thorough test. I will also scour forums like Howard Forums and All About Symbian as I am sure there are features or applications not in the documentation. And I will be taking up several offers from attendees if I have any questions. I will write up a full evaluation once I am done.
Prelude to a Trip
As I had mentioned earlier, the details were thin as to what the event was and who was going. I had asked the folks from WOM World if there were any restrictions on what I could say about this. There weren’t, and they sent me links to 2 other blog posts on this.. This was a good thing, and of course I commented on each of their posts. Shortly afterwards one of those bloggers, Roland, created a wiki for the event. This was the first time I worked with a wiki other than Wikipedia, and I will talk about that some other time. Slowly people who were attending introduced themselves on the wiki, and the trip and the event started to make some more sense.
To HEL and Back
HEL is the international airport code for the Helsinki airport we flew in and out of. All in all the round trip was a great experience, namely as I was on a Finnair flight over the pond. My personal preference is to fly an international airline when flying internationally, as overall experience is much, much more positive. I would also prefer to fly an international airline within the US, but that usually doesn’t work.
Just 2 small issues with the flights. On the way over, Sex and the City was one of the movies. As I drifted in and out of sleep, images from that film were projected on 5 screens of the MD-11’s coach cabin, which sent shrills down my spine each time I awoke. On the flight back, I sat in the last row of the plane along with Micki which was not an issue in itself, but the lavatory directly behind us with the “odor issue” was. That, and people usually did not close the door all the way. To my new friends on Finnair… please fix it!
There was another Chicagoan heading to OpenLab as well, and Steve and I connected via the wiki, and chose our favorite sports teams’ apparel to identify ourselves at O’Hare. We knew there were others on the Finnair flight but we didn’t know who they were, but now worries as we all met once we arrived, and we stuck together buying our way thru Duty Free to the gate on our flight home.
The City of Helsinki
I’ll be honest, Helsinki was not in my top 10 cities to visit. Even among the Scandinavian cities it was on the bottom of the list – I have been to Iceland and Denmark already, and as my wife is Norwegian and Swedish those countries take the top 2 spots. That being said, I was thrilled to have been there. It is a very clean and modern city, with a mix of older and new structures. Most of Helsinki was build within the last 100 years (according to Wikipedia) and has a lot of varying influences in the architecture. It was east to walk around, had a tram system and bike lanes off the sidewalks, which I was pleased to see.
An interesting note on the city and country – everyone speaks both Finnish and Swedish, and many signs – especially street signs – are in both. The Finnish language is not as much like the other Scandinavian languages as it is like Russian or other Baltic languages. Most Finns I met spoke at least 4 languages – Finnish, Swedish, English and some other language. And I am now struggling with the English words to describe how inferior I feel about that!
With a tight schedule and jet lag dogging me, I didn’t see as much of the city as I would have wanted to. After arriving, a group of us including Steve, Roland, Brian, Zach, Rahul and myself went to the Kiasma Museum the modern art museum, and afterwards on the suggestion of a woman in the coat room went to the Seahorse restaurant for some very good authentic Finnish food. What is Finnish food? I had a salmon chowder and pike perch, and there were many other meat and fish dishes.
The first night of OpenLab had a group of us heading out into the city for some late night burgers, which interestingly had a cooked egg on them. After refueling we toured through the main square and towards the casino, which has a nice lobby… sorry I forgot my passport Steve. On the last day of the event, Steve and I headed out for some brick and mortar commerce, and ran into Jenifer, and we all went on a cool walking tour of the city, checking out the harbor area.
The Klaus K Hotel
The entire OpenLab was held at the Klaus K Hotel, which was a beautiful boutique hotel in a style similar to a W Hotel. The hotel had been around for years under the name Klaus Kurki and a friend used to stay there when she was working in Finland a few years ago. Looking at pictures of the hotel online before it was renovated a few years back is a true journey of night and day. We all stayed in the hotel as well. My room was small but stylish, but not really conducive to work – there was a “c” shaped table next to the bed, but no task chair. Not an issue, as I really didn’t get much work done (shhhh, don’t tell my clients!).
Right to Reflect More
I started writing this just after I arrived back in Chicago, and in my usual control-freak manner, I kept working on it thinking I was going to get it perfect. But it’s not about the destination it’s about the journey, and I will write more as I reflect more on the event. And I will definitely be writing more about the phone!
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 10/01/08 at 09:15 AM
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Sunday, September 21, 2008
In the September 21, 2008 edition of the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine there is an article on Ace Tickets, a Boston-area sports and entertainment ticket broker. Towards the end of the story is a quote by me! I was contacted by the writer of the story, Dan McGinn, and asked questions about myself and my thoughts on ticket brokers. You can read the full article here.
In my very own paragraph, GoPats.com gets a link and my work and hobby are identified. I talked with McGinn for probably 15-20 minutes. The reference to paying a premium for Sox tickets was when my friend AJ visited from Australia and I wanted to take him to a game. The game I was shut out of was Super Bowl XXXVIII - I went to Houston, but the price of over US$2,000.00 per ticket was way out of our range. The ellipsis between the 2 lines in the end was my explanation to the author about how I, as an entrepreneur, understand the ticket broker business, but at the same time can’t swallow the high ticket prices.
This “love and hate” relationship comes out throughout the article. Where brokers buy up tickets that may go unsold, teams don’t reap the premiums themselves for the tickets. Many years ago I asked a question to the former president of the Boston Garden, Larry Moulter, about his thoughts on ticket scalpers on Garden property selling tickets. Needless to say, he did not directly answer my question. Though the business has come a long way with the likes of StubHub and Ace themselves being a Red Sox sponsor, there isn’t even a consensus among Boston team owners.
McGinn’s article is a good piece on the state of the tickets today, and it will be interesting to reread it a year or more in the future to see how it has evolved.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 09/21/08 at 09:32 AM
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As a new Dad, there is plenty to read out there. A book that is a “must read” is called “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” or simply referred to as “the book.” If you saw the movie “Knocked Up” this is the book they were referring to. The idea behind these books is to inform you as much as possible before your baby arrives, and when it does, you will be prepared with information to take on any situation.
Have you seen how many baby books are out there? And what they cover you won’t possibly remember at 3:00 a.m. when your baby is screaming for a bottle. One day I put down “the book” when I got to the chapter of all the deadly diseases a baby can have. Not that I can do anything about any of them, of course.
These information-overload books are screaming for a different approach – a book that covers the basics, but with a sarcastic sense of humor. Ok, that last part is my personal preference. I found such a book in Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, by Stefanie Wilder Taylor, a comedy writer and Mom. There were many takeaways from this for me, not only as a new parent but for life in general.
My greatest takeaway is that you can study, but nothing beats on the job training. Other than babysitting someone’s kid, there is no internship for being a parent. But there are internships available for just about every career option out there. Experience of some form beats none at all in most cases, providing the people involved have somewhat similar capacity.
Another takeaway is to budget for unplanned changes. In the case of a baby, this hit me most when I was tested with the functionality of some baby clothes, especially at late hours or when the kid wanted to take advantage of being outside of the womb and kick like crazy. An example that occurs for me quite often is with Web site design and development. Even though the delivered solution may be exactly to spec, once it is out there and in use, there may be desired changes to make it that much better, or fix something never originally considered. I would also apply this to homeownership.
A final takeaway on advice – consider yourself an employer and someone gives you a resume; file it as you never know when you need it. As a new parent, I get tons of advice daily. Some of it just does not resonate until you are in the moment when that advice applies. Keeping some of these things in the back of your mind and shuffling through them on occasion helps, whether it’s a screaming baby or screaming client.
Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay is certainly not a reference for everything that could possibly happen to your baby, and as extensive as it is the book “What to Expect” is still a must-read. But “Sippy Cups” is a great story tightly woven with humor and sarcasm and real life that I recommend to any first-time parents, or anyone that knows any first-time parents.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 09/13/08 at 04:00 AM
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Saturday, September 06, 2008
What is this world coming to? This is a question I occasionally find myself asking myself or others around me. Even though these days most things don’t really surprise me, sometimes you have to wonder about what you are reading and seeing in the news.
But maybe that’s it – it’s what I read and see in the news. If you hear bad news (or even good news) it is a short, sound-byte driven story that has very little depth. On the surface, a news story could be the worst thing to possibly happen in the world. But with more depth and information beyond the brief story, it may reveal a story that could still be bad – or good – but the more you know, the more you know. This is the idea behind the book All The Troubles In The World.
P.J. O’Rourke is a conservative political satirist. Whether you agree with his politics or not, he makes his point with sarcasm and dry humor that would find someone on the polar opposite politically giving an occasional chuckle. This book, written in 1994 (and sitting on my bookshelf since then), is, as stated on the cover, “the lighter side of overpopulation, famine, ecological disaster, ethnic hatred, plague and poverty.” Lighter side? I asked myself that prior to digging into the dusty pages of this book, one which did give me take-aways.
My biggest takeaway is that you really do need depth to a story. We don’t have time to look into every nuance or wrinkle in everything we see in the news, but more information on the people and scenarios that encircle a story help give it context, and help one make their own opinions on it. Many news Web sites have “related links” to other stories pertaining to a certain news story. I often find myself at Wikipedia when I want a start to get depth in a story.
Another takeaway from the book is you need multiple perspectives on a story, or really anything. There is plenty of talk about liberal or conservative biases in the media. While I am well aware when I see something being spun in a certain direction in front of me, I am able to discern the shaft from the wheat, and see what is truly happening and what is not.
A final takeaway is that we need more humor in our lives. As I write this, I admit I have been grumpy throughout this day. If I had a little more humor or something funny happen to me today, I probably wouldn’t be so grumpy. O’Rourke does this funny very well, in a brainy sort of way.
I recommend All The Troubles In The World to anyone who likes P.J. O’Rourke’s work, or anyone who recalls the news and events from the early 1990’s. It was interesting to read this and think back to that time, and see what has changed, and what has not.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 09/06/08 at 04:00 AM
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I got an email recently from Gary Sharma that his Web event guide, 
