Believe it or not, other things went on in the world this week besides the US presidential elections. As it looks right now, I will likely be able to make this same statement next week as well. In looking back at my notes for the week there were other things that went on that had nothing to do with voting.

Ok I Lied – My cousin’s father-in-law voted this week in New York City. Why is that such a big deal? He is 99, and turns 100 soon. He also fended off that nasty virus that is shutting down the world. There’s also more awesome stories about him I swore not to repeat! And likely there will be more for years to come.

Ok I Lied Again – In passing my oldest kiddo said to me, “Dad, did I tell you I am on Student Council?” I was caught off-guard and was equally thrilled and inquisitive, asking her about the election, especially as she has done “virtual learning” all school year. Apparently there was no election, and if anyone was interested they simply clicked a button to join it. Not quite my middle-school Student Council election experience. Now to ask her about her platform.

Projects Come and Go – In his latest email newsletter on one-page Web sites, Rob Hope mentioned about his Project Graveyard where he lists projects he has worked on in the past and are no longer with him, or us for that matter. This triggered me to come up with my own list, which at first pass is at 8 with an additional one on life-support. As it’s good to celebrate our successes and failures, I will keep this list going and will eventually publish it.

An Oasis of Ideas – Speaking of newsletters, veteran tech journalist and co-host of the No Agenda Show John C. Dvorak has launched one called The Oasis. He describes the newsletter as covering politics, technology and world affairs. I subscribed.

Good Coffee, Troubling App – At some point recently Starbucks changed the functionality of their mobile app when it comes to adding additional gift card balances. And changed for the worse. As I haven’t added a card in a while, my guess it was timed around recent functionality to use other payment methods. I was literally lost in adding another gift card’s balance to my main card. I don’t know how I was able to add it, but I did, and I don’t look forward to the next time I try to add a card.

Hearing The Progress Too – I met Randy Streu when I joined my co-working space, World HeadQuarters, as he works from here as well. A voiceover artist and writer, he decided to chronicle his weight-loss journey with the Obese podcast he started earlier this year. Where I have seen his progress, I just started listening to the podcast this week – I know, I suck. It’s a good listen with a mix of comedy and stark reality, which reflects what you go thru when you try to lose weight.

Plan B Video – With another round of Congressional testimony from the digital giants in recent weeks, I have been thinking more of my own digital footprint, especially video. With YouTube’s desire for a brand-safe platform, I have looked into others, like LBRY.TV, where I started setting up a channel. Granted I don’t have many recent videos out there, but it’s good to have options in the ever-growing landscape of changes to how platforms we all know and love, well, not being so loving.

It’s OK to Judge This Album By Its Cover – My friend Steve Lawson is a solo bassist based in the UK and his latest album, Still My Soul, caught my eye because of the “historical marker” depicted on it (click the link to see it). I have been listening to this album and others from his Bandcamp site as I have written what I have learned this week, and for a low annual subscription price you can too. Where I am no music reviewer, it’s good music to end this week.

Jump If You Still Can – One certainly new to me and likely old to everyone else is Paul Anka’s 2005 album Rock Swings, where he did covers of rock songs in his own unique style. One of them is Van Halen’s Jump. This is one I certainly wish I knew about even 10 years ago.

I Think I Canva – Another new to me is Canva, an online service for creating images and designs. There are other services out there, and this one was fairly intuitive to use. Plus they offer a free version for personal use, which I used to create a header for my LinkedIn profile and the image at the top of this post. Before my designer friends start after me, Canva (yes, it’s an affiliate link) is good for people with little to no budget, or who want to experiment/play with design. When you have budget and want to knock it out of the park, talk to a great designer like my friend Emily at Visible Logic.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Despite all odds and even with all going on in the world, some business just simply flourish. They make headlines and flaunt their success. They do this while driving down the road of fortune, fame and growth that was paved by those who didn’t do so well. But why is this? Is there a “secret formula” some these companies follow that others don’t?

The authors of Exponential Organizations believe there is a pattern to this; companies that leverage the latest in technology, big data, algorithms and the broader community will not only find success, but exponential growth as well. They call these firms ExOs, short for exponential organizations. The approach they modeled in this book back in 2014 has led to a global organization, OpenExO, that consults and trains people on ExOs. As well there are startup consulting firms like BostonExO, which is how I learned about this book, as my good friend Eric Patel started such a firm this past summer.

Intrigued by this, I bought a copy of Exponential Organizations to try to understand better what this was about, and from it I have several takeaways.

Gotta Have Attitude – If you think you can be successful, it will help you more than if you are unsure about it. Upfront I saw this with what they call a Massive Transformative Purpose, or MTP. Typically, someone will say their firm has a vision or mission, but if you want to consider yourself an ExO, you call it an MTP. Where on the surface an MTP and vision statement may look the same, the key to the former in the word transformative, which implied you are making a large, dare I say exponential, impact by what your business does.

Supertankers and Tugboats – The book covers all of the elements of what make up an ExO. In laying these out, it discusses how they can be used for creating a new firm, as well as applying them to an existing firm who likely doesn’t operate anything like a smaller, more nimble entity. A larger firm will setup a smaller firm or simply acquire one, often times integrating the smaller firm in the larger, and often times losing a lot of why they made the acquisition to begin with. The analogy I read of tugboats guiding supertankers really resonated with me – these smaller firms don’t have to be engulfed, and they can guide the larger firm and likely will be vital in their success.

Disrupt Thyself – Another idea I took from the book was to setup your own ExO to disrupt yourself. The thinking is here where you give the start-up money, your data and your intellectual property, and leave them alone. If someone is going to disrupt you, it may as well be yourself, and that way you can use what is created to save your business.

My Thoughts on Version 2 of the Book

As Exponential Organizations came out 6 years ago, a lot has changed in business and the world, and as a result some of the content – especially examples of businesses – is dated. The authors have thus embarked on an endeavor to update the book. In case anyone is interested, I will share my thoughts for a version 2 of the book.

Separate Theory from Examples – Woven in with the principles of what an ExO is are examples of entities that the authors consider either follow well the model of what an ExO are, or don’t. As these are tightly coupled, it can be distracting when a business is mentioned as a good example, but is no longer in existence today, as it was acquired or changed since the initial publication. This, however, is not just a challenge for this book but many I have read over the years, as businesses always come and go. Separating theory from examples will go a long way to keeping the main ideas relevant, even though the examples down the road may not be.

More Relatable Examples – Many of the examples of what an ExO were entities that seemed out of reach to me – Amazon, Zappos, Tesla, Google. Many books cite these businesses as pinnacle examples, and certainly they are. But for the average person, these businesses almost seem irrelevant; if you don’t become the next Google, are you a failure? There are certainly businesses that are smaller in scale, scope, yet truly transformative and exponential, and there should be a focus on them. Companies founded by people who were directly inspired by reading Exponential Organizations would be the ultimate examples.

An Online “Addendum” Connected by QR Code, Subscription – Almost every book has an accompanying Web site these days, and tucked away on them is an “errata” or section on changes to the book since the print copy went into the wild. The previously mentioned thoughts for version 2 should also leverage the Web or an app for this, and could tie them together with a QR code in each section of the book or an email newsletter subscription or RSS feed to notify readers of the book as to these types of changes. Registered users could even get an overall updated copy of the book over time when the authors decide to fold these changes into the published version.

Passing Along The Learning

As I do with all books I read, I pass it along once I have finished it and have written my takeaways here at The Hot Iron. In this case I am sending it to a work colleague. There are changes going on in our organization, and I want to share these ideas as they may be relevant to what we are doing.

I recommend Exponential Organizations to anyone starting a new business or working in an existing one. The ideas here can help you in evaluating how to move forward with projects and changes in your organization towards a transformative journey.

Editor’s Note: All links to the book are Amazon affiliate links, which means if you click on them and buy the book, then I make a few pennies.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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As I write this I am sitting inside my front door. By me are a couple of large bowls of processed-sugar-laden candy, complete with a ladle to be relatively contactless. In the background music from the movie Psycho is blasting from SiriusXM Scream Radio. There is trick-or-treating here in the city I live in, though I haven’t seen anyone yet. Despite my kiddos wishes, any excess candy at the end of the night will go to a local police department.

I think I Kanban – This week I started a virtual course on Kanban. It is an Agile scheduling tool that dates itself back to the 1950’s. The course is taught by Anthony Mersino and his firm Vitality Chicago, and I have learned a lot already just about a third through the course. A basic example of a Kanban board is what I wrote about previously and I have learned there’s much more to Kanban.

A New Scrum Guide – The Scrum Guide is the definition of Scrum from its co-creators Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber. This week it was announced a new version of the guide, which was last updated 3 years ago, will be launched on November 18. I have signed up for it and am looking forward to seeing what’s new and changed in what some call the Bible of Scrum.

Me and My Ballot – Did you know it is illegal in some US states to take a selfie with your ballot? Here’s a list of all states and whether it is legal or not to take one. As I have many readers in Massachusetts, Illinois and Wisconsin, I’ll save you the click and bring on the disappointment right away.

May C-Force Be With Your Car – The ultimate car wash solution, C-Force Ceramic, was launched globally this week. Congrats to my wife and her team for all the hard work they put into the product. Look for it at your local car wash – it comes orange-vanilla scent too!

Eleven Seconds Remembered – On Thursday Travis Roy died. Eleven seconds into his first game as a member of the Boston University Men’s Hockey Team, Roy went headfirst into the boards when trying to check an opponent who got out of the way. From the impact Roy became a quadriplegic. He went on to be an advocate and fundraiser for disabilities and a motivational speaker. I still remember the tragedy, 25 years ago, like it was yesterday as I was at the game. In this story on that night, literally minutes after BU hoisted its national championship banner and a goal was scored, is a link to an interview with Sean Grande who was in the broadcast booth at Walter Brown Arena covering the game. His recount is exactly as I recall it.

Sleep Out So Kids Don’t – My friend Omid has been involved with Covenant House California, an organization that works to prevent youth homelessness. He is again going all in with a Sleep Out in the Los Angeles area, where he will be sleeping outside one night to raise money and awareness. You can watch his presentation on it here and pledge him here.

Somewhere, Kirk Gibson Did a Fist Pump – Speaking of LA, the Dodgers won the World Series. I had to actually go out of my way to find this out as I haven’t been following baseball, or much of any pro sports, this year.

He’s Coming To Town Somehow – As pretty much nothing has turned out as anyone would want this year, why should Santa’s time at the mall be any different? It certainly is at least at the local mall by me and as it is owned by a mall conglomerate, it likely will be the same at a mall near you.

IPFS New To Me – Though it has been around for a few years, the InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, came into view for me this week as I was catching up on recent episodes of the Podcast Index podcast. In short, from how I understand it, it’s a way of having a distributed file system where files can live on any server around the world. This intrigues me and I am going to put some time into learning it this week.

An ongoing battle will come to an end on Halloween over this display. One child of mine thinks that both hands of the zombie to the right should be together, and the other thinks one should be in a potted plant about 20 feet away. The latter is the case when this photo was taken, but I believe it has changed since.

In America, Happy Halloween and set your clocks back Sunday morning!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Recently I got an alert on LinkedIn that someone viewed my profile. I knew who this person was as they were a connection. Well, I thought they were one, for when I looked at their profile we were no longer connected. My guess was they viewed my profile solely for the purpose to remove the connection between us, and yes, as you may guess there’s a long story here that I will purposely not share.

What this person didn’t realize, and many others do not as well, is that you can remove someone as a connection on the business social networking site without them even knowing it. It is not completely obvious that you can do so, however. As I have known about it for years and maybe even did it once or twice myself, I will share my stealth disconnect secret in the wide open here.

The Steps to Disconnect

Here’s the steps to remove a LinkedIn connection using a standard desktop/laptop Web browser.

1. Navigate to LinkedIn.com, select My Network in the top navigation bar, then under Manage my network click on Connections.

2. Search and scroll, but do not click – the key here is to not open someone’s profile, rather scroll to it in the list of connections. You can try entering a partial name to search, but do not click on their name. If you’re unsure, simply scroll to the bottom of your connections, which may take a while, then use Ctrl-F (on the PC) or Command-F (on the Mac) to find the name of the contact.

For this exercise, I chose my friend and long-time The Hot Iron reader Gary. Don’t worry, I won’t actually disconnect from you!

3. Click the ellipsis (the 3 dots) to the far right of their entry on the list, which will display the option to Remove connection, and click it.

4. You will be presented with a pop-up to confirm to Remove Connection. As the message says, they won’t know that you did. Click Remove to proceed, or Cancel if you don’t want to, as I did.

You will receive a confirmation message when complete, and your connection count will be one less.

To Remove or To Not Remove Connections

This is not the first time I talked about removing LinkedIn connections, as it first came up for me over 8 years ago in this post on how I removed them then. As you may guess, the functional process is much different now. But in re-reading this original post (and adding an editor’s note on its now-outdated content) the reasons for removing connection remain the same, both in what I stated as well as comments to the post. Nothing is forever, as I mentioned in that post, and it certainly holds today. Even the “wise man” who told me is someone I haven’t spoken to in years.

Deconstructing Removing LinkedIn Connections

Removing connections on any social network is a reality. However it’s good to know you have options on how to do it, especially if you don’t want the other person to know you have made a disconnect.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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One of my long-time readers Matt (and I believe he goes back to the early daze of The Hot Iron) recently asked me how I write this weekly column of what I learned. It’s pretty straightforward; as I get an “aha” on something I paste it into my notes system which I can access by mobile or notebook computer. At the end of the week (or beginning of the next) I copy them into Word and provide some (hopefully) unique context around them. And here goes this past week’s batch.

Text This Ten Times Fast – I heard the term smishing for the first time this week. This is when you receive a spam SMS (or text) message on your phone with a link the sender hopes you’ll click on and enter personal information so eventually some account of yours can be hacked. Hat tip to Paul Ferron of LibertyID who was on Josh Dukelow’s Fresh Take for the term.

Bad Bad Browsers – Two stories past my eyes this week that reinforced trends in the wrong direction with regards to Web browsers. First was where the recently new Microsoft Edge, the replacement for Internet Explorer, is making changes which may break ad blockers. Also, a “bug” was found in Google Chrome where when you clear your browsing history it doesn’t clear it for Google search or YouTube, also owned by Google. I long for the days when a Web browser was just a Web browser, but sadly I would need to go into the wayback machine to the 1990’s.

Please Test – When testing mobile apps or mobile Web sites, make sure you take into consideration accessibility features being enabled like text size and zooming in on the screen.

Helping You Helping Others – My good colleague Thej offers these great tips of tools to use for effective documentation. Granted some of these are for the more technically inclined, but even if your Web site or app works well functionally, often people need help on how to use it.

Good Grief? – People were in a tizzy this week as it was announced the Peanuts holiday specials, starting with “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” will no longer be appearing on broadcast television but exclusive on Apple TV+. For me this was no big deal, as 1) I don’t watch over-the-air or cable TV and 2) I bought them on DVD at a Walgreens drug store for about $10 for all of them years ago. Guessing the discs are a little more expensive now.

But You Can Watch This For Free – This commercial for the Kyro Distillery in Finland was shared to me by colleagues in the Scandinavian country. But only watch it if you appreciate quirky Nordic humor.

But Will It Make A Difference? – The United Kingdom has a Minister of Loneliness.

HugTrain Reimagined – My friend Arie Moyal is changing his long-standing annual tradition of HugTrain, where he traversed the US and Canada offering hugs in the name of better mental health, into The Small Change Institute. More to come on this endeavour.

Closer To An Accessibility Law? – Web and mobile accessibility has always been a gray area when it comes to the law. The Americans with Disability Act in the US does not specify digital technology, namely as it wasn’t around when the law was passed. But that hasn’t stopped lawsuits claiming ADA violations. A new bill has been introduced in the US House on Accessibility. I am torn as on this as it really doesn’t address all scenarios, such old dormant Web sites that are still live, let alone relevant content on any Web site. I will be following it closely, and so will your lawyers.

Final Call For Paper Box Tops – The fundraiser Box Tops for Education started moving to a digital format a few years back, and the last of the paper “clip tops” are being collected now. As most schools are virtual, you are now able to send Box Tops in yourself on behalf of your school. Where this video shows you how, you still need an online account to get the submission forms. Personally, I think this is the end of the Box Tops program. Originally Box Tops were easy and fun to clip and collect. Now that it has gone digital, you scan shopping receipts with an app to “collect” now, and as a result you are sharing everything you buy and part of your credit card number. And not surprisingly, money collected by this is way down from past years.

Whoops – Depending on when you read last week’s What I Learned, the link to the presentation on Scrum and high performing teams may have been broken. Here’s the link again, which is not.

My absentee ballot has been received, according to the tracking Web site managed by the state of Wisconsin. Other than Seth Reid for Winnebago County Register of Deeds, I am not saying who I voted for.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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