I have often said the technology needs of non-profit organizations are similar to those of for-profit businesses. To begin with, many for-profit businesses are actually non-profit, but I digress. Where the difference comes into play is in the significance of the technology to support the mission of the organization, especially when it has a greater cause. The following is a true story and the name of the organization have been withheld to protect the innocent.

What this particular organization offers to its community – services for inner-city youth – is vital. When it comes to their tech infrastructure, they needed help, and that’s how I came into the picture. I first got involved with a past program they had with refurbishing computers for kids, later consulting to them pro-bono on their Web site through my previous Web business.

One day, and I remember it was July the third, I got a phone call late in the day from the Executive Director of this organization. A few days earlier on July the first, they switched to a new Internet provider in their office, something I was aware of. However, what I was not aware of – and neither was their Executive Director – was the hosting of their Web site and email went away with the switch, as it was at their previous provider. As a result, their Web site went down, and so did their email.

Part of the reason why I supported the organization, in addition to the great things they did, was the Executive Director himself. His professionalism and enthusiasm could have him leading any corporation. So as he acknowledged what happened and what they didn’t prepare for, in his unique style he asked for my help. How could I not? Despite the timing before the holiday, I told him I could restore his Web site and email accounts by the time they were back in the office on July the fifth.

Even while I was on my call with him, I was putting together a plan to restore their services. Luckily I had recently taken a copy of their entire Web site so I was able restore it. I established new Web hosting and email and setup and configured it all. Once completed I crafted instructions for managing email, sending it to the Executive Director’s personal email. In the message I let him know I will offer the hosting to them at no cost.

When they got back in the office after the holiday, I got emails from their new email accounts thanking me for all I did.

Deconstructing Consulting For A Greater Cause

I gladly setup and offered the organization its hosting as I was helping a greater cause. Although what I did for them was not pushing the technical limits of what I can do, it was up there with the most gratifying work I have done. Today I look back on this with pride for the important services I was able to offer this vital organization.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Diversions • Strategize • (2) Comments • Permalink

In today’s remote working environment, often we struggle to connect with people we work with who are also in the same boat. However we soon forget that when we were working in the same office and sitting around the same table with these same people, we still had this problem. I had a challenge like to this once with a teammate that I, as well as others, hadn't really connected with. I decided to make the extra effort to bridge the gap with this person, all to a successful outcome.

At the time I was with an international firm on an international project based in Boston. On the project was a mix of people from the Boston area, around the US and a few from around the world. One in particular was from Australia. When he came into the office, his presence was known. He dressed a little differently from the rest of us had a certain swagger. Not to forget he had a unique accent. None of this really mattered to me, and I introduced myself to him and told him I looked forward to working with him. Despite this initial outreach, I wasn’t really sure he felt the same towards me.

Often this colleague and I were in the same meetings, representing our teams on the project. I learned quickly he didn’t mix words and would speak honestly, though not always the most appropriately, at least by American standards. Often he would mix colloquial terms from Australia into work discussions, causing people to scratch their heads. As a result, many people focused on how he was saying something rather than what he was saying.

I looked at this situation differently. Here was someone who had come from another part of the world and was now stationed in Boston; though Boston is a very international and cosmopolitan, it still harken back to its conservative colonial roots. He came into this ever-expanding group and was trying to make a name for himself.

A Literally Off The Shelf Solution

One day I looked ahead and saw I was scheduled to be in a meeting with him the next. That night I was thinking of how I could finally break the ice with him. As I looked around my home office I found the answer sitting on my bookshelf. The next day I brought it in to work, a book of Australian slang. It was given to me years earlier by another colleague from Australia. It was a rather thick book, the size of large novel. Even though I had held onto it for years, I never thought it would come in handy in this capacity.

As we gathered the next day in a conference room, I sat directly across from my colleague from Down Under. Just as a meeting started, I looked across the table at him and taking the book out, I slammed it on the middle of the table. As did, I said something to the effect that he wasn’t going to get away with using any Australian slang expressions on me any longer.

To this he was a at first taken aback, then he looked straight at me and smiled. From that point forward, we had a much better working relationship, and I got to know him more personally as well. It all happened because I was simply willing to work to make a connection with him.

Deconstructing Connecting with Colleagues

Every situation is different and sometimes we don't always get it right. When it comes to personalities, I feel it's definitely worth trying to connect with people. Many times just from that effort we can gain appreciation and for each other and work well together.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Business • Strategize • (0) Comments • Permalink

Several years ago I “got into” writing. Granted, I was blogging here at The Hot Iron for over a decade at that point. Even with a body of work – some of it even beyond the world of business and technology – I never considered myself a “writer” per se. Visiting the Lit Fest in Chicago and taking it all in for the first time, a mere few blocks from my then home, was the boost I needed. Where I haven’t published yet beyond this Web site, I have expanded on what I write here, and have in various stages pieces in need of time to finish and submit for possible publishing.

That is if you don’t count some short stories I have submitted recently. And the emphasis here is on short – as in 53 words short. On and off for the last year I have submitted entries for the monthly 53-Word Short Story contest by Press 53, a fiction and poetry publishing house in North Carolina. I discovered this when looking for writing contests for one of my kids, who at one point was interested in such contests then later wasn’t. However I got bitten by this serial unique challenge.

For August’s contest, the writing prompt was to write about “Sunday.” That’s it, that’s all they give you, and it is up to your creativity – and brevity – to craft something unique and prize-winning. As you can tell by the title of this post I did not win, and as a result my prose will not be published in one of their journals.

But as words must be free, I share “Any Given” with you here:

"While awaiting our lobsters to brighten, we slurped steamers – simmered in Harpoon IPA, from the same Portsmouth dock as the crustaceans. Aptly accompanying our ocean harvest was corn on-the-cob, homemade potato salad and more of said IPA.

Ten o’clock may seem early for such a feast, but there’s only three hours till kick-off."

The preceding is a true story, as annually we would have a lobster bake during one week’s tailgating before a New England Patriots home game back in the day.

If you’re so inclined you can read the winning entry here, learn about this month’s contest and how you too can compete with me for the fame and glory of a very, very short story.

Deconstructing Short Story Writing

Writing can take many forms. What I originally saw as business and technology writing was in reality story writing, and upon that realization it opened and expanded my mind to what else I could write. But I will save an in-depth deconstruction for another time – just get out there and write!

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Announcements • Diversions • Strategize • (4) Comments • Permalink

As businesses and individuals return to work, of equal importance to safety and protection is communications – we need to know as much as possible to make informed decisions. One area I have found lacking is with the Web sites of businesses and professionals. Many sites I see in the course of trying to return to normal suffer from a dearth of vital information needed for people to determine if they are still operating or not, and if so how.

Here I offer seven recommendations for your Web site to indicate the status of your business and how to help return to normal as possible these days.

Add alert functionality upfront – If there’s something important you want people to know, put it right up front. How? You can have a brightly colored alert banner anchored to the top of your home or all Web pages to inform people. A browser pop-up can also achieve this. As you may not have this functionality already, you might have to check with your Web site consultant or look into the services of your Web site platform to see how you can gain this. It may be easier than you think, and even if it comes with a cost, it will be well worth it.

Are you open? – This may be obvious to you the business owner, but not all Web sites I visit make it clear. The messaging may be nested into the design of the site but not easily found. Using the alert functionality mentioned above is one way to achieve this. Another is to look at all of the content of your site and make whatever adjustments needed to indicate so.

Update location, hours and contacts – Due to changes in your business, have you relocated? Did you change your hours? Do you have different contact information? Is this new information reflected on your Web site? If not, it should be.

Changes to your business practices – If the experience your customers will have with you has changed as a result of COVID-19, indicate this on your Web site. Will someone have to wear a mask? Do you have shielding in place? Is distancing required? This is important for people to understand if they can still do business with you and will give them the peace of mind they may need that it's safe to do business with you.

Add social media feeds to your site – Many businesses and individuals are updating their social media accounts more than their Web site. Why not kill two birds with one stone and put the feeds from your social media accounts onto your home page? How to do this varies depending on your site and you should follow the previous tips on checking your Web site provider or consultant.

Start an email list – Many businesses found out the hard way when they had to shut down that the only contact with their customers was when they came through their door. As my good friend John Wall says on his Marketing Over Coffee podcast, you've got to have a house list. Every business, every professional should have an email list with the sign up on the Web. There are many different services where you can set up a mailing list, some are even free. For example, if you are reading this by email, I use MailChimp in order to create and send the emails from my RSS feed. You can customize templates and the content to send to your customers and contacts.

Add e-commerce – There's no time like the present to take online payments or sell products and services online. Just last week, Chipotle just started doing this by selling clothing and other items online. Now the company that was all about selling burritos and bowls is now into merchandising. If you don't have a specific new product idea, simply having the ability to take credit cards is important. It can be as simple as setting up a PayPal account and pay by the transaction by transaction, then upgrade to a credit card service when you get more volume.

Deconstructing vital Web site updates

As social media and other services have evolved, much business content and functionality, even e-commerce, uses them. Your Web site may have been neglected or completely out of sync with other messaging you have out there. As Coronavirus remains out there, I recommend these vital Web site updates to ensure it remains an integral part of your business.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Business • Strategize • Web Design • (2) Comments • Permalink

With professional baseball finally – well, at least as of this writing – starting to come back this year, I have been thinking more about it and other sports, especially how teams and the league are structured. In keeping with the mission here at The Hot Iron, my mind has been pondering how the business world could benefit from being more like professional sports.

Now before you the fair reader says, “hey, pro sports ARE businesses” let me elaborate. First, I concur, as you can’t have teams worth multi-billions and players making multi-millions and not be a business. Where I think they can be more alike, it’s certain aspects unique to sports that would be welcome and refreshing complements to the business world.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the starting line-up for my 5 ways I wish business was more like sports.

Minor leagues – When you get a job with a company, you are working right away. Some firms may have a training program, and many have a probationary period, but those are in place to get you up to speed and to fire you if need be, respectively. If you are new entering the workforce, say from school or perhaps not, or if you are switching careers, having a minor league system would be a great way to develop your skills and abilities, all the while actually producing.

By being in a minor league system in business, it’d be known that it is still the minors, and expectations would be somewhat different. Such differences could be in your pay and the cost of your services. When you are ready to perform at the top level, you would join the majors. If you never achieved that level, you could stay in the minors or maybe switch careers. In either case the minor leagues of business can be a place to develop the best and brightest people.

Free agency – Talk about the ultimate transparency, as everybody knows what an athlete makes and what the terms of their contracts are. What if that was the same in business, where it is completely the opposite and as non-transparent as one can imagine.

What you are worth to the marketplace would be well-known, and if your current employer couldn’t offer it to you, you could easily go elsewhere, being a free agent. Sure, being a contractor in today’s business environment is a close approximation, but the knowledge of who’s out there and available in any profession or discipline would not be as much of a mystery as it is now.

Working 162 days a year – That’s the number of games in a traditional Major League Baseball season, and other sports have fewer. When you are only working those days, it doesn’t mean you are idle the remainder of the year. When not in a game you are training, relaxing, recovering, getting physical therapy or even meditating.

What if the business work schedule allowed for you to have designated working days and designated training days, days in the middle of the week, and not just at night or the weekends? This way you can prepare better for your work time, ideally correlating to you being more productive and efficient.

No stigma to getting fired – When you get fired in business, it is a bad situation. How many people go around saying, “hey, I got fired?!” There are many reasons why people are fired, including lack of management oversight, new leaders or a change in direction in a company or group. Many times, it is simply personality conflicts. Or simply they could have made mistakes worthy of their termination. Getting fired doesn’t mean you don’t have the skills to do your job. That being said, you are not going to go out looking for a new job saying you were fired from your last one.

In sports, it’s the opposite. Players are getting cut all the time, and many times their unemployment is short as another team signs them. Coaches are getting fired all of the time, only to emerge wearing another team jacket the next season. In all cases it was well-known that the coaches or players were fired, yet nobody is shouting at them during a game because of what they did for their last team. Both players and coaches can perform poorly one season and thrive and win the very next one for a variety of reasons, such as the organization they go to has a much different culture or “system” which works better for them.

Spring Training – In business, an annual kickoff for the new year could be a weekend away for some senior leaders, but for the majority it is a meeting or, these days, a Webinar. What if business had a true spring training, as baseball does, where you get out of the normal office, get some training and bond with your co-workers, and plan and prepare for the upcoming calendar or fiscal year?

Deconstructing Business Being More Like Sports

The way sports have traditionally operated lends to the structure and elements as I have outlined here. As sports have evolved, players and coaches are “working” year round, just as a standard business does. I present here how I have imagined how business can leverage some of these elements from sports, and feel it could transform how businesses function and perform. Isn’t it worth a try to change business as usual?

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Business • Strategize • (2) Comments • Permalink