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Walking, seeing and touching #sand for the first time. I wonder if this is what it was like for Adam his first time in the Garden...Lots of whimsy and wonder. #adoption #congoboy #Timoté

#congoboy #sand #adoption #timoté

Just finished a 17 page Corporate Finance exam. I think I'll go back to #marketing. #MBA #ballstate

#marketing #ballstate #mba

jacks

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

Lincoln (via jacks)

But by all means, keep moving.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

#quote #life

A few thoughts on sleep...

Just recently my wife and I have got back in to our "sleep hygiene" program where we go to sleep and wake up at the same time 7 days a week. Due to our work schedule, we our goal is to go to sleep at 10:00 PM in order to wake up at 6:00 AM. What we found in our first stint with a sleep program is that the first week is extremely tiring, but then you get used to it and you begin to wake up naturally as your body becomes programmed to get up at the same time everyday. It does take several weeks for this to happen...But there is nothing better than waking up without an alarm. Now, this isn't for everyone, but I will say that if you haven't tried it, give it a shot for a couple months. For me, it's provided three great benefits: 1. Generally better health. I'm not as tired and feel better from day-to-day. 2. More time. I find that I'm more productive with the 1 hour and 45 minutes I'm up before I head to work. This has allowed me to run, read, have some quiet time, enjoy nature, and eat a hearty breakfast all before 8 AM. 3. The weekends feel longer. Most people view the weekend as a time to sleep in and get away from work. I find my weekends are longer and I enjoy Mondays much more than before. @travisboucek

#sleep #productivity #health

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made.”

Benjamin Franklin

#quote #wisdom

I came across this article by Abbey Klaassen in Advertising Age. Ms. Klaassen does a great job providing an analysis between the classic "Startup" and financial leader, American Express.

In the article, Klaassen provides several examples that illustrate how AmEx has operational activities similar to a startup. One of which is simplicity. The digital team at American Express understands that they must meet their consumers where they are already at (namely, social media) rather than ask consumers to come to them. AmEx has recently done an outstanding job with their sync program in collaboration with Twitter. Twitter / AmEx users can now purchase products with two tweets; much faster than any other ordering process.

However, the main point that stuck out to me was the "5-second rule" that the AmEx team coheres to. Before producing a piece of content, a program, or something that their audience will interact with, the team asks, "Will they get this in 5 seconds?". If the answer is no, then the impressions are likely to drop off.

All advertising and marketing executives should take this into consideration. Far too often we produce something that we think makes sense, but may not be so clear to our target audience. To counter this, we need to follow the old adage and put ourselves in our customer's (or client's) shoes .

-@travisboucek

#Marketing #socialmedia #Advertising #Sartup

From Forbes.com Thought of the Day: “ It is often easier to fight for a principle than to live up to it. ” — Adlai Stevenson

forbes.com

#leadership

A few months ago my older brother referred me to Michael Hyatt. As I started listening to Michael Hyatt's podcasts and reading his blog posts, I came across his posts on email. For most people, the possibility of having a clean email inbox (zero messages at the end of the day), feels impossible. While I'm just starting out in my career and may not receive as many emails as a seasoned executive, I roughly receive about 100 emails per day. As many of you know, there is not a bigger productivity killer than coming back from a few meetings and having 30-50 new emails. For most, email automatically becomes the "top priority" when in reality, other tasks may be more critical. To combat this, I've started following the principles that Michael Hyatt recommends. 1. Only read an email one time. Once you read it, complete the task if it takes less than two minutes. 2. If it requires more than two minutes, file it in a "to-do" folder for you to work on later. 3. For all other messages, file them in a "processed" mail folder. Hint: stop using your complex outlook folder structure to categorize mail! As Michael Hyatt recommends, I've also setup some keyboard commands to help speed the process up even more. Even though I've only been doing this for a few months, I can feel the difference it is making in my productivity. Email no longer runs the day-to-day and I end every work day with zero messages at the end of the day. My challenge to you: If you don't believe it will work for you because your job requires immediate responses or you receive too many emails, give it a 30 day trial. I'm willing to wager you will be pleasantly surprised. @travisbouek

#management #email #productivity

I recently came across this article in the Harvard Business Review by Angela Ahrendts, the CEO of Burberry. Throughout the article, Ms. Ahrendts discusses the journey that Burberry has been on since she joined the company in 2006. Ahrendts explains how the company slowly veered off course from its icon product, the trench coat. Not only was the company not focused on their heritage, but they were no longer prioritizing the "design" of their brand. Regional offices were coming up with new designs and clothing products without regard to the brand as a whole. Once Ahrendts joined the company, she immediately began to centralize the design as well as rekindle the heritage of their iconic trench coat. For example, all products and designs had to be routed through her newly appointed brand czar. Additionally, Ahrendts doubled down on Burberry's roots. Rather than continue to diversify with a wide variety of products, the goal was to relaunch the dominance of their trench coat before moving on to other product lines. Based on their recent financials, Ahrendts actions have paid off. When Ahrendts became CEO, Burberry was only growing 2% a year. By 2012, Ahrendts' leadership paved the way for Burberry's revenue and operating income to double to an impressive $3 billion and $600 million, respectively. While most of us aren't CEOs or CMOs, we still need to be brand advocates. Every single piece of literature, every web page, and every customer interaction is influencing your brand. It's up to you to help guide whether it is helping or hurting your brand. From this article, it would appear that the biggest brand enhancement one can do, is to just go back to your legacy products and get those in shape before moving on. As they say in football, catch the ball, then turn and run. -@travisboucek

#leadership #management #brand

I'm currently enrolled in an online MBA program at Ball State University and one of my professors shared this short video of Steve Jobs from a few years back. While the video title is "Steve Jobs on Failure", I would suggest that this short clip should be titled "Steve Jobs on Asking for Help". In this short clip, Jobs recalls a childhood memory of calling Bill Hewlett (co-founder of HP computers) and asking for some spare parts in order to pursue something he (Jobs) was interested in at the time. Not only did Hewlett give Jobs the parts, but he also gave him a job at HP the following summer doing the exact thing that Jobs was interested in learning about. Jobs goes on to explain that almost no one will turn down a request for help. If you go to someone and ask for help, the majority of the time people are willing to help. The difference between those who say and those who do are those who ask for help. Just recently in my MBA program, I had to do some "market research" in which I needed 75-150 people complete a survey. At first thought, I wasn't sure how I was going to get that many people to take a survey. However, after getting some inspiration from this video, I started asking almost all people that I knew...friends, family, colleagues, social media connections, and even some strangers. To be honest, I was shocked by the response. Most people were willing to take a few minutes to complete the survey. As a result, I've decided that I'm going to ask for more help. In today's business world, "leaders" and great managers are expected to know the exact next step, that is, the best thing to do, but maybe we just need more people to ask for help and insight.

#Leadership #SteveJobs

In an effort to continually improve my own writing skills as well as learn from industry experts, I plan to provide my personal analysis on current events, productivity, and business in general on this blog.

I don't intend to gain thousands of followers or build a platform in order to launch a "blogging" career. Rather, I hope to be more purposeful in practicing my writing skills by sharing and analyzing content that others have already compiled for us to learn and enjoy from.

While scrolling through my twitter feed this morning, I found this article in the New York Times by Nancy F. Koehn. In this article, Ms. Koehn compares President Lincoln's "leadership" style with the industry standard in 2013. While many examples and lessons are summarized, the main point that stood out to me was a letter that President Lincoln's "sent" to General George C.Meade. Tired and worn out from the war, Lincoln was understandably upset that Gen. Meade was not able to capture General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate army. In this letter, President Lincoln wrote, "[Lee] was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war....Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.”

However, rather than mail the letter, Lincoln put the note in the envelope and laid it on his desk. Without a doubt, this took an immense amount of leadership for President Lincoln to walk the fine line between holding his team (managers and employees) accountable and understanding the struggles that Gen. Meade had faced.

As Ms. Koehn wrote in the NYT article, how easy is it in today's world to shoot off an email, a tweet, or comment without thinking twice. Yes, clearly there are times where people need to be held accountable, but if we look at President Lincoln's example, there are also times when we should not send the message.

-@travisboucek

#Management #Leadership #Lincoln

Business people don't just need to understand designers better; they need to become designers.

Roger Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Management

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

-Mark Twain

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