Preston Smalley

Shopping.com launched today a new comparison shopping site called DoorOne in the UK, France, Germany and Austrailia. It’s reported that this was due to the Shopping.X namespace being unavailable in all markets.

However this release is more than just a different URL as they have introduced a number of new features:

• Multiple selection of facets. First introduced on eBay Express, this is an easy way to select multiple brands you’re interested in or perhaps two size shoes that may work.
• Category Clustering of Results. Notice how the page is filled with TVs, Camcorders and Digital Cameras.
• Popular Data at Top. They show the most popular products bought on top.

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Dan Roam visited eBay on Thursday to give a workshop on Visual Thinking. I thought I might learn how to produce better charts and diagrams but instead I got a whole new way to think about problems and visualizations. He gave countless examples of how you can discover great data often buried within a 40 page powerpoint deck and share it in a simple visual way.

Not only is Dan Roam perhaps the best visualizer of a generation but he’s reflected on how he approaches his work so that others can repeat it. Here’s how he approaches it:

1. Look - Collect and scan your data. Decide what problem you’re trying to solve.
2. See - Find patterns in the data (Who? What? When? How? Why?)
3. Imagine - Describe your data by capturing it your “mind’s eye”.
4. Show - Select the right framework (e.g. Measurement? Time line?)

Dan discusses the importance of identifying patterns in your data and then finding ways to communicate those patterns to others. As I’m finding in other business literature no matter what the field effective pattern recognition and communication seems to separate the best from the average.

Examples:

• Measurement: Comparing using Harvey Balls is a classic approach. Focus on simplicity (simple 2d colors vs. fancy 3d charts) to put the data front an center.
• Flow chart: Dan’s got a great example of Walmart Sustainability on his blog.

If you’d like to learn more about visual thinking check out Dan’s blog and stay tuned for the release of his book The Back of the Napkin. Finally, I highly recommend his training workshop. I took the 1/2 day visual thinking workshop and left wanting more.

Update:

• Dan’s posted a chapter of a potential upcoming book The Million Dollar Chart.
• A company now sells interesting visualization posters: HistoryShots

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UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business moved up to the top 5 of the WSJ’s annual ranking of MBA programs for 2006.

The annual ranking results from polls of corporate recruiters rating M.B.A. programs on 21 criteria, including things like students’ problem-solving skills, the likelihood of finding “stars” at the schools, content of the school’s core curriculum and commitment to corporate responsibility.

The faculty and students have worked hard over the past few years to drive this ranking up and I’m so proud to be a part of the program.

Update: The WSJ’s latest ranking for 2007 moved Berkeley up to #2 .

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I have to admit I’m a junkie for the Gallup Press line of business books and Tom Rath’s latest Vital Friends is no exception. Rath asserts that we all are motivated and deeply affected by the friends that we keep. They play a key role in how happy we are, whether we stay at our current job, and even the success of our careers.

Vital Friend: noun 1. someone who measurably improves your life. 2. a person at work or in your personal life whom you can’t afford to live without.

Rath goes on to define eight types of vital friends:

• Builder - Motivator and Coach
• Champion - Stand up for you and show loyalty
• Collaborator - Shares a passion with you
• Companion - Always there for you
• Connector - Helps introduce you to others
• Energizer - Help motivate you and make you smile
• Mind Opener - Expand your horizons and introduce new ideas
• Navigator - Advice you on future direction

I’ve found it incredibly useful to reflect on the friends in my life and understand the role they are playing. For example, my wife is my companion, collaborator, and champion. It is important that I appreciate this fact as it has a tremendous influence on my outlook at work.

People with a least three close friends at work were 96% more likely to be extremely satisfied with their life.

Also for people managers out there, understanding the importance of your team members forming vital friends at work is critical. Having them contributes to job satisfaction while the absence can often lead to attrition.

Employees who have a close friendship with their manager are more than 2.5 times as likely to be satisfied with their job.

So stop what you’re doing right now and go make a friend.

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To take a break from design and leadership, I wanted to share something from the father portion of my life.

My friend Kim Evans recently co-founded a company that produces a postnatal workout DVD for mom and baby. It’s called Fit + Giggles and is the perfect way to get fit and bond with your baby. Great work also to her husband Cary on the website.

I’m so happy for Kim on her new venture, what a great idea!

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In the article Why Good Companies Go Bad, Donald Sull outlines why major change in large organizations is so difficult. Ironically in most cases the very elements that enabled the business to initially scale and succeed turn into what holds the company back. Sull refers to these forces as “Active Inertia”.

What holds back change (Active Inertia):

1. Strategic Frames - Assumptions that shape how the org views the business
2. Processes - How the organization gets things done
3. Relationships - Ties to customers, employees, suppliers, etc.
4. Values - Beliefs held by most in the organization

Examples of companies slow to change:

• Microsoft’s adoption of the Internet - The many established product lines (esp. MS Office) did not understand how the Internet would affect their businesses. Once they did they have been slow to accept the inevitable changes to their underlying business model. Finally the multi-year release cycle employed at MS prevented them from initially responding to the ever changing Internet release cycle.
• Palm’s acceptance of color screens & keyboards - The initial success of the original Palm Pilot (with it’s utterly simple b/w screen and Graffiti handwriting recognition) led Jeff Hawkin’s to ignore for years the benefits of color or the popularity of the Blackberry thumb-keyboard. While these were eventually implemented it was at the cost of much of their initial market share.

How to overcome Active Inertia:

1. Increase urgency
2. Build the guiding team
3. Get the vision right
4. Communicate for buy-in
5. Empower action
6. Create short-term wins
7. Don’t let up
8. Make change stick

   Excerpt from: Get Off the Dime! by John Kotter

As someone currently driving an initiative that breaks with the tried and true way of doing things, these articles really resonate with me. By employing some of Kotter’s approaches along with my own Emotional Intelligence I hope to turn out a success. I’ll let you know how it goes…

What to know more?

• Article: Why Good Companies Go Bad [$] (HBR Jul-Aug 1999)
• Article: Leading Change - Why Transformation Efforts Fail [$] (HBR Mar-Apr 1995)
• Article: Get Off the Dime! (Kotter & Cohen, HBS Working Knowledge)
• Article: Stuck in Gear - Why Managers Don’t Act (Sull, HBS Working Knowledge)

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In reading What Makes a Leader? (Goleman) I learned that while technical skills and IQ are important for senior managers to succeed it is emotional intelligence that is actually the most critical. As a long-time believer in soft skills I did not have any difficulty believing this assertion.

Emotional Intelligence’s Five Components:

1. Self-Awareness: The ability to identify and name one’s emotional states and to understand the link between emotions, thought and action.
2. Self-Regulation: The capacity to manage one’s emotional states — to control emotionsor to shift undesirable emotional states to more adequate ones.
3. Motivation: The ability to enter into emotional states (at will) associated with a drive to achieve and be successful.
4. Empathy: The capacity to read, be sensitive to, and influence other people’s emotions.
5. Social Skill: The ability to enter and sustain satisfactory interpersonal relationships.
   Above as defined by Daniel Goleman & Peter Salovey.

Personal Reflection

In thinking of some of the most effective leaders that I’ve worked with over the years, I definitely see that they have shown strengths in emotional intelligence. And conversely as I think of hot-head or sell-absorbed leaders who were less effective–they obviously would score low on this assessment. Fortunately for all aspiring leaders most of the leading thinkers on this topic believe that while some EI is innate, much can be improved or learned with time.

For example, I am not always a great listener which hurts my ability to emphasize. Thru conscious effort I hope to improve in this area. If you know me personally, let me know how I’m doing.

Want to know more?

• Article: What Makes a Leader? [$] (HBR Nov-Dec 1998)
• Assessment: Emotional Inventory [$] (HayGroup) - Basic Quiz [FREE]
• Book: Primal Leadership (Goleman)

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I’m looking for a Senior UI Designer / Information Architect to join my design team. In this role you will join the team which focuses on enabling eBay buyers to find just the items they want out of the over 78 million unique items available every day. To give you a sense of scale, eBay serves over 400 million searches per day.

You will design how eBay captures and structures seller metadata in a way that fits the mental model of our buyers. This includes eBay defined facets as well as seller created tags and values. A successful system will be well adopted by sellers and provide an engaging and relevant refinement mechnism for shoppers.

Job Requirements (on eBaycareers.com)

If you or someone you know fits the bill let me know.

Update 4/25/07: See current positions open 

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I recently read the article Evidence-Based Management (HBR Jan 06) which outlines an emerging movement which applies the scientific approach long used in medicine to the practice of management.

A number of factors inhibit managers’ ability to make good decisions including:

• specialty bias (e.g. marketers tend to recommend marketing as a solution)
• hype (e.g. managers taken by the latest pop management theory)
• dogma (e.g. managers who know that people really only click on items “above the fold”)
• casual benchmarking (e.g. Shuttle by United’s attempt to copy Southwest)

Evidence-based management aims to avoid these pitfalls by:

• Investing in Analytics – In order to make sound decisions you must have the sound underlying evidence upon which to do so. This often means a large investment in metrics and analytics.
• Asking Questions – Recognize gaps in logic and misuse of inference. Often the positive effect touted is unrelated to the claimed cause. Demand that proposals be backed by sound data.
• Performing A/B Testing – Rather than make an uneducated decision, create a test for your hypothesis. eBay and other internet companies have been doing this for years and it is amazing all that you can learn from it.
• Showing Humility – By admitting what you don’t know you’ve taken the first step toward learning something. Celebrate mistakes and a means to learning about your business.

Having worked at companies that employ this management theory I think we must pay close attention to each decision made. A poor decision can be made under the guise of what looks like evidence-based management but is in fact not (see pitfalls above).

Want to know more?

• Pfeffer & Sutton (Stanford) site: http://www.evidence-basedmanagement.com/
• Article: Evidence-Based Management (HBR Jan 06 by Pfeffer & Sutton)
• Wikipedia on Evidence-Based Management

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In the article How to Play to Your Strengths I learned about a career planning technique that focuses on 100% positive feedback—that’s right no “constructive feedback”.

The article outlines that it’s human nature to focus on the negatives (when asked people remember four negative memories for every single positive one). And yet far too often, we as managers focus on developing weaknesses in ourselves and our teams. I’m a firm believer in the philosophy put forward by Gallup Researchers Buckingham and Clifton in Now, Discover Your Strengths which, as the title suggests, focuses on the positive qualities in yourself and your teams.

Reflected Best Self (RBS) Exercise

Unlike most performance exercises, this one focuses entirely on positive feedback—no negative or “constructive” comments. Here are the four steps to this process:

1. Identify Respondents and Ask for Feedback
   Gather feedback from a broad set of sources, including people you don’t currently work with (e.g. family members, friends, teachers). Avoid conducting it alongside traditional evaluation methods which include a negative focus
2. Recognize Patterns
   While the sources of input will be varied, try to identify common themes.
3. Compose your Self-Portrait
   Take the patterns that emerged and your own self-observations and write a prose narrative that describes “When I am at my best, I…”.
4. Redesign Your Job
   Based on what you learn about yourself you may change how you work and what tasks you delegate to your team.

The self-portrait developed out of this exercise seems like a useful tool to motivate and align one’s efforts at work.

Want to know more?

• Article: How to Play to Your Strengths [$] (HBR Jan 05)
• Assessment: Reflected Best Self Exercise [$] (Univ. Michigan)
• Book & Assessment: Now, Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham, Clifton)

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