Recommended Blog: Crackberry

On May 11, 2010, in General, by Eric

For everything blackberry, crackberry fulfills my needs. Everything from interesting apps, to functional accessories, leaked OS, and an engaging forum, CB have a lock on the RIM products.

If you’re a bb addict, I highly recommend heading over the crackberry.com – they’ll keep you posted on the latest news.

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Top 5 Management Techniques to Motivate

On May 11, 2010, in Management, by Eric

Ever find yourself trying to lead a group of staff to no avail?  Have you found yourself at a loss uninsipired or lacking direction yourself.  Look to these 5 techniques to help re-invigorate your team.

1) Team Charter
I love this one – have your team create a document.  Have them answer the question “this is how I like to work”.  It will allow them reflect on tough decisions they’ve made in the past and how it could be handled next time.  It will also force them to think ahead about situations they haven’t dealt with yet.  By explicitly stating these things in a charter, as the leader, you are forcing the team to deal with their Norming phase of group development – hopefully reducing the Storming that they will encounter and bring them through to productivity.
2) Team Meetings
As a team, it is expected that you handle customers and situations in a similar vain.  Set up regular times to meet as a group, discuss problematic situations and share what worked for you.  This dialogue will all your team to learn vicariously from one another and hopefully avoid mistakes in the long run.
3) Employee Goals, Developed by Employees
By having your staff participate in developing their goals, there will be less resistance to them.  Also, although you are the manager (and higher paid) you don’t know everything.  You staff know the ins and outs of their job better than you.  Let me come up with something realistic.  You can step in to make sure these goals are important to the employee…. and also to the company.
4) Regular One on Ones
No one wants to miss their goals.  Everyone wants to over-achieve.  By having regular feedback sessions – you provide an opportunity to reflect on the work done to date and as the leader, you can give insight on how to do things differently next time around.  By setting up these meetings, you won’t be in a position at the end of the year telling someone they didn’t make their objectives.  They should have seen it coming the whole time and have ample opportunity to influence the outcome.
5) Regular Team Work
I’m sure there’s a level of professional respect between teammates, but actually having a shared goal is a critical component to trust.  By working towards a common goal, team members will butt heads with each other, debate, negotiate and eventually deliver. The experience will bring them closer together.  As the leader, remember to celebrate the success and encourage increased collaboration.  As a result of this, you’ll have a stronger team and better ideas will come as a result.

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4 Reasons to Have a Team Website

On May 10, 2010, in Productivity, by Eric

So you have too much time on your hands? Feel like learning about webservers, php, mysql and installing wordpress? Here’s a great project for you. Get ready to hyper-link (pun intended) your team.

1) Improved Communication
- shared place for team communications
- everyone get material at the same time
anyone can contribute important information to everyone else

2) Line-of-site to Important Information
- team members may have wonderful ideas
- there is a shared skill set amongst employees
- a great idea motivates another member to apply similar methods on another project
- reduces people working on redundant projects

3) Shared Calendar of Events
- outlook is a great tool but not socially minded
- a google calendar widget with team access is a great option
- anyone can contribute
- aligns deliverables

4) Reference Material
- team document repository
- always have the latest version at your finger tips
- removes hive knowledge

If this is your kick at something like this, I highly recommended a fully supported solution through a hosting provider, using an existing system like tumblr or posterous, or Wordpress on a stick

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