I am currently on the brink of a frightening and exciting step (*). For years I have been talking about an end-game of a portfolio career; I now have the opportunity to make that first step off the brink.
I do not really feel my current employers are yet entirely at the stage to do some of the things that would make them the digital industry leader due to other considerations internally. I have agreed to stay on with a two day a month associate contract to see that they move in the right direction and understand the digital issues facing their customers. As such I now have a considerable amount of extra time to pursue other opportunities so I thought I would get in touch with my network and see what you were all aware of in the wider world that might be interesting?
My history in a variety of start-ups makes me prime, in terms of experience, for a non-exec role of some sort. In that sort of role I feel I have a few advantages. First and foremost I bring integrity. As an outside observer I can point out the emperor’s lack of clothes and being me I will do it. Second through around 20 start-ups I have learned to spot pitfalls before companies walk into them. This means I have a good sense for the proper strategic direction.
I also have a good network of useful contacts and a wealth of experience in retail and analytics as well as a deep technical understanding of all things web related. This shows itself as an ability to take tough or impossible problems and reframe them so as to make them simple, straightforward and implementable.
Are you aware of any opportunities that might benefit from my time? If so please let me know as I am on the lookout right now; it seems the right time. I am particularly looking for roles in companies where I can add some real value. Long term I would like to be on a 70% cash and 30% equity basis though I will be biased by cash initially I expect.
My CV is at “http://rufus.evison.com”. If it seems useful or you come across anyone who might be interested feel free to use it or pass it on. Naturally I can supply a Word Version if it becomes appropriate.
Regardless of whether you have a role that would work for me it would be good to meet up. Networking only works if you do it and I will now have time to see people again so I should take advantage. Get in touch and we will have a chat over coffee or beer…
Rufus
PS I am sort of interested in the idea of doing due dilligence work for VCs and similar companies if anyone is aware of a role? I have done it before occassionally and it seems a fun and interesting avenue.
(*) okay maybe just exciting then, but frightening sounds good…
I am looking for data driven companies that EYC can either invest in or acquire. We do big data anlysis on retail data (mainly basket level analysis on loyalty card data). We are looking for data driven companies that might be a good fit to either invest in or acquire. What makes a good fit? Well one of two things really:
A data stream about the customers of our clients. Our clients are brands and big retailers and if we can gather more bulk data about their customers we can help them becomje the product or retailer that people want to buy.
A new channel to the customers of our clients. We have long dealt with direct mail and more recently with email and social media but there are many other channels out there that could have potential when approached with real data. If a company can bring us a channel we are not exploiting yet we can use it to talk to cusomers in the way they prefer.
If you know of a company that might be a good fit then get in touch through the Evison contacts page.
Do you need permission to start that company you have always thought about? No, you need to plan it but the only permission you need is from yourself. A nice article that basically just says go for it emphasises that waiting is not sensible where something like this is at stake, as permission will never come. There are two types of people, those who think about doing something and those who actually do it. put yourself in the latter category if you have not already…
People often say I take risks, but I do not feel that I do. I started thinking about the reason for this as I cycled to work this morning. I think the cause of the mis-match is the different ways you can define a big risk.
If a gap in the pavement exists that is just wide enough that you could get through it but is narrow enough that stepping over it is easy then is it a big risk to step over it if you are careful and know it is there? To me the answer is no, it is not a big risk.
Now imagine that underneath there is a three mile drop into boiling lava; does that make a difference? To me that makes no difference but to some people the idea of stepping over such a gap is a big risk no matter how unlikely the chance of falling down it. I do not see that and would feel I was not taking a big risk by carefully stepping across such a gap. Some people feel that even approaching a gap like that is a big risk.
Entrepreneurs are often described as risk takers. They approach the gap of ‘no company to support you’ with equanimity so they must be risk takers surely? Perhaps they have safety harness like money in the bank or property they can sell but they are still walking that gap. As a youth (19) I bought a house. I borrowed more than the price of the house. As I saw it the worst that could happen was foreclosure losing me the house I would not own otherwise. Not a big risk and not really likely. Many people saw borrowing that much money at nineteen as a huge risk. I didn’t. As it turned out it all worked out well and I still have the house. Where I genuinely have taken a risk is by not sorting out my pension. Given the way the markets have gone sorting it out might have been just as big a risk This is particularly true as I do not understand what I am doing when it comes to pensions.
I am often described as a risk taker or at least not rick averse. I (with the exception of with pensions which I must sort out) do not take risks. I understand the odds and go the safe way but many people see the chasm in front of me and think I am taking a big risk.
You can measure risk in the terms of worst case scenario or in terms of odds of a bad outcome or as some combination of the two. The important thing is to understand how you are evaluating risk, understand what the risks you are taking are and then make your descision rationally. Are all entrepreneurs risk takers? Perhaps, but perhaps the risks they don’t take are more illustrative?
The following talks about understanding what really motivates your employees and debunks a few myths. Watch it and enjoy but then try to actually apply it in real life too…
A lot of startup company stuff is around doing the right thing. Half the battle is around doing it right which I cover off all over the place but the thing people spend least effort on is doing the right thing. I have put below a list of books which are not aimed at entrepreneurs on the whole but provide insights which might prove useful. At least one of these should have something that will interest you…
Quirkology: The Curious Science Of Everyday Lives by Professor Richard Wiseman
59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute By Professor Richard Wiseman
Mistakes were made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
The four hour work week by Tim Ferriss
RISK: THE SCIENCE AND POLITICS OF FEAR by DAN GARDNER
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler
I will doubtless add to this list in the future. In the meantime I will mention that one of these books got me on to outsourcing the things I ought to get around to but could not be bothered with. An example being that I always thought there must be a better phone tariff for my call pattern but I was never going to get around to researching it. I paid someone $5 an hour to go through my phone bill and find it for me. They saved me about £150, not bad for $5 for the hour. I gave them a bonus of 10% because it seemed only fair.
I had looked at outsourcing for companies before bu had not thought to apply it to myself.
There has been an interuption to service on this site.
This is because the site is me doing what I enjoy doing: Helping small and start up comanies.
Why does that imply an interruption? Because I am not immensley wealthy. After one of my small conmpanies sold up everything and was just a bank account full of money it went into voluntary liquidation. This gave me a year’s worth of salary. I resigned and helped out small companies as I am wont to do.
After 9 months I thought I should start thinking about getting an income stream. I put my CV on a couple of web sites and started to look around. The expectation was that this would take a few months. All the interest I got in the first week was recruitment comanies with two exceptions. The two were both career advisors. I went along to see them to understand what they offeed.
Their advice was interesting as was the fact that at my level it took between 6 and 18 months to get a job at my level. I decided to see how things went while I looked around for a few weeks. Within three weeks I had two job offers starting immediately. I felt obliged to take one.
That has meant that I have unexpectedly been full time employed and trying to understand the new place I find myself. EYC are a wonderful company to work for and are encouraging me to help out start ups. They are also potentially looking to invest in or acquire some types of company, which could be handy. The upshot is that I left this site alone for a few weeks. Normal service should be resuming soon.
P.S. in the mean time I have changed the site so it should be mobile accessible (just about) so please let me know if you have any problems seeing it via mobile.
There is an amazing amount of research that says that positive reinforcement works and negative doesn’t but we still try negative. Why?
Because it seems to work.
Seems is the important word there.
Let us imagine someone does spectacularly good work. Their next piece will not be so good no matter what you do because they have done so well. If you beat them with a stick or praise them to the heavens it will not affect their next piece of work enough to notice.
What praise will do is encourage them to try and reach that peak again and sustain them when they are not up to working so well. It will help them to raise their game.
Now imagine someone does particularly bad work, maybe they dropped the ball and forgot to contact a key client or just didn’t do their report so well. Their next piece will probably not be so bad regardless of what they do (beat them with a stick or praise them to the heavens). If you beat them up over it you will take the credit for the next piece not being so bad. It is nothing to do with your shouting but it will seem that way.
In fact the research shows that your shouting will have lowered morale and made them less likely to perform well in the long run just as your praise when they did well will have increased the chances of success in the long run.
From your point of view it looks like praise makes them worse and approbation makes them better but the reverse is true. The problem is ‘Regression to the norm’ hiding the real effects. Regression to the norm is just a way of saying no one is at their best or at their worst all the time and so they tend towards their natural level.
What praise and criticism do is to help them move their natural level. Praise raises morale and brings the overall level up. Criticism that is actually useful feedback on how to improve can do the same, but then it is not criticism. Criticism that is judgemental helps set people in their ways. It comes across as you telling them they are and what they can acheive. These two things together lower morale and prevent success.
So praise when things go well and help with feedback when they don’t.
Advertising effectiveness for a product is really all about whether an advert brings in sales. Sadly this is very difficult to measure so proxy results that are easier to measure are often used. This can be dangerous. Despite this proxies are often cited as if they are the same thing as the result they are a proxy for. Oliver James talks about cortisol as a stress hormone. It is a stress hormone. It is also an exercise hormone. It is produced in response to heightened levels of exercise. James argument against nursery for children is based on raised cortisol levels. Perhaps he is right and nurseries do stress children. I am no expert. Then again, perhaps children playing together exercise themselves more running about when playing with other kids their own age than they do when playing with adults?
The insight is often at the extremal points so here a fictitious example from the extremes:
The proposition is that valium protects against gun wielding maniacs…
In people exposed to (killed by) gun wielding maniacs a post exposure blood test shows heightened adrenaline content in the blood. Valium lowers the adrenaline level and so *must* lower the likelihood of being killed by gun wielding maniacs. This is an example of the rosser reeves fallacy but shows that taking the adrenaline level as a proxy for the risk of death from this cause is not useful. Like all good proxies (and there are good proxies) there is a high correlation between the cause of death and the proxy but even a cursory look shows that this is not a useful method of measurement in this case.
Are you taking a proxy as the thing it is a proxy for? Examine your measures and see if it they are all safe… Rufus Evison