Headworx

In my Inbox post I described the method of combing the emails. And you've been asking about lists . Of course lists that are made and never re-read and re-combined are completely worthless. This is frankly one of the very commonly observed behaviors: starting the new day with a new page in a copybook. This gives this false good feeling of a new opening. Which is completely, completely wrong if you want to achieve anything (not to mention success!). I'm seeing people coming to meetings with blank pages. They fill them out with notes and to-do lists and the next meeting they start from scratch. How come? Carrying forward is one of the most important rules of entrepreneurship. You start the company once. And then you carry forward everything that has not been fully closed. Until the finish line (which may never come). So working with lists is about combing through them. Sorting our what has been done and what remains. And really the tools do not matter. It is about the pe...

The last week's Inbox blog entry has got unusually high number of reads. I have to admit is is often a revelation for me to see how the very simple basic ideas can be game changers for others. Which is good and I will be coming back to the self - organization subject from time to time. Today it will be a follow up to the recently very popular Richard Branson's top 10 tips for success , who's #6 is making lists . I've been making lists for all my life (almost). Lists are complementary to Inbox management . Inbox is reactive, about what you know to be done and Inbox management is about pushing the things to be done. But Inbox does not tell you anything about what has not been initiated or has been simply forgotten. The very common mistake people do in an organization is they do not make lists or notes. They love talking about things: we could do this, we could do that, competition is stupid, we will conquer the Earth, it is easy and so on. And then they clap down th...

I've been able to cope with management of the fast growing organization because I can manage my Inbox. However weird this may sound. But management is mostly about the ability to effectively communicate. Meaning expressing needs and expectations. But also responding to torrents of incoming needs and expectations of coworkers, customers and partners. I hate nothing more than lost emails. When I write to somebody and the message gets lost in their black hole, I consider this disrespect. That is why I pay so much attention to deal with the incoming mail. I cannot believe so many people have trouble with this fundamental task. It is a really simple set of rules to follow. But they have to be observed continuously. The first two are obligatory. #1: Keep your Inbox shorter than one page. No scroll bars. You have to be able to read it with a single glance. The Inbox is what you owe to the others. Your commitments, not fulfilled (remember this when you look at your 700+ items long ...

Qualcomm is one of the companies I've always admired and keep following the company-related news. The headline of Steve Altman investing in MagnaCom attracted my attention on February 20th, 2014 . This date may seem insignificant, but I feel a tremor in the Force indicating it might have been big (but we just don't realize the importance of it yet). I had never heard of Steve Altman before, but On Feb 20th I read he had been tasked at Qualcomm with "building an intellectual property licensing business around a new mobile networking technology called CDMA". Obviously this move and execution has been for years behind the incredibly huge business success of Qualcomm. And then it dawned on me: we, at IOetc , should build an intellectual property licensing business! The IP portfolio we have created to date is impressive, considering we are still a startup operating submerged below the surface and invisible for radars. The technology we've developed is absolutel...

On the heels of the Mt. Gox collapse, Danny Crichton of TechCrunch runs a follow up story discussing the risks users take when engaging with new products. I could not agree more. Silicon Vultures proclaim the culture of lean startups: get your product to the market as fast as possible and collide with your users! Really? Do we have to treat the early adopters as lab mice, experimenting on them and repeatedly crushing on them? Can't we do more homework in house and among our closest friends and family members? And first of all: eating our own dog food! Over my entire business career I have been very sensitive to protecting the investments our users have contributed into our products. Investors are greedy. Well, this is their nature. But it is up to the management team to balance the satisfaction a company returns to the investors versus the satisfaction we owe our early customers. It all really comes down the the investment horizon. If it is short, lean and pivots are the rig...