I wanted Fog Creek to have a salary scale that was as objective as possible. A manager would have absolutely no leeway when it came to setting a salary.

But as he describes the system more, it doesn’t sound so radical.  Basically, Fog Creek determines a level for everyone based on Experience, Scope, and Skill.  Experience being how many years an employee is bringing to the table, scope being how much management they need or how many folks they’re managing, and skill being what they’re actually able to do.  Basically, every employee is assigned a pay level based on an average of Scope and Skill.  That average is  then compared to a sliding scale based on years of experience.  There’s an infographic in the article here.

Splosky is pretty convincing at heading off arguments about salary inversion — that’s when the market determines that rookies are worth more than current employees when labor markets are tight and demand for workers with certain skills are in high demand.  He basically says that employers should bite the bullet and give everyone a raise or determine other workplace incentives to keep employees.

There are a couple of possible issues here, the first being that Splosky’s payscale system seems geared toward the software industry.  While Skill, Scope, and Experience may seem like universal measures, they may be more difficult to apply to an accounting team or marketing department.  Second, it seems that even this simple scoring system could get complicated very quickly and many of the measures are subjective, essentially eliminating any fairness and transparency that was originally intended.

Still, this system is admirable in that it exists.   Many companies give raises (or don’t give them) based on whether or not they want an employee to stay and as a motivational tool.  Since most managers don’t have a system for giving raises, it becomes a shoot-from-the-hip, gut reaction game.  That’s just not good business.  Splosky found a system that works for his company.  Creating one for your company is also important, but it’s important to:

1.)  Keep It Simple:  Creating extra work and bureaucracy isn’t going to help anyone.  Even a simple three part rating system at Fog Creek can get complicated.

2.)  Realize It’s Not a Cure All:  Employees are motivated by all kinds of things and, for the most part, crave fairness.  A system like this will promote fairness, but will not be completely fair in and of itself.

3.)  Don’t Fear Transparency:  Splosky’s most radical suggestion is complete transparency in pay.  Employees may share information any way so why pretend that salaries are secret?  Don’t let someone’s ‘level’ become code for salary and another numer to hide.

4.)  Tailor a System:  Creating a system that’s right for your market and company culture is important.  Some work environments are driven by efficiency, others by service, and others by sales.  It’s important to determine what drives your company and create a system that rewards the right combination of people and skills.

Read Splosky’s full article at Inc.com here.

1.) Start with what you’ve already got
Pull out marketing material such as case histories, customer testimonials, white papers, thought leadership articles, even press releases if they’re not too old. These materials are chock full of twitter fodder. Concentrate on details, specific value points, and impressive figures and squeeze several out of each piece.

2.) Linkback
Always link back to marketing material mentioned above. An intriguing tweet can ellicit a click and it may as well lead to marketing pieces that can build your brand.

3.) Automate
There are tools out there that let you time tweets and schedule them so you don’t have to log in and out repeatedly. Timing tweets for a whole week or even month can save you time and let a computer do the work for you. One site is su.pr and it also features a link shortener and click stats.

4.)  Integrate

Bringing together a blog, social media sites, and Twitter amplifies your efforts and automates the process.  Centralizing information so that it flows first to the website as a post and then to social media sites and finally to Twitter is just good communication.  There are also very simple ways to link accounts making the process that much more automated.  Hootsuite will abbreviate a blog post and create a shortened URL back to the post then post that to Twitter.    You can also just copy and paste URL’s to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…it doesn’t have to be complicated.  Just consistent and easy to do every day.

5.)  Avoid Social Media GPS

No one really cares about the meeting you just came from or the meeting you’re going to or the trip you’re taking.  With all the tools and tricks from the previous 4 points, you should have enough material without updating your current position on the planet.

Finally…

Many folks in management want to incorporate social media because it’s a buzz word.  The call to “Get Me On Twitter!”  is actually a call for help.  Explain that you’ll put together a social media strategy based on your current marketing message.  It will include Twitter but it will also include a lot more.  You’ll be saving a lot of time and frustration trying to figure out what to Tweet and you’ll be doing your company a favor too.  You may as well make yourself into a little bit of a hero…

Many professionals have created blogs as a way to stay active and involved in their professions when between jobs, to keep their skills sharp and as a tool for self-promotion. But even the best intentions can go awry if the professional blogger doesn’t adhere to some hard and fast rules to blog by:

1. Keep your posts professional – There is room on the web for dating blogs and movie review blogs, but they don’t belong on your professional blog. Too many bloggers blur the line between personal and professional and end up with a blog that has no distinct identity. They intersperse posts about their weekend exploits with friends with professional observations concerning project management dynamics on complex software development projects. Big mistake. The readers of your professional blog are looking for insights and expertise dealing with their specific professional concerns. They’re not interested in your social life, your sporting achievements, your kids or your vacations. And make sure you maintain professional and appropriate language throughout your posts. There’s no need for profanity or vulgarity to make your points.
2. Stay on topic – Pick your topic, then write about it. Repeatedly. If you’re a professional recruiter, there are plenty of topics for you to explore without having to resort to throwing in a post about sports marketing. I understand that you may be a Renaissance Man (or Woman), but your professional blog is not the place to display your mastery of all topics, just the one that matters most to you and your professional audience.
3. Post regularly – There’s nothing more frustrating to your readers than discovering your blog and becoming interested in your perspective and ideas only to discover that you haven’t added a new post in over a month. If you’re committed to your blog, you’ve got to maintain a regular posting schedule. We understand that not every post can be an epic – and we really don’t have time to read epics every day – but we do require that you post something. Seth Godin has made a fortune and extends his international reputation daily with blog posts that are sometimes as short as a single sentence. Regular posts are essential.
4. Keep your content current – You should expect that your readers are current with the latest news and trends in their industry, so your content must be current also. If you’re writing about social media and write a post that references a study done in 2007, you appear dated and out of touch. To maintain the impression of authority you must stay on top of your industry’s news and keep your posts current and useful.
5. Engage with your readers – There’s a reason that a blog is considered social media. It provides you with an avenue to actually engage with like-minded readers around the world. Make sure that you enable comments and actually respond to every comment submitted. You’ll build actual relationships with brilliant and talented professionals who can provide expert insight, intelligent and thoughtful ideas, and useful contacts that can help build your professional network and advance your career.

The gap between IT and the rest of us has turned into a cavern as IT has become more and more intertwined with our daily lives.  In this clip from the British version of  The Office, the tension comes from lack of communication and understanding.   The computer is often our only way of actually working so it can become a very sensitive issue.

From a management perspective, and employee perspective, and from an IT perspective better relationships would improve productivity, full stop.

Here are five tips to get your office started:

1.)  Even the Dress Code

Why does the IT guy get to wear a t-shirt and jeans while everyone else has to be in business casual.  Encourage an even playing field when it comes to dress code.  The IT guy may not like it, but explain that this will enable him or her to fit into the culture of the company and ultimately make the job easier.  Obviously this is a management decision and one for management to implement.

2.)  Get to Know the Lingo

Knowing a little bit about computers, viruses, programs, downloads, etc. is going to help with communication and understanding.  Gone are the days when computers are a special thing that only special people know about.  You work with a tool every day so get to know its basic functions.

3.)  Hold an IT Summit

Having everyone meet to discuss the IT needs of an office as well as to find out about IT’s plans for an office is a good idea.  This is a chance to exchange ideas and convey information.  Be sure to make this a two-way street, however, so it doesn’t turn into a complaint session that could have IT running for the hills.

4.)  Don’t Download Stupid Stuff

We all use computers for personal purposes, but don’t make an IT guy’s life harder by downloading hundreds of apps and files from random sources.  Ask if about installing software before you do it.  Even something that may seem harmless can bog down your computer with Spyware.

5.)  Don’t Let IT Dictate Every IT Move

At times it can seem that IT can be overly protective.  Banning social media sites, for example, for fear of viruses.  There are certainly risks out there to computers from various sources.  Have IT appraise those risks and weigh them against benefits.  For an office involved in communication or marketing, for example, social media is not just a personal toy, it’s a vital component of communications.

Here are five tips to taking full advantage of all that Prezi has to offer

1.)  Use Sparse Words

Prezi is great because it lets you emphasize how ideas are connected.  So big ideas are big and smaller ideas around that big idea are small.  You can present your big idea and then zoom in supporting points.  But, like PowerPoint, you’re in control of the amount of information presented.  Too many words can make your presentation difficult to follow.  One Idea=One Slide still holds for Prezi.

2.)  Think In Layers

Prezi lets present 4 or 5 big ideas, and then zoom in on each one.  Take advantage of this feature to create layers within layers.  So within idea 1, reveal 5 supporting points that can be zoomed in on as well.  A good rule of thumb is to ask if each layer would support itself on its own.  If you’re able to do that three or four layers deep, you’ll have a compelling presentation visually.

3.)  Cut Up Large Backgrounds

Some more sophisticated Prezis use large backdrops behind the presentation.  Picture zooming around a desktop or a parking lot and you’ll get the idea.  But because images flicker as you zoom too close, this visually stunning idea can fall flat on its face.  Any large, cohesive background should be very high resolution and cut up into pieces.  These pieces can be sized down and put together like a puzzle within Prezi.  It will give you a few more levels of zoom without the flicker.

4.)  Save Often

Working with Prezi online, save often.  There are glitches in the program that will allow you to work happily for hours without an ability to save work.  Save after every major step of your content creation.

5.)  Trial and Error to Get an Image Really Small

Some image just won’t shrink small enough for you needs.  Zoom in as far as you can and then import your image.  It will be tiny.  The only problem is that when you try to resize it, the image will jump to a much larger size.  Trial and error is necessary to get it right.

6.)  Record and Narrate

Right now you can embed Prezi’s and share them, but you can’t really share the full content of your presentation — namely your voice.  It’s kind of an odd omission by Prezi, but there’s a work around.     Create a Prezi and then record it using screen grab software.  You can add a narration track later or do it ‘live’ during the screen grab.  Now you have a narrated Prezi you can share through YouTube.  Prezi, are you listening?  Wouldn’t it be better to have that sharing happen on your network?

In this TED video, Tom Wujec explains the Marshmallow Challenge and why kindergartners perform better at it than CEOs or business school grads.  Wujec focuses on it as a design process, but it really applies to any business situation.

Basically, The Marshmallow Challenge gives teams some sticks of spagetti, string, tape and a marshmallow that needs to be supported by the structure.  The tallest structure wins.  It’s one of those fun, team building excercises.

But Wurjec’s analysis of many different teams reveals something innate in how we approach achieving goals in the business world.  The reason why most business school grads perform below average is that they tend to plan meticuolously, execute hastilly, and then deal with a crisis (fallen marshmallow) with no time to fix the problem.  CEOs perform better than average, but still below the Kindergarteners.

Why?

Kids create many more prototypes and allow themselves to fail.  No one is jockeying for leadership and they are used to playing.

When was the last time you said “Let’s try that and see what happens.” or “Let’s give ourselves some time to play around with concepts before we commit.”

Many times we try to emulate children’s play habits as a way of relieving stress.  But here it seems that there is a very real business case for trial and error play with no real plan.  And another interesting point?  Participants who are offered a hefty reward universally do worse than those who are offered nothing.  Sometimes a big prize only causes more stress induced failure.

So this could be the shortest post in the history of The Job Shopper:  ban Blackberries in meetings.

There, I said it.  Well, a lot of people have said it.  There’s a whole New York Times article about it. Here’s a quote that kind of sums up the signal that tapping sends:

It’s a not-so-subtle way of signaling ‘I’m connected. I’m busy. I’m important. And if this meeting doesn’t hold my interest, I’ve got 10 other things I can do instead.

But what does Blackberry or iPhone use really mean?  We can talk about changing cultural mores, scold rude people, lament the passage of time and pine for a day when people wore hats, but are we really getting at the reason why people are tapping away during meetings?  Is it possible that it’s not the technology, or ego, but the meeting itself?  Your meeting?

Making your meetings Blackberry-proof is impossible, but here are 5 things to cure both the symptoms and the root cause.

1.) Keep it short

In the last post I championed the short, fast presentation. That may well be part of it.  If someone knows that you’re going to drone on and on for an hour, taking 15 minutes to check emails seems doable.  Even if they get only 50% of what you say, that’s a half hour of time.    The reasoning is that if you’re going to take an hour, they’ll only give you a half hour.

2.) Create Time Limits

Revealing your time limits will help set people at ease.  “I’m going to talk for 10 minutes and then give you 10 minutes to ask me questions.”  That tells people that they’ll be back at their desks in 20 minutes.  Most emails can wait.

3.)  Invite Only

You don’t have to invite everyone to a meeting.  Inviting people who have no skin in the game and are there just to observe is like inviting a giant Blackberry into the room.  If someone doesn’t need to be in your meeting, don’t invite them.  And if they spent the whole meeting tapping away, consider not inviting them next time.

4.)  Be Up Front

Many companies ban Blackberries and iPhones during meetings.  The problem with this is that it holds people hostage rather than really engaging them.  If you’re up front and say:  “Look, I need your full attention on this for just 15 minutes.  I’d appreciate if you could hold off on responding to emails during that time.”  You’re not banning it, but just making a human appeal.

5.)  Give In

There are some meetings that are going to last a long time.  Telling people that they’re in this for the long haul and checking email is perfectly OK, and it may just diffuse the situation.  You’re still in control of the situation because you’ve given permission and blackberry usage won’t be as distracting for others.

So why go through all this?  Why not just ban them from your meeting?  The problem with bans, is that they just encourage us to break the rules and further adds to the mystique of being ‘too important to miss an email.’  Instead, look at ways that you can structure meetings to engage the right people, for a short period of time and let them get on with their day.

Here’s the thing about internal PowerPoints: they’re just like PowerPoints you give to your customers only worse.  And let’s face it, those are pretty bad.  Bullet points?  Bad clip art?  Lots and lots of words?  Chances are your presentation skills overall could use an overhaul.  And it turns out that there is plenty of advice out there:

1.) Use Big Words

This is a summary of something called the Takahashi Method.  No images.  No bullets.  Just king sized text.  It’s intriguing because it’s so simple.  A little too simple…

2.) Lists

Guy Kawasaki said: “All of my speeches are in Top 10 format, because if you think I suck, I at least want you to be able to track my progress through the speech so that you know approximately know how much longer I’m going to suck.” This is great advice and really simple which makes it even greater.  Top 10.  The 5 Things.  4 Ways.  They all sound simple and finite which are both good things.

3.)  10/20/30 Rule

This is also from Guy Kawasaki and is equally as simple.  10 slides.  20 minutes.  30 point font.  You can read in more detail at Kawasaki’s blog, but you get the gist.

4.)  Photos

Really great intriguing photography is available everywhere.  At iStockphoto you can search for photos by topic and buy one for a buck.  Why use those little figures that Microsoft bundled with PPT back in 1991?

5.)  Other Stuff

There’s a really great post at 43folders.com by Merlin Mann call How I Made My Presentation a Little Better that does a great job at summarizing other tips and tricks out there.

So those are tips on presentations.   Here’s the problem.  They all seem geared toward CEOs presenting their companies latest product.  Or some tech guy speaking at a tech conference in front of techies wearing cool glasses and T-shirts.  What if you’re an accountant who needs to explain the new expense reports.  Or if you’re a manager who needs to explain the new commission system.  Or if you’re the IT guy who needs to explain how the new email system works.  Can you really follow these rules and still have a productive meeting?

Yes.  Yes you can.

Keep in mind that people need to hear the why and how of something.  The point of a meeting is to quickly disseminate that information to a lot of people and then get them back to work with them feeling that they’re better off than when they entered a meeting.  Doing it simply is going to bring clarity to the situation and help move things ahead.  Here’s a take on new expense reports:

Slide 1: New Expense Reports: Why?

Slide 2: Easier to Complete

Slide 3: Faster to Process

Slide 4: 3 Big Differences

Slide 5: 1.) Pull Down Menus

Slide 6: 2.) Client Tagging

Slide 7: 3.) Online Only

Slide 8: Here’s Where They Are

Slide 9: Practice

Slide 10: Help Daily: 1:30 – 3:30 My Office

Is it as good as Steve Jobs?  Are you going to entertain and tell a story and will they presentation end in applause?  No.  Probably not.  This is work and you’ve got a job to do.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to be ineffective. You’ve given information that people need, told them why, told them where, and left things open to move things along.  Could you get these slides done in less than 20 minutes?  Yes, and that’s a good thing!

So make your next meeting better by breaking the mold on PowerPoint.  And we’d love to see your best efforts here!  C’mon, we’ve seen enough PPT’s on new products or motivation talks — let’s see the ones on expense reports, new sales tools, and general company housekeeping posted here…

Because the rhythm and rhetoric of effective email exchange is a critical success factor in business performance, mismanagement of email may in fact be a symptom of other weaknesses in your organization.

But no executive has the time (or obsessive-compulsive disorder) to review and edit their people’s correspondence — it’s not possible and it wouldn’t be healthy. So how can managers quickly and cheaply create the shock of self-consciousness to push their people to take the style and substance of their correspondence more seriously? And how can you find out the interoffice spam actually reflects a deeper issue of employee performance?

I’ve found that the most powerful approach is also the simplest: make email an intrinsic part of performance reviews. Insist that colleagues and subordinates better evaluate their email so that you may better evaluate their performance. There are few better proxies for assessing how well individuals are communicating, on task and on target, than the digital missives they send in order to get their work done.

Email can be a frustrating train of cc’s that mean nothing to most of the people being cc’d.  The important stuff gets lost and the unimportant stuff just wastes time.  This proposal is a good one, but only if a manager is not part of the problem.  Often managers demand to be ‘in the loop’ so much that they cultivate a CYA culture.  In other words, if I hit cc to everyone in the office including my boss or bosses, I can’t be blamed for something going wrong.

In addition, managers often blast out emails to a vague group of people or cc people on a ‘team’ with no real thought to who really needs to read the message.  So how do you really get to the heart of an email inefficiency problem.  Job reviews might be a way for individuals to change, but that won’t quickly change the culture of your organization.

So here’s a tip direct from the Job Shopper: take away email for a week.  Ban it.  OK, don’t ban it.  That’s ridiculous.  We all have people we need to communicate with quickly.  But encourage your office not to use it unless it’s necessary.  Absolutely necessary.  At the end of the week, have a discussion to see what alternatives people found.  Is it possible that 25 cc’d messages were less productive that 1 short meeting?  Is it possible that people had more time to concentrate on the things that really matter?

The irony here is that when email and the Internet first entered our office, the quesiton was how to stop innappropriate use of the technology which would waste time.  Today, appropriate use of the technology is actually the big time waster.  So ban it. For a week.  Then talk about what went wrong and what went right.  It’s possible that more went right than wrong and that you’re whole office may learn how to use the technology more effectively.

You can read the rest of Michael Schrage’s blog post here at the Harvard Business Review Blog

Michael Mauboussinn, on the other hand, urges us to think twice in his book…Think Twice.  Jim Hasket from the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog sums it up:

Now Michael Mauboussin, with his book Think Twice, makes the case for a more careful approach, suggesting that we place too much emphasis on intuition and personal experience as opposed to the “wisdom of crowds,” mathematical models, and systematically-collected data. He argues that “blink” serves us well in stable environments where feedback from previous decisions is clear and where cause-and-effect relationships can be identified. Unfortunately, in his view these conditions are more and more rare. As he puts it, “intuition is losing relevance in an increasingly complex world … more is different.”

So the debate is on: is it better to rely on our experience in today’s world, or make decisions based on based on all of the information you can get your hands on.  There’s a saying here that’s handy: Over analysis leads to paralysis.  Must be true, right? It rhymes.  The key to the phrase is “over”.  No one said the Analysis was a bad thing.  Gathering information, weighing the pros and cons and using all the information available to you in a reasonable time frame is just smart.  Just not too much of it.

Here are five tips and strategies to making a good decision in a timely manner:

1.)  You don’t have unlimited time…

When you’re buying a house, you have to weigh opportunity with timing with analysis of the market.  Can you look at every house on the market?  Probably not. You can look at healthy sampling and then make a decision.  As time passes, so will the opportunities to purchase houses you’ve seen.   Spending too much time on decisions can cost you opportunity.  The same applies to any business situation.

2.) Be prepared to back up a decision…

Sometimes things go badly and you have to answer for your choices.  Most successes and failures are made up of a combination of luck and careful planning.  Make sure when things go badly, you can show it was due to luck (or lack thereof).

3.)  Committees generally don’t make decisions…

Gathering together your colleagues to seek advice is a good idea, but these groups can sometimes just bog down the process because you’ll tend to focus on making everyone in the room happy.  You need to gather information, consider it, and then make a decision.  You won’t make everyone happy…except maybe yourself.

4.)  Don’t be afraid to make more time…

While time costs opportunity, time can also help you choose the right path.  Need more insight?  More studies?  More options?  More time to think?  Take it. Or take a reasonable amount of it to make a truly informed decision.  Sometime deciding to put off a decision is a good decision in and of itself.

5.)  See what other people have done…

This isn’t going to help all the time, but there’s no reason why you can’t do a quick search online to see what others have done in a similar situation.  Just remember, their outcomes are particular to their situation.  Yours may be different.  And then there’s always that luck thing…